The Royal Hunter Page 6

  “Machiavellian?” he said, for lack of a better comeback.

  “I’m surprised you don’t remember him from school history. I’d think you’d have enjoyed his exploits.”

  “I’m not sure, but I think I’ve just been insulted.” Archer turned to Baleweg, hoping to elicit a smile or at least some sign that he agreed she was being impossible. Nothing. Of course.

  Baleweg merely motioned for him to continue. “You are doing such a fine job, after all.”

  “Fine, just fine.” He was trapped in some archaic time period with a stubborn old man, a woman who refused to accept reality … and a duck. “I’d almost rather admit defeat now and go home,” he muttered.

  Home. He craned his neck and looked past the pond toward the bizarre structure Talia called home. It was so rustic it was made from tree-hewn planks and covered with some sort of blue polymer and white trim that resembled nothing so much as frosting on a decaying cake. He doubted she had bothered setting up a decent security seal for it. How in the hell was he supposed to keep her safe in this?

  He turned back to Baleweg. “We can’t stay here.”

  Talia crossed her arms. “You’re damn right you can’t.”

  He looked at her, resigned to the fact that they were stuck in her time, for at least the next couple of days. “I said we, sweetheart.” He looked to Baleweg. “We have to find a place I can defend with whatever crude arsenal I can find here. Seeing as I was left with none of my personal equipment to defend us with. My skills are well honed, but I can only do so much with my bare hands.”

  He’d been quite unhappy to discover that his weapons hadn’t made the journey back in time with him. He was never without armor of some sort. He was even more unhappy at the thought of his extensive collection lying about on Baleweg’s roof.

  Baleweg merely shrugged. “It is enough that we create a ripple in time by being here ourselves. We cannot risk introducing technology of our time, as well.”

  Archer fought to keep from looking at Ringer, floating on the pond. Talk about a ripple. “I don’t see what one little gazzer would have hurt.”

  “We can’t risk something that—”

  “Excuse me,” Talia interrupted in a tone that seemed excessively loud considering he was standing right beside her. “You both seem to be overlooking something here.”

  “We haven’t overlooked you, sweetheart.” As he looked in her eyes he had a sudden flash of that moment just before Baleweg’s intrusion. Despite his comments to the contrary, he hadn’t exactly been thinking mission strategy when he’d reached up to touch her. He hadn’t been overlooking her then. He blinked the memory away. “We just have to agree on what to do with you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I give up. You two can stand out here arguing all night for all I care. I have things to do early in the morning. I have a life, and my own obligations.” She turned once more to leave.

  Archer planted himself in front of her so fast that she ran right into him. She was soft, as well as hard. And in the most appealing places. That registered even as she was jumping away from him as though she’d been singed.

  “We’re here to stay, Talia.”

  She eyed him levelly as she yanked her arm free. “Then I hope you enjoy sleeping out under the stars. Good night.”

  Talia stalked off toward the house, trying hard not to give in to the fact that she was terrified. She was shaking. In fear, in anger, in frustration. And in awareness. Of Archer. Dammit. The man was completely insufferable. And he was too damn … real.

  She tossed her walking stick toward the shed, only then remembering she’d left the fishing bonnet on the ground by the pond. Not wanting to think about that moment when Archer had been so close, looking as if he were about to—

  Oh, no, she wasn’t going there. She was going to bed. Where she would sleep the sleep of the innocent, wake up in the morning fully rested, and go back to the good work she was performing here. Work that had always been satisfying. Satisfying and … and enough.

  Her steps faltered as she reached the porch. She sank to the top step, unable to balance her own weight on suddenly watery knees. It was enough, dammit. It had to be. She’d found her place. She hugged her knees, her gaze moving of its own volition back toward the path to the pond. “It is enough,” she whispered. “I’m meant to do this.”

  Even saying the words made her shiver, made some part of her rebel, the part that now remembered her mother’s fantastical tales … and wanted to believe the stories of castles and kings, of people who’d respect her, a place where she’d discover what she was meant to do.

  She clutched her knees more tightly, thinking about this place she’d called home since the day Beatrice had found her sitting at a café in town, her heart and spirit irrevocably broken. It was the day she’d been forced to accept that her dream of becoming a veterinarian, a dream she’d slaved to pay for, sweat, blood and tears to achieve, was not going to come true. She’d known that in order to practice medicine, heal animals, she’d have to take on their pain. Her “gift” wasn’t something she could switch off, but she’d naïvely thought she could somehow control it, make it work to her advantage. Until her first day in an operating room.

  The dog had been mortally injured, hit by a car. He’d been rushed into emergency surgery at the clinic where she’d just signed on as a student assistant. The vet had yanked her in to help … then called for emergency assistance when she’d collapsed under the incredible onslaught of pain that had shoved its way through her entire body. They thought she’d had some kind of seizure. Only she knew what had really happened. Just as she knew she could never let it happen again. She wouldn’t survive it … and certainly no animal in her care should have to risk her collapsing again like that.

  She had been devastated, her only dream as crushed and beyond saving as that poor dog. She’d been so lost, having to give up the one place in the world she thought she’d fit in, helping the animals that called to her.

  Then Beatrice had walked into her life, smiled knowingly, and offered Talia the path to her true calling. “Perhaps you weren’t meant to heal them, my dear,” she’d said, making it sound so simple. “Perhaps you were simply meant to rescue them.”

  And so it was that this place had become her castle. Beatrice, the animals they’d rescued, and the old people at the Lodge, those were her loyal subjects. Here was where she’d discovered what she was meant to do.

  Baleweg emerged from the path and headed toward her. Archer followed several feet behind him. Talia tensed, telling herself to flee, to run inside the house and lock herself in tight until they finally gave up and went away. But she couldn’t move. She could only look at them, watch them come closer. And know.

  In the same way she’d known she could never be a vet … she knew her destiny was about to change again. She began trembling. In fear? In anticipation?

  Baleweg stopped at the foot of the stairs. Slowly, he raised his hand to her.

  “Come, Talia. It is time. You understand, don’t you?”

  Shaking so badly now she could hardly control it, she nodded jerkily. Her gaze shifted beyond the old man and found Archer’s. What she expected to find there she didn’t know. Strength? But strength to do what? Run?

  Or accept the fate they’d come here to show her?

  Archer held her gaze for what felt like an eternity. His eyes told her that he’d hold it as long as she needed him to. And she did find strength there.

  She turned back to Baleweg, who stood waiting with endless patient wisdom glowing from his ethereal eyes … and lifted her hand to his.

  Chapter 5

  Ican’t do it.” Talia turned stubbornly away from Baleweg and looked out the window at the setting sun. Instead she spied Archer leaning against the paddock fence talking to her kennel assistant, Stella. Great. She was stuck in here playing mind games and he was out there distracting her employees. Judging from the smile on Stella’s young face, she wasn’t minding a whole lot. Talia’s scowl
deepened.

  “You can do it, Talia. Come, let us try again.”

  Talia sighed and wondered for at least the thousandth time why she’d let them barge into her life. Not that she’d had a hell of a lot of choice. Baleweg had promptly taken over the tower sewing room yesterday and had made it his own. Talia never used the room and had had no problem with the choice; it put him at a distance from her own room in the opposite tower. Until he’d made it clear that they were to begin their studies in this room. Immediately. She faced Baleweg squarely. “We’ve been at this since late yesterday almost nonstop. I have explained that my ability to feel emotions is limited to animals. And even if I could connect with people, I don’t see how that will help me to heal them.”

  Baleweg’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. Talia sighed yet again.

  “I realize this seems a rather overwhelming task,” he said at length.

  “That’s an understatement,” she said under her breath. To him she said, “You’re not even a healer, so how can you teach me to be one anyway?”

  “No one can teach you to be a healer. You are born to it. As is the case with you. Obviously your mother had little time to bring forth your natural ability. And it’s apparent from what you’ve told me that you’ve done your best to suppress even your empathic skills.” He tapped his wide forehead with his finger. “My skills lie in delving into the hidden powers of the mind. My hope is to help you delve into yours, help you free your natural abilities. In order to do that, I have to teach you how to focus, to stretch the boundaries of your empathic skills. Once you feel more comfortable with those skills you are aware of, those more deeply buried will surface.”

  Talia’s breath hitched at the casual mention of her mother. She tried not to let him notice, but of course he did.

  “Your mother would be proud of what you are doing, Talia. I am sorry you knew so little of this side of her.”

  “I didn’t know any of it!”

  He smiled kindly. “Perhaps you know more than you’re aware of. She told you tales of her life. What do you remember of those nighttime stories?”

  Just enough to frustrate her, Talia thought, and not enough to fully convince her that they were telling the truth. After all, it was a pretty damn fantastical truth. And there were no other explanations forthcoming. “They were just stories,” she said stubbornly. But they both knew she was beginning to believe they had been much more than that.

  He didn’t push her. “Perhaps in return for all our hard work,” he said, “I can tell you some of what I knew of her.”

  He certainly knew the right carrot to dangle. “I would like that,” she said honestly. In fact, it was learning about her mother as much as anything else that had prodded her to go along. “But I can’t see where studying harder will change anything. Surely if I’d had any healing powers, they’d have surfaced by now.”

  “We’ve only been at this a day. Patience.” But his eyes clouded ever so briefly, betraying his own anxiety. Wonderful.

  “I am trying,” she said quietly. “I just don’t want to mislead you into believing I can actually help this … this—”

  “Catriona.”

  Talia felt a little shiver along her spine. “Why are you doing this? I mean, I know Archer is doing it for the money. Are you doing it because you’re close to the … the queen?” Just saying that felt strange … and yet …

  “I’m doing this because I loved your mother. She was, perhaps, the daughter I never had.” He shrugged, for the first time looking uncomfortable. “I suppose I was more mentor to her than father. We shared a great love for exploring the powers of the mind. She had an endless thirst for knowledge.”

  Talia had gone completely still. She had no doubt Baleweg spoke the truth. It was there in every note, every fiber of his very electric being. She asked the question that had been on her mind since she first realized he was close to Eleri. “Did she tell you who my father was?”

  Baleweg looked even more sorrowful. “I’m so sorry. She didn’t confide in me as a rule. Our relationship wasn’t of that nature. When her life was threatened because of her alliance to the king, her power to help him, she knew the only way to protect you was to leave her own time. So she came to me and I helped her. I’m here now to prepare you for a task she never had the chance to.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint you,” Talia said honestly.

  His expression cleared and he seemed relieved to return to his role as mentor. “I believe that if you can begin to connect with humans, your hidden talents should begin to surface.”

  “I’ve never once felt anything from another person. Only animals.”

  “It’s all in the focus. I can teach you to shut out external stimulation and see with your mind’s eye.”

  Everything inside her shied away from this. If she took on animals’ pain as her own and found that draining and potentially destructive, she couldn’t imagine taking on human pain and surviving with her own soul intact.

  “It need not always be pain, Talia. Surely you connect with other emotions.”

  She paused, then nodded. “Usually only after I’ve known the animal, though. I generally don’t have an animal long enough to have much experience with that.” Just Marblehead, Beatrice’s old tom. She connected with him effortlessly and usually it warmed her. But that was rare.

  “Empaths, at least in our time …”

  Our time. He did that, talked about them as if they were both of his time. As if she were little more than a visitor in her own. Oddly, if she thought about it, hadn’t she always felt like that? A misfit, an outcast?

  “… must have some strong feeling about their subject to make the connection. Your connection with these unknown beasties is your empathizing with their suffering. For one as sensitive as you, this qualifies as a strong feeling. But the feeling can manifest itself in other ways. There might be depression, pain, even hate. But there can also be joy. Elation. Love.”

  There weren’t many people who’d had the full measure of her love. Beatrice, her mother. Both beyond her reach now. If she’d connected with her mother, she hadn’t recalled it. And she’d never thought to try with Beatrice. It had certainly never simply happened on its own.

  Someday I’ll show you a place where your powers are revered.

  Her mother’s words rang clearly in her mind, the memory obviously provoked by Baleweg’s reminiscences. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears, drown out both Baleweg and her mother. Yet another part of her undeniably yearned to reach out and embrace that possible truth.

  “Okay.” She swore under her breath, then took another slow, steadying one. “Tell me again what to do. I’ll try.”

  Baleweg turned to her and drifted his hand over her eyes. As always, his touch sent a ripple of odd, yet immensely pleasurable sensations over her. Her eyes shut as his hand passed over them.

  “Clear your mind of all voices save mine.”

  She tried her best, then nodded.

  “You must think of someone you feel strongly about.”

  She nodded again, though she had no one left to focus her thoughts on. She’d tried everyone she could think of already. Stella, her head kennel assistant. They weren’t overly close—she wasn’t overly close with anyone—but she did like the teenager. Nothing. She’d tried a few of the residents at the Lodge whom she was fond of. Nothing there, either. She thought about the vet, Ken. He was a nice enough guy. What the hell. She focused on him, then nodded to signal her readiness.

  “No noise, Talia. Block it out. Hear nothing. Smell nothing. See nothing. Focus your mind on the essence of this person, yet visualize no images.”

  Kindness. Distraction. Focus. Frustration. All these things were the essence of Ken. He was so bighearted, yet saw nothing beyond his desire to help animals, often frustrated by his own limitations, Talia took a deep breath, trying to keep her mind blank.

  “Reach out and touch this essence, pull it inside yourself, make it your own. Feel what he feels
.”

  Talia tried, ignoring how Baleweg knew it was a he. It was awkward and she felt inordinately clumsy. With animals there was no effort needed. Their feelings simply invaded her and took over. Originally it had happened so swiftly she’d had no control over it and had frequently been swamped with sudden raging pain. She’d learned over the years to build a defense, a warning system of sorts. She still couldn’t keep the pain away, but she could brace herself. She wasn’t often blindsided, but then, she rarely put herself in a position for nasty surprises.

  But this … this reaching out into the blankness, seeking a connection rather than simply accepting one that was reaching for her … It was impossible.

  “Do not give up. Remain in the darkness, yet open yourself.”

  Talia tried, really she did. Then she had a sudden vision of Obi Wan Kenobi intoning “Let the force be with you” over Luke Skywalker’s ecstatic face and lost it altogether. She managed to not burst out laughing, but the moment was irretrievably lost. She opened her eyes and turned away, hoping he didn’t see the lingering humor in her eyes. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing there.”

  “This is no game we’re playing, Talia.”

  For the first time she heard a sharp edge in his tone. She spun back, all images of Obi Wan gone. “I understand that. But I’m not feeling anything.”

  “Perhaps you need a different subject.”

  “I don’t have a different subject!” She was yelling now. Suddenly and overwhelmingly, all the things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours came crashing down on her. “I’ve gone through everyone I know and it’s a short list. I keep to myself, okay? I’m a loner, a recluse, a hermit, whatever term you want to use. Are you satisfied now?” She stormed to the door, but his voice stayed her.

  “I’m sorry, Talia. For many things.”

  She didn’t turn. “I don’t want your pity. I am quite happy with my life. Or I was.”

  “Then I apologize for our intrusion into that happy life. But make no mistake, this is the life you were destined for. And it would have found you, one way or another. Trust that it is far better that I am your guide.”