Текст книги "Tatterdemalion "

Автор книги: Anah Crow

Соавторы: Dianne Fox
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

that filled his mouth with hot blood. There was a flurry of limbs and claws and fists before they parted,

gasping, to face each other in the dark.

“Dane.” Jonas had his hand to his neck to staunch the flow of blood while his flesh knit itself together

far faster than Dane’s own body was healing. The faint light glinted off deadly claws extended from his

fingertips. Dane’s belly was still holding his insides in and his head was too full of blood rage to care about the wounds so long as he wasn’t tripping over his own guts.

“Jonas.” There was an affection in Dane’s voice that he reserved for his favorite enemies. His body

was singing with pain and fury and hunger and joy. At times like this, it was easy to forget that he was

mortal. He felt so much stronger than his body.

“The girl didn’t mention you’d be here,” Jonas said, straightening as his spine put itself back together.

“Maybe she doesn’t like you anymore.” Dane’s hand flicked out, claws piercing a trash can as he

grabbed it to toss at Jonas’s head. Laughing, Jonas deflected it with a punch. “I don’t mind doing her dirty work.”

“Maybe she wanted to surprise me.” Jonas charged, getting airborne at the last minute in a beautiful

leap that aimed one steel-toed boot at Dane’s face. Years ago, it might have hit, but Dane hadn’t passed the time being lazy. Age had only made him faster and wiser to compensate for the loss of his magic. He

shifted and caught Jonas by the ankle, using the man’s momentum to swing him headfirst into the side of a

building. The brick cracked, and half of Jonas’s face peeled away to the bone. His neck snapped back, but

before it broke, he caught Dane in the wrist with his other foot, almost shattering the bones.

“Surprise,” Dane rumbled, ignoring the agony in his arm. Jonas’s breath was ragged, stuttering, but

even as he was dying, he was healing, moving again. It would have been terrifying if Dane hadn’t seen it

before, if his own body wasn’t humming with remnants of magic that healed him from the inside out.

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Jonas grabbed a rusting pipe, wrenching it loose from whatever held it, and brought it around as

survival instinct and rage drove him to his feet. The pipe caught Dane in the left side of the head. His jaw and cheek crumpled as he rolled with the blow. While he was catching his balance and rallying to retaliate, Jonas hit him twice more with the pipe, smashing against his right shoulder and his ribs.

Dane let momentum take him to the ground and out of range, and rolled to his feet. He retreated

deeper into the alley, buying time for his broken magic to put him back together enough to be able to see

out of both eyes. His bones still remembered his old self, but barely, and they settled into place with a groan.

“Down, boy.” Dane spat blood and flesh into the muck between them. He let his shoulder drop, let

one leg buckle as he backed up, feigning only a little more weakness than was real in the moment.

“You first.” Jonas took the bait and rushed him. Dane danced aside, faster than anything human, faster

than Jonas could react, and grabbed Jonas by the shoulder and hip. His claws cut through Kevlar clothing

that the dry intellect in the back of his mind recognized as a uniform, and got a purchase deep in dense

muscle. Dane hurled Jonas toward the end of the alley as hard as he could, despite the screaming agony in

his own shoulder and chest. Jonas hit the wall hard, sending fragments of brick and mortar showering

around his body as he slid to the ground.

Not satisfied with that alone, Dane grabbed a dumpster with both hands, claws digging into the

rusting steel. He whined with pain as he lifted it, his body shaking in protest, but he got it off the ground and brought it down on Jonas as the other man was struggling to stand.

“Stay.” Dane sagged against the dumpster, adding his own weight to it as it crushed Jonas, at least for

the moment. He inhaled and gave it another shove, grinding it against the wall until it grated on the brick.

He leaned on it, pushing hard and making the metal groan, until he could see bright, hot blood running

from under it. The red rivulets wound past his boots and he allowed himself a slight smile. “Good dog,” he

muttered, pushing himself to standing.

The smell of their blood and adrenaline was a fog around him, but Dane could still sense the fading

threads of fear and pain that had drawn him here. It took him a moment of staggering through the alley,

pawing through the trash of one dumpster after another, until he found something warm under a pile of

sodden cardboard. He lifted the cardboard, throwing it into the alley behind him.

What he found looked as discarded as the rest of the trash, a spindly shell of a human body wrapped

in a white lab coat. The long, pale hair was as fine as a woman’s, but the body smelled male. Dane leaned

in and dragged it out with a grunt. The body smelled poisoned too, as though it should have been dying, but the heart was still fluttering stubbornly against the prominent ribs. Dane carefully tucked the body under his coat, against his bloody shirt.

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“Lot of fuss for a little thing,” he grumbled without any real displeasure. “Let’s not keep Cyrus

waiting.” Holding the body to him with one arm, he scaled the fire escape and disappeared into the dense

white veil of the snowstorm covering the city.

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Chapter Two

It was a long time before Lindsay woke. His sleep was as silent and dark as it had always been,

though it lasted far longer. There were no dreams in Lindsay’s world. He never tossed and turned. Since he

was born, he’d only lay where he’d fallen asleep, still and quiet. For him, sleep was the absence of

everything. The slightest sound could wake him without dreams to explain it away.

When he finally did open his eyes, there was no segue between sleeping and waking. He was simply

thrust into consciousness and the nothing was replaced by terror and confusion: he wasn’t alone.

The room was huge, like something out of a fairytale. He lay in a four-poster bed, swathed in soft

sheets and blankets. A fire crackled in the hearth across the room and, beside it, there sat a man.

The man filled the chair he was sitting in. He was tall and broad, wrapped in a long, dark coat. His

hair fell loose around his shoulders and his face was hidden by shadows and a heavy beard. His eyes

glittered in the dark, watching Lindsay.

More tests? Was this a trick? The Institute? He had hoped this was all over—he’d thought he was

dead. Perhaps he was. He never dreamed, and there was nothing in his life like this, not anymore.

He shrank into the covers, moving farther from the man, and was surprised when it worked. There

were no restraints, nothing at all to keep him in his bed. He tried to use his magic to get away again, but it snapped like a rubber band, recoiling against him and making him gasp with pain.

“No need to be so frightened,” the man said. His voice was strange. “Didn’t go to all the trouble of

getting you just to do you harm.”

“The doctors at the Institute went to plenty of trouble to hurt me,” Lindsay muttered, pushing himself

into the farthest corner of the big bed, bunching the pillows up behind him. He didn’t take his eyes off the man. He was never safe.

“Good thing for you I’m not a doctor.” The man stood and Lindsay finally got an idea of how huge he

was. “I’m just an errand boy.” Firelight glittered in a crystal pitcher of water on the desk, and in the set of glasses by it. The man picked the pitcher up with one hand around the belly of it, his long, black claws

stark against the curve, and filled a glass. “Thirsty?”

“No, thank you,” Lindsay said automatically. Politeness was bred into him, so that it showed even

when all his attention was on the strangeness of the man in front of him. Normal people didn’t look like

that, and doctors certainly never had claws like cats. “I’m all right.”

Tatterdemalion

He wrapped his arms around his knees, hugging himself. When his hands slid over his arms, they

didn’t touch skin, but some sturdy fabric bound around his wrists. His eyes widened and he clawed the

blankets back to see his hands. Stone. He remembered stone on his wrists. Terror had him ripping at the

bindings, pulling them away from his wrists. His heart slammed against his chest, and he fought to get free.

“Enough.” The man’s hands were on his. He’d crossed the room in a heartbeat, silently, to stop

Lindsay from tearing off his bandages. The claws were gone and his hands, huge and gentle, swallowed

Lindsay’s up entirely. “Can’t have you bleeding all over the nice linens.” Up close, he smelled warm and

good, cleaner than he looked. “Breathe, little bunny. No one here wants to tie you up.”

Panic made Lindsay’s heartbeat and breath come fast. He wasn’t sure he believed it, but for now, it

was true enough. Everything was unreal enough that he could relax.

“That’s better. Don’t get yourself excited. They poisoned you. It’s making your heart work too hard

already.” The man let go of his hands and petted his hair back from his face. “Don’t want to have to call the healer back so soon.”

Lindsay’s hands fluttered to rest on his knees. The touch felt good, and it was a struggle not to lean

into it and beg for more. No one touched him like that, so gently. He wasn’t sure how to react.

“Good boy.” The man kept petting him, soothing him. Even as Lindsay relaxed, the man didn’t stop.

There wasn’t anything to it but gentle touches, the way someone might pet a dog or a cat, but that didn’t

matter. It felt so good. “Thirsty?”

Lindsay had said no before, but this time he nodded. Nodding gave him an excuse to arch into the

touches, to pet himself against the man’s hands. “Please.”

“Thought so. You smell thirsty.” The man straightened and went to get the water. “Healer said to

make sure you drank, to clean your blood. Cyrus will have my beard if you don’t. Best for us both if you

have a drink.”

The man shook back his hair as he returned. Lindsay could see him clearly. He wasn’t human, and he

wasn’t really handsome, but he wasn’t frightening, either. He had dark gold skin, intelligent eyes under a

heavy brow, a hawk’s nose and high cheekbones. It was hard to make out anything else because of the

beard that blended into the rest of his mane.

“Drink.” He reached out to help Lindsay hold the glass.

Lindsay wrapped both hands around it. Lack of use and his injuries made his grip weak, but he drew

the glass up to his mouth without help and stopped, staring at the clear water for a moment. “Where am I?”

he asked softly, glancing up at the man. “Who are you?”

“You’re in New York, with people like you. I’m no one, but you can call me Dane. Drink your

water.” Dane’s brow furrowed.

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Lindsay flinched at the stern expression. Obediently, he took a sip of the water. It tasted clean and

pure, and he drank more as he wondered what the man—Dane—meant when he said that Lindsay was with

people like himself.

“Good.” Dane reached out to pet his hair again, like a reward.

The encouragement and petting kept Lindsay drinking, slow and careful swallows that eased the pain

in his throat and the dryness of his mouth.

“You’ll feel better soon,” Dane promised. Lindsay doubted that. He hadn’t felt better than this in a

long time.

Dane was different than anyone he’d met before—real and solid and warm, like everything else in the

room. There was nothing cold or sterile here—even the water had the chill of a fresh spring and no hint of

chemicals in it.

“How did I get here?” Lindsay whispered the words, daring to ask another question even though Dane

had seemed unhappy with the last one.

“I brought you.” Dane gave him a smile that showed a flash of shiny white fangs. “You can thank

Cyrus, though. He sent me.”

“To find me?” Why would anyone care to take him from the Institute?

“Yes, you.” Dane stopped Lindsay from spilling his water when confusion distracted him from

holding on tight. One big hand held both of Lindsay’s and the glass until Lindsay had control of it again.

“Apparently, you’re rather special. And I hate that place.” Dane’s expression darkened and his voice

dropped to a rumble in the back of his throat. “I wouldn’t put a dog in there, even a dog I didn’t like.”

“Thank you,” Lindsay murmured, mustering up a little more courage. No matter why they’d taken

him away from there, he was grateful. He dipped his head to take another sip of water, hiding his face in

the fall of his hair. Dane stood beside the bed, patient and still as a tree.

When Lindsay finished drinking, he held the glass out to Dane. “Won’t they come looking for me?”

His parents wouldn’t like that he’d gotten away. The people at the Institute weren’t supposed to let him

leave.

“They will.” Dane gave Lindsay that feral smile again as he accepted the glass. “Doesn’t mean they’ll

find you. Don’t plan to let anyone take you away, myself.”

Lindsay looked out the window, at the night outside, blinking away the stinging in his eyes. “I don’t

want them to find me,” he whispered.

Dane left his side to refill the glass. “They won’t. Haven’t found us yet, not for years, and we’re far

more trouble than you. They don’t even know what part of the country we’re in right now.”

Lindsay nodded slowly. “How long was I there, do you know?” he asked, mostly to distract himself.

His time at the Institute had blurred into one long day and night of terror.

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“Vivian tells me it was two years.” Dane put the glass on the bedside table. There was a curious,

animal sadness in his dark eyes.

Lindsay could feel the blood draining from his face. That long? His hands shook as he realized he was

an adult. Nineteen. He didn’t feel two years older. There had been nothing to mark the time. No holidays,

no visits, no birthdays. Not even a letter or a card. Not a perfunctory party for the benefit of his mother’s social circle instead of having anything to do with him. He didn’t know how he felt about finding himself

grown. He didn’t know how he felt about anything, but he shook with it all the same.

“Shh.” Dane made a soothing sound and stroked his hair again. “Lie back. Cyrus will kill me if you

fall out of bed on your head or something. It’s over now, understand? The past is the past.”

Lindsay obeyed, settling into the soft sheets and blankets again, tucking his cheek against a pillow.

“Thank you,” he whispered, more comforted than he knew he ought to be. He was so cold, still, even with

the fire burning.

“You don’t need to thank me.” As if he could read Lindsay’s mind, Dane took another blanket from

the foot of the bed and tucked it around him. “You need to rest.” How long had it been since anyone had

tucked him in? Dane frowned and Lindsay realized he’d been staring up at that calm, inhuman face.

Quickly, he closed his eyes.

It didn’t take long for Lindsay to fall asleep again, feeling safer than he had in years.

From his vantage point on Cyrus’s balcony, Dane could smell the cold world he couldn’t see through

the falling snow, and he itched to be out in it. Soon, perhaps, now that he wasn’t the only one here to watch over Cyrus and the boy. He knew, before she came up to see him, that Vivian had come home. The wind

had brought him a wisp of her voice and the slam of a cab door, not ten minutes ago.

“Where is he?”

“Up on the roof again.” Dane didn’t turn to greet her. If she didn’t know he was happy to see her by

now, he wasn’t going to coddle her.

“And the boy?” Vivian’s heels clicked on the flagstone as she came to stand beside him. Her scent

swirled with the wind and filled his head.

“Sleeping again. The healer’s been.” Dane looked at the slender Asian woman putting her tiny,

smooth hand over his where it curled around the iron railing. “Boy sleeps a lot.”

“He’s recovering. Mortals do that,” she chided him gently, tilting her head so that she could see him

clearly.

“What did you bring back with you?” Dane had smelled her coming, smelled someone else with her,

heard two sets of footfalls, two light female voices, before Vivian had come to find him. “Something for

me?”

“That depends.” Vivian’s smile was slow and wicked. “Do you deserve anything?”

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“I left Jonas crushed to a pulp under a dumpster in the filthiest alley in DC,” Dane mused. “Think

that’s enough?”

Vivian’s eyes glittered and she stood on her toes, lifting her chin in that imperious way that said she

wanted to give him a kiss. Dane bent to oblige her and she kissed him on the forehead. “Definitely,” she

murmured. This close, he could smell the warmth of her, the faint hint of perspiration between her breasts, under her arms, at the nape of her delicate neck. “One of these days, someone should actually kill that

man.”

“I do try,” Dane pointed out.

“You’d be bored as hell if you ever succeeded,” Vivian said loftily. “I doubt the sincerity of your

efforts. Come in, Dane. It’s cold and Cyrus will come down when it suits him.” She turned away, tugging

her dark red cloak closer around her.

“Or when I drag his skinny old ass down here,” Dane threatened, following her inside. The doors

slammed behind him before he could close them and Vivian laughed.

“He hears as well as you,” she reminded him, taking off her cloak and shaking it out. She threw it

over the back of a chair and settled, holding her hands out to the fire.

“I know.” Dane came over to put more wood on, to warm the room. “So, what did you bring me?”

“Her name is Kristan. I’ve been using her for a while. You’ll want to be careful with her. Her

magic…she makes people feel things.”

“Empath?” Dane grimaced. Of all the magics, the ones that touched the mind were his least favorite.

“If only.” Vivian made a contented noise as the fire grew. “No, she controls people’s emotions with

her body chemistry. Pheromones. As you’d expect, she’s a grifter and a whore, but good at both.” Her tone

was uncritical, pragmatic. “Just watch yourself.”

“She’s got to sleep some time,” Dane said, shrugging. Vivian laughed at him again, shaking her head.

“So do you,” she said. “And I think, when you do, I’m going to cut off your beard.”

Dane gave her a dark look and was about to respond when the door to the room opened as Cyrus came

in. He staggered and Dane was there, one hand under his arm. Vivian was on her feet as well, coming to

help with his coat.

“Was there a reason for the noise?” Cyrus asked irritably, ignoring his obvious infirmity in favor of

scolding them. “Or were you simply wasting breath?”

“You should know better than to ask,” Vivian said tartly, working him out of his coat. “We were

being social. People still do that, you know.”

“Yes, yes.” Cyrus waved her off as soon as she had his coat in hand. “People will always waste time.”

“Did you see anything?” Dane asked, once he had Cyrus settled. The older mage glared at him like a

wet, angry crow.

“The wind is unclear,” he said sullenly.

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“You’re tired,” Vivian said. The look she shot Dane was accusatory. She was far more adept at

chivvying Cyrus into resting when he needed it. Dane simply picked him up when he fell over and put him

in bed until he got strong enough to get out on his own. It worked well enough, had for decades, but Vivian was never satisfied with their system.

“I can rest when I’m dead,” Cyrus snapped. Still, he let his head fall to rest on the high back of the

chair. Dane didn’t want to think about that at all and he scowled at Vivian for irritating Cyrus into saying such a thing.

“Or you could rest now.” Vivian was unmoved by the temperamental behavior and Dane’s scowl

alike. She brought over a blanket from the bed and Dane carefully tucked it around Cyrus to warm him.

“Tell me about Washington.” Cyrus gestured for her to come closer.

Vivian came to sit in the other chair by the fire and Dane sank down to rest on the rug between them.

He crossed his arms and rested his head on them, lying on his back near Cyrus’s feet. Like this, he could

see them both.

“Chaos,” Vivian said quietly. “So far, they think it could have been a terrorist attack. Some kind of

biological weapon. The entire block is shut down, the building quarantined, as well as all those who

worked in it.”

“Survivors?” Dane rumbled.

“A few. Dr. Moore, unfortunately. It’s too soon to know more. She must have had an artifact on her.”

Vivian was still, her gaze on the fire as she spoke. “Word is, William Carrington suffered a massive heart

attack that night. And Sophia Carrington, well, she lives. But that might be all.”

“She was here in New York.” Cyrus opened his eyes and Vivian nodded slowly.

“Yes, she was. So was William. Apparently her maid had to stop her from throwing herself off the

penthouse balcony that night.” Vivian did not sound particularly regretful. “Rumor has it that she’s gone mad.”

“His magic reached them across all those miles,” Cyrus said softly.

The idea of a mind mage who could drive someone mad across several hundred miles chilled Dane in

a place nothing could warm. The idea that the same mage was sleeping one floor below should have left

him colder still, if Dane hadn’t seen time and again that intent was needed to drive such a thing.

The thin body Dane had carried, cradling it even in the car to keep it warm, hardly seemed like it

could harness all that power and all that outrage. As Cyrus had ordered, Dane had spent hours watching

over Lindsay, watching him heal, watching him sleep, and watching him wake in terror until he got his

bearings—every time he woke. There was never even a flicker of threat in any move Lindsay made or any

word he spoke.

Dane had come to understand that Lindsay had no idea that he could ask for what he wanted for

breakfast, or tell someone not to touch him when it hurt, much less that he could do terrible things to people

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on a whim. Lindsay had all the fortitude of a china doll. Dane knew the nature of dangerous things, and

Lindsay was not one of them.

Dane had been wrong before, though, and was reminded of it every waking moment. There was a

limit to his tolerance. No matter what Cyrus ordered, Dane had his own limits, and Lindsay would not

survive it if he ever proved to be anything but innocent of malice.

“One reaps what one sows,” Cyrus said at last, his eyes fixed on something far beyond the fire. Dane

had long since ceased to comfort himself with that platitude. If it were true, it would hardly bring him any joy when his own harvest was upon him.

Dane was shrugging into his big black coat, getting ready to escape the confines of the house, when

he heard Cyrus’s door open. Cyrus wanted to speak to him. Dane could tell from the creak of the hinges.

Years of familiarity could sometimes tell him more than his heightened senses. He pulled his coat around

him and put on his big boots, moving silently.

The truth was that Dane didn’t want to talk to Cyrus. He could smell the cold night creeping in the

crack under the front door and he was longing to be out in it. The ceilings of the house felt oppressively

low compared to the vaulted roof of the sky. The rooms were tiny and the air in them hot and listless. He

was crowded on all sides by the smells of others, by their lust and fear and anger. The night and his city

were waiting for him.

Cyrus’s feet were sounding one slow step at a time on the stairs when Dane pulled the front door

open. The wind frisked up to him like a puppy that had missed him, tugged his hair and his beard playfully, and shoved the door open farther so he could escape. Dane had one foot on the step, sinking into a soft,

white carpet, when the wind shifted to push him back.

“Leaving will not change what must be done.” The wind spoke with Cyrus’s inflection, as always.

Dane stopped and stepped back inside, closing the door behind him. “You don’t need me here.” Cyrus

was standing on the first landing, wrapped in a dark green robe, radiating disapproval.

“Who are you to say that?” Cyrus continued down the stairs and Dane could feel tension creep into

him as he made sure the older man’s bare, age-speckled feet found each step securely. “Do you know what

I know?”

“I know myself.” Dane was as trapped in himself as he was trapped in the house, confined to familiar

corridors and familiar corners, all of them too cluttered with memory for him to navigate with any grace.

Everywhere he turned, he was confronted with the present and the past and a future that was

indistinguishable from the other two.

“Precisely why I need you. You know yourself.” Cyrus stopped on the bottom step so he was eye-to-

eye with Dane. “He.” Cyrus pointed upward. “Does not know himself, and what he knows, he loathes. I

need you to teach him.”

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“No.” Dane almost never refused Cyrus, not completely, but there was no way he was taking

responsibility for the fragile man-child he’d brought home from Washington. “He needs caring for.”

“You care for me.” Cyrus held out his hand and, without thinking, Dane took it to steady him as he

stepped down to the floor.

“Who’s going to do it if I’m busy with him?” Dane snorted indelicately. “Cyrus, find someone else.

Give him to Vivian, send him to Mona, I don’t care. Just not me.”

“You’re afraid.” Cyrus’s glittering black eyes narrowed and he glared up at Dane. “Frightened.” He

let go of Dane’s hand and headed for the sitting room, where there was a warm fire and a stack of recent

newspapers.

“Of him? He’s impressive, Cyrus, but he doesn’t scare me.” Dane followed slowly, stopping in the

doorway. His boots were caked in a dry layer of sewer slurry and he didn’t want to leave stinking flakes of it all over the sitting room carpet. “Gun’s useless if it doesn’t have a trigger, no matter how you load it or where you aim.” He was restless and he shoved his hands in his pockets to hide it.

“Not of him, per se.” Cyrus took a seat in a chair near the fire. “You know my meaning. Don’t play

the dumb beast with me tonight. Regardless of your opinions, I’ve decided that you need to be the one to

teach him. You’re least likely to be affected by his illusions. You’ll be a challenge and you can avoid

getting caught up in them.”

“No good can come of that.” Dane shook his head like a horse refusing the bit. “I won’t do it.”

“You will.” Refusing to indulge him with an argument, Cyrus picked up a newspaper and looked

through it. Dane waited. “Another suicide,” Cyrus murmured, reading the midsection. “They’re not even

front-page news. How long are our children going to die of fear and neglect, Dane?”

“Survival of the fittest,” Dane said roughly, shrugging it off. He’d seen their kind die in myriad ways

over the years. He told himself it didn’t affect him anymore.

“Lindsay survived his parents, two years in Moore’s hands, and an artifact the likes of which were

forbidden even in the time of Sumer. He killed hundreds to secure his own escape.” Cyrus peered at Dane

over the edge of the paper. “Has he not proven his fitness?”

“He’s a child,” Dane said stubbornly. He pulled his hands from his pockets to cross his arms over his

chest. “I’m no nursemaid.”

“He’s a man. You’re being the child here.” Cyrus shook the paper out and folded it up in his lap. He

folded his hands on top of the paper in turn and gave Dane a piercing look. “How long do you intend to

play the stray dog, Dane? Does being the beast that goes bump in the night amuse you so much that you

would do it indefinitely? This is not a fairytale, for all that you may be laboring under a faerie curse. It’s high time for you to stop playing the animal and start playing the man underneath the skin.”

Dane’s body was taut. He felt like he could fly apart at the slightest provocation. “I don’t play,” he

said flatly. “I am what I am. You found it useful enough in the past.”

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“And now I need you to be useful in another way.” Cyrus gestured upward, as though Lindsay were

sleeping directly overhead. “He is yours. Yours to care for, yours to teach, yours to heal. You know how

this must happen. Keep him alive. They are still looking for him and will kill what they cannot have. When

he can take care of himself, he will no longer be your concern and you can slide back into the shadows.”

There was silence and Dane had no answer but to grind his teeth until his canines began to powder

with it. He was angry, angrier still that the undercurrent in him was fear. “My task is to care for you,” he said at last.

“So it is.” Cyrus picked up the paper and found where he had left off. “There will be fresh tea in the

kitchen. You may bring me some if it suits you.” He glanced up at Dane again. “I do not do this lightly,” he added. “I would not go without your protection unless I felt it necessary.”

That was irritatingly soothing to Dane’s ego. He took a slow breath to calm his fury and nodded.

There was going to be no arguing and, if he left, the wind could find him anywhere in the world he could

run and it would harry him endlessly until he came home. “I’ll get your tea.”

There was nothing else to say. Dane kicked off his boots and hung up his coat before going to the

kitchen. Vivian was sitting at the table in front of the tea service, hands cupping a delicate china cup of Earl Grey. There was such sympathy in her eyes that he willed her to say nothing as he came to get the tea.

“It could be good for you,” she said, ignoring his glare.

“Viv…” Dane growled a warning for her to shut up.

“At the least, they’ll send Jonas for him,” she murmured. Her dark eyes were bright with mischief.

“You love playing with Jonas.” Dane wasn’t going to be mollified with that, but it did take some of the

sting from the assignment. “When he wakes up and you’re not there, he asks where you are,” she added,

and Dane knew she wasn’t referring to Jonas.

For some reason, that made Dane pause. He picked up the tea tray to take to Cyrus. “Why would he