Free Time Dancer by Inez Kelley

mouth from hers.
    A thump followed by fast crackling forced his lips from hers and they both looked toward the fireplace. A huge log had rolled free from the blaze, the top of it in flames.
    “Uh-oh.” He jumped from the bed and grabbed the edges not yet burning. He tucked it back into the pit and made sure it was secure, prodding it firmly into place with the iron poker.
    “When did you get your butt painted?”
    Cold slithered up his spine. Damn, he’d forgotten all about the marks. “Uh, a few weeks ago, I guess.”
    “You guess? You don’t know when someone took a needle to your rump?” Her laugh was light but his back never lost its stiffness.
    The mantel was a rough length of log, the bark sheared away but the edges left raw and knotted. He crossed his arms on it, burying his head. Searing heat assaulted the front of his thighs and his head began to pound. The mark on his left buttock was easy to not think about but when he did think of it, and all it implied, it chilled his blood to sluggish ice. The mark on the right frightened him even more.
    Her laughter faded away. “Warric, what’s wrong?”
    So soft, so pleading, her voice tugged at him. He’d never lied to her, never wanted to but this, could she understand this? He certainly didn’t. Swallowing his trepidation, he sucked in a bracing breath and went back to bed.
    Kya’s dark eyes were wide. She grasped his hands. “Tell me.”
    “Do you remember any stories of the Skullmen?”
    She blinked. “Some. The High Captain killed the last band two summers before I was born, but my father told me about them. I know they were criminals who were bought before their death sentences could be carried out. Then Marchen released them to terrorize the entire country. Why?”
    “Did he tell you about their leader?”
    She shook her head and her hair swayed along her shoulders. He fisted the thick length, dragged his fingers through it. “The leader, he had marks painted along his skin, wards to protect him against magic.”
    “So you emulated him?”
    “Maybe,” he murmured. He forced his gaze to hers. “I don’t remember getting them. I woke one morning with my ass on fire. I thought for a minute I’d gotten blind-drunk and sat on a pin cushion, but I looked in the mirror and saw it. It’s a cat’s eye in a triangle.”
    “So it’s for protection? Against what?”
    “My mother.”
    “Your mother? The queen? Why?”
    Warric pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the pain to ease. “I know you’ve heard the legends about her being a spell and coming here to guard my father when he was a baby, about how she could be a huge black jaguar or a wisp of smoke. Kya, those are all true.”
    Color blanched from her cheeks. He steeled himself for her fear, her ridicule, her gentle claims that she believed him while her eyes called him crazy. None of that happened.
    “Well, that actually makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. You’re her son. Your magic is stronger than nearly anyone’s. And the king marrying a woman with no lands, no family? It’s completely understandable if they’d known each other all his life. But why would you need protection from your mother?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “How can you not remember dropping your breeches and letting someone jab needles in your ass then rub charcoal paste into it?”
    Raking a hand through his hair, he forced the rest out. “When the headaches...when the pain gets too bad, I black out. I’ve lost hours, days a time or two. I wake in a strange place occasionally and have no idea how I got there. I’ve had friends tell me of conversations we’ve had, arguments, one fistfight, but I never remember any of it.”
    Forcing a knot from his throat, he dared look at her. “I don’t remember most of this past week. I got home yesterday but I left Endicort six days before. And tonight, I woke up in a barn out near the east of Thistlemount with my ass killing me. I’d hoped I was just thrown from my