Warrior Rising - By Pamela Palmer Page 0,56

Empty, as he'd expected it would be, but for a couple of take-out cartons that no doubt contained molding food, a bag of fuzzy grapes and a lone can of Budweiser.

"Water it is." He grabbed a couple of mismatched glasses from the cupboard, smirking as SpongeBob SquarePants grinned at him from one and Mr. Spock stared from the other. This place needed a woman's touch and attention, no doubt about it. Then again, if he remembered correctly, Tarrys had a fondness for all things Washington Redskins. The glassware selection might not improve much after they were married.

He filled the glasses with tap water and joined Ilaria at the table, watching as she unpacked the bag, opening each take-out container carefully and sniffing.

Her eyes lit with interest and pleasure. "Human food is so wonderfully varied and complex."

"I guarantee you've never had anything like this. Not unless one of your gates opens somewhere in China."

She gave him a bemused look. "I don't know where most of the gates opened. I only ever used two of them until that last time when I came here, and the names the humans used to describe their villages were of little consequence to me. The human realm was the human realm."

Harrison picked up one of the containers of rice. "Mind if I serve you?"

That intriguing mouth kicked up. "Not at all."

He started with fried rice, then added sesame chicken and a spring roll with duck sauce. His favorite.

As he served himself, Ilaria tried the food. "Incredible." Her eyes sparkled, that wide mouth tipped up, opening, closing, her tongue darting out to lick her lips, and he couldn't stop watching her.

After what could have been a minute, or an hour, he tore his gaze away and finished serving himself. "What did you eat in the forest?"

"In Esria, the land provides food and water to the Esri. We've only to ask. We don't farm as you do, or raise animals for milk or eggs. We eat off the land much as your earliest ancestors did - hunting wild game and eating the fruits and nuts from the trees, though instead of walking up to a fruit-laden tree and picking what we desire, as you can in this world, we must ask the tree to provide the fruit. There are dozens of fruit and nut-bearing trees in Esria, but in the Forest of Nightmares we were limited to the few trees at the edges of that small, safe clearing. And much to our eternal frustration, only two bore sustenance - a colin fruit tree and one that provided bejue nuts."

"So that's all you ate for three hundred years?"

"Occasionally a wild animal would scamper across our clearing and we'd have meat. If we were quick enough. Otherwise it was colin fruit and bejue nuts." She made a face. "I never want to see either again."

Three hundred years.

The anger at King Rith that rose in him this time was all on Ilaria's behalf, a fury over the fact that he'd trapped this pale jewel of a woman and locked her away for the equivalent of four human lifetimes. And now that she was free, Rith would try to destroy her.

"If we grow thirsty," she continued, "or wish to bathe, a pond appears if we ask, then disappears within the hour."

"That sounds bizarre."

Her mouth tilted up. "Only because you're not used to it." In her eyes gleamed a knowledge and a wisdom that reminded him again that she was no twenty-five-year-old, despite her youthful appearance.

When they'd finished eating, Harrison cleaned up, then found sheets and made the bed. Taking Ilaria's hand, he pulled her down with him, covering them with the sheet and blanket. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close until they were spooned together tightly.

As they lay like that, her warm flesh pressed against his own, he felt...grounded...centered, as if, cliches aside, he'd found his other half. Content, he let exhaustion sweep him into sleep.

Sometime later he woke to the feel of Ilaria slipping out of his arms. He tightened his grip, pulling her against him, but she patted his hand.

"Bathroom," she said softly, placing a soft kiss on his shoulder, a kiss that warmed his heart.

He let her go and sank back into his dreams.

Something woke him a second time, though he couldn't be sure what. The click of the front door?

He bolted upright, the thought wrenching him from sleep. In the light from the street that seeped in between the window blinds he saw the