Bloodring (Rogue Mage #1)

Bloodring (Rogue Mage #1) Page 14

My own lust was again smothered, banked beneath coals of chicken hunting. Watching what would happen to me if I let mage-heat free had been an effective deterrent. Flapping my arms, chasing after Thaddeus, and begging to be mounted was not my idea of a fun memory to carry around after the heat wore off.

At eight ten, while the townsfolk were leaving for work or the continued early-melt celebration on the far side of the Toe, I changed clothes. I hadn't worn my black battle uniform in years, not bothering to practice as I should, hours a day, dressed for war. There was no one to demand long, exhausting sessions. No one to care how I dressed when practicing savage-chi alone. I never troubled to wear either the loose practice dobok or the tighter battle dobok, never strapped all the blades in place. But the uniform had been created for warfare against demons, the padding on the tight arms and legs repelling the scrape of spawn claws, rings for securing blades on arms and shins and along the spine from neck to shoulders. There were rings for saltwater bombs, Dead Sea water, seraph feathers, an ax, nunchucks - even places for holstered guns, not that I had any weapons but blades.

The battle dobok still fit, though I hadn't worn it in more than ten years. In the mirror over the vanity table, I watched myself dress in the uniform, making certain all the seams were straight, inserting the throwing blades into the straps properly, so they slid free easily. I had a moment of uncertainty about which wrist blade went on which arm, and which were the right and left shin blades, but I finally got them all in place. A blade was strapped into the collar of the dobok, the hilt hidden in my braided hair. The pommel, within easy reach, was protection from being beheaded or chewed on from the rear.

My amulets were fully charged, and I stood over the damaged prime amulet, for the first time regretting the harm I had done it in a fit of temper. At one time it was my best protection, the amulet powerful enough to keep my neomage attributes blanked without continuous effort. Now it was barely alive, only a weak energy pulsing in its heart. I had tried once to charge it anyway, and the power slid right through it into another amulet.

I pulled on layered socks and battle boots, lacing them tightly before securing them with the Velcro straps. I was ready. Gabriel's tears, this was stupid. But I was going anyway. I bent one last time over the Book of Workings, from which I had refined two incantations, committing them to memory rather than taking the extra time to load them into a stone. I studied the notations I had made, then closed and shelved the book.

I drank a liter of springwater, hooked a second liter to my belt, and pocketed a handful of stones that had been charged with extra strength from the amethyst. Satisfied, I took up the walking stick and opened the stained-glass window at the back of the loft, the huge window that once was used to swing in hay bales and feed. It faced the woods north of town and the Trine. I grabbed the plumbing drainage pipe and shimmied down to the old alleyway. I checked the time. I had less than two hours to see what was in the woods and still get to work before opening. At a slow jog, I passed the stables and trotted into the trees.

As soon as I left behind areas where humans ventured, I paused, leaned against a tree trunk for balance, and opened my mage-sight. Holding it open, I blended a small - minuscule - skim. The impressions were a barrage, but this time I was prepared, and they didn't overpower me. The nausea I experienced the first time I tried a scan was now more like a case of indigestion than like the need-to-hurl nausea in the church.

The hillside north of town was a glowing fairyland of colors and scents. The snow and sunlight were a sickly yellow. The trees were dark with melt. The rocks that rose from the snow were bright blues, pinks and gold, bright with creation energy. The air smelled warm, almost like spring, with the scents of sap and leaves. The musk of a predator cat was carried on the light wind. The scent of sulfur overlaid it all like smoke low on the ground. I wasn't surprised that the sulfur seemed strongest near my spring. Something was hunting me.

Old brick and stone stabbed up from the earth to mark the ruins of Pre-Ap homes. Rectangular depressions of basements half filled with detritus and soil, made a mad dash almost as dangerous as standing still. Abandoning human speed, I shut down all but the mind-skim, rushing twenty feet uphill, sweeping my sight over the landscape. I was alone, but others had been here. The stones at my spring were fully exposed, the snowmelt well advanced. Around it, the forest was dripping, running with water that trickled like tiny bells, but the ground wasn't completely bare except for where I stood. There were hundreds of footprints, the reek of ammonia, the stronger scent of sulfur, and the harsh smell of brimstone, fear, and sweat that clung to the denizens of the deeps. The reek of the netherworld, remembered from nightmares. Cramming the ancient fears deep inside, I searched for the things that were hunting me.

Circling my spring, still angling laterally across the base of the Trine, I counted three trails into the hills, two that led vaguely east and one that led west, all moving north. Shifting my search grid up the mountain, I followed each trail for several hundred yards, coming upon the half-buried, burned remains of an old fire truck, its hose in a pile. Far above, the grade changed from an easy hike to nearly vertical as hill became cliff, foliage thinned, and shattered rock rose toward the sky, the raw, blasted peak the result of Mole Man's battle.

The sun climbed, throwing shadows across the forest floor, through the tangled branches overhead. The snaps and spits that signaled snow melting, and the tinkle of running water were the only sounds. I bent over tracks, several different sets, overlaying one another. As I expected, the tracks were not from a single type of creature, but from at least three categories: one that wore boots like a human, one the pad of a midsized hunting cat, its paws as large as my spread hand, and the others from barefoot, three-toed spawn. Strangely, very strangely, all the spawn tracks seemed to be from a single beast. I knelt in the slushy snow and examined its tracks. It had a V-shaped scar on one right footpad. Both the spawn prints and boot prints reeked of Darkness.

The spawn had spent its time in the periphery of the spring, hiding, its footprints winding behind trees, behind boulders, in depressions of old foundations. When I triangulated its positions, its focus was clearly on the spring, not on the business and loft. It was watching the boot wearer as that creature had watched me. At no point did the spawn shift into a position where it could see my loft window. That made me pause. What could make a hungry spawn ignore the scent of mage and humans? Spawn were always hungry.

I studied the boot prints, thinking about the spelled beings who had attacked Rupert. Second-unforeseen? Humans? My mage-sight had been wide open. Had they been as well glamoured as Audric? Their boots had tracked as human. Was this one such as they, or was this the track of a daywalker?

When I was sure that no Darkness was on the hill, I walked along the treeless length of an abandoned road, back to my spring, and surveyed the ground, looking for clues to my hunter. Resting against a tree trunk, my mage-sight still open, I tried a deeper blended scan and this time nearly fell over. The kaleidoscopic impressions were an avalanche of sights, smells, sounds, and knowings. Over it all rode a taste of evil.

At the impact, I dropped the walking stick. Racked with nausea, I fought the overload as a cold sweat broke out on my body. I tied to parse my reactions into fact, intuition, and fancy. I scented, felt, tasted, the spawn, wholly evil, wholly mindless, hunting for prey, wanting to eat, to rend, to destroy. But the Darkness that had lain in wait behind the trees had been watching the other, the shod being, the daywalker, following him here at night. I could feel its purpose. It had been spying on the walker.

The daywalker, however... With my senses totally open, the daywalker didn't smell like the spawn. Instead of the scent of pure Darkness, the walker was a mad conglomeration of evil and something else. I pulled in the scan, concentrating on that one odd note of reality, and opened my vision wider. And I had it, that something that was familiar to me, yet not from my childhood terror. Something I had only recently smelled for the first time, and then I had only unconsciously noted it.

Holding to the tree, I drew the aroma of the beast into my mind, into my nose, knowing that while I used my senses like this, I was totally exposed and vulnerable. If I had missed something in my search, I was open to attack. I was dinner and a mate, maybe both at the same time. I had heard the tales.

Forcing out rising fear, I sought to identify the trace scent. Suddenly I knew. It was the scent of human mated to something else. The something else was seraph. The scent of the High Host. The smell of holiness. Thaddeus Bartholomew smelled like this.

I dropped my blended scan, closing myself off from the energies around me, the influences soaked into the ground, permeating the air. I fell on the wet, bare soil at the base of the tree, landing hard on my walking stick and a root.

The world swirled around me and I leaned forward in a violent retch, emptying my stomach. A sour, horrid taste, but a mage taste, not the taste of Darkness or of kylen.

When my stomach settled enough to allow me to reposition, I pulled the walking stick out from under me and shifted my back against the trunk. Twisting the top off the liter of water, I swished some around my mouth and spat it out, repeating until I could drink and keep it down.

When I could stand, I braced against a large white oak, branches wide and bare, a tree my earth mage friends from childhood would have loved. It made a dandy prop for a stone mage. I brushed the detritus off my uniform, feeling the wet that soaked through to my skin at thigh and butt. It was snowmelt, water that had passed through sky and air. I could feel it draining me, my power evaporating away with the water.

Making my way to the spring, intent on splashing myself with springwater, charged from deep inside the stone mountain, I watched my feet, careful not to twist an ankle or lose my balance again. I wasn't watching where I placed my hand to brace myself.

At the spring, I crouched on a slab of marble, one of several large rocks that ringed the fountainhead, and settled the walking stick across my thighs as I cupped water over my wet clothes. The cold stung like a brand but instantly stopped the leaching of power from my flesh. The temperatures were above freezing and might reach fifty today, but on the hillside, under the cover of the trees, it was cold. When I stood from the spring, I rested my hand on a boulder for balance.

From the stone, Darkness reached out and touched me; claws and silken flesh raked gently down my arm. The scent of blood, drying puddles and violent sprays of old blood, of death and terror, and the cleansing scent of sage snared me. Words, words like music - as if the demented in hell had broken their chains and formed a chorus, all singing notes to a different song. Bizarre words. Meant for me.

"Welcome, mage," it sang. "I seek you."

Its hands slid up my bare arms, daring, wanton. Heat blossomed in my belly.

"I seek and I desire you, only you. Seraphs will not touch you. Will not love you. In their orderly, mannerly, obedient way, they will never offer themselves to you. Never."

Unable to move, unable to pull away, I felt the brush of lips along my collarbone, moving slowly up the side of my neck, raising prickles of desire. I looked for the thing that touched me, but I was alone, naked in the woods, on the hillside. A warm breeze drifted across my skin. Charged stone, my mind whispered. Charged with an incantation shaped and formed just for me. And, Incubus...

"I can bring you to heights of passion," it said, making me shiver with want. "I can show you the true power of the Book of Workings. I can give you control over your gift without the needless Enclave instruction and practice and time-consuming study." The hillside and the mountain above it burst forth with power, the power that was hidden there, waiting for me, the vision supplied by the charged stone. The spring beside me flowed with raw energy, blue and scarlet power from the center of the earth. Below it roared a volcano of power, the sound rocking me to my marrow, the thrum of strength, the force, the raw, raging might, deep in the earth below me. It burned, that molten mantle seeking an outlet. I was nearly overcome. Nearly reached out to it. Nearly took what could be mine.

But it was too much, too strong, an ocean of promise making me drunk on power just viewing it. The image of might developed an imperfection, a minuscule crack. The cold of a breeze over melting snow brushed my face. I forced my little finger to move. The shackles of the incantation loosened. Around me, the vision continued.

The incubus's hands and mouth touched, stroking along my sides and belly. Yes," it whispered. "More power and strength and delights of the flesh than you can imagine. Come to me. I desire you, you above all others. I desire you. Come to me. Come," its breath murmured on my bare throat. "I invite you; I desire you. I am here for you. For you alone."

As it spoke, I eased my hand away from the stone. Reached under my tunic, the tunic I could feel only with my hand, not with the flesh of my body, and gripped the large stone bear. Its back was a hump of greenish jade fading into black at its legs, solidly planted and strong. I placed it over the pocket holding the rough shards of stone and drew strength from them all. I drained the bear and the stones in an instant, paltry power compared to what was being offered in the images. Yet it was enough to draw my blade. The walking stick's sheath fell to my feet. The vision shattered.

From behind came the shushing sound of last year's wet leaves, and I whirled, lifting my blade high, drawing a blade with my left hand as I moved. Before me was a young man, too beautiful and alluring to be mere flesh. Sulfur burned my nostrils. The thing pretending to be human squatted low to the ground. I swept into the cat stance, ready for attack. It was watching me, unmoving, hands limp, dangling between its knees. It tilted its head to the side, demon-fast. I saw all this in a single heartbeat. Time dilated.

In the following heartbeat, I focused narrowly on it. It had long black hair braided into a single plait, stones interwoven in the strands. Loose hair drifted slowly in the cold breeze. It was wearing dark blue, the color of periwinkles, tight pants that molded to every line of its thighs and buttocks. Its shirt was a lighter shade of the same color, tight to its body, but with loose sleeves, the collar open halfway down its chest, fine hairs visible in the deep V. Its eyes were a liquid blue and threw back light like polished labradorite in the sunlight.

My heart beat thrice; time snapped back. I took a breath. The beast smelled wrong, but it looked human, in its twenties, its face unlined. And still it watched as if curious, unmoving, clearly considering itself safe.

The heat of battle flamed up in me and I advanced, shouting, blades flashing in the winter sun. Its lips tilted up and I stopped, stunned by the beauty of that smile, the sadness, the melancholy. "Will you go to him?" the daywalker asked. "Will you take the offering?"

"Never," I said. I pulled the last of the bear's strength and transferred it to the bloodstone of the walking-stick hilt in my right palm.

"She didn't think so. She will be pleased." The smile faded. "You understand that I have no choice."

"All beings have choice."

"Not us. We never did." It stood in a single, fluid motion, demon-fast. Faster than a mage could ever hope to move. "I'm sorry," it said. "She said I should say that if I had to hurt you." And it charged.

I slammed the gathered force against him with a single thought. Twelve feet from me, the daywalker staggered and slid to the ground, one knee dragging a long trench through the top-soil and old leaves.

Left-handed, I hurled the throwing blade at its heart, drew the kris in the same instant and raced toward the daywalker. Surprise scored its face. Fear. It opened its mouth. It shifted. My thrown blade whistled past. My sword blade descended.

But the beast was gone. Whirling, blades high, I searched, feet planted firmly in the wet earth. The daywalker with the beautiful face and shining eyes was gone. I strode quickly in a widening circle, blades at the ready. Thirty feet beyond where we had stood was my throwing blade. Sheathing the kris, I scooped up the knife, the wicked point angling back behind me.

The rage beat in my veins, screamed within me. My fighting skills hadn't been enough to kill it. The daywalker had moved faster than lightning, faster than my eyes could trace. Faster than I could react. I wanted its blood. I had let it get away.

I drew on the walking-stick hilt, the power of bloodstone filling me. I touched the rounded rock holding the incantation. Little was left. Yet the conjure that had crafted the enticement was crisp and neat, and I breathed it into my mind. I would recognize the pattern of the temptation if I ever saw such again. It was a powerful, intricate web.

I had no salt but would use what was handy. With the heel of one boot, I traced an irregular ring in the soil, a big circle around the spring, the cistern, and the rocks that encompassed it all. Thumbing the jade elephant that stored a basic charmed circle, I stepped inside, then scuffed the ring closed, feeling the power of the circle snapping into place. With mage-sight, I studied the source of the spring bubbling out of the ground, a little burble of underwater motion, flowing unfrozen to the cistern. It glistened, a crackling blue of purity. I ran my sight across the rocks, the branches, the soil beneath my feet. Only the rounded rock had been polluted. I sheathed my short blade and scooped up a handful of water.

Without my having to think about them, the words were there, the words I had taken from the Book of Workings and refined for my own use. On the fly, I changed one of the incantations and added it as a prologue line to another one. I knew the incantation was right. Knew it deep inside where my heart beat with anger. I said, "Cleanse and purify stone from Darkness."

I dumped water over the stone and it hissed with a scent of sulfur smoke. The clean scent of sage followed, as if carried on the breeze. I flipped the sword upright, blade pointing to the sky, gripped the weapon by its pommel, and quoted the incantation I had prepared. Using the might of scripture, I began, "He shall be for a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense..."

With the walking-stick handle, I tapped the stone that had held the incubus's incantation, replacing it with my own. My conjure slid into place as if it belonged there, as if the stone waited for it. I moved around the spring, still speaking, smearing rocks with wet fingers and tapping each stone circling the spring, the powerful water I used daily to restore me, water that could have been compromised, contaminated. Water that was now both protected and set to trap and trace an interloper.

When I had walked around the spring, tapping the snare into place, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a rock crystal, a yellow quartz, as pretty as sunshine. Repeating the incantation, I filled the stone with power. At the last word, I tossed the crystal into the spring, directly into the bottom, where the water moved the smooth soil as it poured in a steady gush. The quartz landed in the center of the movement, jumping once, twice, tumbling across the bottom of the spring, out of the eddy. It lay still, picking up the glint of yellow sunlight, like a promise to me, to defend and succeed. I was going to battle.

I broke the circle and stepped back. Drained, I sat on the nearest rock, shivering.

Back at my loft, I found the energy to climb up the drainage pipe, and tumbled into the apartment, wet, exhausted, and frozen through. I would be late to work, but I had to get warm. I drew a bath, hanging my dobok to dry, placing my weapons in a pile on the table. Sliding into the heated water, I lay there until it covered my shoulders and chin.

Slowly, warmth trickled back, and I found myself reviewing the incident. In a morning filled with weird, the weirdest thing of all was the daywalker. It had smelled of both good things and bad. It had smelled of Darkness and kylen, and kylens smelled like seraphs. It had acted unhappy to be attacking me. It gave me fair warning. And, weirdest of all, it had apologized. I examined the conversation from every angle. Rumors and legend said it took both Darkness and Light to create a daywalker. Kylen and spawn? Some other bizarre combination?

Long after the distant kirk bell tolled the hour, long after ten, I got out of the bath and dressed, sliding into brightly toned clothes that spoke of spring, because I knew that was what the weather called for. But underneath, I layered on silk long-johns and an extra T-shirt to combat the cold that clung to my bones. My hair had dried in an ungainly snarl, and I pulled it out of the braid, forcing a comb through it before securing it in a twist on my crown.

I cleaned, oiled, and put the battle blades away in the long black weapons case I kept under the bed. To the casual observer, the case looked like a leather suitcase with special compartments for stones and fine jewelry. In the early years I had used it for that on occasion, taking the case when I traveled to a swap meet or a show, disguising its extra weight with stock. But it was an ungainly shape, it was heavy, and I had never needed the blades, so I had stopped taking it with me and had tucked it away out of sight. Now, I set the case beside the small getaway bag at the front door. If I took off in a hurry, it would go with me.

I paused at the door, my eyes on the case, a faint tremor of vertigo seizing me. I had forgotten about the blade case when I'd packed earlier and was pleased I remembered it. But something was wrong. A troubling dream memory of labradorite and periwinkle blooms. I had thrown a blade. Why? Something was wrong... That thought too slipped away.

Unforgivably late, I damped my neomage attributes on the doorknob and clattered down the stairs to work. The shop had customers, and flashing an apologetic smile, I rushed to help the one Jacey pointed to, her professional mien never faltering. The warm temperatures had brought out shoppers, and business was brisk all day in both Thorn's Gems and Audric's storefront. Twice Rupert went to the back, ducking through the narrow, low-ceilinged hallway between the shop and the workroom, and brought out fresh stock. Because I had come in late, I worked through lunch while my partners took a break. I drank a fruit smoothie and kept going.

Over the past two hundred years, the building housing Thorn's Gems had been several different businesses. Originally the town livery, it had also been a furniture factory, a store, and a restaurant, among others. Now the shop was divided into sections, with the front third of the old building totally renovated for customers. It had a copper-toned, pressed-tin ceiling, old-brick walls we had stripped and left bare, stained, three-variety-wood wainscot salvaged from a condemned building, and a hundred-fifty-plus-year-old wide-board hickory floor.

The storefront was comfortable, with a freestanding gas-log stove in the center, on which simmered teapot and percolator. Around it were the chairs where customers could sit while repairs were made or gifts were wrapped, savoring a bit of warmth in the logs and a cup of their preference. Along the walls were antique wood-and-glass display cabinets, placed so the partners could easily get behind them to serve customers. The rear two-thirds of the shop were mostly unchanged since the 1950s, when the building had been a furniture factory. Its space was taken up with a stockroom, a door at the back opening onto what had once been a service alley, two kilns, and the cluttered workspace.

During a lull in business, at around three o'clock, I felt a flicker of heat curl tightly within me. I knew the dratted kylen was nearby even before he stepped into the shop. He glanced at me, then at each of my partners, nodding to Rupert, man to man. Something about that little nod irritated me, and I started to steam. Thadd didn't notice my ire, tucking his hands into his pockets as he meandered around. He was dressed in jeans, flannel shirt, and Western boots, soles scuffing the floor as he studied the displays with their busts and acrylic stands shaped like posed hands and feet. Each stand was draped with necklaces, bracelets, anklets, and rings. Small statues and carvings took up corner space in each display unit. Thadd turned over a price tag and his brows went up. Thorn's Gems is pricey, but our designs deserve it.

I finished with my customer, bagged her purchases, and made change. After she left, I leaned across the case, watching the kylen cop. He examined a selection of garnets and a collection of emerald jewelry, the stones dug from the nearby hills, and some carnelian and smoky quartz that was set with red and white bamboo into primitive designs. Thadd lingered over the citrine and peridot and studied a necklace of chunky moss agate nuggets that I favored. When he reached me, he didn't pause, but glanced at leopard-skin jasper and malachite and moved on. That ticked me off again, though I couldn't have said why.

Rupert and Jacey watched the cop, as well, a wary look in Rupert's eyes as he rang up a sale, curiosity in Jacey's. She polished the glass-topped display where her customer had left a smear. Behind Thadd's back, she glanced at me, brows raised. I shrugged in reply.

When he reached the front door again, the kylen cop paused and took in the whole room. His eyes fell on the framed needlepoint above the door to my loft. Few people even noticed it. The frame blended into the brick, and the silk pattern was beige and brown. Thadd stepped to the doorway and studied the saying stitched with fancy letters into the silk. A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WILL STILL DRAW BLOOD: the prophecy given by Lolo when my twin and I were born. The rose and the thorn, working together as a single unit, a warrior unlike any other. Meaningless once Rose was killed and I was unable to live with my own kind.

Thadd stepped aside for the last customer to leave, and turned his gaze to Rupert. When the door swung closed, I said, "What do you want?"

"To go up on the Trine and search for the amethyst," he said to Rupert.

Up on the Trine? Now? I was pretty sure my mouth dropped open. Rupert looked just as incredulous.

"I know you have access to a horse," Thadd said, "and I've rented one. We can leave right now and be back before dark."

"In case you haven't noticed," Rupert said, "I'm working."

"No one's in the store right now. The girls can handle it."

"Girls?" Jacey and I said at the same instant.

"Girls?" I repeated. "We are not his shopgirls, his children, his employees, or his harem. We aren't just passing the time of day in here between tea and the garden club. This is a business. We all work." I rounded the display cabinet, fighting the heat that was trying to rise, letting it branch off and fuel anger. "Maybe it doesn't seem like valuable work to a big-time VIP, like a Hand of the Law, but it's important to our bellies, our creditors, and our retirements. Rupert isn't going anywhere. Girls?" I said, the last word a bit shrill.

Audric stepped from his storefront and leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed. I'd been aware of him all day, his shop just as busy with sunny-day bargain hunters as Thorn's Gems. Now he looked bored and amused. I figured the bored part was just for show. "You really shouldn't call them girls, you know," he said. "Partners, women, ladies, maybe, but not girls. They get riled. Now you have to bring them chocolate to make them happy."

"The man has chocolate?" Jacey asked, putting a fist on one hip. "If he has chocolate, he can call me anything he wants."

"What about me? Do I get chocolate too?" Rupert asked. "Queens are girls."

Exasperated, Thadd blew out a gust of air. "I don't have chocolate. Allow me to rephrase. I need you to saddle a horse and go with me to search for the amethyst."

"On horseback?" Rupert asked, hand over his heart in dramatic horror.

"The shop has a horse," he repeated. "I asked."

"Correction. Thorn has a horse. A huge, vicious beast, ten feet tall, hooves the size of dinner plates and teeth that belong on a dinosaur. No way in Habbiel's celestial citadel will I get on top of it. No."

Jacey walked around to the central sitting area and plopped down into the chair she liked, pulled a piece of jewelry from a pocket, and started beading. "Rupert is afraid of horses," she said, eyes downcast.

"I am not afraid of horses. I simply hate them."

"Rupert is afraid of horses," she repeated. "Deathly afraid."

"Maybe a little afraid of them," he conceded. "Take Thorn. That horse likes her."

"Yeah," Jacey said, a small smirk on her face, eyes on the bracelet to hide her amusement. "Take Thorn. She needs a good, hard ride."

Her double entendre wasn't remotely veiled, and Audric tried to cover a laugh with a cough. Rupert snickered. "Hey, wait a minute," I said, mortified, unable to disguise a blush. I wasn't going up on the Trine, not with a Hand of the Law, someone who didn't know about Ciana's visitor, a human who didn't know what I was, didn't know about mage-lust, and yet who had a nasty, unhealthy dose of kylen genes in his makeup. A man who probably couldn't fight worth a flip. With a human along, I couldn't fight either, unless I wanted to face the repercussions. We'd be toast. "I thought this was a business and we were all working."

"If a Hand of the Law wants one of us to go stone hunting on horseback, then it needs to be our rock hound and lapidary, who happens to own the horse in question," Rupert said, still laughing. "Besides, it looks like the rush is over. We can handle the last few hours. Question is"  - he turned back to Thadd - "can you handle our Thorn?"

Could he be any more indelicate? I wanted to drop through the floor in shame. There was no doubt in my mind that my best pals had been discussing my sex life - or lack of it.

"Go have fun," Jacey said, glancing up at me, smug. "All the fun you want. Or you can stay here and let us hassle you. Take your pick."

I shifted a humiliated gaze to Thadd, not quite sure how things had come to this or how I had been maneuvered into this expedition. With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked from the room and up the stairs to change. I didn't want to go, didn't want to be alone with the cop, but I figured if I stayed any longer, they'd drop the innuendos, and simply ask Thadd to sleep with me.