Part 25 (1/2)

”And what if we can't?” she shouted.

He didn't respond, probably because he knew she wouldn't like the answer. She clung to her camel. Gian raced ahead on his dapple-gray horse. He jerked to a halt and spun. ”Here,” he shouted. Kate hauled on her fringed reins and the camel only overshot Gian and his horse by a few yards. The men riding leaped from their horses. The camel drivers gave their charges the signal to sink to the sand. Gian strode about heaving off packs, shaking out tents. Kate's camel folded itself with the others. She clambered off. The smudge had risen up until it looked like a brown wall. The wind was rising. She couldn't see it moving toward them yet, but it must be. She didn't know what to do, how to help.

Gian glanced over to her. ”Hobble the horses.” He tossed her several of the short st.u.r.dy ropes. She swallowed. All right. She started with the nearest horse. The beast was snorting in dismay, but it allowed itself to be hobbled. She moved to the next. The men were working frantically to raise the tents. They pulled on ropes, while Gian drove great four-foot stakes into the ground with a single swing of a great wooden mallet. He went from one to the other as tents rose around them. One man had tied the camels together. Another tied sc.r.a.ps of what looked like a turban over the noses and eyes of the horses she had hobbled. The men shouted to be heard above the sirocco. The brown dust had now blotted out the sun. The air was alive with wind and sand.

Gian strode over to where Kate knelt in front of a snorting horse and pulled her up. ”Time for you to retire.” He pulled her to the largest tent and thrust her inside. A hefty pack came sailing in after her. He tied down the tent flap. ”Pull the bottom of the tent walls to the inside and bury them in sand,” he shouted.

”Aren't you coming?” she called, but it was too late. He was gone. Around her, sand shushed against the tent and the wind howled and plucked at the canvas. The air was thick with dust, which only slowly settled, laying a fine grit over everything. The tent was dim, the sun that would normally cast a light through the canvas almost blotted out by the storm. She stood, unnerved and alone except for some m.u.f.fled shouts that sounded weak against the backdrop of the wind. She pressed her lips together, frightened. The fury of the storm dwarfed their puny efforts to prepare for it. She'd always considered herself brave. But that was in the face of bad men, hunger, the disapproval of society, an uncertain future. Now the very elements that made up the earth seemed to be going mad around her. Her imagination began to cycle. What if Gian was buried in sand before he could get back to the tent? What if the wind ripped the tent and her mouth and nose and lungs were filled with sand? The shouts outside were gone, either lost in the wind, or the men who made them silenced.But she had a job to do. The wind was fluttering swirls of sand under the edge of the tent. She threw herself to her knees, pulled the excess canvas at the bottom of the tent walls to the inside and heaved sand onto it in great, two-handed scoops. That made the tent walls st.u.r.dier. She worked with all her strength, edging around until she'd circ.u.mnavigated the tent.

Then she was done, with nothing to do but wait and listen to the wind attacking the tent. It covered her gasps in overwhelming sound. She found herself s.h.i.+vering, though the heat was oppressive inside the tent. She couldn't sit. She just stood there, trembling. It seemed like forever until a whoosh of sand eddied in at the tent door. Gian stumbled in, pulling a horse with him.

”Tie the flap,” he shouted. Already the air in the tent was filled with swirling sand.

She didn't need to be told twice. With fumbling fingers she found the ties. Her eyes stung with sand. He was beside her, pulling the flap taut against the force of the wind. Lord, but he was strong. The eddies of sand and air died as she tied the overlapping flaps shut.

”My G.o.d, Gian, are you all right?” She pushed back the hood of his burnoose and ran her hands over his face. It was caked with sand. His hair was full of it.

He nodded, gasping, and bent over, hands on his knees. Then he straightened and went to the horse, who was sneezing and shaking his head. It was his dapple-gray. Gian took a cloth from the pack and wiped the horse's nostrils and dabbed at his eyes.

”There, better?” he asked the animal, and wiped his own face and neck. He tapped the horse's knees and the beast sank to the ground. He practically filled the tent. Gian looked up at her and shrugged. ”I couldn't leave him out there. He wasn't hobbled or his eyes protected. He never would have lasted.”

”You don't see me objecting.” She cleared her throat. ”My... camel?” Her voice sounded small over the wind clawing at the tent.

She began to s.h.i.+ver again.

”They're pretty hardy creatures.” He didn't make any promises. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. He bent to the pack and brought out two water sacks, some packets of food wrapped in cloth. He handed her a water sack. ”Drink some of this.”

The water was warm and tasted of leather as she squeezed it into her mouth. But it was heaven. ”How long will the storm last?”

A quiver laced her voice. Where had that come from?

”No telling.” He rubbed some water over his face and wiped it with the cloth again. ”This looks like a big one, though.” He took the water bag over to the horse and squeezed some into the side of its mouth. Its thick tongue snaked out to lick its lips. He glanced back to her. ”We should have enough water to last if we're careful.” He sat. There were no bedrolls or brightly colored rugs to cover the sand. She realized how much luxury he had provided for her up to now. ”Come.” He patted the place next to him.

She sat and hugged her knees.

”Now, I'm going to feed you dates while you talk to me.”

”Talk? What about?” How could the man want conversation when the world was going insane around them?

”Anything you like.” He popped a date into his own mouth. ”Take my mind off the situation, you know.”

”Oh.” Well, she could do that. It never occurred to her he might need comfort, or that such an arrogant creature would ever admit it. He offered her a date. She had grown to like the sweet, chewy dried fruit. They tasted like dessert, only you could eat them all the time, but her stomach rebelled at the very thought of food. She shook her head. ”I'm not going to shout,” she warned.

”Settle in closer. That way I can hear you.” He put his arm around her. In spite of the heat, it felt good. She had to admit that.

Nothing could protect her against the force of the wind, if ever it tore its way through the tent walls. But if she had to die, she could think of worse places to do it than in Gian Urbano's arms, even if he didn't love her. Even if he was something supernatural.

”I never believed in the supernatural, you know.” She had to start somewhere and it was the only thing that occurred to her.

”I find that odd.” His voice was so intimate, breathing into her ear. ”You who are the most supernatural creature I have ever met.”

”Me!” She chuffed a laugh. ”This from a vampire.”

”But I think myself very natural.” He made it sound reasonable.

”I suppose you wouldn't think your powers abnormal since you grew up with them.”

”Leaving aside the word 'abnormal' for a moment, since I do not cede you that, perhaps that's why you don't consider yourself supernatural.”

”I didn't say I wasn't supernatural. These visions I have are definitely beyond the norm. I only said it was ridiculous for a vampire to call me the most supernatural creature he'd ever met.” A thought occurred to her. ”Besides, I'm not sure the abnormal part is even me. I never had a vision until the stones. They are the supernatural force. They ruined my entire life.”

”Ruined...” He sounded sad. Then she felt him straighten. ”But you didn't have the emerald when you had the vision of Elyta torturing me. That was the first night I met you.”

”Oh, dear.” He was right. She had been possessed by visions before she stole the stone. ”Maybe it's you that induces this...

effect in me. It must be something. I'm a charlatan, remember? Really quite ordinary.”

”Hardly ordinary, Kate. You are a charlatan of the first order.” He chuckled. They sat there, him holding her, listening to the angry, howling wind. Kate realized she'd stopped s.h.i.+vering. The hard feel of his body against her side was having its usual effect.

G.o.d, but the man could make her crazy for him even in the middle of a sandstorm. How long had it been since they had been intimate? Since the chapel...

He kissed the top of her head. ”I've an idea. Tell me what you first remember.”

”Why?”

”Can you just humor me for once without bickering about it?”

”I wasn't bickering.” She looked up, feeling mulish, and saw the warning look in his eyes. ”Oh, very well.” She took a breath.

She had told no one about that time before Sir found her, not the sisters, not Matthew. ”The first thing I remember is waking up in a trash heap behind a tavern.”

She could practically hear him thinking. ”But you were what, six, you said? Most people can remember lots of things before they were six.”

”Well, I can't.”

”I think you're just not saying to spite me.”

”I wouldn't dare spite you. Defy the great Urbano? Hardly.” Still, it was hard to feel rebellious cradled in his arms. She chewed her lip, thinking.

”For most people, the first thing they remember is a face.”

She wasn't most people. Still... ”I guess I remember a face.” It was just a vague outline though. She didn't even know whose face.

”Man or woman?” he murmured.

”A woman.” Fear began to circle her. ”She smelled like lavender.” Lavender came rus.h.i.+ng over her. Kate began to breathe hard.