House of Night 09 - Destined

stomach-rolling tension that had haunted her since she’d met Travis and his horse. It’s because he’s a human, Lenobia acknowledged silently to herself. I’m just not used to having a human male around me.
    She’d forgotten things about them. How spontaneous their laughter could be. How they could take pleasure that felt so new in things that were so old to her, like a simple sunrise. How briefly and brightly they lived.
    Twenty-seven, ma’am. That’s how many years he’d lived on this earth. He’d known twenty-seven years of sunrises and she’d known more than two hundred and forty of them. He would probably only know thirty or forty more years of sunrises, and then he would die.
    Their lives were so brief.
    Some briefer than others. Some didn’t even live to see twenty-one summers, let alone enough sunrises to fill a life.
    No! Lenobia’s mind skittered away from that memory. The cowboy was not going to awaken those memories. She’d closed the door to them the day she’d been Marked—that terrible, wonderful day. The door wouldn’t, couldn’t open now or ever again.
    Neferet knew some of Lenobia’s past. They’d been friends once, she and the High Priestess. They’d talked and Lenobia used to believe they’d shared confidences. It had, of course, been a false friendship. Even before Kalona had emerged from the earth to stand by Neferet’s side, Lenobia had begun to realize there was something very wrong with the High Priestess—something dark and disturbing.
    “She’s broken,” Lenobia whispered to the night. “But I won’t let her break me.”
    The door would remain closed. Always.
    She heard Bonnie’s heavy hoofbeats thunking solidly against the winter grass before she felt the brush of the big mare’s mind. Lenobia cleared her thoughts and projected warmth and welcome. Bonnie nickered a greeting that was so low it almost did sound like it should come from what many of the students were calling her—a dinosaur, which made Lenobia laugh. She was still laughing when Travis led Bonnie up to her bench.
    “No, I don’t have any wafers for you.” Lenobia smiled, caressing the mare’s wide, soft muzzle.
    “Here ya go, boss lady.” Travis flipped a wafer to Lenobia as he sat on the far end of the wrought-iron-backed bench.
    Lenobia caught the treat and held it out to Bonnie, who took it with surprising delicacy for such a big animal. “You know, a normal horse would founder on the amount of these things you feed her.”
    “She’s a big girl and she likes her some cookies,” Travis drawled.
    As he spoke the word cookies the mare’s ears pricked toward him. He laughed and reached across Lenobia to feed her another wafer. Lenobia shook her head. “Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled,” but the smile was obvious in her voice.
    Travis shrugged his broad shoulders. “I like to spoil my girl. Always have. Always will.”
    “That’s how I feel about Mujaji.” Lenobia rubbed Bonnie’s broad forehead. “Some mares require special treatment.”
    “Oh, so with your mare it’s special treatment. With mine it’s spoiling?”
    She met his gaze and saw the smile shining there. “Yes. Of course.”
    “Of course,” he said. “And now you’re remindin’ me of my momma.”
    Lenobia lifted her brows. “I have to tell you, that sounds very odd, Mr. Foster.”
    He laughed aloud then, a full, joyful sound that reminded Lenobia of sunrises.
    “It’s a compliment, ma’am. My momma insisted on things bein’ her way or the highway. Always. She was hardheaded, but it balanced because she was also almost always right.”
    “ Almost always?” she said pointedly.
    He laughed again. “There, see, if she was here that’s exactly what she would’ve said.”
    “You miss her often, don’t you,” Lenobia said, studying his tanned, well-lined face. He looks older than thirty-two, but in a pleasing way, she thought.
    “I do,” he said softly.
    “That says quite a lot about her,” Lenobia said. “Quite a lot of good.”
    “Rain Foster was quite a lot of good.”
    Lenobia smiled and shook her head. “Rain Foster. That is an unusual name.”
    “Not if you were a sixties flower child,” Travis said. “Lenobia, that’s an unusual name.”
    Without thinking, the response tripped from her tongue. “Not if you were the daughter of an eighteenth century English lass with big dreams.” The words had barely been spoken and Lenobia clamped her lips together, closing her errant mouth.
    “Do you