Page 12 of Tomlin

“I can understand why you might not want everyone to know - although I promise you can trust me - but it seems as if there was more to your reaction.”

“As usual, you are quite correct. My reticence is not based so much on my… abilities, as on the source of them.” Shemaintained a hopeful silence and he finally met her gaze. “I am half Krythian.”

“I’m not familiar with that race.”

“Fortunately, there are very few of us left.”

She gave him a puzzled frown. “Why is that fortunate?”

“Because male Krythians are little more than savage animals.”

CHAPTER 7

Tomlin immediately regretted blurting out the truth about his heritage, but despite his bitter words, Etta still looked more confused than alarmed.

“Why would you say that? You are the furthest person I can imagine from a savage.”

“I have learned to keep that part of myself under control, but I have been… tested recently.”

“How?” she asked, then gave him an apologetic look. “I can’t help asking but you don’t have to answer.”

Oddly enough he found himself wanting to tell her. Of course he also wanted to reach across the table and haul her into his arms but he firmly suppressed that impulse. His efforts at control had been successful - mostly - and he intended to keep it that way, no matter how tantalizing her presence.

“I’ve been exposed to more of the stones and I’ve had to do some… difficult things. I also had to spend more time than usual in Port Cantor and it is harder to block people out when they surround you. At least it is now.”

He was being truthful, even though he was uncomfortably aware that it wasn’t the entire truth.

“Now?”

“I lived there for some years when I was younger, but I am out of practice.”

“Did you live there with your parents?” she asked softly.

“No. My mother and I lived in one of the remote settlements along the western shore.” As far away as she could get from the city. “She died when I was ten and I went to live with relatives.”

Bitter, abusive relatives who’d told him that his mother was a whore and that he was the child of the devil even though they hadn’t known the entire truth. He’d hated it but he’d learned to accept it - until he turned thirteen and thought he was in love. He cringed internally at the memory and looked up to find her watching him, her finger tapping her lips again.

“What about your father?”

“I never met him,” he said shortly.

The authorities had managed to contain his father long enough for his mother to flee, but he knew she’d spent the rest of her life expecting him to show up. He’d sometimes wondered if she occasionally wanted to be found in spite of what had occurred between them. She rarely spoke about him but when she did, there was an element of… longing mixed in with her fear. And he suspected that if his father had been alive, he would have tracked her down eventually.

“When I… left my relatives, I went to the city.”

It sounded so innocuous, as if he hadn’t been driven away with torches and pitchforks.Which I deserved.Another boy in the village had also been interested in the object of his childish affection and he and a group of his friends had attacked him. That might not have been enough to push him over the edge, but then his rival had stood over his bleeding body and started gloating about his intentions for the girl.

His comments had aroused the primal possessiveness of his Krythian side and, combined with his pain and anger, he’d finally lost the control his mother had tried so hard to teach him. He’d almost killed the other boy before they were able to drag him off of him and force him out of the village. The last thing he remembered seeing was the girl he’d thought he loved crying over his opponent’s broken body.

Alone in the wilderness he’d finally managed to regain control but he knew he couldn’t return. With no other place to go, he’d headed for Port Cantor. He suspected he would have been driven away from there as well if he hadn’t encountered Grethel.

“What happened then?” she asked softly.

“I… met someone who took me in.”

Driven by starvation, he’d been about to try and steal a man’s purse when cold, strong fingers clamped down on his arm. An old woman wrapped in a black cloak, barely taller than him, had regarded him from glowing blue eyes.

“That is not the way, boy. Come with me.”

---