SLOWLY, HE DRIFTED into consciousness, and his surroundings took shape around him. He was in bed… in a hotel room? Or Lainie’s room at her Pa’s house? But the white plastered walls of this room didn’t fit with his blurred recollection of the Banfrey ranch house.
Disjointed memories drifted through his mind. Burrett Banfrey’s face, but the face of an old woman, not a man; the last thing he remembered from before the world went dark and he was split in two. Banfrey’s mother, the mage grandmother Lainie had told him about? What did she have to do with anything?
Before that, he had been shot, he knew that much. Cold, darkness, pain, voices shrieking in agony obliterating everything else from his consciousness… He had heard those voices before, felt that pain. He searched through scraps of memory and came up with a cavern, a cave-in, Lainie’s soft, warm lips pressed against his. Sh’kimech, the word came to him. The ancient beings who lived beneath the earth of the Wildings. He had taken their power into himself that other time; had he done so again? He couldn’t remember; he didn’t think so.
It had started when he was shot. Could it be that the bullets had been made of Sh’kimech ore? Was that even possible? Remarkably effective, he remembered the old woman saying as she examined him. Lainie’s grandmother, bullets of Sh’kimech ore… More memories drifted through his mind, things he had seen and heard and felt while the part of him that was capable of understanding all of it had been shut behind that dark barrier. It all had to mean something, but he couldn’t make sense of it; his thoughts skittered away from him even as they formed.
He turned his attention to his body, assessing his condition. He still hurt, but it was a good pain, clean and honest, free of the cold, sick, screaming darkness that had filled every moment, waking and asleep. If it was the bullets, they must have been removed. The thought triggered memories of stabbing, cutting, tearing pain and the sound of his own screams; he flinched away from them, and they faded.
Now another memory came to him, a face that mattered to him more than anything else, though he hadn’t known who she was. Somehow, though, he had known she would make everything all right. Even when she had walked out of his prison without him, with hard words coming from her lips and thunder bursting from her hands, he had known he could trust her.
Oh, Lainie. Pain tore through him as though his heart was breaking. By all the gods, what hells had she been through? More words came back to him, She’s a clever girl, she’ll think of it herself. It had been a trap set for her, to what purpose he couldn’t begin to guess, and he remembered desperately willing her to stay away, to not come after him, to flee to safety on the other side of the world. But she had come for him, his brave, beautiful, magnificent Lainie, and somehow she had managed to get both him and herself out of the trap.
Lainie…
He didn’t know how long he had been asleep, but all at once he was tired of lying in bed. Or, at least, of lying in bed alone. He sat up, groaning as his stiff, aching body fought against the movement, and reached for the pants that had been left neatly folded on a chair near the bed.
* * *
LAINIE SAT CROSSLEGGED on the sofa in the front parlor, throwing down random combos from a Dragon’s Threes deck she had found on a side table. The cards were beautifully made, with the finest artwork she had ever seen on a deck, but they looked like they had been used and weren’t just for show, so she figured it would be all right to borrow them.
A full night and day had passed since she removed the block on Silas’s mind, and he still hadn’t stirred. She had eaten and slept and eaten again and helped with the chores, but now, with the day’s work done and the Coltor family retired to their bedrooms, there was nothing else to do but try to keep from worrying herself to death while she waited for him to wake up.
She threw down another three and figured up the points, trying to beat her high score. Behind her, a soft footfall sounded on the floor, then a hand caressed her hair. She dropped the cards and spun around; Silas was standing there behind the sofa.
Relief and joy burst inside her. “Silas!” She scrambled over the back of the sofa and threw her arms around him, tears filling her eyes.
He hugged her close to him. “Lainie, darlin’,” he said into her hair, his voice quiet and rough.
She wiped her eyes, then pulled back a bit and looked up into his face. He looked thin and worn down, and the new lines in his face were still there, but he stood straight, no longer hunched over in pain. His dark eyes were clear and bright, and she could see him in them, the Silas she knew, gazing down at her with a tenderness that made her heart ache.
She blinked back more tears; she couldn’t cry now, not now that he was awake and everything was all right again. Smiling up at him, she pushed his hair back from his face. “How are you feeling?”
The corner of his mouth bent up in a faint, tired grin. “Well enough. Come on.”
He took her hand and led her back to the bedroom. There, he shut the door, shuffled off his pants, and got back in bed, making room for her next to him.
She sat down beside him, still trying to push back the flood of emotion that threatened to reduce her to a quivering, helpless puddle. “Are you feeling better? Can I get you anything? Some food, or a drink of water, or –”
“Lainie.”
She forced a bright smile at him. “What is it?”
“You can stop now. It’s okay.”
“I just –” A lump swelled in her throat and more tears welled up in her eyes. She tried to blink them back. “I’m –”
He pulled her down onto his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her. “Hush. It’s okay now. My sweet girl’s had to be strong for too long.”
The last of her control crumbled away. She broke down sobbing against his chest while he stroked her hair and told her over and over how strong and brave she was and how glad he was that she had come for him. And she found that she couldn’t cry very much, after all, because he was safe and whole and they were together.
As Lainie fell still, Silas gently took her face between his hands and kissed her, long and hungrily. Months of pent-up desire and need flared to life inside her. Hastily, almost without thought, she pulled her clothes off and straddled him. She wept again, from joy this time, as she made love to him, and he reached up to her, brushing the tears from her face and caressing her hair. The sweet pleasure of their loving grew more intense and then burst inside her, glowing deep rose with the color of her magic.
Spent, she collapsed forward onto Silas’s chest and lay there for a long time, basking in the solid feel of his body and his warmth against her bare skin as his hands trailed slowly up and down her back.
And then she remembered. Better tell him now, she thought, before he got any surprises. “Silas, honey, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Hm?” His hands paused.
She raised herself up to look at him, her forearms propped on his chest, and took a deep breath. It was all right, she told herself; there was no reason to think he wouldn’t have wanted her to do what she had done. “When I fixed what they did to your mind, I also – I hope you don’t mind, I found the fertility block, and I undid it.”
His eyes widened and he jerked as though to sit up. “But – I told you, only a member of the Mage Council –”
“It’s okay. I was careful. I’m sure it’s impossible for someone to remove it himself, but I could see exactly how to do it. I had the wishcatcher that Kesta, the A’ayimat healer woman, gave me. Remember that?”
His brows drew together in thought. “I – Maybe,” he said doubtfully.
“She made it with a spell to help me find a way to have a baby someday. I used the spell, and it showed me exactly how to undo the block. It was just like taking the stitches out of a seam.”
He looked thoroughly unconvinced. “But –” He hesitated, as though afraid to even say what he was thinking.
“What?”
“It might cause… cause…” His face furrowed in confusion as he struggled to find the word. “It might make it so a fellow can’t get it up any more.”
He looked so deeply unhappy that Lainie bit down hard on her lips to hold back the laugh that tried to escape. Then she kissed him. “I know,” she said. “I saw that spell, and all the others, and I saw exactly how to undo them so they wouldn’t go off. It was no trouble at all. And, anyhow, considering what we just did, that doesn’t seem to be a problem.” She wriggled her hips against his and noted his response. “See?”
He was silent for a long time. She chewed her lip, waiting to hear what he would say, hoping he wasn’t mad after all.
“So,” he finally said, “I’m not firing duds any more.”
“Huh?” she asked, wondering what bullets had to do with anything.
“I’ve got live ammunition now.”
“Live…” His meaning hit her. She snorted out a laugh and buried her face on his chest again as she dissolved into giggles. He started laughing, too, but soon the movements of his chest grew deeper and slower. After a moment, Lainie realized he was crying.
She kept her head down, letting him weep in private as more tears spilled from her own eyes. When he finally fell still again, she pushed herself back up to look him square in the face. A few tears still glimmered in his eyes and on his cheeks. “It means,” she said in the sultriest voice she could manage, “knock me pregnant, Vendine.”
He groaned as though that was the most seductive thing anyone had ever said to him, and rolled both of them over with an effort that wrung another groan from him. The thought passed through Lainie’s mind that the time was all wrong for a baby, when they didn’t even know what was going to happen next or where they were going to go. But it was too late to think of that now, and, anyhow, it seemed unimportant as he took her to him and loved her fiercely and thoroughly and well.