Telepaths Don't Need Safewords, by Cecilia Tan Read Online Free Page B

true
answers.
    I
burst out of the tiny trailer to find Hillard pissing against its
wall. He backed away from me, dripping, not lifting his hands to
brush the strings of dirty blond hair from his eyes.
    “I
take it you heard, then, what our friend Danton has said.”
    “That’s
true, milord Calidare,” he stopped backing to talk, but kept
rocking back and forth from one foot to the other. “We just
didn’t want to upset you.”
    “Upset
me!” I slapped my leather gauntlets into my left palm. “Lying
to me upsets me, Hillard, as does withholding information from me.”
    He
was looking behind me, as if searching for some rescue, his eyes
falling on Danton from time to time, finding no pity there. All the
others seemed to have disappeared. “We didn’t mean any
harm, sir, really. We just thought you’d be angry if you found
out you missed the hunt...”
    “Do
you think I’m out here to hunt? Is that what you think?”
Of course, said a small voice in my head, you’ve kept them all
ignorant of your real reason for coming out here... but I silenced it
with the business at hand. I stepped up to him, my nose hanging just
over his forehead. “If I had known you had accomplished what
you set out to do I would have ordered you back yesterday. I wouldn’t
have left the Keep at such a crucial time.” I cracked my
favorite cruel smile. “But I’m truly astonished that you
bumbling idiots managed to succeed.” I don’t think he was
listening to me anymore, just trembling. I suppose I was glad he had
already run out of piss. “You’ve done your job. Now get
back to the Keep and tell Dara we’re on our way back.”
    I
did not move as he stepped back, bowing his head once, meeting my
eyes as he did so. I noted the lopsided twist of his mouth. So, he
wasn’t entirely cowed, after all. Still, at least I got rid of
him.
    I
turned back to Danton, who had watched the whole thing with his arms
crossed. A little smile came onto his face, and then he turned away,
too. In that way, he reminded me of myself ten years ago. No, not
even that long ago. Young, his straight dark hair cresting his
shoulders, he spoke very little. There was a time when I didn’t
speak so much, when I didn’t have so many questions to answer,
when I didn’t have as much to say.
    Our
prize hissed at me when I went to check on her and bring her some
meat. She eyed me suspiciously, but eventually took the mutton I
offered. Then she slept curled up upon herself, peacefully, which is
more than I can say for the fellow whose eye she put out. That night
he broke out in a raging fever. By the time it became light enough
for Danton and two others to travel with him back to the Keep, he
could no longer speak but for incoherent jumbles and would not answer
his own name. Danton arrived back while I was watching her pacing in
the clearing to inform me that he was dead. I bit my lip and wondered
how Hillard fared. The she-cat batted an insect out of the air.

    * * * *

    By
the end of that week, she would accept meat straight from my hand,
always well-encased in leather to prevent her scratching me. Soon
after she would let me touch her, gentle strokes on her shoulders and
the back of her head. The hair on her head was long and straight like
Dara’s, only black as midnight. Of course it was my own
impatience that did me in. Unable to resist the feel of her fur any
longer, I pulled off my right gauntlet and luxuriated in that hair,
so much finer than any I’d held before. And then she’d
batted down my hand and bitten it. I knew better than to pull back
and enlarge the wounds. She regarded me as she sank her teeth a
little deeper, and then her jaws relaxed. She seemed almost to
approve as I drew my hand away and she turned to grooming her hair
herself, combing it out with her claws in a wholly womanly gesture. I
regarded the red lines and punctures on my skin, and then called for
some hot water.
    Within
hours I was feverish, my red skin tender to the touch. I