Rion turned again to feeling the rock, this time allowing his mind to enter the examination. He felt the stone with his hands and projected his telepathic powers into it, causing a flood of warmth to enter where he touched. He sensed the mountain, felt it hiding something. Give her up to me.... 

"Callous." Her thought was subdued, unaware of his mind touch.

She's here! He exulted. He'd known it all along.

"Not callous." He breathed and then focused his intent on her, honing in on her inside the living stone. "Crevan isn't callous. He's grief-stricken. You've killed one of our best men!"

He heard her angry and tear-filled laughter in the chambers of his mind as he touched the stone wall that she melded behind. Killed one Foeman in revenge for my sister!

He knew it was her! The very girl he'd sought and felt those few days ago, her secret powers and agile ferocity a fascination to him and a source of all his dreams since. Did she even know he heard her thoughts? She seemed so full of passionate emotion, she literally broadcast her hostility. In those brief seconds of contact, he ascertained not only her extreme inner turmoil, but her absolute desire to make them all pay.

Your sister yet lives. But you have killed my brother. He spat into her mind link and slapped the dark wall in vexation for good measure.

Then give her to me! Now she was definitely aware of his intrusion and was actively projecting back at him, her recklessness and grieving disbelief filling the air around them.

Come out here and face me, witch, face me with your revenge! He stood back, feeling her ready to strike out, and drew his sword. See me? Feel me? I will slice you to ribbons, the way I should have sliced her! Face me!

He heard her grunt from outside the stone wall and whirled to face her in the darkness of the hall.

Will you be faster than my arrow, my lord? Her voice was much more breathy and full of hatred in the stillness of the cavern where usually only the dripping of the tunnel walls marked their passage. There was no light behind her, and he knew she had that deadly arrow trained on him. His Salimantor armor bonded into place over his skin and he advanced on her slowly.

"You left your head unprotected. It's just as easy for me to pierce your brain as it is your breast. Not to mention, an arrow that can slice through living stone can slice through living Salimantor scales." She wasn't backing down, and he estimated her to be about 20 feet away. If she let loose the arrow she had trained on him, it would reach him before he registered the shot.

"If you were going to shoot me, you already would have." He lowered his sword slowly, realizing his words were true. His heart was beating ferociously, but he advanced on her anyway. The prize, the beauty of it, her brazen fearlessness, his knowledge of her grief and pain. It all called to him.

"I shot your brother Foeman with a sea arrow. I have the power to heal him from it as well. Is his life worth something to you? Will you trade for the life of my sister? The toxin in the sea arrow will keep him as if dead for about ten hours before it actually kills him. Is that enough time to retrieve my sister?"

A wall of possibilities washed over Rion like a tidal wave bursting on top of him. He'd never heard of a sea arrow, but he had one in his possession. He hadn't known it was toxic, was that toxin even now assimilating into his body? Would he too be susceptible? Was it possible that she would be able to cure him, or even Doral, the man whom she'd shot?

His mind grasped that concept. "While my brother's life is of great value to me, he is not as important to Quildor as your royal sister searcher."

He heard her sharply indrawn breath and advanced on her again, taking the step that put him close enough to smell her bravado, a musky woman odor in the otherwise salty sea flavor of the inner mountain. If he reached out, he knew he would touch her, or feel the tip of another arrow slide through his right eye.  He retrieved her arrow from his belt and held it out to her. Was that enough enticement? He knew he was backlit, she could see what he offered.

They stood within feet of each other, arch enemies, and full of passionate hatred, neither knowing what the other was about to do. He sensed her confusion about the arrow. He knew it because it mirrored his own. He could use it to stab clear through her heart, but his intent, and the correct intent that she honed in on in his thoughts, was simply to give it back to her. Yet he knew that giving it back to her was the most dangerous thing he could do.

Who are you? Her mind voice tickled inside his brain.

"I am Rion." He answered, feeling the free flowing exchange with awe. Their experience of each other was based solely on being enemies, this sudden capitulation was unprecedented. Neither of them was sure how to react. "Tell me your name."

There was a profound hesitation, during which time Rion focused his feelings as far down deeply into his own powerful core as he could, afraid to have her read them, and afraid to have her not. Deeply, deeply, in a vulnerable place he didn't understand, he opened himself to her on a level so primitive he wasn't even aware it existed. By doing so, he felt her following, a strange sharing of inner awareness, as she entered his mind and was carried along its paths and strands with him. The familiarity took them both by surprise.

You aren't sure about Quildor's plans.... He heard her discovery, and part of him shrank from it, but when she would have withdrawn, he wrapped her carefully inside his mind in what he thought to be some kind of energy, stronger than steel cords. He didn't want her to go. In his mind he held onto her tentative exploration, feeling vulnerable and yet powerful. She was in him right now. And the exchange was enlightening.

You want more out of your life.... You dare to explore, to dream.... 

"Don't presume to understand me--" The heat of his confusion wracked them both.

"I don't." She spat angrily.

"You are judging what you cannot possibly understand."

"I don't care to understand!"

"Right now! You are thinking I doubt my loyalty.!"

"And you do!"

"I do not! I am loyal."

Her amusement battered him inside and out. Red hot shame coursed through him. "You are nothing to me! You know nothing about me."

"If that is true, then why are you holding my essence inside you?" Her whisper was almost as confused as he felt.

She again tried to retreat; the idea that a Foeman could perhaps feel the same as she did was forbidding.

Rion allowed her to stay there, exposed, yet carefully enfolded. He projected calm into her. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"You actually don't know if you will or you won't." 

He conceded that point, how could he lie? He was open to her.

"Tell me your name."

Take this information if you can, I won't give it.

He felt her pulling away with all her might and he leaped forward and grabbed her by the back of her head, feeling for the first time the wonderful softness of her hair against his fingers. He instantly transformed into his human form, and grasped her slim waist with his other hand, noting as he did that he encased almost the entire small of her back. He let it slide carefully down her hip and side. They were still melded inside and now forced together physically. It was too late for her to run, they'd each waited too long for that. Caught as they were in each other's mind grasp, the touch of their bodies was pointless to escape from and they both knew it. Nevertheless, she began to struggle, not as a warrior, but as a woman.

Rion pressed her forehead with his own, a symbolic measure of their inner link. He valiantly explored what little she gave him, finding her inner recesses lightly reassuring and deeply loyal, even though he knew they were the shallow outer portion she couldn't keep him from. He found the information he sought and his mind released hers, reveling in success, in such a small endeavor. But the meld had been so powerful; he knew it would be in place now forever. Nothing that powerful could simply end or go away. Nothing that beautiful and warm and synchronized could be a mistake.

"Your name is beautiful, Kara." He said out loud, and felt her arm rise before he realized her intent. The purely feminine slap caught him alongside the jaw and he winced; she packed a warrior's trained strength as well. He covered the finger marks with his hand feeling the instant heat of blood rising to his face. "It won't make any difference. I know you now; you won't be able to hide anymore. And you know me. The feeling will be mutual."

She kicked out at him with more fury and resolve, the curiosity of a moment before was gone. Her senses returning to their normal animosity, she began to fight him in earnest. She was good, he gave her that, very strong and innovative, but no match for his superior strength and skill. Her weapons could hurt him if he gave her the chance to use them, but her physical training was not enough to overpower him. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her, and she felt like the most exquisite being he'd ever touched. Inside, he was reveling in his newfound knowledge and knew she realized he was not going to hold her, nor give in to her demands.

He let her go, waiting for the attempt on his life from one of her weapons. Would it be the sword, the dagger, or the arrows again? He was ready.

But Kara simply vanished into the rock wall of the living mountain.

******