Hiding In Plain Sight Pt 02

Part 2: The Rift

She was running, uncovered feet digging deep into the moss and soft dirt of a moonlit forest floor. The warm night air rushed along her cheeks, her hair streaming out behind her in bouncing tendrils of gold-brushed amber. She felt free and wild, flowing between the tree trunks with their papery bark. Something was with her, a pace or two behind, racing to catch up. She laughed, deep throated with joy, as a clawed hand wrapped around her wrist.

Tegan woke with a jolt, staring up at the broad wooden ceiling beams above her. Pale predawn light streamed in from the rooms window and open door. She sat up, the quilt she'd been twisted up in falling to her lap. The events of the night before came crashing through her thoughts, her night with Emron etched on her skin with thin lines of scratches. Feeling somewhere between disappointed and grateful she was waking up alone, Tegan swung her feet to the floor. She crept to the door, peeking around the jamb into the empty kitchen. While the door into the tavern room was shut, the door out into the kitchen garden was ajar. She padded along the table, looking for the clothes he had literally ripped off her the night before, the memory sending a pleasant shiver down her spine. Her boots were there, set next to the open door, but the clothing itself was nowhere to be found. She snatched up her boots in annoyance, bare feet pattering on the floor boards as she returned to Emron's room.

She snatched up the first of his shirts she found and tugged it over her head, the hem brushing just above her knees. Crossing to the closed tavern door, she opened it quietly, glancing around the shadowed room. The drunk from the night before was still sprawled across the table, snoring loudly. Tegan ignored him, going swiftly up the steps and slipping into her room.

She leaned against the door after closing it, Emron's scent wafting up from the shirt she'd just stolen. She inhaled deeply, eyelids fluttering shut and a satisfied smile curling her lips, until a wave of doubt washed over her. Her eyes snapped back open, the possible consequences crashing over her. Crossing to the table, she picked up the book she'd been leafing through the day before, frantically scanning the page. How could she be so careless, so reckless?

I let him bite me,

she thought to herself, brow furrowed with worry.

How could I let a Changer do that!

The book's entry on shape changers was scant, barely a page, owing mostly to the fact that they had essentially been eradicated almost a century before. The creatures had been one of the first to be purged from the kingdom, since their habits of disappearing during a full moon and the instinct to tear apart anything that moved were pretty obvious and damning. Tegan traced the rune in the corner of the page, knowing it was nowhere to be found on her skin. She reached the end of the entry and snapped the book shut, flinging it across the room in frustration. Nowhere had it said anything about what to do if you had been bitten by a Changer, presumably because no one had survived a bite at all, let alone long enough to submit a request for an information update. Folding herself onto the bed, chin resting on her updrawn knees, Tegan replayed the night before in her head. Emron had said he didn't want to hurt her, so logically he would not have bitten her if it spelled her doom. Unless he'd been lying, or unless he hadn't known what would happen either, or unless no one he'd bitten had lived long enough for them to have a discussion about it later.

Or, or, or,

she thought to herself, irritated and anxious. His scent, like a just extinguished coal and seasoned wood, invaded her nose, and she tore the shirt off to escape thinking about him and what they had done the night before, as well as how much she had enjoyed it. She felt better once free, balling it up and tossing it in a corner. She came off the bed to her bag and retrieved a spare set of clothes, the soft weave of the linen fabric comforting. Regardless of what was going to happen to her, she was going to have to decide what to do about that fact that she had found one of the rarer and more dangerous creatures in the kingdom playing innkeeper amongst the crown's citizens. Streaks of the dawning sun stretched across the floor boards as she worked at the options, laying down on the pallet again and staring at the ceiling. None of the possibilities were satisfying and Tegan drifted on the edge of sleep, thoughts chasing each other around in circles.

She startled awake again, at the sound of a soft knock on the door, morning light flooding the room. She crossed to the door and wrenched it open, angry at having fallen asleep instead of coming up with a solution to the problem at hand.

Emron stood on the door's other side, a small pile of neatly folded clothing held in one large hand, his eyes wide in surprise at the force she'd used to pull the door open. Tegan was annoyed to discover that her pulse quickened with desire at the sight of him, despite everything she'd learned. There was nothing about him that had changed from the night before, face still covered in stubble, eyes still the grey green of mountain lichen, apron tied at his waist over a fresh shirt. Well, maybe not wholly unchanged, as his dark hair seemed to have been slicked back, which she noticed only because he was absently running his other hand across it. He seemed almost nervous.

"Can I come in?" he asked after a moment of them staring at each other. Tegan's mouth pulled down into a puzzled frown before stepping aside to let him enter. He had to stoop a little to clear the top of the door, the ceiling of the inn's second story slightly shorter than the main floor. She felt the swell of heat from his skin as he passed by, a corresponding fire kindling warmly in her belly, skin tightening. She resisted the urge to brush her fingers against his bare forearm as he passed, irked by her own body's betrayal.

"We should probably talk," he said finally, gesturing at the door Tegan hadn't yet closed.

Relenting, she shut the door, leaning against the wall beside it. Emron cleared his throat, taking a breath to prepare himself, and looked at her more intensely than she would have liked.

"I don't even know your name," he said distractedly after a moment, eyes lowering to the hollow of her throat.

Again Tegan balked with displeasure. She'd heard his name from the barmaid, and it hadn't even occurred to her in the madness of last night to share hers.

Not that there had been a moment anyway

, she thought, skin flushing. Emron watched the flush spread, the retreating grey in his eyes being supplanted by bright green.

"Tegan," she said shortly, and he nodded, the hungry look in his eyes subsiding.

"Emron," he smiled shyly and held out the bundle of clothes to her, "I, uh, brought your clothes back."

Tegan crossed to him and took them from him, noticing that her knife belt was coiled on top of her repaired vest before tossing them on the bed, trying to be the picture of disinterest.

"I couldn't fix your shirt," Emron continued, apologetic. Still she said nothing. An awkward silence stretched between them; Emron glancing around the room, Tegan's anxiety and excitement at having him so close again warring against each other.

"What did you do to me?" she finally asked, with more bite than she intended.

"What?" he squawked in surprise, clearly taken aback.

"When you bit me last night, what's it going to do to me?"

"When I..." his brows raised, "You told me to!"

She scooped up the book from where she'd left it, flipping to the changer's entry before thrusting it at him.

"Is it going to change me, or kill me, or something else that no one knows about?" she persisted as he took the book and focused on the page.

Emron read it quickly, then a few more times, eyes growing pained. She realized belatedly that it may be a trifle unpleasant to read the details about how you could be hunted and killed for the benefit of society, your nature laid bare on the page of what was essentially a strangers guidebook. Tegan watched his thumb rub across the rune in the corner of the page, and she remembered what he'd said in the dark of the kitchen while he examined her rune covered arms. He'd been right, there had been so few left that certifiers no longer wore their mark, giving the half-wolf half-man shape changers no more than a few scant paragraphs of explanation.

"How could you have known so little of us, so little of what we are like," he murmured to himself and Tegan's self righteous anger started ebbing away.

"It's not going to do anything to you, that's not how it works," he said bitterly.

He closed the book and placed it gently back on the table, and she was shamed by the relief that flooded through her. Emron could evidently feel it too, his shoulders sinking, the hurt in his eyes cutting into her like blades. Again the silence between them returned, Tegan now the embarrassed one.

"What are you going to do now?" His deep voice was somehow small, his gaze fixed on the distant sun drenched mountains through the window.

He'll make a run for it if I let him,

Tegan thought, watching the muscles of his jaw work. Her thoughts jumbled together, warring with each other. By profession she was obligated to make a report, and dispatch him if possible. At the same time, he'd shown her what he was, even knowing the power and advantage that would give her, and here she was, unharmed and still standing.

"I don't know," she said, running hands through her hair in frustration. Tegan looked down at the book where he'd placed it, thinking about all the care he took with his movements, careful not to let himself seem anything other than human, and how much control that must have taken. Thinking of what Caty had said about all of the times people had asked him to 'hunt' them for the festival, yet none of them were laying in the woods torn to bits.

He'd certainly been in control of himself last night,

the traitorous thought stole through her mind, and Tegan felt herself flush again. She shook herself, pushing the memories just how much she'd enjoyed being held in his claws.

"If I don't make a report and you end up hurting someone..." she trailed off, and he gave an annoyed snort.

"If you are going to believe what some idiot wrote in that book, instead of what you see with your own eyes," he said, "what you have

felt

yourself, then I should have never come up here."

"Clearly people have been hurt before! If you were all docile as house cats then you would have never ended up there in the first place!"

His head snapped around to look at her, eyes glowing with dangerous fury.

"You understand nothing," he snarled, voice low, rancor ringing with every word, "if any of your damned kind had asked even one question, used your brains for anything other than self appointed destruction in the guise of a noble cause, then

maybe

someone would have written the truth in that damned book of yours."

"That doesn't mean it's untrue!" Tegan said with a stubborn toss of her arms, clinging to her idea of how the world worked, despite the doubts piling up around her.

"They were sick!" he roared. His calm broke and he crossed the room in two long strides, looming over her. Tegan brought her hands up to ward him off, palms burning with the luscious heat touching him created when they landed on his chest. The muscles twitched beneath his shirt, rising and falling with his ragged breaths, a growl low in his throat.

She kept her hands and body still, eyes locked on the base of his throat. One of his hands came up, tense as it brushed back the hair covering the curve of her shoulder, taking in a deep breath to settle himself.

"They were sick," he repeated, quietly, thumb stroking her neck, more to soothe himself than her, but it made her pulse jump nonetheless, "No one knows why, they just...got consumed, went mad. Something like that. None of us had ever heard of it happening before, it was like a curse. They would just go wild, no thought in their heads except killing, anything and everything."

Tegan had reached for his other hand while he was speaking, not satisfied with simply laying her hands on him. She held it now in both of hers, thumbs brushing against his knuckles.

"None of us could do anything for them,

I

couldn't do anything for them, for my pack," he continued, voice raspy with pain, "For every one that your people and the other hunters killed, there was at least one you never knew ever existed. It was a matter of survival for all of us, and soon it was just safer to be alone. An easier burden to bear."

The silence filled the room, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Tegan grappled not only with the fact that this seemingly young man was in fact well over a hundred years old, but had been forced by what sounded like horrible circumstances to spend that century isolated from anyone that could understand who he truly was. That he had probably had to watch someone dear to him disappear, most likely had to take someones life to keep others from being exposed. He laid his cheek against her head, free hand winding the sleek amber strands of her hair through his fingers.

"Emron Flint!" a voice thundered from outside the door and they both jumped. "I don't know where you've got to but if you don't come down to help me with this inn right now, I'm walking out right now!"

Emron cursed and pulled away from Tegan. His eye's held so much sorrow, but also questions that she had no answers for.

"Give me until tomorrow," he said, untangling his hands and brushing past her to the door. She was about to turn and ask him what he meant, but he had already pulled it open and was striding down the hall to the stairs, not sparing a glance in her direction. She shut the door again and leaned on it, mind a tempest of thoughts. Maybe if she could include his account in her report the crown would leave him be? Or maybe if she found other changers, ones that were like Emron, already living peacefully among humans, undetected. The idea was desperate and naive, but at least it was something.

The first hurdle for her to overcome would have to be knowing what she was looking for, and for that, she was going to have to do a little adjustment on herself. Crossing to the table she set out the bag of rust colored powder she had used the day before, the book, a clean cloth, shallow dish, and a peculiar rod, a line of fine needles set into the end. Rummaging around her bag she pulled out a small vial of purple liquid, faintly iridescent in the light, and pulled out the cork, pouring a bit into the dish. She thickened it with the powder, murmuring a soft chant as she mixed the two. When it bubbled in response, Tegan laid her forearm wrist up next to the dish, picking up the needle rod while consulting the rune in the book and set to work. Dipping the needles into the ink she'd made, the spell coursed through her body as she inscribed the mark into her wrist. It took all her concentration to form it correctly, to make sure her skin absorbed the words and meaning of the creature it represented.

The room was shadowed with twilight by the time Tegan set the needles down, the ink in the shallow dish finally used up. She felt drained as she looked at the mark critically, tearing a strip of cloth to bind it with. While it should be fully healed by the next morning, it should have already been working, however it sat dull and lifeless on her wrist. Her brow furrowed, wondering if she had set the range too short. Wrapping her wrist she crossed to the door and headed out into the hallway. No flare came from the mark, only a dull ache of healing. She grew increasingly worried when she reached the bottom of the stairs and still nothing about the mark changed. The inn was fuller than it had been the night before, people streaming around her, laughing and calling out to each other. She looked around the room from the bottom step, not seeing Emron's thick dark hair anywhere. Between the mark and his height, he should have been easy to spot, and Tegan's worry grew as she stepped off the stair and pushed through to the bar. Caty was almost sprinting from one end to the other to fill the torrent of mugs people thrust at her.

"Where's Emron?" she called to the barmaid, who barley gave her a harried glance.

"I've no idea, took off into the wilds this afternoon, saying he'd be back, but who knows when that will be." Caty called back between pulling mugs of beer. A pang of dread seared Tegans stomach.

"When he

does

get back," the redhead continued, "I'm going to kill him. Had to pull in both my sisters and promise to split all my earnings with them just to keep this place from burning to the ground."

Tegan drummed her fingers on the bar as Caty was swept away by the demands of the other patrons. The dread churned in her belly, knowing that it was most likely her fault that Emron had bolted. She debated saddling her horse right then and riding out to find him, to explain her plan, but ultimately realized that would probably only make things worse. An already panicked Changer catching wind of her hunting him could only lead to the very outcome they were both desperately trying to avoid.

If he doesn't turn up by morning then I'll know he's gone,

she thought to herself, stomach twisting in more knots at the thought. She turned away from the bar, sick of imagining him leaving this place, somewhere he'd clearly felt safe and at home for a long time. The only reason she'd been here at all was because someone long ago had decided what creatures were safe and which were dangerous, and apparently hadn't even asked basic questions while doing so. Tegan headed back to the stairs, pushing roughly past the people around her, the world she knew crumbling. She propelled herself up the stairs unsteadily, breath coming in short gasps.

Staggering into her room once more, confusion and rage welled up inside her. Rage at what she was and what those before her had done, confusion about what that meant for her now. The book, still laying open on the table, seemed to mock her. She crossed to it, picking it up and tearing it apart in a fury, grunting a curse as each page whirled around her. Emron had trusted her with his secret and she'd ruined everything for him. Tegan found herself kneeling on the floor amidst the scattered pages, hands on her knees, chest tight and heaving. She spied Emrons discarded shirt and pulled it over to her, inhaling his scent. Numbly she thought about how she was probably never going to smell it again, and dimly aware that even if the book was wrong, that didn't mean that she had to be. It would be hard, but maybe there was still something she could do to convince other certifiers, current and future, that the creatures on those pages were more than nuisances to be slain. Still numb and not quite conscious of what she was doing, Tegan slipped the shirt over her head and began the slow work of reassembling the book.

The moon had fully risen when she'd finished, sitting back in her chair, the crudely rebound book sitting before her on the table. Tegan stretched her arms above her head, shoulders popping. She was just about to pack it away in her bag when the skin beneath the cloth binding around her wrist flared, a blaze of heat flying up her arm. She was at the door like a shot, padding quickly down the hallway to the stairs. Skipping steps she flew down them, she came to an abrupt halt when Emron appeared at the bottom. They stared at each other, matched in height for the first time, the green of his eyes threatening to swallow her up. Tegan was suddenly embarrassed at the relief and excitement that was coursing through her. Emron looked at her in confusion, or more accurately at what she was wearing.