“He has, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about it.” Despite how much time he’d spent fanaticizing about it.
“Rory wants you. I’ve seen that delightful truth lurking in your memories.”
“Me. Not a baby. There’s a big difference.”
“So what will you do? Resist your desire for her? Resort to human methods of birth control?”
“If I have to, yes.”
Something in Ronan’s expression shifted from genial to scheming. The look faded so fast, Cain wasn’t even sure he’d seen it.
Paul stuck his head in the kitchen. “Andra and I are leaving. I’m taking her back to Dabyr where it’s safe.”
Cain’s instant denial of their decision died a swift death. Of course they had to leave. They had a child to protect now. Cain would have done no differently.
However, that didn’t stop him from worrying about what would happen to Rory now. He questioned his ability to keep her safe without their help. All he had was his sword, and that wasn’t nearly good enough for her.
“Are you sure it’s safe to leave now? You could wait until dawn.”
Paul shook his head. “If I wait, she may change her mind about letting me take her home. I’ve worn her down, and I’m getting her away from you while the getting’s good. No offense, but knowing some Synestryn lord has your blood and can find you is just too much of a risk.”
“I understand,” said Cain.
Paul gave him a relieved nod. “Andra says her shield will hold for another hour or two. That will buy you some time.”
Ronan set his coffee down. “I’ll see if I can find some way to obscure the blood connection to Rory.”
“What about you?” asked Cain.
“I’m much more capable of protecting my mind from invasion than Rory is. I’ll be fine.”
Cain wasn’t so sure. “If you’re too weak—”
“I won’t be. Now go and wake her. I want this done before Andra’s defenses fail.”
Paul gave Cain a grim, apologetic look. “I’m sorry to ditch you like this.”
“You’re doing the right thing.”
Ronan pushed Paul out of the doorway, shooing him. “Cain can handle his woman. You need to do the same. Go.”
Cain was fairly sure that Rory wasn’t the type of woman anyone simply handled, but he said nothing and went to do what he could to keep her alive for one more night.
Chapter 14
Joseph stood in the doorway of his friends’ suite, letting his grief hit him head-on. There was no other way to face something like this. As far as he knew, no one had come here since Angus and Gilda had died. Their rooms were just as they’d left them.
An old book sat open on the coffee table. There was a glass in the sink. One of Gilda’s gray cloaks lay over the back of a recliner. Angus’s boots stood by the front door.
Despite all these little signs of life, the suite was empty. Hollow. It echoed of loss and desolation, mocking what could have been.
As the leader of the Theronai, Joseph should have come here long ago to clean out his friends’ home. But every time the thought crossed his mind, something pressing would come up, allowing him to put off the sad chore for a while longer.
Now that “something pressing” had forced his hand. A new female of their kind had been found, and she was in need. Joseph couldn’t allow anything to come before that, no matter how much he wished to avoid more grief.
With a heavy sigh, he went to the spare bedroom they’d used as a library. Shelves lined the walls. In the center of the room was a small, antique desk that, based on its size, had to have been used by Gilda alone.
Joseph leaned over the desk and saw a leather-bound notebook filled with her elegant, scrawling script. As he began to read, he heard her voice in his head, lilting with her Celtic heritage.
This was a journal of some kind, recounting the events leading up to her last days. She’d been worried, upset. Angus had been angry with her for a reason she didn’t state.
The longer he read, the more he felt like an intruder. He had no reason to pry into her private thoughts. All he needed was her book listing the magical artifacts she’d catalogued over the centuries.
Joseph went through the drawers, finding nothing of importance. He scanned the shelves, searching past the mass-produced titles to those that were older, and made by hand. He opened each one, pausing at those containing handwritten passages. As the stack of books he’d rejected grew, he heard a tentative knock on the doorframe.
Lyka stood there, looking like sunshine incarnate. His pounding headache eased, and some of the weight of grief he’d felt since coming here seemed to lighten. Something deep in Joseph’s chest lurched toward her, desperate to be closer.
He didn’t move an inch. Every time he’d approached her, she’d fled. This time he would hold his ground and hope that she stayed for more than a few seconds. He really needed her to stay, to ease him, just for a minute or two.
“Lyka. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
As usual, her lean body was covered by soft, clinging clothing that revealed as much as it hid. He’d never seen her arms or legs bare, even when they’d been hit by a sweltering heat wave. She crossed her arms over her chest, tucking her hands out of sight. “Yeah. Fine.”
“Why are you here? Not that you’re not welcome, of course,” he hurried to add. “I just mean that it’s unexpected.”
She stared at the walls, the carpet—anywhere but at him. “I was told I could find you here. Miss Mabel said I’d need to get your permission.”
“For what?”
“It’s probably a bad time. You’ve got a lot on your mind, I’m sure. I’ll just go.”
“No, please. I could use a bit of a distraction. Go ahead.”
She pulled in a deep breath like she was about to jump off a high dive. “I want to work with the kids—teach a class.”
Lyka was a Slayer, held here to ensure her brother Andreas maintained the truce between his people and Joseph’s. In return, Joseph had sent one of his own people, and there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t wonder how Carmen was doing. The few reports he got via e-mail were sent from one of Andreas’s men. Joseph never got to speak directly to Carmen, just as Lyka was never allowed to speak with her family. It was the only way to prevent suspicion of her being sent here as a spy.
The idea that Lyka was starting to fit in here unknotted a tension right between his shoulder blades. He hated thinking that she suffered, that she was lonely. Her wanting to lend a hand was a good sign.
“Sure,” he said, hoping he sounded happy about the idea without giving too much away. Lyka was prickly, and he worried that if she thought she was making him happy, she’d stop. Even if she suffered because of the decision. “You’ll have to be supervised. You understand.”
“I understand I’m your enemy. You don’t want me brainwashing your kids or luring them to my suite so I can toss them in my oven for dinner.”
That ridiculous image pulled a smile from somewhere deep down. “We’re not enemies anymore, remember?”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, but it only emphasized how vulnerable she was here. She hadn’t let any of the Sentinels get close to her. She played with the kids when she thought he wasn’t looking, but truth be known, whenever Lyka was around, Joseph was always looking. He couldn’t help himself.
“So, do I have your permission?”
He nodded. “Pick one of the teachers to supervise. Come by my office later and let me know who you chose.”
She frowned as if confused. “That easy?”
“What did you expect? Some kind of torture session?”
She stared at him for a long time, her pale yellow eyes fixed on his face. “I never know what to expect in this place.”
“You’re fitting in just fine.”
“I don’t want to fit in. I want to go home.”
Joseph felt a sympathetic wave of homesickness for her. “I know. Soon, I hope our people will trust each other enough to move past this. But until then, I’m glad you’re here. So are the kids.”
A ghost of a smile lit her eyes. “I like them. They’re . . . uncomplicated.”
“And they like you, too. I’m sure they’ll love your class.”
She was silent for a moment, but didn’t leave as he’d expected. Finally, after she gave him the delightful opportunity to stare for a while, she said, “Thank you, Joseph.”
“For what?”
“Not being the self-important asshole my grandfather said you were.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked.
“I’m looking for a ledger Gilda kept of magical artifacts.”
Lyka whistled. “Serious treasure.”
“Not as serious as the artifacts themselves, but I’m hoping it will give me the information I need.”
“You won’t find it in here.”
“Why not?”
“This is the first place you looked, right?”
“Yes,” he said.
“That’s why. If I had something that valuable, I wouldn’t stick it in my office. I’d hide it—stow it somewhere no one would look.”
She had a point.
“Like?” he asked.
“Secret compartment. Hidden safe. A tampon box.”
Joseph grinned at the thought of Gilda doing such a thing. “Care to help me look?”
A flash of excitement fluttered across her face before it died. “You don’t want to trust me with something like that.”
“It’s less precious to me than those human children and I’m trusting you with them.”
“With a witness.”
“And I’m here now to serve as your witness in our search.”
Her breathing sped, and he swore he saw her eyes darken before she looked away. “No, thanks. I don’t want to start any rumors.”
“Don’t worry. Everyone knows you can’t stand to be around me.”
“Not that kind of rumor. I was thinking more along the lines of stealing secret information for my people.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“You don’t know me well enough to say what I would or wouldn’t do.”
Joseph stepped closer before he could stop himself. Her whole body went tense and she backed up until she hit the hallway wall.
He stopped in his tracks and shoved out a rough sigh of frustration. “I’m not going to hurt you, Lyka. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
Her jaw thrust out in defiance. “I’ll leave a note on your desk as soon as I find someone brave enough to keep an eye on me.”
With that, she turned and fled, leaving him alone once again. His headache came back with a vengeance, and a familiar knot twisted along his spine. Lyka had given him an amusing distraction, but she was gone now, and he needed to get back to work.
Maybe if he hurried, he’d be there when she came by his office.
