Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(15)

Rhoswen shook her head and buried her face in the dog’s fur.

This is the point where you keep your mouth shut and mind your own business, son. This is the point where you turn right around again and walk away. So get your ass moving and roll on down the highway. This is not the point where you lift up your head and realize that you’ve been noticing for a while now that something is off.

He cocked his head and listened. He heard nothing but the sounds of the wind blowing through trees outside, and the sharp cry of seagulls overhead. When had he ever seen Carling without some kind of entourage streaming behind her like a comet’s tail?

He said, “Why are you and Carling the only two people on the island?”

The Vampyre said in a muffled voice, “Because she’s dying, and everybody else is afraid.”

Midnight stillness spread black ink throughout Rune.

He stepped back inside, shut the door and set his duffle bag against the wall. He said to Rhoswen, “I think you had better tell me everything.”

Carling sat in her armchair. It was precisely positioned in front of the window so that the band of morning sunshine fell across the floor just inches from her bare feet.

She looked at the transparent sunshine slanting in the air in front of her. It spilled everywhere, a wealth of light more extravagant than a king’s treasure and deadlier than nightshade. She dropped the protective shield of Power she kept wrapped perpetually around her like a cloak. The shield allowed her to walk in the full light of day. Without it, she would burn to death just like any other Vampyre would.

She did not remember the pleasure of basking in the warm sun. She remembered the fact of it, but not the sensation. Had it been anything like basking in the warm glow of a fire? That was how she imagined it was, anyway.

Now all the sun promised her was pain and immolation.

Setting her teeth, she held out a hand and touched the sunshine.

Agony seared her. She saw smoke rise from her skin and smelled her own scorched flesh. A split second was almost more than she could bear. Any longer exposure and her hand would burst into flames. She snatched her hand away and looked at the blisters that had formed along the fingers and the back. The blisters began to heal as she watched.

She braced herself and bathed her other hand in the molten light.

A deep familiar voice swore nearby. Someone grabbed her arm in a powerful grip and shoved her, armchair and all, several feet back from the sunshine. The chair’s wooden legs scraped along the floor. She blinked until her vision cleared.

Rune crouched in front of her, the long broad muscles of his shoulders bunched. He held her by the wrists. Shaking with pain, her fingers curled, she tried to pull free but he refused to let her go. Strong as she was, he was stronger. Extreme emotion darkened his gaze, and his handsome face was settled in lines of severity. The skin around his taut mouth whitened as he watched the blisters on her hands fade.

Carling regarded him wearily. After her emotional storm earlier and the twin jolts of agony, she didn’t know if she had the energy to face Rune’s particular brand of volcanic energy. His presence blasted her hypersensitive nerves.

“Sorry about that,” Rune said, his voice controlled and even. His rigid grip on her arms relaxed and became gentle. “I had a knee-jerk reaction when I saw your hand burning. Does it help?”

Her weary look turned speculative. His control was not as reassuring as it might otherwise have been, coupled as it was with the violent upheaval she could sense roiling through his emotions. “What do you mean, does it help? Has someone been talking out of turn? I told you to go. What are you still doing here?”

“Yes, someone has been talking,” said Rune. “I know everything, or at least I know everything that Rhoswen knows.” He let his hands slip down her arms to clasp her fingers with care. “Come on, tell me. Why were you burning yourself?”

She looked over his broad shoulders toward the daylight, and chose not to struggle for the return of her hands. His were warm and callused, broad-palmed and long-fingered. “Sometimes the pain helps me to fight off an episode.”

“Rhoswen called it fading. Is that what it’s like?”

“Not really,” she said. “It is a disassociation from reality. Sometimes I go into the past. Sometimes I don’t know where I go.”

Rune eased one of her hands into her lap and released it. He took the long dark fall of her hair and smoothed it behind one of her shoulders.

Her eyelids lowered and she glanced sidelong at his hand. This Wyr had temerity, she would give him that. An impulse to violence flickered through her. She had struck at him once. Maybe she would again. Her gaze lifted to his face. Four pale lines still scored one lean cheek. They would be gone in another half hour or so.

She could see in his eyes that he knew her impulse to violence was there. That did not stop him from reaching higher to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear, stroking along the delicate shell of flesh. He touched her as he had earlier, as if he thought she was exquisite beyond all words, his expression calm, unafraid. It bewildered her. Why would he do such a thing? Why did his touch cause her to feel such a dark violent pain?

Why was her other hand still resting in his?

“I do not think you are a very sensible man,” she murmured.

“No doubt you are correct,” he replied. “ And I am still here because I have to ask you a question. Why do you have a dog?”