The Royal Hunter (7 page)

Talia was trying to sort it all out in her mind, but it was such an impossible thing to truly comprehend. One indisputable fact was that Jimmy
had
threatened her. “So if they send someone else, can you recognize him?”

“I know most of the players, but I don’t intend to stick around here and find them all out. It is best if we move quickly. The faster we get you back, the faster this will come to an end, and you can return to your life here, safe and sound.”

He was wrong. Safe was no longer an option. Her life was suddenly filled with insanity that she was supposed to accept. And she simply couldn’t stand there one second longer. She’d hit maximum stress level. Without another word, she turned and began marching back to the house.

Archer immediately caught up to her and grabbed her arm. “We don’t have time for this.”

Talia yanked her arm free and poked a finger at his chest. “Correction,
you
don’t have time for this.
I
, on the other hand, have as much time as I want. So why don’t you just let me go and return to wherever you slithered out from.”

His eyes widened with real surprise. “Slithered?”

“Isn’t that what kidnapping mercenary snakes do? Slither?”

His jaw clenched. “I’m not a mercenary or a kidnapper. And I’m not a snake.”

She almost laughed. “That offends you? Tough guy like yourself? I imagine you’ve been called much worse.”

It didn’t help matters that this close up, she noticed he had a tiny cleft in his chin. And that when he got angry, his accent was stronger, flatter. No, she shouldn’t be noticing stuff like that. She had an escape to make.

“Oh, I’ve been called many things, sweetheart.
But snake? Slithered?” He shook his head. “I really must be losing my touch.”

Now she cocked a hand on her hip. “You have a touch?”

His eyebrows lifted.

Talia caught herself wanting to smile. Adrenaline was pumping through her, along with something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She wasn’t actually enjoying this little heated interchange. Was she? It was just some sort of weird stress transfer that suddenly had her hyperaware of him. “Did you really think you’d just pop into my life, drop this amazing little fairy tale of yours in my lap, and expect me to go dancing off behind you, all because you twinkled those eyes and showed off that little cleft in your chin?”

Oops. She’d been doing fine up to that last part. What had been the vaguest suspicion of a smile became a blinding grin. As it turned out, the man had touch. In spades.

“You noticed the cleft, huh?” Gone completely was the impatient, frustrated mercenary. In the short time she’d known him, she’d never have guessed him capable of anything resembling charm. She immediately decided he was safer when he was cold and mercenarylike.

“Okay,” she managed, her throat tight and strangely achy. “So you might have a little … touch.”

His smile widened. It exposed the fact that he had the smallest dimple on the right side of his mouth. Good God, the man was actually sexy when he grinned like that.

“Sweetheart, you don’t know the half of it.” He reached up a hand and took the hat off her head. “This is sort of a mood killer, though.”

“I save homeless animals for a living,” she managed, finding her own edge. “One generally doesn’t dress in sequins and pearls in my occupation.” She should be moving away from him.

“I’m not much into sequins and pearls, either,” he said.

His voice was all deep and Down Under velvety.
Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson eat your hearts out
, she thought. Talia found herself sinking into the depths of his gleaming eyes. There was almost no distinction between pupil and iris. It was as if she could fall into their inky depths and never hit bottom. When he lifted a hand to push a wayward strand of hair off her face, she almost shuddered in anticipation of what his tough, hard hands would feel like on her skin.

But she never found out. Instead she all but jumped out of that skin at a sudden clearing of a throat behind her. It was only Archer’s quick reflexes that kept her from falling ass-backward into the pond.

She wished he’d let her fall in. At least then she could disappear beneath the murky depths rather than face his knowing look. Or the considering expression on Baleweg’s face when she turned to find the old man standing behind her.

Archer shifted his attention to Baleweg. No doubt the old man had seen the two of them standing close like that.
Lost my touch, eh mate?
Not bloody likely.

“I trust you have convinced Miss Trahaern to begin her studies?” Baleweg said mildly.

“I was getting to that.”

“Studies?” Talia asked.

“We must begin your instruction, to help you bring forth your natural talents. So that you may return with us and help our queen.”

Archer stepped between them. “Wait a minute.
What you mean is that she’ll return with us, and
then
she’ll begin whatever lessons she needs. I’m sure the queen can help you both with all that.”

Baleweg shook his head. “She cannot return until she is ready. The queen’s health is dwindling, yes, but she’s not at death’s door quite yet. Talia is of no use to her as she is now. Once we take her to Llanfair, things will move swiftly. Forces there will be ready to pounce upon her return. Even the queen would be hard-pressed to protect her in her current state. She must be able to act immediately. Everyone knows trust is a rapidly dwindling commodity at court these days.”

“She’s not exactly safe here, either,” Archer argued.

“We have a more controlled position here,” Baleweg responded. “We have only to weed out those few who have found their way here. It is easier for me to detect disturbances in the time continuum here than at home.” His focus seemed to drift. “It is … quieter here. I have never felt such clarity.” He didn’t sound entirely comfortable with that, but his blue eyes sharpened once more as he looked back to Archer. “Your extensive knowledge of those likely to be involved should help us maintain security.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to play castle guard while you two play school?” Archer shook his head. “The deal was I find her, I convince her to come back. Something, I might remind you, I was about a second or two away from accomplishing before you so rudely interrupted.”

Talia lifted an eyebrow. “Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

Archer’s mouth actually twitched. She surprised him. For all that she looked as if she’d break in a good stiff wind, she was a pretty tough sort. Her luminous eyes and elegantly shaped lips, framed between
high cheekbones and a pair of delicate eyebrows, served to give her an ethereal, almost fragile air. Until she opened her mouth.

If Archer hadn’t been so annoyed with the way this mission was going, he might have admired her adaptability. Lord knew, she was going to need that and a whole lot more before this was over. So, apparently, was he. “I think we should return and let the queen deal with this situation. I didn’t hire on as baby-sitter.”

Talia’s mouth dropped open. Baleweg shook his head. “I do not have the energy to move us about through time on a whim. Taking our leave in such a rapid manner the other day has taxed me to a great degree. If I am to move all three of us forward, then I must conserve my strength.”

Archer narrowed his gaze in doubt. Baleweg had seemed tired, but not overly taxed. “So which is the real concern? Your supposed fatigue or Talia’s safety?”

“Both. But her safety is my foremost concern. I will be ready when she is.”

Archer held his gaze, but Baleweg merely looked at him with such serenity that Archer knew there would be no point arguing with him. Archer sighed and looked out over the pond. His gaze narrowed further at the big white duck floating placidly amid the water lilies. Oh, great, that was all he needed.

“You two can argue all you want,” Talia said, jerking his attention back to the matter at hand, “but you seem to have forgotten one key element in all your Machiavellian plans. My cooperation.” She shot Archer a look. “Which you have not come close to securing.”

“Machiavellian?” he said, for lack of a better comeback.

“I’m surprised you don’t remember him from
school history. I’d think you’d have enjoyed his exploits.”

“I’m not sure, but I think I’ve just been insulted.” Archer turned to Baleweg, hoping to elicit a smile or at least some sign that he agreed she was being impossible. Nothing. Of course.

Baleweg merely motioned for him to continue. “You are doing such a fine job, after all.”

“Fine, just fine.” He was trapped in some archaic time period with a stubborn old man, a woman who refused to accept reality … and a duck. “I’d almost rather admit defeat now and go home,” he muttered.

Home. He craned his neck and looked past the pond toward the bizarre structure Talia called home. It was so rustic it was made from tree-hewn planks and covered with some sort of blue polymer and white trim that resembled nothing so much as frosting on a decaying cake. He doubted she had bothered setting up a decent security seal for it. How in the hell was he supposed to keep her safe in this?

He turned back to Baleweg. “We can’t stay here.”

Talia crossed her arms. “You’re damn right you can’t.”

He looked at her, resigned to the fact that they were stuck in her time, for at least the next couple of days. “I said
we
, sweetheart.” He looked to Baleweg. “We have to find a place I can defend with whatever crude arsenal I can find here. Seeing as I was left with none of my personal equipment to defend us with. My skills are well honed, but I can only do so much with my bare hands.”

He’d been quite unhappy to discover that his weapons hadn’t made the journey back in time with him. He was never without armor of some sort. He was even more unhappy at the thought of his extensive collection lying about on Baleweg’s roof.

Baleweg merely shrugged. “It is enough that we create a ripple in time by being here ourselves. We cannot risk introducing technology of our time, as well.”

Archer fought to keep from looking at Ringer, floating on the pond. Talk about a ripple. “I don’t see what one little gazzer would have hurt.”

“We can’t risk something that—”

“Excuse me,” Talia interrupted in a tone that seemed excessively loud considering he was standing right beside her. “You both seem to be overlooking something here.”

“We haven’t overlooked you, sweetheart.” As he looked in her eyes he had a sudden flash of that moment just before Baleweg’s intrusion. Despite his comments to the contrary, he hadn’t exactly been thinking mission strategy when he’d reached up to touch her. He hadn’t been overlooking her then. He blinked the memory away. “We just have to agree on what to do with you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I give up. You two can stand out here arguing all night for all I care. I have things to do early in the morning. I have a life, and my own obligations.” She turned once more to leave.

Archer planted himself in front of her so fast that she ran right into him. She was soft, as well as hard. And in the most appealing places. That registered even as she was jumping away from him as though she’d been singed.

“We’re here to stay, Talia.”

She eyed him levelly as she yanked her arm free. “Then I hope you enjoy sleeping out under the stars. Good night.”

Talia stalked off toward the house, trying hard not to give in to the fact that she was terrified. She was shaking. In fear, in anger, in frustration. And in awareness. Of Archer. Dammit. The man was completely insufferable. And he was too damn … real.

She tossed her walking stick toward the shed, only then remembering she’d left the fishing bonnet on the ground by the pond. Not wanting to think about that moment when Archer had been so close, looking as if he were about to—

Oh, no, she wasn’t going there. She was going to bed. Where she would sleep the sleep of the innocent, wake up in the morning fully rested, and go back to the good work she was performing here. Work that had always been satisfying. Satisfying and … and enough.

Her steps faltered as she reached the porch. She sank to the top step, unable to balance her own weight on suddenly watery knees. It
was
enough, dammit. It had to be. She’d found her place. She hugged her knees, her gaze moving of its own volition back toward the path to the pond. “It is enough,” she whispered. “I’m meant to do this.”

Even saying the words made her shiver, made some part of her rebel, the part that now remembered her mother’s fantastical tales … and wanted to believe the stories of castles and kings, of people who’d respect her, a place where she’d discover what she was meant to do.

She clutched her knees more tightly, thinking about this place she’d called home since the day Beatrice had found her sitting at a café in town, her heart and spirit irrevocably broken. It was the day she’d been forced to accept that her dream of becoming a veterinarian, a dream she’d slaved to pay for, sweat, blood and tears to achieve, was not going to come true. She’d known that in order to practice medicine, heal animals, she’d have to take on their pain. Her “gift” wasn’t something she could switch off, but she’d naïvely thought she could somehow control it, make it work to her advantage. Until her first day in an operating room.

The dog had been mortally injured, hit by a car. He’d been rushed into emergency surgery at the clinic where she’d just signed on as a student assistant. The vet had yanked her in to help … then called for emergency assistance when she’d collapsed under the incredible onslaught of pain that had shoved its way through her entire body. They thought she’d had some kind of seizure. Only she knew what had really happened. Just as she knew she could never let it happen again. She wouldn’t survive it … and certainly no animal in her care should have to risk her collapsing again like that.

She had been devastated, her only dream as crushed and beyond saving as that poor dog. She’d been so lost, having to give up the one place in the world she thought she’d fit in, helping the animals that called to her.

Then Beatrice had walked into her life, smiled knowingly, and offered Talia the path to her true calling. “Perhaps you weren’t meant to heal them, my dear,” she’d said, making it sound so simple. “Perhaps you were simply meant to rescue them.”