Читать книгу A Warrior's Desire - Pamela Palmer - Страница 10

Tarrys grabbed his arm. “Get behind me! A black trimor will kill you.”

“Like hell.” Charlie pulled his knife as he stared at the sea of neon-green, watching as another chipmunk levitated into the air. For an instant … only an instant … a catlike creature about the size of a German shepherd, black with three white horns sticking out of his forehead, appeared to eat the little guy. Then both disappeared. “I’m really seeing him, right?”

“Yes. They’re invisible until they snatch their prey … or attack. And there’s more than one.” She stepped away from him and lifted her bow. “I see four. Tell me if you see more.”

Four? He felt as if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but yeah, now that she mentioned it, he was seeing things in his peripheral vision—a flash of black appearing for a second, then disappearing.

Beside him, Tarrys began shooting, arrow after arrow. He thought about doing the same, but knew she had the best chance of striking one of those creatures.

Her movements were swift and graceful, edged with a desperation that did little to reassure him as she spun, shooting in every direction. They were surrounded, the trimors working at the edges of the chipmunk rug. But the black trimors never stayed visible long enough for one of Tarrys’s arrows to hit its mark. Charlie wondered if he’d have been more effective with a gun, but doubted it. By the time he saw the creatures, they were gone.

“Got one!” Tarrys crowed even as she continued to shoot. The one she’d shot fell, an arrow through one eye. A moment later, it disappeared.

“Charlie, I’m nearly out of arrows. I’ll need your quiver.”

He pulled it off his back and waited, handing it to her the moment she shot the last arrow from her own. With remarkable grace, she dropped the first and slung the second quiver onto her back, the arrows flying in an almost fluid continuity.

A second cat went down with an arrow through the neck, followed by Tarrys’s chilling words.

“I’m out of arrows.”

“Back to back,” he ordered. Though what good it would do when they couldn’t see the creatures, he wasn’t sure. “Unless you have a better idea?”

“A trimor paralyzes its larger prey, or its enemies, by goring them with its central horn and pumping them full of poison. Neither the goring nor the poison will automatically kill me. They will you. While I draw their attack—”

“No way.”

Tarrys continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

“—you kill them with your knife. You’ll have to be fast.”

“They could still kill you.” Her plan went against every instinct he possessed.

She met his gaze, violet eyes flashing with steely determination. “If we’re not very quick and very lucky, they’re going to kill us both. I may heal fast, but even I can’t survive being eaten.”

Dammit. His pride protested, but he took a deep breath and forced it aside. She might be small and female, but she was all warrior and this might be the only chance they got. They were going to do this together or not at all.

“How will you draw their attack when you can’t see them?”

“Noise. Stay close behind me.”

As Tarrys lunged forward with a high-pitched scream, Charlie followed. Sure enough, a moment later a cat appeared, in full leap, his head down. Before Charlie could react, that long, razor-sharp center horn gored Tarrys clean through the chest.

Charlie went berserk. Horror screamed through him as he flew at the cat, digging his knife deep in the creature’s throat, ripping through muscle and sinew. Warm blood spurted from the animal, mixing with the blood that bloomed on Tarrys’s gown. The cat fell, taking Tarrys with it, fully impaled on its horn.

As he reached for her, the second cat appeared, leaping for him. His fury found an outlet and lent speed to his reflexes as he shoved his knife upward into the attacking cat’s jaw, lodging it deep in the animal’s skull. That deadly center horn caught on the fabric of his tunic, but didn’t break through.

Close. Too close.

The cat fell dead at his feet then disappeared a second later, leaving his knife lying, bloody, on the ground.

He snatched the knife and crouched, watching for more cats. But the green carpet had passed them by and nothing else moved.

Finally he whirled back to Tarrys and knelt beside her, turning her gently onto her back. The trimor gone, she now lay on a bed of dark pink flowers as if she’d been laid out for burial. A bloom of blood the size of his palm covered her chest. And her eyes, those vibrant, violet eyes, stared at nothing, unblinking, her expression frozen in a mask of pain. A mask of death.

Charlie felt as if he’d been sucker punched, his heart skipping a beat, then racing faster than it had during the attack.

Tarrys was dead.

No. Not dead. Paralyzed. Wasn’t she? How in the hell was he supposed to know?

Lifting her hand, he pressed it between his own. Her flesh was warm and damp, the perfection marred by a faint green allover mottling, but that hardly told him anything. She could still be dead.

The thought went through him like a blade. She’d saved his life. If he’d come upon this scenario alone, it would be him lying on that bed of flowers. And he would be dead.

“Can you hear me, eaglet?”

No response, but he hadn’t really expected one. “I should have asked you how long the paralysis lasts. Or, hell, if there’s something I need to do to bring you out of it.” This place was filled with magic. What if the poison wasn’t a toxin so much as a curse? What if she was like Sleeping Beauty or something?

Charlie stared at her, at those lips parted with pain. What did he have to lose? It wasn’t like kissing her was any kind of hardship.

He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. Her scent filled his nostrils. Even totally unresponsive, she moved him, the feel of her damp mouth beneath his stirring something warm and exciting inside him.

When she didn’t respond, he pulled back and studied her, searching her eyes.

“It was worth a try,” he said with a shrug.

Something flickered in her eyes.

He squeezed her hand. “You’re aware, aren’t you? You know I just kissed you. Great. Now I really feel like an idiot. You know Sleeping Beauty, right? Probably not. Hell. She was awakened with a kiss. I thought it might work, though heaven knows I’m no Prince Charming.”

He was only digging himself deeper. “Right. Anyway …” Releasing her hand, he stood and surveyed the surrounding area, looking for anything else that might come after them. Those trimors were going to give him nightmares.

Comfortable that there was no imminent danger of the corporeal kind, he knelt once more beside Tarrys and took her hand again. Still warm, thank God.

“Are you in pain?”

As he stared into her eyes, he felt sure the answer was no. She wasn’t in pain. Her eyes, for all that they weren’t moving, were amazingly expressive.

“Will you recover?” Again, he thought the answer was yes. “Good. I’ll wait for you.” Now, he clearly saw distress. “What? You think I’m leaving you like this? Not a chance.”

He stretched out his legs and got comfortable, a sound of relief escaping his throat. It felt good to be off his feet.

“You know, eaglet, if it turns out you’re really dead and I just think I see emotions in your eyes, I’m going to feel like a real fool.” But watching her eyes, he grinned. “Except now you’re laughing at me.”

He lay down beside her, watching a pair of the green-and-white-striped snakes fly across the golden dome as he pulled her slender hand against his chest.

“I’m glad you came, Tarrys. It’s a hard thing to admit, but I’d be dead if you hadn’t.” He squeezed her hand, then rubbed her warm, soft skin with his thumb. “Sorry for pushing so hard. I thought you’d give up, but you’ve got the stamina of a marathon runner. Now I realize sending you away was the last thing I should have been doing. I hate Harrison’s being right even more than I hate being wrong.”

He rolled onto his elbow where he could see her eyes. “I do need your help.”

She blinked.

The realization jerked Charlie upright. “It’s wearing off.”

Her hand convulsed in his and he rubbed it as if improving her circulation would somehow make the poison wear off faster. Finally, she gasped in a deep, desperate breath of air, then coughed it out. The mottling, he noticed, was gone.

Charlie helped her sit up, bracing her with an arm around her slim shoulders as the coughing fit slowly subsided.

“I’m glad you warned me about the paralysis or I might have had you buried by now.”

Tarrys looked up at him, her violet eyes shuttering her emotions as they hadn’t when she was paralyzed. “You shouldn’t have waited with me.”

“Didn’t you hear me when I was talking to you?” He’d already had his half of this discussion.

“Yes, but you don’t understand. I can’t keep up with you.”

“You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“Barely. You don’t know what it’s been costing me to keep going. Even when I shot the trimors I was dizzy with exhaustion. I can’t keep up with your pace, Charlie.”

“I’ll slow down.”

“No.” Her expression turned earnest as she leaned forward. It was all he could do not to meet her halfway and taste those lips again. Lips that were now free to kiss him back.

“I came to help you, not hold you back,” she said. “You have to reach the princess. Your world is depending on you.”

“Tarrys …” He settled his hand on her jaw and rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “I can’t keep up that pace, either. I was being an ass. I thought if I pushed you hard enough, you’d beg off and tell me you had someplace else to go.”

“I don’t.”

“I know.” He took her hands and rubbed his thumbs over the soft skin of their backs, the friction going through him like electricity. His gut reaction was to pull her closer, but he felt a tension in her. A resistance. So he held her hands and met her gaze. Fell into her gaze. Why had he never noticed that her eyes were deep as the ocean, bottomless wells of violet? Why did she have this pull on him?

He dropped his gaze slightly, breaking the connection as he focused instead on her mouth. And totally forgot what he’d meant to say. That lower lip fascinated him. Just slightly too big in a way that sent shafts of heat firing through his body. All he wanted to do was taste it again.

But she was looking at him with misery in her eyes. His mind gave him a kick. She wasn’t fast enough. That’s what he’d meant to respond to.

He met her gaze. “You’re more than fast enough, Tarrys. What’s more, you’re tough. I admit I didn’t think you would be.” He gave her a self-deprecating grimace. “You don’t exactly look the part. But you’re a hell of a warrior. If you’d panicked when you saw those cats, we’d both be dead.” He shook his head. “You were amazing.”

He’d never spoken truer words. Not only had she kept going when, by her own admission, she’d been close to collapse. But she’d done what she must to save them, and trusted him to do the same.

She watched him uncertainly as if she wanted to believe his words and wasn’t quite sure she could.

Squeezing her hands, he released her. “Let’s pick up the arrows, get some water, then find a sheltered spot to take a break. We could both use a nap.”

They rose as one, then turned in opposite directions to search for the arrows. But his gaze kept going back to her, admiration rising inside him. He recognized in her that same rare strength he’d had to find in himself during SEAL training, the most physically grueling training in the U.S. military. To make it through, he’d had to learn to isolate the pain and discomfort and ignore them, a feat that had demanded a strength of will and spirit few people possessed.

Yet in this delicate-looking little female, he’d found both.

The realization humbled him. He’d long ago figured out that size had nothing to do with that kind of strength. Many of the best SEALs weren’t physically imposing men. But never would he have expected to find such toughness in such a small woman. Was it her race? Was this what the Marceils were all about?

Or was he simply beginning to understand Tarrys? Was he starting to see in her that same drive to win, no matter the circumstances, no matter the odds, that was in him? The reason he’d become a SEAL in the first place.

They’d make a good team. As he bent to pluck an arrow from the grass beside the stream, an odd sense of calm settled over him. Accepting her as his partner somehow soothed the ragged sense of chaos that had ridden him since he’d arrived in this place. He was a highly trained, skilled warrior used to being thrown into situations that were out of his control. But always with a team. Never alone. And the situations had been based in a world he understood. A world where the grass and flowers grew where they were planted and invisible animals didn’t attack from thin air. His skills had been honed in that world, not this.

Esria was unlike any place he’d ever imagined. Alone, he’d be lost. With Tarrys at his side, he might just stand a chance. Assuming he could get his growing attraction under control.

Tarrys had risked her freedom to come after him. She threw her heart into everything she did. Everything he knew about her told him the woman didn’t do casual. Neither did he when it concerned his missions. But when it came to relationships? He didn’t do serious.