Heart's Lair (4 page)

Struggling to climb to his feet, he barely managed to draw his knees under him when his leg's tortured flesh sent a surge of nauseating agony through him. Karic doubled over, panting to fight back the gorge that rose in his throat.

The baying drew closer. In some detached part of his mind, Karic wondered if the Bellatorians would set their search canus on him when they found him. He'd seen the beasts tear into a dead Cat Man's body once, and the memory sent a fresh wave of nausea through him.

He'd have to hide. He couldn't go on, not yet, not without more rest. If luck were with him the incessant rain would cover his scent from the search canus, and he knew he could cloak his presence from the Bellatorians. With any luck, they just might pass him by.

A dense thicket lay to the right of him, just ten meters away. It was as good a shelter as any. He crawled over to it. The sound of voices, mixed with the excited yelps of the canus, grew nearer. He could almost make out the individual voices of his pursuers now.

Karic slid beneath the thicket's dense foliage and attempted to cloak his presence. His trackers continued to draw closer. A vague uneasiness wound its way through him. Why were they coming so near? They couldn't penetrate his psychic deception. No Bellatorian could.

The thought of Liane flashed through his mind an instant before he heard her voice.

"I cannot be certain, with all the tumult from the rain and wind," Liane called out to the soldiers behind her, "but I felt a presence over here."

From his hiding place, Karic saw her gesture in his general vicinity. His heart slammed into his gut. She had led them to him, without one shred of remorse or one moment of hesitation. An impotent rage grew in him. She was a mindless, cold-blooded Bellatorian, just like all the restand he was at her mercy.

She paused a few meters from him, a look of puzzlement wrinkling her brow. She was searching for him through the tumult of the storm, seeking to penetrate his protective aura. For a fleeting moment, Karic' thought his deception had prevailed. Then a triumphant light flared in her eyes. She looked directly at him through the dense shrubbery.

Determined deep blue eyes collided with glittering green ones, and a battle of wills ensued. Both knew what the other wanted. Neither gave way. Yet all the while Liane never revealed his presence. There seemed to be something holding her back, a strange reluctance.

It would be so simple, Liane knew, to raise her hand and point to his hiding place. But she also realized the inevitable consequences of that action, and that knowledge filled her with loathing. Necator had given specific instructions to kill the Cat Man. The soldiers planned to turn the search canus on him. Bound and wounded as he was, Karic wouldn't stand a chance. She shook aside the disconcerting realization that she'd come to think of the Cat Man as Karic. It only added to her confusion, and confusion, at that moment, seemed the very least of her problems.

Liane stood on the precipice of a fateful decision. If she turned from him and led the trackers away, she also would be turning her back on everything that she'd been raised to revere. But what was loyalty and blind obedience to saving a life? And the value of human life was as innate to the Sententian part of her, as blind obedience was to the Bellatorian part.

With a sigh dredged from deep within her, Liane turned to the soldiers. "I was mistaken. I led you on a false track."

She motioned back the way they had come. "Let us return to the spot where I first felt his presence. Perhaps I can pick up his aura again from there."

The voices faded as Liane led them away. Karic lay there for a long while, not daring to move or believe they wouldn't return, not daring to believe that Liane not only hadn't betrayed him but had deliberately chosen to deceive her own people in order to save his life.

That knowledge kept the pain at bay for a time. Perhaps it was the cold, seeping into his very bones as the sol waned, that finally stirred him to awareness. Perhaps it was his wound or the myriad of other insults inflicted upon his body. Whatever it was, Karic found he was no stronger after his rest than he had been before it and even more miserable.

He was going to die here, for he needed food, shelter and his wound tended, and he was powerless to obtain them. The thought angered him. Never in his life had he been so helpless. Karic knew Liane didn't dare come back, nor did he want her to. She'd risked far too much for him as it was. It was up to him now.

The thought fueled his resolve. Suddenly, more than anything, Karic didn't want Liane's brave sacrifice to be in vain. Heedless to the gnawing torment of his leg he drove his body forward, his progress heartbreakingly slow. Time passed, the center of his existence revolving around the forward movement of abraded shoulders and tormented legs, until Karic ceased to remember any life before this moment. After a while, reflex rather than reason stimulated the progress of his body.

She found him lying on the forest floor only a few meters beyond the thicket, his feeble attempts at crawling spasming his body in an odd, rhythmic fashion. Liane stared down at Karic, so moved by his heroic determination she almost wept. Then her practiced instincts as a healer took over.

Her glance swung to the raw, gaping wound at the back of his thigh, and she winced. The blaster had done its work with deadly efficiency. The flesh was seared, the muscle torn, the sinew severed from the bone. Under normal circumstancesthat is, Agrican circumstancesif Karic lived, he'd be a cripple.

But for once Bellator could help rather than destroy. She would heal him in body and mind, until he was the same strong, powerful man as before. First, however, she must get him to a shelter, where she could tend his wounds the conventional way before performing her psychic healing.

Liane knelt beside him, laying a heavy cloak over his trembling form. At the feel of the cloth Karic's struggles ceased, and he tensed. "Karic, it's me, Liane." She tentatively touched him. "It's safe now."

"No," he groaned. "Nothing's safe for you. Go away . . . away from me . . . before it's too late."

She grasped him by the shoulders and turned him over, cradling his head in her lap. He'd begun to shiver now, great wracking spasms that shook his entire body. Only now, secure in her arms, was he at last able to let go.

The realization stirred something deep within Liane. "It's already too late," she whispered. "I've betrayed my people for you. I can't leave."

Bits of leaves and dirt caked his bruised face. Liane gently brushed away what she could. She pulled a small flask from the pocket of her cloak, unstoppered it and put it to Karic's blue lips.

"Drink, Karic. It'll give you strength for a short time, time enough to get you to my forest hut."

He looked up at her, his expression dazed. "I have no strength left, sweet femina, and you cannot carry me."

Liane knew he was dying. She raised his head and forced some of the contents of the flask into his mouth.

"Drink," she ordered, in the tone of a mother admonishing a disobedient child. "Swallow it, Karic."

He obeyed her, emptying the flask. With a deep sigh, Karic fell back.

Liane carefully laid him on the ground. It would be a short while, she knew, for the potion to take effect. In the meantime, she busied herself with removing Karic's bonds.

The coils that wound about his forearms were beryllium-impregnated and impossible to sever. She needed the key control to unlock them, which was what had taken so long to procure upon her return to Primasedes.

It had not been easy to sneak down into the analysis lab unnoticed, for it was not her assigned work station and seemed busy horas a sol. As time ticked by and she thought of Karic lying wounded, perhaps dying in the forest, she'd gone nearly mad, waiting for the right opportunity. At long last, it had come.

''I'm going to roll you over and remove your bonds," she explained. "I know it'll be painful after such a long time, but I'll try to be as gentle as I can."

His nod was the only sign that he had heard her. Liane turned him over and pulled down the cloak that covered him. A small push of a button on the key control and the metallic bonds fell away. Ever so carefully, Liane brought Karic's arms down to his sides and turned him back over.

His face twisted in pain at this new addition to his torment, but he didn't utter a sound. His arms flopped limply at his sides, cold and pale. Liane took both of his hands in hers.

"I'm going to have to hurt you now, Karic," she said. "I need to massage some feeling back into your arms. Can you bear just a little more?"

"Yes," he gasped, already in the throes of that special agony of returning circulation. "Do what . . . you have . . . to do."

Liane steeled herself to his torment and began to rub life back into his arms. Never once did he utter a sound, though his strong white teeth drew blood from biting down so hard on his lower lip. He was like some wild beast, Liane realized, bearing his pain in silence, expecting neither aid nor comfort save that which he could dredge from within himself.

An urge to take on his pain, to ease a little of his torment, overcame Liane. She felt the healing aura leave her and seek its union with the one in distress. She wanted it, more than anything she'd ever wanted, for Karic.

But not now. It was too soon. First, they needed the safe haven of her hut, for her psychic healing always drained her of power. It wouldn't do for both to be sapped of their strength while still out in the forest. To control the impulse to heal spiraling within her, Liane turned her efforts to massaging warmth into the rest of Karic's body.

Through his soft domare hide boots, she rubbed his legs and feet. Little by little, Karic began to move of his own accord as the potion began to take effect. It would soon be time to help him stand. The liquid was potent, but only for a short while. Its surprising effects would be over all too quickly.

Karic levered himself up on one elbow, a quizzical expression on his face. "What was in that drink you gave me? Suddenly I don't feel any pain, and I've actually got some strength back."

Liane climbed to her feet, her hand outstretched. "An ancient Sententian remedy for what ails you. Now, come. We've little time and a long way to go. This healing is only temporary. The permanent one must wait for my hut."

He took her hand and allowed her to help him stand. When he swayed precariously, Liane quickly moved to his side, her arm encircling his trim waist. With slow, halting steps they made their way through the forest.

>

Liane added more tinder to the tiny flame flaring to life in the hearth and watched as it grew to hungrily lap at the logs. When satisfied that the fire had at last taken hold, she added a pot of water to heat. Conditions in the tiny hut were primitive at best, but it suited her need for some simplicity in her life.

She rose and turned toward the man lying on her bed. Thanks to him, Liane wondered if her life would ever be simple again. It wasn't because of his plight or the hard decisions she'd been forced to make to save his life. No, it went deeper than that, and in a way she'd never experienced before.

Her struggle with his mind seek had revealed too much of him. As she'd fought to delve ever deeper all aspects of his personality gradually had been exposed, like peeling away the layers of the fiery caepa fruit. She felt she'd known him for cycles, and the knowing had made him a friendand something more.

Liane knew Karic desired her. Their mental joining at the forest pool had been too intense for her to deny that. She recognized the heated aura males gave off when they wanted to mate and had felt those same desires before, emanating from other men.

But then, they'd neither affected nor concerned her. She'd made her choice long ago to remain celibate, a choice all Sententian females had to make sooner or later. Faced with the decision to forego her psychic powers if she ever joined with a male, Liane had chosen to devote her life to others rather than herself.

It had been a simple decision in the past, but now it was no longer simple. In her heart, Liane admitted she also desired Karic. It didn't change the inevitable decision but only made it harder and much more painful. The only simple thing had been the resolve to heal the handsome Cat Man and quickly send him on his way.

She gathered up the tools she would need to cut away the ruined flesh and prepare Karic's wound for the psychic healing. The pot of water over the now crackling fire began to steam. Liane carefully removed it, carried the tools and water over to Karic's bedside, then pulled up a stool.

"Karic?" She hesitantly touched his blanket-covered shoulder.

He lay there on his stomach, exhausted, but he turned his head slightly and opened his eyes at the sound of her voice. "Yes?"

"I need to clean your wound before I heal it."

The simple statement sent a surge of anger through Karic. How could she be so naive as to think he dared trust her? He'd been fool enough to let himself believe it in the forest, but it must have been due to the pain, the cold and the danger. It had clouded his mind to all logic.

But now that he was warm and safe inside her little hut, logic had returned, and the logic of the situation was that Liane could well be trying to win him over by gaining his trust. She was a beautiful, desirable femina. Her actions
seemed
sincere, but it was far too soon to trust her. And trust meant accepting her special kind of healing.