Page 36

Leather and Pipe Tobacco

Rumi

They did not linger in their little oasis.

This piece of calm that she had carved from the very bedrock of this torturous desert.

Not even a single night did she get to spend there.

HazelEyes insisted they needed to leave “right this minute.”

And Rumi hated him for it.

“Ever seen a solarith, Miss Rumi?”

Callum asked, gently guiding her by her elbow toward the towering creature.

He was treating her like some fragile thing, a tiny bird made of glass.

It would have frustrated her if it was not for the fact that it was very much how she felt.

“No.”

Rumi wrapped her arms around herself, hugging the shirt to keep in the warmth.

The moon high above brought a chill that refused to settle, and the wet hair hanging down her back did not help the shivers that cascaded over her skin.

This frigid feeling was coming from inside her body—from her Ti’la.

Callum had given her a long fabric, like Fyn had given her at Weston’s, and draped it around her shoulders and over her head like a hood to protect from the coming sun.

“She can’t ride?”

HazelEyes groaned and pressed his forehead to the beast’s neck.

It made a noise and tipped its head toward the man as if in commiseration.

“That’s going to complicate things some.”

“Rumi, in case you haven’t been formally introduced, this here is Jameson.

He’s been my friend for many years.

Jameson, meet Rumi.”

Rumi glanced up at the guard she knew all too well.

He faced her now, tentatively.

She could hear his whistle ringing against the cold stone of her prison, his knife slicing her open, his words of instruction when she tried to escape.

Her body stiffened reflexively at the confused thoughts, and she coldly mumbled, “We have met.”

HazelEyes—Jameson—cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Listen, uh…Rumi.”

“Rumina,”

she said, her tone still cold.

“Rumi is what my friends call me.”

Jameson hesitated slightly.

“Right.

I just wanted to say I’m sorry.

I’m not asking you to forgive me.

I’m here for—well, I’m here to help.

I swear it.”

She looked at him a moment longer, then turned her attention to the beastly animal, ignoring the puzzled look on Callum’s face and the shame on Jameson’s.

She had neither the mind space nor the desire to address that situation further.

The creature seemed to look at her just as curiously.

Rumi cautiously reached out to stroke its long neck.

It nickered at her softly and tipped its horned head toward her.

Her hand snapped away and she let out a nervous chuckle.

“Would you like to try?”

Callum asked, gesturing toward the calm animal.

She peered up at it and lifted her chin.

Of course, she would try.

Callum stroked the nose, making clicking sounds with his tongue.

“Around here, we call ‘em sandstriders.”

This “solarith”

was a strange creature.

With hide the texture of a deer but lacking the antlers, though the horn in the center of its forehead reminded her of the lunaryx back home.

The eyes were wide on a long nose—a prey animal.

And yet, with such long powerful legs and sharpened hooves, and of course its horn, it seemed like it could attack easily.

The soft feathering on the hooves and long, catlike tail with its wispy, tufted end were at odds with the swiveling ears as it listened for danger.

Cal led her alongside a black one with a white, star-shaped splotch on its nose.

It shuffled as she approached and tossed its long tail to the side, nearly whipping her in the face.

The beasts towered over Callum.

He could barely see over the sandstrider’s shoulder.

Rumi had never been one to shy away from animals, but as this midnight solarith bent its head toward her, her breath stalled in her chest and she stilled.

One stomp and she would be flat as an ant beneath its hooves.

“See the saddle? You’ll wanna sit right in the middle and tuck your feet here into the stirrups, got it?”

“How do I even—”

before she could finish, Cal lifted her by her waist and plopped her right on top of the massive beast.

It huffed at her sudden weight and she scrambled to hold on as it pawed at the ground, its barrel-like body swaying perilously under her.

She was going to fall.

She clutched at the leather saddle horn for dear life, but the solarith shuffled warily, tipping her further off the side, her fingers grasped at the long hair hanging from its neck.

That earned her a sharp whine and a jerk.

Then there was nothing but air beneath her.

The breath whooshed from her lungs and stars swam in her vision when she hit the ground, leaving a mushroom cloud of dust and sand.

She gasped for breath, but instead of sucking air into her chest, she choked on a burning pain inside.

Would the torment of this godsforsaken desert never cease? For a terrifying moment, she could not breathe—could not move.

There was only the struggle of her body fighting for air.

She heard a scuffle, and then Cal was there.

“Whoa, easy there.

Are you alright?”

She was not sure if he was talking to the beast or to her until his arms slid under hers and helped sit her up.

Slower than a trickle did her lungs begin to operate once more.

He watched her with barely concealed concern.

It was touching, and new.

She did not mind it.

“I didn’t mean to surprise you,”

he said when her body was done revolting.

“Do you want to try again?”

She dutifully ignored the poorly hidden and quickly stifled laughter from Jameson and the blush burning her cheeks as she accepted Cal’s hand.

She gave it a solid two more tries, but her legs were too short to reach the stirrups, and the back of the beast was too broad for her to maintain any kind of control.

It was a shame, because it was a beautiful animal.

Callum rubbed his chin, lost in thought.

“Well, that won’t work,”

he said, as he helped her down.

“There’s nothing for it, looks like.

Would you ride with me?”

He asked nonchalantly, watching her face, his green eyes shining in the moonlight.

There was something about his request that felt deeper than the surface.

He was asking her permission.

Giving her a chance to decline.

“Yes,”

she said, surprising them both.

“Thank the gods,”

Jameson said under his breath, already atop his steed.

She was certain he thought she had not caught him rolling his eyes.

“Can we leave now?”

Callum tied the two of the four solariths together and gave the lead to Jameson.

Then he lifted Rumi once again into the saddle.

She was not at all prepared for him to swing up behind her.

Suddenly there was no air.

Her heart rammed against her ribs, bruising her chest, while his heat soaked into her back and chased away the cold with such efficiency she was not sure she had ever been chilled at all.

His thighs caged her legs and she was aware of every brush of his body against hers.

Each breath he took swelled and filled her lungs with a longing that sent warmth spiraling through her belly.

When he reached around her to grasp the reins, Rumi was certain she would combust.

“You alright, Miss Rumi?”

he asked quietly, his breath tickling her ear, his chin brushing her shoulder.

“You’re trembling.”

“It is very high up,”

she rasped, her throat suddenly too dry.

“I’ve got you.

I won’t let you fall.”

Did he know how his words wrapped themselves in her mind, snagging onto a ring and repeating over and over until she had memorized the exact timbre of his voice?

She only offered a nod and then they were off.

Hooves pounded in the sand, a drumbeat that carried on the wind and reverberated through her bones as the wind whipped hair from her face.

She could understand now why the men called these beasts sandstriders.

The moments seemed to drag on and on, an eternity between each grain of sand that flew in her face, still rubbed raw from where she had scrubbed at it.

Each time she closed her eyes, the ghostly image of the man she had killed floated there.

Taunting her.

She had taken a life.

The most monstrous thing she could have done.

The only thing that granted any sort of reprieve from the horror of her mind was each subtle shifting of Callum behind her.

He smelled masculine, of leather and the salt of his sweat.

The way his hands gripped the reins made the leather creak and his forearms flex.

She found herself transfixed by the way his tendons moved and by the veins that wove over the backs of his hands.

It made her feel safe.

The moon had just begun to set, the pale face dipping below the red cliffs while the opposite horizon began to glow with warm golden light.

Rumi was not sure where they were going, only the name of the city.

Not that it made much of a difference.

Though he seemed to have softened a bit, she was still the colonel’s prisoner.

Still a fugitive.

No matter where they went, she still relied on him, and that chafed at her.

The beast, she named him Bel, tossed his head and Rumi tensed, leaning into the man behind her in case she started to fall.

She could still smell the faint copper scent of blood that lingered on Callum’s side where he had been shot, as well as from that gash on his forearm, though they had both been wrapped with bandages supplied by Jameson.

She hated that she had not been there soon enough.

She hated that he had been hurt.

She hated that she had killed someone.

But mostly she hated that she would do it again. For him.

The trek across the desert was a chorus of voices creating a beautiful melody.

The percussive thump of the solariths’ hooves harmonized with the deeper whump of his heart at her ear, each long stride of the beast sending hisses of sand as they rode across the sand-swept horizon.

The metal on the saddles jangled, the soft ringing rising to dance with the fading, star-studded canopy overhead.

The sun eased up and took its turn in the sky, and the air grew hot and stuffy, each breath burning in her lungs.

Would she ever grow accustomed to this heat?

Though she would never admit it, she was grateful to have Callum at her back, holding her steady.

If it had been up to her skills alone, she would have fallen off and not been able to get back on.

As it was, she struggled to keep her seat, the smooth leather of the saddle providing very little grip.

Though she tried to keep her struggles secret, she could see Jameson just ahead hiding the occasional snicker beneath his breath, though he blushed with embarrassment each time she caught him as he stole backward glances.

The jerk.

She should have hit him harder with that silver plate. Every so often, Callum’s legs would tense, directing the beast, and they would brush against hers. A strange flutter accompanied the touch most times, and others, a warm heat bloomed below her navel.

“Miss Rumi?” Cal said.

“Yes, Colonel,”

she replied, her eyes snaking toward Jameson before she tipped her head up to look at Callum.

The hesitation in his voice put her on edge; it was unusual for him to hesitate.

Could she trust him? Especially now that his friend was here.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he said.

“And what is that?”

“Well, here it’s the law that anyone emigrating from another country must go through official channels.

These channels document who you are and where you’re from.

As you well know, you did not go through official channels.

At least not those.

What I mean to say is that we’ve decided the best course of action would be to have you pretend to be married.”

His chest went still against her back.

He was holding his breath, she realized.

“Otherwise you would need to have paperwork.

Paperwork we do not have,” he added.

Rumi nodded slowly, keenly aware of how his hand brushed her thigh as he spoke.

“So,”

she said, “you need me to pretend to be your wife?”

She felt the breath leave his lungs in a huff and then it turned into a soft chuckle.

He was nervous.

Why did that same nervousness echo in her blood?

“Yes,”

he said.

“That’s what I mean.”

Jameson turned his sandstrider, shuffling toward them.

“Listen, you don’t need to worry about Callum.

He’s a man of honor.

But if we’re goin’ to get past Sullivan and his men, we’ve got to play by the rules, and that means no one can know who you are.

Honestly, it would be best if we could cover up your tattoos and cut your hair and be done with the whole thing, but Callum insisted that we can’t do that.”

Jameson’s tone said clearly what he thought of that.

Something sweet blossomed in her chest.

Something new.

Like a fresh pink bud, it peeked out to warm itself in the sunlight.

The fact that Callum knew without asking that those things were important to her…it meant he had listened.

Not only to her words, but to the unspoken things.

“Is there something I must do to pretend to be your wife?”

“Well aside from a ring—and obviously you can’t go anywhere without me—no.

Though, I prefer that you not stab me.”

“But Callum, my sweet husband,”

she bit back a grin, “the stabbing is customary.”

Her laugh was bright, but the shaky warble betrayed the unsettling jitters still cascading through her blood.

It felt good to laugh, though the guilt shortened its lifespan.

Only the firm, safe feel of Callum’s chest at her back was any sort of reprieve from her growing apprehension.

“Ha, ha, very funny.”

Callum rolled his eyes, but she spied the dimples pressing into his cheek and her pulse went skittering.

“Now that that’s settled,”

Jameson said.

“We need to keep moving.

We’ve got about a day’s ride ahead of us before we reach the gates.”

They rode well into the day, the sun beating down on them, barely stopping to eat.

Before the sun crossed the middle of the sky, Callum gave her his hat so she would not burn more than she already had, insisting on using one he had taken from their attackers, though it was beaten and worn.

His thoughtfulness touched her, tending to the small seed that had sprouted somewhere along their journey.

Being his wife, even just for appearances, did not bother her the way it once might have.

Briefly, thoughts of Zinhar crossed her mind and she pondered over what the gods might say, but she did not linger there long.

As Callum had said once before, rules are different when one is surviving.

They stopped once to let the sandstriders nibble on the food they had packed in the saddlebags and to drink from the canteens they had filled at the oasis.

During this time, Jameson changed Callum’s bandage.

Rumi tried not to think of it.

But not thinking of it made her feel even more guilty.

She could help him, heal him.

But it would break the rules of her people, and she was not sure she could stand to do any more damage to her traditions.

Once Callum’s wounds were treated with the stinky balm and wrapped again in fresh cotton, he swung up behind her and they continued on their journey.

Jameson hurried them along and did not let them rest.

Not that she minded.

She had heard the name he had spoken ever so hushed while she had been scrubbing at her skin.

Sullivan.

It made shivers run over her skin to think of his face.

The deadpan mask. To imagine his hands on her. No, she did not at all mind being rushed. In fact, if Jameson had not said something, she might have.

She must have fallen asleep at some point because she woke when the rocking of the animal paused and found herself with her cheek pressed against Callum’s chest.

A flush rose up her face and heated her ears, but he only smiled down at her and nodded ahead at the large gates that loomed before them, shadowed by tall lefiin on either side.

Since when did that smile bring butterflies to life in her belly?