Part 29 (1/2)
Gyhard glared down at Karlene, who raised herself up on one elbow and stared levelly back at him. ”I thought you were asleep.”
”You were supposed to. I don't want to know what you'd intended to do with His Highness were he alive...” Her tone quite clearly said that she thought she did know and had no intention of admitting it. ”But why are you going after the old man?”
He squatted beside her pallet, forearms balanced on his thighs, careful not to meet her gaze too directly. ”I'm going to tell you something that Vree said to me once. It always struck me as succinct and to the point.”
The bard lifted a heavy strand of hair back off her face and waited.
”Sod off.”
”Are you still sane?”
”Stop it, Bannon. Don't you start.” Saddlebags slung over her shoulder, sandals dangling from one hand, she padded barefoot across the stableyard to a secluded corner between the sandstone wall that separated the inn's property from the road and the small corral. Dropping her sandals onto the packed earth, she hung the bags over the top rail and peered in at the horses.
”Then am I still sane?”
He sounded so frightened that she stood where she was, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Bannon had never been afraid of anything. Not the things small boys were often afraid of. Not the training that killed one candidate for every two a.s.sa.s.sins it produced. Not what they were ordered to do, no matter how difficult. He'd never even been afraid of losing her, as she'd been afraid of losing him. She felt her palms rubbing together and as gently as she could, forced her hands apart.
”Sister-mine?”
”You're as sane as you ever were,” she told him. ”Not that anyone who once carved his name on the wall in Commander Neegan's quarters just to prove he could should be considered sane.”
She felt a smile begin. ”I couldn't do it now.”
”That's because you'd never get this body into the commander's quarters, especially not when he was asleep in them!”
His mood swung as high as it had been low. ”Remember how impressed Neegan was?”
”I remember he made you sand it out of the wall.”
”Slaughter that! He told me I had more b.a.l.l.s than the whole Sixth Army!”
”And that was a compliment?”
Instead of answering, he murmured, ”You had a dream about me last night.”
Vree's heart skipped a beat, but she managed to keep near panic from scattering her thoughts. ”How do you know?”
”I was there.” He sounded smug. ”I've been dreaming your dreams for a couple of nights now. I just never mentioned it before.”
Heat and the kind of s.e.x that seared its mark on the skin for everyone to see if they only know how to look. Arms and legs entwined, bodies slick with sweat, and a final, ultimate fulfillment.
”I was flattered.”
Except that it wasn't Bannon. She'd had dreams about Bannon since she was old enough for desire and last night, while she'd dreamed about her brother's body, it was not his life controlling it.
She opened her eyes. ”It's getting lighter. If we want to work out, we have to do it now.”
He settled, complacent, into the back of her mind, secure of his place in her life if nowhere else. As she stretched flexibility back into muscles and joints, she wished she could feel that same security. Was he sane? She didn't know. Even ignoring his attempts to take over her body, his mood swings were extreme and his habits were blurring together with hers. It was becoming harder to determine which was her and which was Bannon but no trouble at all to determine which was Gyhard.
Was she sane? It didn't really matter. If one of them went off the edge, the other would follow.
A short time later, skin beaded with sweat, breathing just hard enough to prove she'd put effort into the exercises, she slid her dusty feet into the heavy leather sandals and knelt to buckle them.
”Vree...”
”I see them.”
Two sets of footprints, pointing away from the fence, the indentation deeper toward the heel.
”Those are my prints, Vree.”
”I know.”
”Why was the carrion eater out here in the middle of the night, leaning on the rail?”
”Probably talking.”
Bannon sighed. ”No slaughtering kidding. Talking to whom? He doesn't know anyone here but you and that bard.”
That bard. Vree slowly straightened and turned toward the inn. The common room stretched the length of the east side of the building and overlooked the stableyard. One of the tall, narrow shutters had been thrown open and Vree thought she could see movement in the depths of the window well. Had Gyhard and Karlene formed some kind of an alliance? They were from the same country after all. Perhaps in Shkoder they thought nothing of stealing another's body.
”Don't be an a.s.s, Vree. If they did this all the time in Shkoder, Karlene wouldn't have had to ask how it happened.” He paused then continued. ”Besides, she wanted to be your friend, not his.”
Secure in the knowledge that he was first in his sister's life, Bannon had never been jealous of Vree's few friends the way she'd been of his mult.i.tude.
Karlene had asked for her friends.h.i.+p. So why the companionable chat with Gyhard in the middle of the night?
”You know, she's not bad looking for all she's got to be-what, thirty? Maybe they were...”
”Shut up, Bannon.”
”You could still...”
”No!” She didn't know which of the two Bannon was suggesting she sleep with. Nor did she care.
Gyhard remained off limits for an increasingly complicated number of reasons, and she couldn't accept the comfort of a few hours with Karlene as long as Bannon remained in her mind.
”Hey, don't cut my tongue out.” He sounded sulky. ”I just think it would be slaughtering unfair to go back to my own body without once experiencing s.e.x as a woman.”
”Why don't you think about a way to get us out of this alive, instead of worrying about getting laid?” Vree snapped and headed back to the inn and food. She could feel the stablehands staring at her as they tossed fodder into the corral and, uncomfortable with her suspicions, only barely resisted giving them something to stare at.