Fifth Quarter by Tanya Huff Read Free Book Online

upward.
     
    The windows in the servants' quarters stared like eyes. Vree could feel them watching her as she gathered herself for the jump. They can't all be asleep …
     
    "They have to be."
     
    The run.
     
    The jump.
     
    The landing, nearly silent against the earth packed onto thick supporting logs.
     
    A pigeon burst out of its shadowed corner, wings beating noisely at the air. Below, the dog jerked awake.
     
    "Slaughter it! It'll wake the dead, let alone the servants. We should have killed it."
     
    "Shut up, Bannon." Pressed flat, trying to push herself into the roof, Vree tried to hear past the dog's frenzied barking. It wasn't easy. Either the animal really hated pigeons or it had seen them. Her.
     
    "Shaddup, ya stupid mutt!"
     
    The dog yelped in pain.
     
    "Hey, shithead! Don't throw things at my dog!"
     
    "No problem." Something metal and hollow—a brass pitcher from the sound—clanged off a wall.
     
    "Hey! Ya coulda killed me with that!"
     
    "Not likely, I was aimin' at yer head."
     
    "Yeah?"
     
    "Yeah."
     
    "Feis, leave the dog along and come back to bed."
     
    "Ya gonna protect her when I rip her apart, Sova?"
     
    "Touch my Feis and I'll rip you apart, you dickless wonder."
     
    The three voices began to weave an intricate cacophony of name-calling and it no longer mattered just what the dog had been barking at.
     
    "Time to go."
     
    Vines hung from the trellises that edged the deserted courtyard and in the center, a shallow pool reflected the sky. Quickly, her weight spread over as much area as possible, Vree moved to one of the carved pillars supporting the trellis and climbed down it. Training and experience turned her toward the rooms unmistakably occupied by the master of the house.
     
    "What if he's not in there?"
     
    "Then we search the rest of the place." She kept her mental voice matter-of-fact as she padded across the cool tile to the louvered doors.
     
    "What if he's left already."
     
    "He was up all night. He has to sleep." No point in adding she'd also been up all night because she couldn't sleep, not yet, so why think about it.
     
    Through the angled slats of faintly scented wood, she could see a northern style desk and chair and the low, cushion-piled rectangle of the bed. On the bed lay a body. Bannon's body? There wasn't light enough in the room to be sure. Fighting the tremors that racketed through her in the wake of her brother's nearly chaotic emotional response, she slid a long, narrow dagger from its sheath on her thigh.
     
    "What are you doing! That's my body! Mine!"
     
    Her hands began to spasm. "Bannon, stop it! No one tries to run with a knife at his throat. I'll hold him, you get back in."
     
    Slowly, he calmed. Vree could almost hear him panting. "My body," he repeated. "Mine."
     
    Slowly, more out of concern that Bannon would try to take control again than any fear of discovery, Vree pushed open one side of the louvered doors just far enough to slide through. With the scorching heat of midday unable to penetrate the narrow windows and thick walls, the room had a cavelike feel about it. No longer instantly evaporating, sweat plastered her filthy clothes to her skin as she crossed silently to the bed. Just before her toes hit the edge of the cotton pad, she stopped and stared at the naked man stretched out amidst the cushions.
     
    It was Bannon's body. Aralt had bathed at some point, for the short brown curls sprang crisply back from his temples and the taut sheath of dark olive skin stretched over lean muscles seemed almost oiled. There the scar where the barbed Ohkan spear tip had been dug out; there where a dying rebel had managed to open a line across his ribs; there the puckered rosette on the crown of his knee where at nine he'd knelt on an ember. Her gaze lingered on the long muscles of his thighs, moved upward, swept past the soft protrusion of his sex—in spite of a sudden urge to linger she knew came from the brother within—and locked on his