by I. T. Lucas
It didn’t make sense to go back home, and she decided to go for a walk around the old village instead. She could use the quiet time to sharpen her arguments in case the answer was no.
Eleanor needed this assignment, and not just so she could be close to Emmett and figure out what had caused her attraction to him.
The simple truth was that she needed a job, and being Kri’s assistant in self-defense classes wasn’t it.
She had plenty of money saved up, and now that she was free to leave the village, she had access to it, but having a job wasn’t just about earning an income. She needed to be busy, and she needed to be challenged. Working out for hours a day had made her into a lean, mean fighting machine, but if she couldn’t use it, then what was the point?
When the text from Kian came, Eleanor turned around and jogged back to the office building. After taking the stairs two at a time, she forced herself to slow down as she walked down the corridor and then knocked on Kian’s door.
“Come in!”
When she walked into the office, Onegus flashed her his toothy smile. “How did you get here so fast? Were you waiting in the café?”
“I took a walk.” She pulled out a chair and sat next to him at the oblong conference table.
“We need to wait for Peter.” The chief leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.
“What does Peter have to do with my assignment?”
“Since the two of you seem to work so well together, Kian and I decided to have you both stationed in the keep.”
“What about Arwel? With all due respect to Emmett and his powers, he doesn’t need so many people to guard him.”
Kian lifted a hand. “Let’s wait for Peter to get here. I don’t want to answer every question twice.”
“Makes sense.” The problem was that now she would have to engage in small talk, and she sucked at it. “How did the gala go?” she asked Onegus.
His smile was so broad that he was all teeth. “Excellent. We collected so much money that we have enough to open another halfway house.”
“Do we need more than one?”
“If we have more room, we can let the residents stay longer. Julian and Vanessa are complaining that they need to nudge them to move on before they are ready.”
Eleanor shrugged. “Nudging is good. It forces them to become independent sooner, and once they are, they feel better about themselves. Dependency might feel safe, but it doesn’t feel good.”
“Not everyone is as tough as you, Eleanor,” Kian said.
“Thank you. That’s the best compliment you’ve ever given me.”
Kian looked as if he was about to retort when a knock sounded on the door, and Peter walked in. “Apologies for the late arrival.” He looked at Onegus. “I was under the impression that I was still on a leave of absence, and your text found me in bed.” He pulled out a chair on the chief’s other side. “Do you have a new assignment for me?”
“I might.” Onegus turned toward Peter. “But first, I need you to tell me how you feel about Emmett. Specifically, do you have the urge to tear his throat out when you see him?”
“Not at all. I’m not one to hold a grudge. Besides, if I were in the guy’s position, I would have done the same thing. The survival of my people trumps any other considerations.”
“Good.” Onegus clapped him on the back. “I’m putting you in charge of the team guarding him. Congratulations.”
Great. Peter hadn’t even asked for it, and they were putting him in charge as if he had done such a great job in Safe Haven. Then again, she’d messed up as well.
Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest. “What about Arwel? Isn’t he in charge?”
“He will be in charge of checking the information Emmett gave us.” Kian turned to Peter. “Are you okay with the assignment?”
“Sure. I just got promoted. Does that mean a raise?”
Onegus chuckled. “Let’s see first how well you do.”
“What about me?” Eleanor asked. “What’s my status?”
Onegus looked at Kian. “Do we officially make Eleanor a Guardian in training?”
Kian nodded and turned to her. “Guardians in training are paid a salary. It’s much less than full-fledged Guardians are paid, but it’s enough to live on, and it makes your status official.”
Onegus extended his hand to her. “Welcome to the force.”
“Thank you.” She shook it. “I’m truly honored.”
In fact, it was quite unbelievable. From a prisoner to a Guardian in training in a matter of months instead of years. She’d thought it would take forever before people stopped giving her the evil eye.
“When do we start?” Peter asked.
“You can start tomorrow,” Onegus said. “Arwel will show you the routine, and you’ll work under his supervision until he’s comfortable leaving Emmett’s guardianship in your hands.”
Eleanor’s stomach clenched. She hadn’t expected it to happen so fast, but she was glad that it had. Waiting and thinking and speculating would have driven her nuts.
“It’s a pleasure working with you.” She smiled at him and then turned to Kian. “Things go from concept to execution in a matter of hours or days. When I still worked for the government, everything took forever.”
“That’s the advantage of a small organization,” Onegus said. “There’s no bureaucracy to deal with.”
33
Arwel
“Are you sure about that?” Arwel rose to his feet and started pacing the length of the small living room.
He didn’t like Kian’s plan to put Eleanor and Peter in charge of guarding Emmett. The three had a history together, and it was never a good idea to have the prisoner and his jailers emotionally involved, either in a positive or negative way.
“Eleanor offered to use her feminine wiles on Emmett. I talked it over with Onegus, and he doesn’t have a problem with that.”
Arwel chuckled. “What feminine wiles? She is not a bad-looking woman, but she’s not a seductress. Let’s face it, Eleanor is not Carol.”
“No one is like Carol, but as the saying goes, there is a lid for every pot, or is it the other way around? Anyway, Emmett might find Eleanor’s assertiveness enticing since she’s more like the females in his original community.”
“Good point. I hadn’t considered that. But since Annani compelled him to tell her everything about his people, what else can Eleanor learn?”
“Compulsion is not very effective for retrieving information. Unless you know exactly what to ask and how to phrase it, there are ways to work around it. That’s how Peter managed to avoid telling Emmett our location or anything else that he could have used against us. Peter’s experience taught us that compulsion is more effective at the physical level because the commands can be precise.”
“You have a point. How do you want the transition to work?”
“Peter and Eleanor will be there sometime this afternoon, so you can give them an overview of what they are required to do. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a talk with Emmett and tell him about the guard switch. They will start tomorrow morning, and you will need to stay for a few days to supervise. I want you to leave for China as soon as possible.”
“We don’t have a plan ready, and Jin hasn’t given me her final answer yet.”
“We will have to wing it. I don’t want to waste time, and we need to collect information before Turner can devise a plan. He can do that while you are there.”
“I can’t argue with your logic. I’ll talk with Jin when she comes over this afternoon.”
Kian sighed. “I want to make myself clear. You are going with her or without her. I need you there at least for the initial investigation.”
“She knows that.”
“Good. Then we are all on the same page.”
After Kian ended the call, Arwel kept pacing for several moments. It would be difficult to be apart from Jin, but he had a job to do, and he couldn’t pick and choose his assignments ba
sed on her preferences.
Kian and Onegus accommodated the mated Guardians as much as they could, but Arwel had to agree that he was the best choice for this investigation. Well, if he had a mastery of Mandarin, that would have been better, but so far he hadn’t made much progress with the Rosetta Stone. For immortals, learning a new language while being immersed in it was easier. Morris was fluent, though, and the pilot could be part of their team.
Arwel was still pacing when Jin walked into the suite an hour later. “Is this your new form of exercise?” She threw her purse on the couch and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He cupped her bottom and squeezed. “I much prefer a different form of physical activity.”
She kissed him lightly on the lips. “Close the door, and it can be arranged.”
“We need to talk.”
Jin frowned. “About what?”
“China.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her to the couch. “Kian is putting Eleanor and Peter in charge of Emmett, and as soon as I’m comfortable that they got the routine down, he wants me to head out there.”
“I’m happy that you’re getting out of the dungeon, but why Eleanor? She’s not a Guardian, and frankly, I don’t trust her.”
“She’s immune, and as Kian pointed out, she might be just the kind of woman Emmett would find irresistible. She would remind him of the females in his community.”
“I don’t know about that. Eleanor is full of bluster, but she’s emotionally vulnerable, especially now that Greggory dumped her. Combine that with her intrinsic lack of moral compass, and the result could be the exact opposite of what Kian wants to achieve. Emmett might use her to either learn more about us or to get free.”
“That’s why they are putting Peter in charge.” He clasped her hand. “If you don’t want to come, that’s okay. I won’t be gone for more than a couple of weeks.”
Jin shook her head. “I’m coming with you, but don’t expect me to speak Mandarin anytime soon. I think that I’m linguistically challenged. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for me. I’m already bilingual, but then I learned both English and Hebrew as a child.” She sighed. “My adult brain is refusing to cooperate.”
“It’s difficult for me as well. I think immortals learn languages better by getting immersed in them. Perhaps our mental abilities let us absorb it from the humans we interact with.”
“Like mental osmosis?”
“That’s the idea. But that’s just my hypothesis. I need to run it by Vanessa.”
Jin shrugged. “She has enough on her plate. I guess we will find out when we get to China.”
“I’m so glad that you decided to come with me. I don’t know how I would’ve survived without you.” Wrapping his arms around his mate, Arwel kissed her softly.
34
Margaret
“We are off on a walk.” Ana waved goodbye. “We won’t be back before dinner.”
Margaret lifted her head and smiled. “Have fun.”
“Plan to be back by six,” Bowen said. “I’m firing up the grill at five forty-five. If you’re late, you’ll eat it cold.”
“No problem,” Leon said before closing the door.
Bending to look at her phone, Margaret pretended to return to her internet research.
Things had been a little awkward between her and Bowen. After admitting that he wanted more than friendship with her, he hadn’t done anything differently from what he’d done before. He was still friendly and eager to help in any way he could. He gave her space and didn’t try to talk to her while she was reading articles or collecting recipes for her workshop.
Did he expect her to make the first move?
If so, he would be waiting for a long time. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t have the nerve.
Margaret had never actually initiated the few interludes she’d had with community members. And the only reason she’d responded to their flirting was to avoid being shunned for selfishness. The truth was that she hadn’t been interested, and since she’d always seemed rushed, only a handful had bothered to flirt with her.
Those who had persisted had been disappointed with her performance and hadn’t returned for seconds, which had been perfectly fine with her. The only one she’d enjoyed being with had been Emmett, and apparently even that had been chemically induced.
Bottom line, she was an unenthusiastic and less than mediocre sex partner, who treated it more as an obligation and a chore to be suffered through than something to relish and enjoy.
“Do you mind if I watch a movie?” Bowen sat next to her on the couch. “I can put headphones on if you wish.”
Always so considerate and polite. How did he expect anything to happen between them when he kept acting so formal and proper?
Her own experience of being part of a couple shouldn’t be the guideline for any sane person, but watching Ana and Leon together, Margaret had figured that the teasing and bickering meant that they felt safe enough with each other not to watch every word, and it made them closer.
All that politeness shored up the invisible wall between her and Bowen, keeping them in the friend zone.
She put her phone down. “Perhaps I’ll take a break and watch a movie with you. What do you have in mind?”
“Something light.” He smiled sheepishly. “You’d laugh, but romcoms are my favorite.”
“What are romcoms?”
“Romantic comedies.”
“That’s really surprising since you like reading Stephen King.”
“I don’t like watching the movie adaptations of his books.”
“Well, in that case, let’s watch a romcom.”
“Any in particular?”
Margaret smiled sadly. “Since I don’t know any that are less than twenty years old, any would do.”
“I have one.” He clicked the television on and started scrolling through the selection. “It hasn’t been released yet, but one of my cousins is the producer, so we have it on our servers.”
Bowen and Leon used the term cousin loosely. It encompassed most of their extended family members, or the clan, as they referred to them, and Margaret suspected that it didn’t imply any real family connection. It was nice, though. Even if the cousins weren’t blood relatives, referring to them as such made them feel like family, and that was good.
“What’s the movie’s title?”
“Shoeless Sally. It’s a humorous take on the classic Cinderella story.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“You’ll laugh your pants off.” He cast her a sheepish sidelong look. “If you were wearing pants, that is.”
Margaret wished she had a teasing answer, or at least something funny to say, but nothing came to mind, so she adjusted her skirt and smiled instead.
“Found it.” He clicked on the title and leaned back.
As the opening credits started rolling, Bowen wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and her first response was to stiffen, but then she forced herself to relax and leaned her head on his bicep.
After all, that was precisely what she craved—the closeness, the lightheartedness, the lack of formality. She wanted Bowen to tease her, maybe even make some suggestive remarks like Leon was constantly doing to get a rise out of Ana.
“Would you like me to make some tea?” Bowen asked. “I’ve already seen the movie, so I can miss the opening scenes.”
Margaret would have loved a cup, but that would mean losing his arm around her and she didn’t want to chance him not returning to the same position. “Maybe later.” She cuddled even closer, signaling in the only way she could that she was enjoying the closeness and didn’t want it to end.
His hand on her arm moved down and then up, gently caressing and raising goosebumps all over it.
Except, calling what she felt goosebumps was a gross understatement. It was more like the pins and needles she’d used to get after sitting with her leg folded under her for too long.
This time though,
it wasn’t just a numb limb awakening, it was her entire body.
35
Bowen
As Margaret snuggled closer, Bowen forced himself not to stiffen. Appearing relaxed became nearly impossible to do, especially after the faint scent of her arousal hit him.
He wasn’t paying much attention to the movie, but maybe he should in order to take his mind off the woman pressed so trustingly against him. In her shy way she was signaling her interest, but he didn’t know how to take it from there.
The damn cast was acting as a better chaperone than the strictest of matrons, and Margaret’s fragility wasn’t helping either. Whenever carnal thoughts filtered through his shield, Bowen felt ashamed. How could he imagine himself holding this highly breakable woman pinned against the wall and thrusting into her?
That was what the internet article had suggested as a suitable position for sex with a cast, and when he’d read it, for a brief moment Bowen’s stifled libido had roared to life with need. Except, when he’d imagined himself with Margaret like that, the cast was gone, and she had her legs wrapped around his waist.
He needed her to be healthy and whole before he made love to her, but he couldn’t wait that long. By then, she would be back to Safe Haven and out of his life, and he would never know whether she’d been his one.
Was making love really necessary to establish that she was the one for him? Wouldn’t he know that even without it?
He might, but the only way to induce her transition, providing that she was a Dormant, would be to have sex with her. There was no way around it, and he couldn’t wait five more weeks for the cast to come off.
But even if he seduced her tonight, he would only have one week to induce her and that was not enough. Unless he managed to convince Margaret to stay longer, she was scheduled to leave Sunday afternoon.