He sat up slowly, relieved that some of his strength had returned, and banked the pillows behind him as he stared across at the occupied chair by the table. Siri sat there, still and silent, staring into the fire without her mask of coldness. Instead, her lovely face brooded worriedly over some inner dilemma. The strain, oddly enough, made her all the more beautiful, and the man watching felt a lump rise in his throat.
What, he wondered, could etch this portrait of despair? Then she looked over, saw he was awake, and Hunter spoke quickly before the coldness could descend over her delicate features.
“It’s no use now; I’ve seen what lies beneath the coldness.” He was surprised at the husky sound of his own voice, at the instant renewal of desire. And he felt a brief moment of superstition, of unease. Perhaps she was the sorceress, the witch, the siren he had been told she was. Perhaps, like the Black Widow of legend, she had been born to ensnare men and drain them of manhood and life.
Then his rationality asserted itself. No! Absurd. She was a hauntingly beautiful woman, and she naturally stirred his senses; it was no more than that.
She looked at him steadily for a long moment, then turned her eyes back to the fire. “There’s more soup if you want it.”
“No, thanks,” he said, sudden realization in his tone. “I seem to have lost a day or so since the last bowl.”
She shrugged. “Only a few hours.”
“You drugged me.” It wasn’t a question.
Siri shrugged again without looking at him. “You needed the sleep.”
“And you needed the silence?”
She didn’t smile at his faint attempt at humor. “You still need sleep. And it’s late.”
Hunter sighed and decided to employ shock tactics again. It had worked the first time, he thought. “Where do the unicorns live in the long Winter?”
“Go to sleep,” she said flatly.
“How long have you been their Keeper?”
“Go to sleep.”
“Have you lived in this valley all your life?” He watched her hands as they rested on the table and saw the knuckles whiten.
“Go to sleep.” Her voice was growing tauter by the moment.
“How did King come by that horn?”
At last, he got results with his tactics.
Siri leapt to her feet, the chair overturning behind her, and whirled to stare at him. Her dark eyes were wild with despair. “Ask me no more questions!” she cried violently, crossing the room to stand by his bed. Her breasts were heaving with the deep, ragged breaths she took and Hunter, stunned by her reaction and mesmerized by the wild beauty of her, could only stare up at her and feel his body throb.
“Can you stop and think for one single moment what your very presence here is doing to me?” she demanded desperately. “Can you see past your damned obsession and realize that you threaten what I love most in the world? Isn’t there some part of you that understands that? I’m the Keeper of the Unicorns, and I’m the only thing—the only thing—standing between them and extinction!” Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper that hurt Hunter’s throat. “Damn you. I should have let you die. I should have—” Abruptly, she turned and stumbled away, flinging open the cabin door and disappearing out into the darkness.
Hunter sat in total stillness, staring after her. He felt as if he had wounded something fragile, picked it up and brutally shaken it, and the feeling confused him. He hadn’t intended to hurt her with his question of how King had come by the horn—And then he remembered. Closing his eyes abruptly, Hunter winced. She’d talked of the past and of the men who had killed unicorns in order to take their golden horns, and he understood then that one of the herd had died to provide King’s horn.
Did she believe that he intended to kill one of the creatures in order to obtain the proof he wanted? And then, for the very first time, it occurred to him that he would have to obtain proof of some kind; his word of the creatures’ reality had to be accompanied by tangible evidence. Wasn’t that the point of the Quest? Hunter didn’t want to think about it.
And, as it happened, he didn’t have to at that moment, for his attention was caught by a dream. The dream came into the cabin through the open door on tiny hooves and long, unsteady legs, its huge velvety dark eyes surveying the cabin without, apparently, noticing the immobile, watching man. It turned its small white face this way and that, tasted the rough wooden bolt on the door with curious lips and small white teeth. It came farther into the cabin and stared at the low fire warily before rubbing its head against a table leg, rubbing fiercely and giving a soft little grunt of seeming relief. Then it turned its head.
And Hunter, staring in still, utter fascination, saw the emerging golden horn, no longer than his thumb, in the center of the unicorn foal’s forehead.
There was absolutely no movement in the cabin. The foal was frozen, staring with wide, panicky eyes at the man in the bed. And the man was looking in wonder at a myth come to life.
Then there was a confused rattle of tiny hooves on floorboards, a white blur shooting through the door, and silence.
Hunter was still in the same immobile pose when Siri came through the door quite some time later. He watched her close the door and rap the bolt home before crossing to the table.
“I saw one of them,” he said bemusedly. “A baby unicorn. It came inside the cabin for a moment.”
Siri looked at him, then blew out the lamp. In a darkness lighted only by the dying cook-fire, he saw her move over to the far wall, where a low, wide shelf had been turned into a makeshift bed. Silently, her movements barely visible and making no sound at all, she got into the bed.
His bemusement clearing then, Hunter remembered how she had looked when she had left the cabin—and how she had looked when she returned. Her face had been white and strained, her eyes red-rimmed from tears. And he was appalled that he had done that to her.
“Siri…Siri, I’m sorry,” he said into the darkness. “So sorry.”
Utter silence answered him.
—
Exhaustion had drawn Siri into a deep and dreamless sleep, and the night had brought counsel. There would be no more tears. She would never have been able to keep the Unicorns and herself alive for any length of time at all had she been either weak or indecisive; Siri was neither. The momentary weakness of tears, she assured herself firmly, had been the result of weariness and the shock of the cards’ prophecy.
That was past.
For the present and the future, it was necessary that she employ all her strength and will in order to preserve her beloved Unicorns. It was the only thing that mattered. And as she patrolled the valley after leaving the man still sleeping, Siri cleared her mind of everything but her duty. She greeted the herd as they emerged from the forest and watched them for a few moments before continuing on her way.
At the Crystal Pool, she found most of the valley’s other inhabitants sharing a morning drink. They were restless and uneasy with the man’s presence in the valley, and seemed comforted by Siri’s arrival. She sat down on a boulder and watched them, smilingly listening and responding to the varied sounds of greeting.
The pair of snow leopards roared at her, ruffling the feathers of the mated lyrebirds strutting nearby. The male snow wolf nudged his mate and both turned bright blue eyes to Siri for a moment with faint welcoming growls before resuming their drinking. Albino tigers and lions drank companionably side by side with sand cats, white-tailed deer, and bears. A pair of giant Pandas rumbled greetings, looking at Siri with button eyes. Perched on low branches, drinking from the pool, or soaring overhead were peacocks, white eagles, swans, and dozens of songbirds.
And tumbling all around Siri were cubs and chicks and babies of every kind, all squeaking and chirping and growling for bellies to be scratched or feathers smoothed.
Siri scratched and smoothed, and gained a certain peace. And she silently and knowingly put her fate in the lap of the gods. She would impose her will as far as she was able; not even she could de
mand more of herself. There was, after all, a boundary beyond which she simply could not see…even if she shuffled cards forever trying to peer into a misty future. The boundary was there, and only the gods knew in certainty what tomorrow would bring.
After a while she rose and went deeper into the forest, compelled by some need she could not even name. Something was pulling at her, and yet the farther she walked the less conscious she was of the feeling. She went deeper, where it was dim and quiet, and then sat on a fallen log. Very slowly, the tenuous peace she had gained became stronger, surrounding her like a cloak. Her warrior’s senses dulled, her instincts for danger faded.
And when a man stepped out of the trees, she looked at him, curious and unthreatened. He had the face of an angel, she thought, and lovely green eyes. For a moment, just an instant, one side of his face seemed to waver, like heat off a rock on a summer’s day, but then the faint distortion was gone.
He had the face of an angel.
—
Mother?
Daughter?
Can the cards lie?
No. No, my child. They speak the truth.
Then what will I do, Mother?
You must decide that.
If…if the prophecy is fulfilled, will there be another Keeper, Mother? Will the Unicorns survive?
There is no time to prepare, daughter.
Mother…
You must make the choice, daughter.
Must there be a choice, Mother?
I am sorry, my child.
Green eyes…
So sorry.
Chapter 4
Hunter woke to silence and emptiness. He pushed himself up on his elbows, pleased to discover his strength was returning so quickly. Looking around the cabin, he saw no sign of Siri, and decided quite abruptly that he would face her next time on his feet.
It was easier in thought than in deed, however.
When he had picked himself up off the floor, Hunter managed to keep on his feet by hanging on to the bed and then on to the table by the hearth. Crossing the distance between the two left him sweating and trembling. He leaned on the table and wiped his wet brow with a shaking hand, hearing only his rasping breaths in the morning silence. He was just beginning to wonder if he could make it around the table to the single chair when Siri returned.
“By tomorrow, you’ll be strong enough to leave.”
Hunter turned so quickly he would have fallen had she not swiftly crossed the distance between them and caught him in her strong arms.
And he promptly forgot everything but the slender resilience of the body substituting its strength for his own.
Ebony eyes looked up at him with a sudden startled awareness, gazing out of a face too delicate to belong to a warrior. His heart lodged somewhere in his throat, choking him with its pounding, even as morning sunlight lanced through the window to turn her hair into a blinding silver halo. She seemed tiny and fragile, yet bore the larger part of his weight with no visible strain.
But she trembled suddenly.
Fascinated, he watched her lips part on a soft gasp, and strength drawn from a well of desire aided him in standing suddenly taller and straighter. His hands found her shoulders, ignoring the slight resistance of tensing muscles to pull her closer. The arm she had thrown around his waist tightened almost convulsively, and he felt the hand resting on his chest shaking.
He gazed deeply into her eyes, even after the first touch of lips, seeing and marveling at the tiny sparks of purple fire nearly hidden in the blackness of her irises. He lost himself in the pools of dark velvet, searching instinctively for something to ease the new, unfamiliar aching emptiness inside of him. Her lips warmed and bloomed beneath his, her lids slowly lowered, and Hunter was only distantly aware of the purely male rush of satisfied triumph.
Her breasts were firm against his chest, their tips turning to hard buds of desire. Her loins were pressed to his, yielding, fitting him so well, and a scalding rush of passion swelled his own loins achingly. And his need for her was so powerful, so intense, he wanted to sink down to the hard floor with her and lose himself in her yielding woman’s body until she would never be rid of him. The heat of her intensified, and he felt that he wrapped his arms around a pure white flame that branded him indelibly. Her mouth was hot and sweet, and his tongue possessed it with a demanding passion that she responded to instantly.
But even as he pulled her closer, even as he felt her fingers curl into his back, tension was filling the body he held. A strange, broken cry escaped her lips as she jerked away, leaving him half-leaning against the table behind him. Across the room with no sound to mark her passage, she stared at him as one might have stared at a demon from hell.
There was terror in her eyes.
“Tomorrow.” The single word emerged strangled, hoarse from her lips, and she quickly cleared her throat. “Tomorrow,” she repeated, clear and flat this time. “You’ll leave tomorrow.”
“I don’t think so.” Hardly aware of doing so, Hunter leaned back against the table, gripping its edge with white-knuckled fingers as he listened, from a great distance, to the sound of his own voice. He couldn’t take his eyes off her; he watched as her full breasts rose and fell unsteadily, erect nipples straining through the fine cloth, a feverish heat burning in her ebony eyes.
“You’ll leave!” Forbidden! Outcast!
“No.” He had never in his life wanted a woman as he wanted her, the aching throb of desire in his body threatening to tear him apart. Visions of Siri writhing in like desire beneath him, her long legs wrapped around him, her heat drawing him deep into her body, filled his mind until he could scarcely breathe.
Siri crossed her arms across her breasts, defensive, wary, desperately ignoring the hot tremors weakening her body. “I won’t let you destroy the Unicorns,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “I won’t let you destroy me. You’ll leave my valley, dead or alive.”
“Could you kill me?” he asked softly, huskily. “Would you?”
She looked at him with eyes too hot and aching to produce tears, fighting for every scrap of control at her command. “I could,” she said, lying for the first time in her life. “I would. Understand this: Nothing—nothing—will prevent me from defending the Unicorns. I’d destroy this world to save them.”
The quiet, even tenor of her voice convinced him as no outburst would have, and Hunter tried to rein his desire as he carefully worked his way around the table and sat down. This time, she didn’t help him. He couldn’t believe she meant to deny her own desire, but pushed that aside for the moment to deal with the threat she had made. “You’d kill me?” he probed, disbelieving. “When I have no intention of harming the unicorns?”
Siri laughed shortly. “You’ll destroy them.”
“I only want to prove their reality,” he protested, a lingering hoarseness making his voice rough. “Is that so wrong?”
“Is it so right?” she countered fiercely.
Hunter was honestly bewildered.
She took a step toward him. “Who gave you the right to destroy other men’s dreams?” she demanded. “Who set you up as a god and decreed that you would determine reality for all men?”
Again, Hunter shied away from thinking thoughts that would ultimately bring down the walls of his resolution. Deliberately, he changed the subject. “What frightens you the most, Siri? That I’ll destroy the unicorns? Or that I’ll teach you to love me?”
She jerked as though he had slapped her, her face altering in a second from fierce to shocked, and then going totally expressionless. “If you knew anything at all about love,” she said without emotion, “you’d know that it isn’t something which can be taught. And if you were less arrogant, you’d realize that I could never feel anything but hate toward anyone wishing to harm the dearest friends I have in this world.”
Hunter chose to respond to her first statement and ignore the second. “Perhaps love can’t be taught,” he said, “but I didn’t imagine your response a few min
utes ago. You want me, Siri. You want me as much as I want you.”
“You’re wrong.” Siri fought down panic, willing nothing to show on her face. Forbidden! Outcast!
“Am I?” Hunter smiled slowly. “You were burning in my arms, and you’re still shaking with desire now. Do you think I don’t know, can’t see?” He was arrogantly certain of her response. “You’ll be mine, and we both know it. In time.”
In that moment, Siri very nearly could have killed him: For his certainty in the face of her confusion. For his strength in the face of her sudden weakness. For his arrogance in claiming her as his. And for the knowledge of her own womanhood, burning with a hollow need inside her, which she should never have been forced to confront.
—
For all his verbal arrogance, Hunter was not at all certain of himself. Or of her. He wanted her, yet his own mention of love bothered him. He enjoyed sexual pleasure, and because on his world those pleasures were valued by men and women alike, he knew very well how to please a woman. He wanted to think of Siri that way, as just another hunger to be fed, as a warm body pleased by him and pleasing him, but there was more to it than that, and he was uneasily conscious of that fact.
Hunter had never loved a woman. In the beginning he had deliberately blocked off a part of himself in order to avoid just such a complication in his life, and the years had done nothing to alter that resolve. But holding Siri in his arms had left him with an ache which was not only the pain of unsatisfied hunger but something deeper and stronger. He wanted to hold her again, wanted to run his fingers through the silver silk of her hair. He wanted to feel the softness of her lips beneath his, feel her supple body mold itself to his.
But more than that, more than anything, he wanted to set them in a different place, a different time, and do away with a barrier he didn’t understand. The unicorns.
Watching silently as she worked at the hearth preparing their morning meal, Hunter tried—honestly tried—to see the creatures as she seemed to see them.