The Sylph Hunter (12 page)

Zalia finally rubbed her thumb over Devon’s knuckles, making his heart skip a beat. “Do you think battlers are evil?” she asked.

“Evil?” He thought about it for a moment and finally shrugged, almost dislodging Airi from where she’d wrapped her vaguely solid self around his neck to sleep. “No. Amoral definitely, but not evil.”

“Amoral?” she questioned.

Devon dragged the hand she wasn’t holding through his hair. Without Airi fluffing it around, it was heavy and soaked with sweat, reminding him of how thirsty he was. “Um, uncaring of consequences. Not even that.” He paused thinking. “They don’t think of consequences. Sometimes I doubt they think at all. Most of them just react based on what their instinct tells them to do.”

“Oh.” She was quiet for a moment. Their pace had slowed to a crawl but they’d followed the others into a part of the city Devon hadn’t seen yet. It was more affluent than anything else he’d encountered so far, with the exception of one massive building that looked as though it had once been oval in shape before it was reduced to rubble.

“Do you think they can love?” Zalia asked.

Devon forgot about the circular building and flushed red again, wondering if she was trying to tell him something with that question. Airi stirred against his neck and giggled. “Um.” He tried to think honestly. “They do. Sometimes I think a lot of them can’t tell the difference between lust and love, but most of them do.”

“Oh.” That might just be her favorite word, he thought. “Then they feel things like love the way a man would?”

Devon’s heart nearly exploded in his chest it was hammering so loud and Airi squealed in his mind, wide awake now and excited. “Yes,” he said as casually as he could, running a hand through his hair again. “They do.”

“Oh.”

Devon allowed his arm to drop back by his side again as Zalia let go. By some coincidence or a puff of wind from Airi, it brushed against Zalia’s for a moment and then away. A moment passed and her hand brushed against his again, for no particular reason. They both walked along, looking forward as their hands brushed together a third time and then, with neither saying anything, entwined a second time, despite how miserably hot out it was. Neither of them really noticed the heat. Zalia was used to it and Devon was walking so far outside of himself that he didn’t care.

Zalia walked along holding Devon’s hand, happy with the situation but confused. Her father obviously approved of the thought of her union with Devon Chole, the ambassador from Sylph Valley, but Zalia was torn.

Not about her feelings for Devon. Quickly as they’d come upon her, she was sure about them. Devon made her feel like no other man ever had and what else was this happiness and the fluttering in her belly if not the start of love for him?

It was One-Eleven that caused her confusion. He also made her feel like no man ever could, taking her and making the pleasure explode through her until it was all consuming. She remembered just that morning, the feel of him tasting her and how it made her entire body spasm with ecstasy, and her hand tightened involuntarily around Devon’s. He looked down at her and tightened his own grip for a moment, returning hers. Zalia had to blush and look down.

No woman should have to make this kind of choice! Both of them were so different, so utterly opposite from each other, and she didn’t really know anything about either. She couldn’t have both of them—that thought wasn’t worth dwelling on even if she thought either of them would be willing to contemplate it. Nor did she want to be shared.

She had to make a choice, before things went any further, before either of them learned about the other and perhaps something horrible happened. She had to.

“Tell me more about yourself,” she said to Devon, looking up at him nervously. “Not about battlers. About you.”

He blinked, rubbing his thumb along the outside of her hand for a moment while he thought. “Me? Um, I was born in Eferem, in Eferem City, where the king lives. It’s a kingdom way far away, to the south of Sylph Valley. My family have been air-sylph masters for three generations. Airi belonged to my father and grandfather before me.”

“They just gave her to you?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He reached up to nothing she could see on his shoulders. “Sylphs have no rights in Eferem. Airi wasn’t even allowed to talk, so I don’t think Dad and Granddad ever realized how smart she is. I did let her talk though, which was illegal. I could have been executed for it.” His hair ruffled madly. “She only talked to me, until we went to the Valley. Sylphs are free there.”

“How did you happen to go there?” Zalia asked. She liked the sound of his voice. “Was it because of Airi?”

“Oh, gods, no,” he laughed. “I like to think I would have, but the Valley didn’t exist when I left Eferem. It really was all a big mistake. Not that I regret it, but it was terrifying at the time.”

He went on to tell her about how he’d seen the battle sylph Heyou escape the castle with Solie and impulsively sent Airi to follow them. That led to him trying to get to the village they had escaped to before his retired father was hurt, the battle between Ril and Heyou, and Devon himself ending up as a fugitive along with Solie when Airi rescued her from Leon’s sword.

“Mr. Petrule was the enemy?” Zalia gasped, stunned. He’d seemed the noblest man she’d ever met, not someone who would try to assassinate a girl.

“Yeah. Luckily, he switched sides.” Devon shrugged. “Solie just has this way about her. Mostly he did it for Ril. It was become a good guy or lose him, I guess. I never really understood what was going on between those two. They don’t have any sort of master-and-sylph relationship that I’ve ever even heard of before.” He looked at her again. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, I think. I ended up as Solie’s majordomo.”

“What’s a majordomo?”

“Her chief steward,” he said. “Basically, I was her secretary. I arranged who could see her when, her appointments, that kind of thing. Plus I took notes at any meetings so we’d have a record of everything. There weren’t a whole lot of people in the Valley when we started who could read or write.”

She couldn’t read, Zalia thought. She’d never had the need, even if her status hadn’t been too low for it to be allowed. “And now you’re her ambassador.”

“Yeah.” He looked sheepish. “Not that I’m doing that good a job of it so far.”

Zalia smiled at him, not looking down this time when he met her gaze and smiled back. “We’ll find the queen,” she told him and was happy at her use of the word
we
when his smile widened.

If they couldn’t find someone to take them to the queen where they were going, she thought, then she could ask One-Eleven to take them instead. Her smile faltered a moment later at the image of One-Eleven meeting Devon, as well as the consideration of just what the battler would want in return for his help, as well as how, deep inside, the very thought was as exciting as it was terrifying.

Exhausted from all of her efforts, Airi hugged her master’s neck. She’d drunk some of his energy, but she didn’t want to drain him until he was also tired, not in this heat, so was now sipping despite her need, and trying her best to keep the back of his neck a little bit cooler than the rest of him.

She did listen to his conversation with Zalia. She was asexual herself, with no interest in her own physical pleasure, but she liked to see her master happy and more, Zalia matched him. The thought of them getting together and having children that might be her masters in the next generation excited her. Zalia made Devon’s pattern sing and that translated to her as the most beautiful music she could imagine.

Zalia, she knew, felt the same link to Devon. There was no way she couldn’t, and that only excited Airi more. She pressed against her master’s neck, wanting to encourage him, but not wanting to frighten him again. Devon hadn’t had many relationships in his life and certainly none had ever had the potential of this one. To Airi, this felt so much more important than foreign queens and Hunters and she pressed close, watching them link hands with all the happiness her kind could feel.

The favorite meeting spot of the battle sylphs was in the ruins of the arena where they’d once fought for the amusement of the emperor. It was a bit ironic for them to meet there, but it was a familiar place to most of them. All of them knew where the ruins were and they were central in the city. It made sense to go there.

They did so when they wanted to rest and commune with their own kind, floating together above the rubble as a massive black cloud filled with lightning. They also met there to exchange news and to start guard shifts, taking turns so that each of them would have time for their women.

The middle of the day was one of their shift changes, when the humans were sluggish from the heat and less likely to cause trouble. An hour after Devon and his companions passed by, they descended, some shifting to human form, most staying clouds, and a few even changing back to the mouthless, green, backward-legged creatures they’d been while slaves of the emperor.

“I’ve found her!”

His hands clasped behind his back, Tooie stood atop a shattered piece of wall and looked down at one of his hive mates. “You have?”

One-Eleven grinned at him happily, three times Tooie’s age but as excitable as a juvenile. “I have. She’s absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone like her, not even in the harem.” His smile faded. “But she hasn’t slept with me yet. I know she wants to, but she keeps stopping me. It’s frustrating.”

Tooie’s smile widened. It was almost funny to think of himself as the voice of experience. “Of course she wants to sleep with you. You could make a half-dead rat want to sleep with you.”

One-Eleven blinked and looked a little nauseous at the thought.

Tooie reached down and tapped the battler’s nose, making him start. “If you want something real and lasting, you need to do more than just make her want to sleep with you,” he told him seriously. He’d known One-Eleven since his own enslavement started and he knew the older sylph was one of the worst of them when it came to single-mindedness. “Remember Ap?”

One-Eleven’s eyes darkened. All of them remembered Ap. She’d been the most popular concubine in the harem and all of them had had her many times. She’d been addicted to sex, wanton and hot. When Eapha gave them all their freedom though, Ap had been the first to leave, setting sail on the first ship that would take her. When one battle sylph asked her why she’d want to leave, her answer had been that she wanted more.

Tooie saw what might have been the faint look of comprehension in One-Eleven’s eyes and nodded. “I didn’t sleep with my Eapha the first time I met her. Most concubines I did, but with her, I became her friend first and she’s still with me.”