In The Dark Of Dreams Part 22

He pushed her tighter against the tree-against him-one ma.s.sive arm still around her. His other hand slid up her throat, stilling her, making every inch of her body tingle as his big warm palm pressed against her cheek. She had thought he would be extra careful after bruising her-and he was, so careful-but there was a determination in his touch, too. A thrill rolled through her body, followed by a hungry ache that she hadn't felt in years.

"Open your eyes," he whispered. "Look at me."

He hadn't been so eager before to stare into her eyes, but something in his voice cut her heart. Jenny looked up.

There, his eyes. Pale as ice, glittering. But not cold. His eyes were soft with pain, and a loneliness that seared her, down to the soul.

His loneliness. Her loneliness. Both the same. She hadn't realized how lonely she had been, until this moment. Faced with it, in his eyes. Hit her in a rush, a great, heaving heartache that she didn't know how to handle. Except not handle it at all.

"Eight years," Perrin said, his voice little more than a broken rasp. "Eight years on land. Some of that time in prison."

Jenny stared. "Prison."

His jaw hardened. "I didn't understand certain things. I committed crimes. Added up to a year of my life."

She tried to speak but couldn't. Her silence seemed to hurt him. Bitterness filled his gaze, and he pushed away from her. Jenny caught him, holding tight. He hesitated-then gently, carefully, pried her fingers off his wrist.

Perrin walked away. Not far, just out of arm's reach. He stared at the fire. Jenny had to lean against the tree again, steadying herself as she studied more scar tissue, old and rough, embedded in the muscles of his back and arms. The firelight softened the scars, but not the sense of barely contained violence-inside him, against him.

Hooks, she thought, pressing her fist over her heart.

"Tell me about the Consortium," he said quietly.

Tell me why you didn't go back to the sea for eight years, she wanted to ask, but a terrible dread rose in her throat before she could voice that question.

"They're family," she said.

"Family," Perrin echoed, and she waited for something more. But all he did was nod to himself. Cool, calm. Not the reaction she felt whenever she thought about the mess her relatives had created. Vomiting while screaming was more like it. Combined with insane rage.

"That's it?" she asked him.

"Family can be cruel," Perrin replied, as if that was all the explanation he needed to give. And it was. In a way.

Jenny pushed away from the tree. "I work for a corporation called A Priori. My grandmother and her three sisters founded it during World War II. Finding lost objects and people was their specialty, although that's changed in the last sixty years. Investments, bioresearch, oil, manufacturing."

"And things less mundane."

She wondered how much he already knew. "Yes. But that . . . was always on the side. My family has never been . . . normal."

"You said you knew about shape-shifters. You've been remarkably calm about what I am. You were brave in front of the sea witch."

Scared s.h.i.tless, she thought. "I grew up around unusual things. People with unusual gifts. But the family split, decades ago. One of the sisters, when she saw the business changing into something increasingly commercial, broke away to continue her work as it had been originally intended: as a means of helping people. My grandmother and her other sisters, like I said, didn't follow that path. And some of their children took it even further."

She joined him at the fire. Staring at the flames, unable to look at his face. Her throat felt tight, and her stomach hurt. She hated thinking about the past. Even though she was so good at it.

"I have uncles, aunts, cousins . . . all of them with too much power. Up here." She tapped her forehead. "They can do things with their minds. Make other people do things. That was the line they crossed, but by the time my grandparents and everyone else realized just how far they had gone, it was too late to stop them."

"Those relatives betrayed all of you?"

"Only after we tried to stop them. Turned into a war, briefly." Jenny pressed her hand over her stomach. "When I thought you'd been . . . locked up . . . I a.s.sumed it was by them. They hunt, or try to recruit, humans who are born different, along with shape-shifters, and . . . other beings. I'm not sure how much you know."

"Gargoyles," Perrin said, surprising her. "Witches, who are fey in the blood. Your Consortium hunts my kind, too, I a.s.sume. Though I imagine we've been even more difficult to find. The sea is . . . vast. And we take precautions."

There was something faintly ominous in the way he said that. "Do your people have a name?"

He hesitated. "Krackeni."

"Krackeni," Jenny echoed. "I always called you merman."

"It works," he said, with a faint tilt of his shoulder. "What does the Consortium do with those they capture or recruit?"

"Experiments. Breeding programs. Brainwashing. Like your sea witch, they seem to think the end of the world is coming and want to be at the top of the food chain when it does. I won't rule out the possibility"-not after what the sea witch had said-"but I think it's just some excuse to hurt people. Lets them sleep at night, when they're not busy taking over almost every major criminal organization in the world. Drugs, human trafficking, weapons . . . follow the trails, and in the past ten years it's become difficult not to find a link back to the family, and the bigger they get, the harder it is to fight them."

Jenny finally looked at him. While she hadn't been certain what to expect in his reaction, she was surprised to see the deep-etched lines of strain in his brow, around his eyes. His gaze was distant, thoughtful. Unhappy.

"What?" she asked, alarmed.

His frown deepened. "Did A'lesander work for them?"

Jenny frowned, rubbing her arms. "He said no. He killed their agent who attacked me."

"Coincidence, then," Perrin murmured, and another chill raced through her.

"What are you talking about?"

He rubbed his face, but she thought it was less a gesture of weariness and more like another way to stall. Jenny waited, not entirely patient, moving so that she could see his face more clearly. Close enough to crane her neck and feel the heat rising from his body.

She wanted to touch his arms again and feel his strength beneath her hands. She wanted him wrapped around her.

Don't be afraid of me, he had said.

When I stop wanting you, she thought, and stifled the urge to flinch at herself.

You don't know him, one side of her protested, while another part of her, just as strong, whispered, You do. You've known him since you were twelve years old. Dreaming every night of his hands holding yours.

"Perrin," Jenny said.

He drew in a hard breath, like he was steeling himself for a blow. "I told you I was exiled. I returned because I had a vision. Something terrible. The earthquake we felt is only the beginning."

"Beginning of what?"

Perrin met her gaze, and his eyes were empty, cold. "Destruction. The earth's axis will shift. The shapes of continents will change. Millions will die."

Jenny grimaced. "No."

"Yes. Human mythology still remembers a great expanse of water that covered every land in the world. A flood. The last time was to stop a war. There have been breaks in the intervening millennia, but not many. This will be different. The waters will surge inland-"

He stopped himself. Jenny stared.

"You don't believe me," Perrin said.

"I don't know," she told him. Les had lied his a.s.s off for years, and she'd bought it. Except Perrin looked like each word he spoke made him die a little.

You need this kra'a to stop what's coming, she wanted to say. That was clear when you spoke with the sea witch. You need this thing inside me. I would give it to you. I would give it to you if I could.

Let go of me, she thought. Let go.

But the parasite did not respond.

Perrin bowed his head, and this time when he rubbed his face, she knew it was weariness, bone deep. "By murdering Pelena, this event was caused deliberately. I don't know if it can be stopped. It's possible, even, that A'lesander had help. He might have wanted the kra'a, but others would be just as pleased with human deaths."

A sharp pain stabbed through the base of her skull. "Are we so terrible?"

"No," he said, almost growling the word. "But there are many of you, and just as many who aren't careful with the sea. And there are many of my kind who have never been overly fond of humans, and who believe that when we mix with your kind, we dirty our blood."

"So it's a mess."

"Few Krackeni have lived amongst humans as I have. If more did, perhaps they would understand that we are all one kind of people, no matter what we breathe."

"Idealist."

"No," he said, with particular bitterness. "Just tired."

She sat back, studying him. Seeing hooks in each of those scars. Ropes, binding him. Trapped. Helpless.

"Perrin," she began. "What do you want?"

He shot her a strange look. "What do you mean?"

"What's kept you going all these years?"

Something vulnerable entered his eyes, and he looked away from her. "I don't know. I was still alive. That was a miracle in itself though it wore on me. Being human was so difficult in some ways, but I kept going. Maybe for no reason. But sometimes, sometimes I suppose I hoped . . ."

Perrin stopped, and rubbed his mouth. "You? What were your . . . aspirations?"

To find you, she wanted to say, but that was only part of it.

"To do good," she said truthfully. "I had no lofty dreams. Nothing grandiose. I just . . . wanted to find a way to make the world a better place, in some small way. In my own way."

"Did you?"

She smiled sadly. "I'm not sure. I worked with children for a time, teaching them about the ocean. It was wonderful. Kids are born with pa.s.sion, and it makes you feel bigger inside when you're the one shining the focus on something that captures their imaginations. But after . . . after what happened in my family, I couldn't go back to that. I focused on . . . other things."

"Searching for oddities," he said, grim. "Like me."

"You're not odd," she said gently, and smiled. "Not even a little."

He stilled, giving her that vulnerable look again, so at odds with the scarred, hard lines of his face and body.

"You're my other miracle," he said, but before Jenny could respond to that stunning statement, he added, "Why do your relatives want to hurt you?"

It took Jenny a moment to collect herself. "I don't understand the timing, or reasons. I'm just the granddaughter. I'm n.o.body. I like it that way. I keep to myself. Do my work. I never go home."

"Why?"

"Why were you exiled?"

Perrin stared at her. Maybe he would have told her-maybe-but leaves crackled loudly, beyond their small ring of light.

Jenny flinched. Perrin turned, searching the shadows, and glided away from the fire. He signaled her to stay behind. Jenny ignored him, but kept her distance: watching, and listening.

And then, not even that.

Dizziness struck her. She almost sat down. A hollow ache sank from the base of her skull, down her spine, into her chest. Her lungs hurt. Her heart hammered harder, then slowed. For a moment, all Jenny wanted to do was lurch on unsteady legs to the sea.

Several steps later, she realized she was doing just that.

Parasite, Jenny thought, chilled to the bone.

It wouldn't have been the first time that parasites had been found influencing host behavior, but never so extreme. Of course, nothing like the parasite latched to her spine had ever been doc.u.mented.

She was so screwed.

Behind her, Perrin made a small sound of surprise. Jenny turned, ready for guns, knives-anything.

But nothing was there. Just Perrin, crouched low to the ground, one of his hands pressed into the leaves as he leaned forward and reached for a dark shape hunched in front of him.

Jenny narrowed her eyes. "Is that-"

"Shhh. Move slowly."

She sank to her knees and crawled on all fours. Close, closer, until she saw a pair of glittering eyes, a wet nose, and a tiny shivering body that ended in a wagging tail.

"Oh, man," she murmured. "Where did he come from?"

Perrin didn't answer. Slowly, carefully, he reached out-humming an achingly familiar melody under his breath. Jenny bowed her head, fingers digging into the ground. Heart in her throat. Maybe it would stay there, for the rest of her life, and she would never be able to swallow again without feeling like she was going to cry.

Enough with the melodrama, she told herself. Enough.

She heard a brief whine, a whimper, and rubbed her eyes as Perrin dragged a squirming little bundle of fur into his arms.

Dog. Skinny, black, with a short body and thin, curved tail. Alert eyes. Almost young enough to be a puppy, but not quite. Perrin held him awkwardly, frowning as the little dog licked his hand and snuggled deeper into his lap. She heard a sigh, from the man or animal, she couldn't tell-but it made her heart flop. Just a little. Not that she had a weakness for that sort of thing.

"You make a sight," she said, and reached for one of the cooked fish. The dog watched her, ears perked, and tumbled from Perrin's lap as soon as she began picking meat off the bones. He ate frantically, straight from her fingers, whining when she took longer than a few seconds to debone more fish.

Perrin watched her with an unreadable expression on his face. Made her cheeks flush. Something in his gaze. Warmth, maybe.

"He's scared," he said.