The Lawgivers: Gabriel (25 page)

A feeling she was almost totally
unfamiliar with filled her, a sort of airy lightness that made her
chest feel tight. It wasn’t the painful sadness she was used to. It
was a tentative sort of happiness that made her feel like she had a
smile trapped inside. It was like the feeling she got when she’d
been without food and water for a long time and thought she’d spied
a place where she might get them.

Hopefulness.

Those thoughts drew her from her
internal focus to Gabriel. She saw that he’d found containers among
the trash and had lined them up along the bottom of the window to
catch the water falling out of the sky.

She’d tried that. She never caught
much. The water always seemed to miss the cans and fall around
them, but with so many she thought he might catch enough for a few
days.

Not that that mattered to him, she
supposed. He could fly. If he found himself without water, he could
soar right up into the sky and fly around until he spotted a
waterhole below him. Or he could fly back to the village of his
people and get water.

She hadn’t considered that before, she
realized. No wonder his people always looked like they had plenty!
They must be able to find everything they needed so much easier
because they could go up into the sky and see for long
distances.

Not that that was easy. It looked
effortless when she was on the ground looking up, but she knew from
the times he’d taken her with him that it was hard work even though
he seemed able to soar with the air beneath his wings a
lot.

She saw when Gabriel reached the fire
again that he was wet from the rain that had blown in. He crouched
before the fire and lifted his wings, shaking them. Water drops
flew in every direction. The fire leapt upward, sending sparks out
in a shower and then settled again. He fed more of the pieces of
dried plants to the fire and straightened, heading directly toward
her.

Lexa’s discomfort, forgotten as she
gathered the makings of a camp and her mind wandered to her family,
reared its head again as he settled beside her.

Drawing his legs up, he settled his
forearms on his knees. “About what I said earlier ….”

Lexa cringed inwardly. He’d told her
before that he couldn’t take her as his woman. She’d forgotten that
because he’d made her feel so wonderful.

Or maybe she hadn’t forgotten? Maybe
she’d just done as she so often did with unpleasant things. Maybe
she’d just pushed it to the back of her mind where it couldn’t hurt
her? “I misunderstood, that’s all,” she said hurriedly.

He frowned, studying his hands. She had
the feeling that he wanted to leave it at that. She certainly did.
He grimaced. “Not entirely.” He shook his head.

Lexa felt her heart jerk almost
painfully in her chest, but she was afraid to guess what he’d
meant.

“In other circumstances …,” he began
again and then paused once more as if searching for
words.

She didn’t think he needed to explain
it. As soon as he said that she realized that he was saying it
wasn’t possible even if he wanted to and that was enough. She
didn’t even know why it was that she’d leapt to such a stupid
conclusion when he’d already said he didn’t want her as his
woman.

Because she had wanted it, she
realized. Somehow, she’d thought, hoped, that he’d been so pleased
with the experience that he’d changed his mind.

How stupid was that?

“But it is what it is,” she agreed,
hoping he’d just drop the subject, then added, partly from
curiosity and partly to divert him from saying more, “Why did you
bring me here?”

Gah-re-al flicked a look at her and
frowned at his hands, feeling an uncomfortable sensation twist his
belly. It only took a moment to identify it.

Guilt. He’d brought her to convince her
to tell him about the other villages she’d found to make it easier
for him to find them and it suddenly felt like a betrayal. He
hadn’t thought of it, before, as using her. He’d told himself that
it was for the best for her people and he truly thought it was, and
it still felt like duplicity and he felt treacherous for having
worked to gain her trust for his own ends.

Lexa hesitated, but as soon as she’d
thought of her family and the possibility that they might still be
alive, she’d made her decision. She could just hope that the
angel—the udai, she corrected herself—found them or she could lead
Gabriel to where she’d last seen them. “I could … show you where
there are others, more villages …,” she began
hesitantly.

The sense of guilt vanished abruptly
and a sense of fierce satisfaction took its place. Gah-re-al had
wanted to get his hands on Ralph since she’d told him what the
bastard had done. He tensed and looked at her more fully then,
lifting his dark brows questioningly.

Lexa sucked her lower lip. “If I tell
you, would you …?” She paused again, wondering if it was a mistake
to tell him anything at all. She didn’t really know him. He seemed
to be willing to help, but she knew from experience that that might
not be true. People often pretended to be one way when they were
entirely different. “My little sister and brothers might still be
alive,” she continued after a little soul searching. “I think Ralph
might have lied and they might be in his village. Will you try to
find them?”

The anger that tightened his face
wasn’t feigned. “You can count on that,” he said
tightly.

* * * *

Gah-re-al was far from immune to the
hopefulness in Lexa’s voice when she’d spoken of her siblings. It
produced an odd sort of sinking feeling in his gut, but the
prospect of getting his hands on Ralph so far eclipsed that sour
note with a sense of triumph that it even smothered the guilt that
had preceded it. Ralph had earned the death penalty many times
over, he thought with a mixture of rage, disgust, and savage
satisfaction.

He was going to enjoy that
one.

It was a disturbing thought.

He followed orders and his orders were
to exterminate the most violent offenders, with a special emphasis
on the repeat offenders—like the men he’d dispatched in the latest
village he’d discovered. He didn’t derive any satisfaction from
carrying out his orders beyond the knowledge that they would never
again commit the atrocities they’d been executed for—and the
satisfaction of still being among the living afterward.

He didn’t merely want to execute Ralph
for his crimes as quickly and cleanly as possible, however. He
wanted the bastard to live long enough to suffer and regret every
time he’d beaten and raped Lexa.

That was the part that was disturbing.
The law was clear that infractions were punishable by confinement
or execution if the crime warranted it—not torture.

He wrestled with his conscience for a
while and finally put it aside with the reflection that he couldn’t
anticipate what would happen when and if he managed to get hold of
the self-proclaimed king, Ralph. He might be forced to beat the
bastard down to capture him.

After a while his complaining stomach
distracted him and he dug rations out of his pack, offering Lexa
one of the meals. He had to show her how to use the chemical
heating method and open it for her. She looked torn between
amazement and uneasiness. Amusement flickered through him. “It’s
safe to eat.”

She still looked a little doubtful, but
she carefully tried a small bite and then beamed at him. “It tastes
…. It’s wonderful! What is it?”

“You wouldn’t know if I told you,” he
responded with a chuckle.

She considered that and then discarded
the question and focused on eating.

They had to share his nitin. She
studied it over when he handed it to her. “This is a strange thing.
It feels like plasty but it looks like can.”

“We haven’t found the materials this
was made of here on your world.”

She took a few sips of the water it
held and carefully handed it back to him. “What was it like on the
world you came from?”

He frowned. He didn’t particularly like
remembering. “Colder,” he said shortly.

“All the time?” she asked in
surprise.

“Yes. In the spring and summer and fall
it was cold and in the winter it was bitter cold. It was further
from its star—its sun—than your world is.”

Lexa frowned. “Sooo … you didn’t play
outside when you were a child?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell
her he didn’t want to talk about it at all, but he didn’t like the
way she had of withdrawing when he was brusque with her. Instead,
he shrugged. He doubted that the ‘play’ he took part in in anyway
resembled what she was talking about. It hadn’t even been the sort
of thing children outside the orphan facility did. “War games.
Exercise. Team sports.”

Lexa smiled at him even though she had
no idea what any of those games might be like. “When I was really
little and wasn’t very good at many chores, before my mother died,
it was my job to take care of my little sister and brothers so that
mother and Sir could work and we played games. Our favorite was
hide and go seek.” She thought about it. “Well, they were younger
than me and they didn’t really understand it that well, but it was
still fun. I would cover my eyes and count and they would find a
place to hide. It never took me very long to find them because they
always hid in the same places,” she ended, chuckling at the
memory.

“That was somewhat like one of the war
games we played,” Gah-re-al said, surprised. “They would divide us
up and we were enemies and we had to hunt our enemies and kill
them.”

Lexa gaped at him in horror. “Kill
them?”

He chuckled at the look on her face.
“Play kill.”

“Oh,” Lexa responded, still dismayed.
“Was it … fun?”

“Yes. I guess. When I found and killed
the most I got to go inside and get warm. I usually managed to find
and kill the most once I found out I’d be excused to go inside,” he
added with amusement.

Lexa mulled that over a while. “What
happened to the ones that you play killed?”

He shrugged and then grinned. “They had
to stay outside and practice more.”

It didn’t sound to her like he’d had
very much fun growing up. Of course, she didn’t really understand
the ‘exercise’ and the ‘team sports’, but it seemed to her that he
was saying the war games were the most fun and that didn’t sound
like fun to her at all.

When she’d finished her food, Gabriel
took the container from her, flattened it so that it looked like
paper and shoved it back in his pack with his empty container. “We
reuse these,” he said at her questioning look. “To waste is to
want.”

It seemed a curious thing to say—almost
accusing—but she was sleepy. She didn’t ask him what he meant. She
curled up tightly and wrapped her thin blanket around her
shoulders. With a full stomach and the heat from the fire she was
more comfortable than she’d been since she could
remember.

She was drowsing, drifting lazily
toward sleep, when Gabriel gathered her close against his body.
Pleasure wafted through her along with the thought that he must
mean to couple with her, but she fell into the abyss of sleep still
waiting.

* * * *

Gah-re-al’s mind leapt from the mostly
unselfish impulse to share his body heat with Lexa since she was
shivering to the completely selfish impulse to initiate sex almost
the instant he felt her snuggle against his length and
relax.

He dismissed the thought immediately.
He was already feeling the effects of the long flight to reach the
city and not just weary but sore. Beyond that, he’d screwed up and
given her the impression that their liaison was more than it was—or
could be. Sex at this point was a very bad idea even if she was
agreeable.

And he doubted that she would be. Very
likely she was as tired and sore as he was from the trip. She
hadn’t seemed angry but his experience with women had taught him
that they had a way of pretending they weren’t until one broached
the ‘touchy’ subject in any way. Then they transformed from meek
and cuddly to wildcat in the blink of an eye.

He wasn’t in the mood to deal with
that.

Of course, she’d said she wouldn’t mind
fucking again, he recalled.

He’d been trying to forget the
uncomfortable incident but once that thought occurred to him, he
struggled to recreate the discussion, trying to recall whether that
statement was made before or after he’d screwed up. He was fairly
certain that it was before and possibly what had led him to utter
the remark that she’d misunderstood, which probably meant that
she’d rescinded the offer, he decided with some
disappointment.

She hadn’t said so, but that didn’t
mean she hadn’t changed her mind.

He dismissed the urge and focused on
relaxing but just about the time he felt himself drifting toward
sleep, Lexa shifted restlessly against him and woke his dicks up.
That circumstance redirected his mind to fucking again except that
time he was groggy enough it seemed like a good idea.

It did flicker through his mind that
she might not be agreeable to the idea, but he couldn’t remember
why she might not and decided it was worth a try. If she pushed him
away or clobbered him, that was a no. If she didn’t do either, he
reasoned, she was either in the mood or too far gone to fight
back.