Chapter 12
THE WRONG WOMAN
KAL WAITED, GROWING MORE AND more irritated by the minute. Rask, showcasing a rare bit of wisdom, did not make him wait long. When Kal’s friend emerged from the lodge, he was clothed, and the pervading scent of his earlier activities had been mostly scrubbed away.
“Kal…” Rask began, running a hand through his honeycomb hair. “Is she…”
Kal watched his friend squirm. Let him stew in his own discomfort.
It felt good to let Rask assume the worst, considering he’d been—literally—fucking around in the forest while Kal risked life and limb to deliver his sister safely.
Rask should have been in Meress. Should have been waiting like he said he’d be.
Rask’s features twisted when Kal didn’t immediately reply. “Oh gods…oh fucking gods…”
“Your sister is safe. She’s here.”
Rask nearly crumpled as Kal’s words registered. Then, his face broke into an ear-splitting smile, showing off a row of crooked teeth. He hugged Kal hard. “You did it, brother,” he managed. “You fucking did it.”
The stark relief on Rask’s face dissipated some of Kal’s irritation.
“Where is she?”
“Meress,” Kal answered. “Where I expected you to be.”
Rask ignored the comment. “Her room is prepared at my place. Did you get her in okay?”
“She’s not at your place.”
Rask wavered, fair brows pinched. “Why?”
Kal sighed. “I took her to your house. She didn’t want to go in.”
Rask reared back slightly. “Why not?”
How did one explain a complex thing to a simple creature? “I don’t know what you remember of your sister, but I would be prepared for her to be different. She may not be what you expect.”
Wariness crept into Rask’s blue eyes. “Different how?”
“You’ll have to determine that for yourself.”
“Maimed? Molested?”
“She’s whole,” Kal bit out, more defensive than he had any right to be. “Just…be mindful. She’s been through a lot.”
“Well, why the fuck are we still standing here?” Rask strode around the right side of the lodge to a small corral containing three bay horses. He ducked through the wooden posts and reached for the mare. “Where is she?”
A pause. “My house.”
Rask stopped. “You took Railah to your house? And left her there?”
Kitty, Kal thought, but didn’t correct him. “What’s wrong with my house?”
“Aside from the fact that you’re not exactly known for entertaining company?
It’s totally secluded. The place is probably crawling with predators, not to mention that rabid black terror that stalks the grounds.
” Rask shook his head. “Railah despises nature, and you left her completely surrounded by it.”
Kal frowned. “I didn’t get that impression.”
“She may have changed, but my sister is a stone flower. The city is all she knows. I don’t think she even took her shoes off to walk barefoot outside growing up. She must be terrified.”
Kal mounted the gray gelding and waited for Rask to saddle his mare, studying the man. “I think you may be in for a surprise. The woman I’ve spent these past days with has more courage than I originally gave her credit for.”
“I’ll believe that when I see her with my own eyes,” Rask said, pulling, then securing, the cinch.
“Gods, you really did it, Kal. Ever since you left, I’ve been trying to imagine Railah here, in Meress.
Wondering what the hell she’s going to do, how she’s going to adjust. I barely let myself hope.
” He looked over his shoulder at Kal, emotion turning his face ruddy.
“And now, it’s really happened. She’s really here. ”
“She’ll adjust fine,” Kal assured. “She was training as a mender in Asteros. Her skills will be more than useful.”
Rask swung into the saddle and pulled his horse around.
He barked a short laugh. “Now I know you’re fucking with me.
The sister I left in the capital would faint at a drop of blood.
She was a doll, my friend. A beautiful, fragile doll.
That’s one reason I couldn’t leave her to the Fates. She would have shattered.”
Kal wondered if Rask knew his sister half as well as he claimed.
Whoever he’d grown up with was not the same female with whom Kal had recently become so enamored.
The woman he’d come to know was stubborn and privileged, yes, but she was also brave, intelligent, passionate, and kind.
There was no point in Kal arguing with Kitty’s brother on her behalf.
Rask would have to witness her resilience for himself.
“Come on,” Kal said, digging his heels into the gray’s sides. “If you can keep up, we’ll be back before midday tomorrow.”
Midday came and went, and they were still an hour outside the city.
Rask’s bay mare was hardy but slow. Kal ground his molars as he reigned in his mount yet again.
The poor creature underneath him danced and tossed his head, bearing the full weight of Kal’s tension.
He was exhausted, his body craving sleep, and his traitorous brain insisted upon torturing him with visions of Kitty’s luscious body spread across his mattress.
By the time they entered Meress’s northern border, Kal’s jaw ached from hours of clenching.
He nodded curt greetings at passing shurii as they wove through the city.
It was still another thirty-minute ride to his house on the eastern outskirts.
He flexed stiff fingers. The gray snorted as Kal forced his way around a man carting roofing materials at a leisurely crawl.
Rask spurred his mare up next to Kal’s gelding. “What’s on your mind, Kaine? You haven’t spoken hardly a word the entire ride back to town.”
It wasn’t a matter of what; it was a matter of who.
“Are you truly that sour about me being at the Cypress Post? You’ve never balked at my having a good time. You were a day late. I needed a distraction.”
Kal pinned his friend with a hostile glare. “Forgive me. How could I not have considered your needs? It must have been terribly difficult for you to sit on your hands while I risked my neck.”
Rask’s eyes widened at Kal’s enmity. “You think I’m not grateful? I can hardly contain my excitement at seeing Railah again. However, I might remind you that I would have gone to retrieve her myself. It was you who insisted upon a lone endeavor.”
Yes, and one Rask would have never successfully completed.
They both knew it. Kal was simply too tired to argue the fact.
He scratched at the stubble on his jaw and stretched his neck.
“It has been a harrowing journey. I haven’t slept in two days.
I’m just…” Smitten? Sexually frustrated? Illogically possessive? “Weary.”
“You’re moments from rest, my friend,” Rask reassured. “Soon, my sister will be returned to my care and no longer be your concern. You’ll have more than earned a lengthy respite. Reese likes you. She’d be more than willing to alleviate some of that tension.”
The words were meant to relieve something within Kal.
Instead, they filled him with lead. As anxious as he was to get home, the truth of the matter was that he dreaded their arrival.
He didn’t want to relinquish Kitty to her brother’s care.
He didn’t want to be alone in his house with her scent on his clothes, couch, and linens.
He wanted more of her, not less, and not someone else.
Damn him for a selfish cad. The longing was misery.
Kal and Rask rode past the stable he and Kitty had visited upon their arrival. He caught sight of Bandor leading a bedraggled mount with sweat-stained flanks toward a paddock. The stablemaster waved as they passed and pulled the poor beast to a halt.
“Kalevar!” he hollered after them.
Kal closed his eyes and worried that they might not reopen. He eased the gray to a reluctant standstill. The wiry man approached from the side, tugging along the horse that looked as exhausted as Kal felt. “What is it, Bandor?”
If the stablemaster was taken aback by Kal’s brevity, he did not show it. “A lady arrived asking after you. Not two hours ago.”
Kal perked. “Kitty?”
Rask, having noticed Kal’s delay, pulled up alongside him. “Who’s Kitty?”
Bandor looked quizzically between the two of them. Kal squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Was it the woman who accompanied me yesterday?”
“No. This poor half-dead creature is hers,” Bandor said, gesturing to the horse he led. “She said she came all the way from the capital. She said it was urgent that she find you. ‘Imperative,’ was the word she used.”
“Our sentries just let a random female from Asteros stroll past our borders?” Rask’s voice held a note of disdain.
Bandor turned his worried attention to the blond male. “Of course not. She gave the code. She requested Kal specifically.”
“A name, Bandor,” Kal pressed. “Did she give you a name?”
The stablemaster shook his head. “I’m afraid not. She was reluctant to share more. Penn, the lad, said you’d gone north and would return today or the next. He showed her to Palaver’s.”
Meress’s largest inn. On the opposite fucking side of town. Kal suppressed a growl. Kitty would have to wait another hour or so. He nodded his thanks to Bandor and kicked his mount more firmly than intended, whirling to the left. He didn’t look back to see if Rask followed.
Twenty minutes later, Kal slipped out of the saddle and pounded up the steps to Palaver Lodge. Nearly every head turned in his direction when he threw open the front door. He searched the faces of each occupant, a few recognizable, but none of significance.
Then he turned and saw her. The shock of seeing the familiar face sent a tremor through Kal’s solid frame like a lightning strike through a ship’s mast. There, seated at a booth in the far corner, away from the meager crowd, was Santhe.
The intensity of Kal’s gaze drew her attention. He was halfway to her when she shot up from the table and flung herself at him. Kal barely caught her.
“Oh, bless the stars,” she cried. “They told me you were here, but I didn’t believe it until now.”
“What in the name of the gods are you doing here?” he demanded.
Santhe raised watery eyes to his. “I had to find you. He made me come find you.”
He. Kal’s grip on her tightened. “Is Cinah—”
“Fine,” she said, swallowing thickly. “At least, he was when I left him. The city’s locked down. I barely made it out, Kal. Cinah is worried. He said something terrible must have—”
Behind them, Rask pushed through the front door. Santhe must have seen him past Kal’s shoulder. When she did, an unreadable expression settled over her features.
“Santhe, why are you here?” Kal urged, reclaiming her attention.
Wide brown eyes met his black ones. “Railah.”
Her one word had the beast inside him stirring. He leaned in closer. “What about Railah?”
Santhe turned mournful. “Then, you don’t know.”
Rask found them and pulled up short. “Is that…? Santhe? What in the seven hells are you doing here?”
Kal had the sudden urge to strike his fair friend if just to be rid of the distraction. “What about her, Santhe?”
Santhe’s eyes didn’t leave his face, but her voice lowered to a hush. “It’s not her.”
Rask looked between them, confused.
“What are you saying?” Kal bit off the words. “She’s here.”
Santhe shook her head, features twisting with concern and…fear. “No,” she said more firmly. “It’s not her. Our message never reached her at the Starlight Lodge. Cinah’s man was forced to burn the missive. We were too late.”
Kal’s mind spun in fury. Cold, the kind that killed, seeped into his bones.
“Kalevar.” She leaned in, fisting the front of his cloak, her voice a hoarse whisper. “You took the wrong woman.”
If she said anything else, Kal did not hear. Could not hear past the roaring in his skull.