The Trouble With Heroes.... by Jo Beverley Read Free Book Online Page A

easing
each other's bodies, minds, and souls like this all along.
    So much wasted time, and now he was going off
to die.
    "Rusty skills," she said, playing with his
shoulder-length hair. Longer than he used to wear it.
    "Is that a complaint?"
    She heard the smile in it, so didn't
answer.
    She'd rather not think at all, but her mind
was coming back to life.
    "The stones. What were you doing?"
    "Controlling matter." Shifting, he lazily
pulled a handful of grass and tossed it in the air. She watched it
hang there, then suddenly shower down on them.
    "Sorry," he said, brushing it off her. "Still
rusty."
    The fire was in his touch, though, and
brushing led to nibbling, nibbling led to kissing, and kissing to
another apocalypse. An easy way to mindless pleasure, but reality
returned.
    He couldn’t die.
    She had to save him.
    "Someone must have sent for help," she said.
“From Sector, or even Earth.”
    "Weeks ago, but it won't arrive in time. And
anyway, what do other places know about blighters?"
    But he sat and pulled her up to face him.
"Any response might arrive in time to take some survivors off. Go
north tomorrow, Jenny, and keep going north. Try to survive until
the evacuation ships come."
    It was good advice, but Jenny doubted she'd
take it. She couldn't imagine fleeing north while Dan went south to
die. And she didn't want to leave Gaia. Perhaps it was the scrap of
magic in her, that mysterious Gaian part, but she felt she'd wither
and die away from here.
    "I didn't know you could do things like that
-- the grass. How is that fixing?"
    His grimace showed that he’d noticed her lack
of promise, but he didn’t pursue it. Perhaps he understood too
well. "It isn't."
    He collapsed onto his back, hands beneath his
head, beautiful enough to distract. Perhaps that was his purpose.
It wasn't going to work.
    "So what is it?"
    His eyes swiveled to hers. "Wild magic."
    She knew he was about to tell her something
important, but this time she wanted to know. "What's that?"
    "The elemental force, I think. Fixers are
born with magic. No one knows why. It doesn't go in families. No
amount of effort can create it or increase it."
    Okay, so she was weak. She leaned up on her
elbow to trace the contours of his chest. "What about the
training?"
    "That's not to teach us how to do things.
That's to teach us how not to do things." He caught her hand and
looked straight at her. "Here's the truth, Jenny. The truth no
one's supposed to know. Hellbane U makes such a fuss about finding
fixers because they daren't leave a single one unchecked. We can't
have wild magic."
    "I don't understand."
    "Remember when I fixed your finger?”
    “ But there was nothing bad about
that.”
    “ What about the baby?”
    She’d pushed that to the back of her mind.
“Would it really be so terrible for fixers to heal like that?”
    “ Yes, yes it would. In that, the
training’s right. We can’t fool with nature. That’s what drove
Earth to the brink. Death’s natural. Without orderly cycling of the
parts the whole will rot.”
    “ Then what are you doing with stones
and grass?” She couldn’t stop a sharp edge in her voice.
    “ Looking for a weapon. What if wild
magic is more useful than tame against the blighters?"
    She stared at him. “Tell me.”
    He rose and pulled her to her feet. "If I’m
going to be coherent, we'd better get dressed."
    He found her bra and knickers in with his
clothes and tossed them to her. "I have tea."
    She noticed the glow of his small campfire,
tucked amidst rocks where it wouldn’t be easily seen.
    He picked up his shirt and found her bra and
knickers underneath. He tossed them to her. She resisted the
temptation to make a performance out of putting them on. They
needed to find a way to survive. A way to win the war.
    Once she was dressed she went to sit there
with him, holding her hands out to the warmth, though the night was
not particularly cold. "Now tell me."
    “ I’m not sure I have my thoughts
straight yet.” He