Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

That way . As if he could hear a bell clanging or see the smoke of a signal fire, Cammon felt absolutely certain of his direction. He started out at a walk, speeded up to a half-trot, scrambled over obstacles like benches and hedges instead of detouring around them. Past the barracks, past the training yards, past the follies, straight to the walled enclosure that held the raelynx.

She wasn’t outside the fence-wasn’t just inside the wrought-iron gate-and the raelynx itself was nowhere in sight. But she was there; Cammon could feel her. He tugged on the gate, but it wouldn’t open, and a quick inspection convinced him that the lock had been engaged. By the Wild Mother’s woolly head, Amalie had locked herself in with the most dangerous creature in the realm.

He closed his hands on the bars as if he might tear them wide enough to admit his body. “Amalie?” he called. “Amalie? I know you’re here but please prove to me that you’re still alive.”

Although he knew that, too-alive and unhurt. Still, he was uneasy. He wanted to see her; he wanted absolute reassurance.

Which he did not get. No reply, no glimpse. “Amalie? Damn. I don’t think I can climb this- Amalie ! If you don’t show me you’re all right, I’m going to fetch some Riders and breach the walls.”

Maybe the threat moved her; maybe she just liked knowing she had alarmed him, but on those words, she strolled slowly into view. She was wearing a black cloak that completely covered her clothing and a black hood that hid her bright hair. The raelynx fluidly paced beside her like so much domesticated fire, its eerie eyes fixed on Cammon, its tail slowly flicking from side to side. Her hand rested lightly in the red fur around its neck. In such a fashion might any noblewoman go out walking with her favorite hound.

“I wasn’t sure you’d know where I was,” she said, walking straight up to the gate. “But you found me right away. Milo could hardly have left your room ten minutes ago.”

For a minute he just watched her in silence. “Did you want me to come looking for you?”

She looked as if she was considering not answering. But then, “Yes,” she said, and hunched a shoulder. As if to add, I don’t know why, but there it is.

“I don’t suppose you’d come out of there if I asked you to,” he said.

“I like it here.”

“I know you think you’re safe, but-”

“You could come inside if that would make you feel more secure.”

He nodded. “All right.”

She looked both surprised and pleased. “Really? You’re not afraid?”

“Princess, if he’s going to eat one of us, I’d rather it was me.”

“He won’t eat one of us. He’s not even hungry.”

Cammon could tell that as well. The big cat was sated from a recent meal. Didn’t mean the raelynx might not suddenly develop a taste for human flesh-or a dislike for having its sanctuary invaded. “Let me in.”

She turned the lock and he stepped in so quickly the raelynx didn’t have time to consider what an open gate might mean. Now, of course, he was only inches away from the great red beast, who examined him with unblinking and unfathomable eyes. Gingerly Cammon reached out to touch its mind, a complex but undefended swirl of thoughts, all of them foreign, all of them brutish and beautiful.

“I don’t think I should touch him,” he observed presently. “If he’s going to give his affection to a human, I think it should only be you.”

“You really aren’t afraid of him,” Amalie said. He thought her voice was admiring.

Cammon shook his head. “We crossed Gillengaria with him in our party last winter. I learned to control him then. Of course, he was just a baby. I’m not sure I could do it now.”

“I thought Senneth was the one who held him.”

“Most of the time.”

She gestured and he saw that there was a lonely bench set deep within the overgrown vegetation of this abandoned garden. The stone was cold under his legs as he sat down, but the sun fell invitingly on his face. Amalie pushed her hood back and her red-gold hair turned to flame.

The raelynx laid its chin across her lap and closed its great eyes. Its tufted ears still twitched from time to time, listening to the sounds around it, but its tail was still, and it radiated peace.

“Now is the time you ask me to forgive you for how badly you have treated me in the past week,” Amalie said.

Cammon took a big lungful of air and then expelled it in a rueful sigh. “It seems that no matter what I do these days, someone is displeased with me. And you have to understand, I hate it when people are displeased with me. I can’t understand why I suddenly can’t seem to make anybody happy. I always make people happy. But I am sorry, and I do wish you would forgive me.”

She kept her face in profile to him, but she smiled a little. “Valri told me she had warned you to behave more formally with me.”

“Senneth, too.”

“What are they afraid of? That you’ll seduce me?”

He choked and then started laughing. “I suppose that would be the extreme version of it. They say a princess can’t make friends with a serving man.”

“But I don’t have any friends,” she said in a small voice.

He didn’t even think about it. He just reached out for her hand-the one not buried in the cat’s fur-and held it comfortingly in his own. “I think Senneth and Valri have both spent so much of their lives battling other people, fighting to find their own ways, that they didn’t spend much time thinking about whether they needed other people,” he said. “Senneth wanted to be free of her own family-”

“Valri, too,” Amalie interposed.

“I think they were both strong enough to achieve their goals wholly on their own. But I’m not. I don’t want to be. I require people around me. Maybe it’s because I’m a reader and I am so attuned to the voices of other people. If there aren’t people, if there aren’t voices, I feel like I’m dead.” He glanced at her and then glanced away. Her hand was still in his, her fingers cold. She wasn’t wearing any gloves. “I don’t think Valri and Senneth understand what that’s like.”

She nodded. “That’s not exactly what it’s like for me, but it’s similar. Since my mother died, I’m just so lonely. I want to be around people all the time. And it seems I am so seldom around them.”

“Well,” he said, smiling a little, “you’ve had quite an assortment of suitors lately.”

She laughed. “And I have enjoyed that sometimes! And sometimes not. I like the ones like Darryn Rappengrass, with whom I do not have to pretend. The rest of them-oh, who knows what they want from me? Why they want to marry me? It makes me wary and uncomfortable. Though that’s better than being solitary and sad, I suppose.”

“Have you truly liked any of the lords who’ve come to visit?”

She shrugged. “I found a few of them agreeable, but enough to marry them? Cammon, it is so strange to sit there with a man, and talk about stupid things like weather and travel and trade routes, and the whole time be looking at his face and thinking, ‘Are you the one I shall make my husband? Will you be the man I take to my bed? Shall I name you king of Gillengaria?’ Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on the conversation because I’m thinking of all the things we’re not saying.”

“They’re probably wondering the same things.”

“Yes! Which makes it even worse! And, of course, knowing that you and Valri and a couple Riders are listening to every word we say just makes it even more peculiar.”

“Riders don’t care about things like that,” he said with a grin. “They’re just waiting to see whether or not they should run in and kill somebody. And Valri and I sit there and play cards. I’m not always listening to the words, to tell you the truth. I’m listening to what they’re not saying-trying to read violence in their hearts, you know, or greed, or cruelty.”