Chapter 9 #2
The Pack mobilizing all at once was a daunting thing.
Gone were the courtly manners and good-natured smiles of earlier, and in their place rose stone-cold warriors.
’Pathic power surged throughout the room instantly as every man opened himself to the others, a chain of communication so familiar to them it was like breathing.
Mystique could feel the feedback of it buzzing all around her, even though she wasn’t sensitive in the same way that they were.
Reule stepped up to her briefly, folding his large hands around her small shoulders and squeezing them ip tight reassurance.
“Don’t worry. This happens a lot out here.
Without the snows, the field stubble and winds will spread the fire unless we fight it back quickly.
I’ll return later. Don’t wait for me.” He gently brushed an affectionate finger down the slope of her nose before releasing her and rushing out with his Packmates.
She stood staring at the abandoned room for all of a minute before she closed her gaping mouth with a snap and shook indignation into herself with a sharp shudder.
“To hell!”
She scooped up her skirts and ran for the stairs. Cursing her corsets and high-handed males, she burst into her rooms and gave Pariedes the fright of her life. She reached for her laces and began to whip them apart.
“I need trousers. A boy’s should fit,” she panted as she wriggled out of her overdress, leaving the plum creation in a pool as she stepped out of it.
“But …” Para began.
“Para, don’t give me any arguments! Fetch me breeches and a shirt or I swear I’ll walk naked through this keep searching for them myself!
” Para closed her gaping mouth quickly when she realized how perfectly serious her mistress was.
“And send that blasted girl in here to help me with this damnable corset in the meantime. Now hurry!”
Pariedes had gotten to know her charge quite well over the past few days, and she found her tp be an intelligent and even-tempered woman for the most part.
This was the first time she’d ever heard her address anyone with the authoritative tone of a woman used to giving a command and having it obeyed.
It resulted in Para helping Mystique into a set of boy’s snug pants, shirt, and vest within minutes.
It was indecent, but the sigh her foundling released and the expertise she used to bind the clothing onto her body said that this wasn’t the first time she’d dressed herself in such a fashion.
It was scandalous, but Para had to admit she wore the disguise terribly well.
“Para, dearest, I need you to listen carefully,” Mystique said breathlessly as she rapidly twisted her dark hair into a plait.
“There’s fire on the flatlands. One of the soldiers mentioned farms. That will mean injuries, burns, smoke cough.
They’ll need a healer there, rather than waiting here.
I need supplies. I haven’t had a chance to make salves or creams yet, but we can find disinfectants, clean cloths, and fresh jars of water for the cough.
Men. Good strong men and litters to carry out the injured.
We cannot have them in the way of a shifting fire.
I need someone who can keep her head and stay beside me.
A girl with nerve and a head for listening to instructions.
You know everyone in the keep.” Mystique looked at her with expectancy and waited while Pariedes digested all of what she was saying and its implications.
She waited to see if Para’s instincts would be to help or to hinder.
“I know just the girl,” Para breathed at last.
Reule hadn’t bothered to saddle Fit, time being precious and the smoke haying been visible even as they’d exited the bailey of the keep.
Now, rounding the fire burning ferociously in the field grasses, his legs gripped Fit’s bare sides and they tore over the land as a perfectly blended creature of speed.
He rode the off side of the fire, the winds pushing smoke and heat away from him and making it just barely bearable for him to approach so close to the line.
It was a dangerous thing to do, flat-land winds being extremely shifty and unpredictable.
The wind could turn suddenly and he would be ash before he even realized it.
But the speed and dangerous shortcut were very necessary.
The fire was extremely close to the walls of Jeth, only a few farms standing in the mile between fire and civilization.
The height of the walls would prevent most damage, but sparks could travel forever on the wind, and all it would take was one spark on a thatch roof within the walls to light hell around them.
They must keep the fire from advancing toward Jeth even so much as a foot. The wind was partially in their favor; there was even a river of good size to act as a firebreak. What Reule didn’t trust was the Jakals.
They wouldn’t be far. They’d want to watch and devour the fear and anxiety of the Sánge as they struggled to save their homes.
They’d never pass up the opportunity to gobble up such powerful emotions.
And if they were close, then they were capable of making the situation much worse.
Reule wanted armed guards and soldiers riding the flatlands in tight circuits while their compatriots fought the hellish fire itself.
He was too far from Saber at the moment to make the orders clear telepathically, so he was racing back around the fire and toward the walls of Jeth.
Reule drew within sight of the main road and saw a dust trail coming from Jeth that was quickly growing nearer to him.
At first he thought it was reinforcements from the city, but it took only a moment for him to realize the riders were too few.
He recognized the livery of the city guards even from a distance because of the red in the design, but the leader of the group was wearing common clothing.
He’d already turned to intercept them when it struck him who he was watching approach the danger of the fire.
Struck was the perfect word, because it was like a psychic wall of kinetic energy that slapped him back.
Fit felt the tensing of his rider and jerked into a turn and canter by instinct.
By the time Fit came full around to the road again, Reule had a full visual of the redheaded beauty riding to hell on a big russet stallion named Riot that Reule had added to his stables only a year earlier.
The young horse was all speed, youth, and attitude, and Reule was furious to see Mystique riding a creature that was dangerous for a telepath to ride, never mind a tiny female who had no means of communicating with it.
He was going to kill the stable hand who had given her the beast.
Several times.
With this thought of venom hazing his brain, Reule rode Fit to cut off her and her little entourage.
At least she’d had the sense to bring an armed escort.
With Jakals nearby? Had she come out alone he’d have likely burst a blood vessel in rage by now.
As he neared her and got a good look at the outfit she was wearing, he almost did exactly that.
Mystique was riding short-stirrup, which brought her feet high to the saddle and allowed her to ride above the leather.
Her knees were bent close to the animal and her backside was lifted in the air as she leaned into the animal’s neck for speed.
This position, while fast and graceful for horse and rider, was giving the others a fine display of her tightly clothed bottom as she jockeyed high above the saddle.
He knew when she saw him because she slowed and stood against her stirrups.
She turned to meet him, loose strands of her hair flying across her face as she now rode partway into the wind.
As furious as he was, as terrified for her safety as he found himself, Reule could hardly breathe for how beautiful she looked to him right then.
The remaining riders stayed on the road and drew to a halt as she came up to him alone, dust and now traces of smoke drifting around her, the braid of her hair bouncing against her breast. She was small, but she was vital and alive.
He could see her eyes shining bright with determination.
This, he realized, was no lark to her. She was here for a purpose, whether he agreed with it or not, and it was written grimly in her pretty features and the emotion he felt washing off her.
By the time they reached one another, blind fury fueled by fear had ground back to a more controlled anger. He reached for the horse’s leather and jerked them both to a halt. Without a word, he stripped her out of her saddle and sat her in his lap before she could so much as think to protest.
Yet even when she was seated against the hard flex of his thighs, she still made no protest of his treatment of her.
All she did was tilt up her chin and gaze at him with expectant eyes, her hands resting resolutely against his chest. He was covered in soot, dirt, and sweat, but she didn’t complain.
He wondered why he kept expecting her to act like the high-born women he was used to.
He reached out and seized the side of her face and head in a proprietary palm, the grip of his fingers in her hair drawing her to within inches of his emotionally stormy eyes.
“You come out into danger riding a treacherous animal and dressed indecently. Tell me, kébé, why I shouldn’t be strangling on outrage at the moment.”
He spoke softly and purposefully, so Mystique knew very well just how much he was controlling his temper just then. She reached up and curled her fingers into the collar of his shirt, her skin touching his warmly as she grasped hold.