“Time to go.” Ash grabbed me and spun me toward him. I knew a kiss when I saw it coming and I turned my head. It was one thing to love him, another to rub it in Cactus’s face. His lips caught my cheek and the surprise, then laughter in his eyes made me smile.
Cactus grabbed my hand and dragged me away toward the stairs and the Traveling room. I let him, but couldn’t take my eyes from Ash as we moved out. How had Cactus not noticed?
The boom of something heavy hitting the main doors snapped me out of my fog. I shook off Cactus’s hand and stepped into the lead. Stopping at my bedroom door, I grabbed a small leather bag I could tie to my belt. I looped it through and stuffed the trinkets Niah had given me in beside the smoky diamond that controlled air. The last thing to go in the bag was the white stone from the Pit. I didn’t hesitate, just stuffed it in knowing I could trust Niah.
I took a knife and tucked it into the top of my boot, then backed out and led the way down the hall again. Through it all, the silence from Cactus was as damning as if he’d screamed at me. Apparently he had noticed.
Beside me, Peta lent me her support, her furred body against my leg. I dropped a hand to touch the back of her neck. What a mess my heart was. Almost as bad as the mess my father had left in the Rim.
The doors to the Traveling room were wide open. I stepped inside and as always was for a moment awed by what was laid out in front of me. Situated like a globe, the room was completely round. It was as if we stood inside the world, and looked out toward the land and seas.
“Get that armband off the wall,” I said to Cactus as I reached up and touched the hovering image of the world. Flexing and tightening my fingers, I brought the image of North America closer and closer until I’d zeroed in on the badlands of North Dakota, and then tightened it further to the main, glowing city of Bismarck. Adjusting it ever so slightly, I held out a hand. Cactus set the armband on it and I slid it onto my other arm. Made of highly polished cedar wood, it resonated on my bicep, like a tuning fork. “Hang onto me.”
“You sure your boyfriend will be okay with this?” Cactus asked.
I turned my head to look at him. Okay, maybe glare was a more accurate term. “Seriously? You want to have that conversation right now?”
His jaw flexed. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“No. Now stop being a fool, Prick, and hang onto me.” I used Peta’s nickname for him and she snickered beside me as she wrapped a big paw around my calf.
He did as told and I reached up to touch the map over Bismarck with one finger, twisting the armband with my other hand. The world around us slipped away and I was tossed into a memory not my own.
Mother goddess, I kept forgetting about this hiccup of Traveling. As an added perk of having Spirit as one of my elements, whenever I Traveled with another person I was plunged into one of their memories.
I hoped for something from Peta.
I got a memory from Cactus.
The Rim was not as he remembered it. Beautiful, and flowing with plants and green things, that was the same. But the undercurrent reminded him more of the Pit. The feeling that people were afraid, that they didn’t see their home as safe anymore.
He frowned and ran a hand through his hair.
Catching a glimpse of long blonde hair and gently curved hips, he stopped in his tracks. A grin spread over his face. The rest of the world didn’t matter as long as Lark was here with him. Jogging, he tried to catch up with her, but in seconds she was gone.
The barracks. That had to be where she was headed. He made his way there, nodding to the Terralings who looked his way.
“Cactus, I need to speak with you.”
He spun, surprised to see Peta sitting on a log at eye level at the entrance to the barracks. “Bad luck cat, what do you want?”
She grimaced. “That is not my name, Prick.”
“Well, until you stop calling me Prick, that’s what I’m calling you.” Childish, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“You don’t love her the way she needs,” Peta said, shocking him.
“What do you mean? I love her. What else is there?”
Peta shook her head. “You love her, but love isn’t enough. Not with her life. Love is strong, Prick. But your love will not be what her heart needs. And certainly not the love you want to put on her. With expectations and rules and how you want her to be. I see it in you. She is not the woman who will settle down and give you a brood of children.”
He grinned at her, even as he struggled not to let her words affect him. “You don’t know that.”
“You see, you do not even deny my words.”
“Why would I? Of course, I would want to have children with her. That is what you do when you love someone.”
She snorted and started to groom her left paw, wiping it over her ear. “I’m her familiar, Prick. I can feel her heart and her needs. She doesn’t need you.”