Offensive
Chapter six
Mara could not reply for a long moment, staring at the red-and-black bane of her existence.
The previous day had been lovely. Perfect.
She’d taken a bit of the morning to wipe away any trace of Ethan the Intruder from her patch of high desert, going so far as to coax bushes out of the ground at his campsite to replace his Jeep’s metallic green with far more soothing evergreen creosote, and then gotten back to her memorial garden.
It was relaxing to think of Tristan’s soft blue-gray—no, brown eyes; she firmed her mind to picture them, the golden flecks and the way when his pupils dilated there was a tiny ring of cinnamon red at the center.
His dark hair, short and soft and neat, not uncouth tangles of strawberry blond.
And when she’d created a new collection of blooms, the afternoon light shining peach-gold through their translucent silken petals, she’d retired to the shaded bower she’d created for herself at the peak of the hill.
Surrounded by the scent of the blooming desert trees, she’d let the soil cradle her, closed her eyes to remember deeper moments, shadowed moments, Tristan’s hands on her body, lips worshiping each curve and valley, his short wisps of hair spiked with sweat as he made love to her.
His humanity had never been stronger than when he was inside her, his lean dark body quivering with need.
She’d sighed to envision it, alone in her bower, remembered ecstasy as painful as every other memory even as she reveled in it.
Tristan had been her only human lover, and they had been together for so long she could barely remember her fae lovers before him, just remembered that he’d been different.
Harsher, harder, yet more tender at the same time.
Desperate for her in a way that had intoxicated her from the first. Had he been different because he was human?
Or had he been unique in the world? It felt that way to her, but her mind wandered in that direction regardless, imagining something different, broad shoulders and pale skin and blue-gray eyes burning into hers, a curtain of hair falling about them just the color of the sun shining through her blossoms, hard lips and a voice like sandy velvet whispering in her ears and—
She’d awoken abruptly. It was morning again. Had she heard something? Or felt it?
She’d reached out to the bottom of her hill, but no, the creosote bushes were undisturbed.
The Jeep was still gone. She’d lain back down, fretful.
She’d slept poorly—or strangely, at least. Her indulgent memories of Tristan had shifted into dreams of dim passion, but there had been something wrong with them, the shapes and the sounds and the colors, and she’d woken unsated.
She had slept long, and she was still half-caught in those dizzying, sensual dreams.
For a moment, she’d remained abed, letting the dream images wash over her anew, mentally rearranging them to be right, to be Tristan, as she’d stroked herself to completion.
The chill of the desert night had already faded to warmth, and there was a strange buzzing in her ears, like a mosquito or a whirring dragonfly, but when she opened her eyes to look, there was nothing.
Though she had befriended the local insects, inviting the bees to gather nectar that her tears might feed their hive, they usually respected her quiet central haven when she was inside.
But at last she’d felt she had exorcised the dreams and had stepped forth from her bower into the normal sounds of her desert garden. She’d smiled and caressed her latest additions, pale gold with hints of pink, just like in her imaginings, just like—
She’d gasped in furious realization. Had she been dreaming about that man? Ethan the Unworthy in Tristan’s place?
With a shudder, she’d begged the flowers to change their color, to orange or purple or white or anything, but they had resisted her. It had shaken her, that they would not change for her, that they would not listen. They were hers. Why would they not listen?
And then she’d heard it, felt it. A shiver in the ground, one that was not the hooves of deer or javelinas, the pad of a mountain lion, the skitter of a lizard.
She’d sent her attention down the mountain and fallen still. She knew that footstep, its pressure upon the earth. It was heavier than before, as if he bore a burden, but it was him.
He was back.
With a muttered oath, she’d cast on her glamour of invisibility and flown down the hillside, not bothering to dive into the ground or ask the plants to move aside for her, gliding on her rarely used wings to the source of the disturbance.
By the time she arrived, he was already past her barrier, stepping off of a wooden bridge onto the sand on the other side.
A bridge. He had made a bridge. Admiration and fury had warred within her, but as he’d started to walk forward, approaching her garden, she’d settled on fury after all, tucking her wings into faerie and casting aside her glamour so she could berate him without distractions.
And now he, the horrible man, was gazing at her like he was in love, his blue-gray eyes full of light.
How dare he? How dare he return? How dare he be clever and resourceful? How dare he look at her like that? How dare he say hello to her in that rough voice that had unfairly haunted her dreams, replaced Tristan’s sweet tenor lilt?
It made her quiver even now.
She repressed the shiver, ignored his polite greeting. “I told you to go away.”
He grinned. Another affront. “I don’t take orders from hallucinations.” He inhaled deeply, watching her with an intentness that was unnerving. “Not even gorgeous ones.” He was wearing more of the red and black today, armored up to his neck. He looked like a warrior fool, come to conquer.
She lifted her head higher. “I am not a hallucination. Will you listen to me now? Go away.”
His grin shifted. It was still a smile, still friendly, but there was steel behind it. “No. I have just as much right to be here as you.”
“You have no right—”
“I have a permit.” He reached behind him, pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his backpack.
With a snap of his wrist, he unfurled it.
“I submitted my request months ago. I logged the route I intended to take, the coordinates I’d be conducting my research at, the types of samples I intended to collect.
The Bureau of Land Management approved my request.” He stretched out his arm, inviting Mara to take the cursed document.
She turned up her nose in disdain. “There are other hills you can investigate. This one is mine.”
His eyebrows went up. “Not according to the BLM.”
“I do not care what the human government says,” she bit out. “My rights are deeper.”
He withdrew the piece of paper, folded it, held it in both hands before him.
He kept staring at her, but something in his eyes had changed.
Finally, he heaved another deep breath. “The human government?” he said in a low voice.
“Not the United States government, not the Tribal Authority, but human?”
She would not deign to answer that. “Go away.”
His grin vanished; his jaw set. “Where’s your permit?”
“I need no permit.”
“Well,” he said brightly. “As the person with a permit, speaking to the person without a permit, I am not going to go away. The human government gave me this permit. Last I checked, that was the government in charge of this hill, not whatever LARP fantasy you have going. And I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me. ” He started to walk around her.
She stepped into his path. He was far too close now, looming over her like a giant, but he stopped short, not touching her.
This close, she could smell him, sweat and sunblock and deodorant, see how his sunburn was fading back to paleness.
“You can’t,” she said, hating the way her voice cracked with desperation.
But it stopped him. He gazed down at her, face unreadable.
“Why can’t I?” He turned his gaze up the hill.
“There’s a clear path here. I can get right where I need to go.
You’ll barely notice me.” His broad jaw had less stubble than the last time she’d seen him.
He must have shaved, though it hadn’t lasted long.
There was already a pale frost growing, as pale as his hair.
Would it feel as sandpapery as his voice?
She hastily took a step backward, sweeping her arm out forbiddingly. “There is nothing here for you. Climb another hill.”
He looked back at her. His smile was back. “It has to be this one. This is the hill where the flowers are.”
“There are flowers everywhere.” But she knew what he meant. She knew he’d seen it, the garden of her soul.
“Not like these.” He looked up the hill again. “And I need to find out why.”
She turned her face up to him again, feeling her heart breaking. “I can tell you why,” she whispered. “You do not need to research or sample or investigate. I can tell you, and then you can go.”
He turned back to her, regarding her steadily for several seconds, then heaved a sigh. “Tell me.”
She swallowed. He had not moved closer this time, but he filled her senses. “You are too tall,” she murmured.
He quirked a half smile. “Too tall to tell me things?” He sighed again and went down to his knees, planting his hands on his thighs and gazing up at her. “Is this better?”
It was and it wasn’t, but she couldn’t define why seeing him on his knees before her was making her own knees shake. She straightened her spine deliberately. “These flowers are different because they are my flowers. I made them different.”
“How? Do you give them special fertilizer, inject dye…?”
She couldn’t keep her lip from curling. “Of course not.”
He cocked his head to the side, regarding her. “Then how?”
Grief stabbed at her stomach. But this intruder had not earned that knowledge. “It cannot be explained. Not to you.”