Romani Armada (Beloved Bloody Time)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “There’s ways of dealing with the media,” Justin said. “You don’t have to hand over everything. Just enough to tell the story and that’s all, but Deonne is right. You three need to be the faces for this.” He looked at Christian directly. “You know this stuff, Christian. Stop thinking like a husband and a father for a moment and put on your media mogul hat.”

  Christian straightened his shoulders. “Are you accusing me of not thinking with a clear head?” he asked, his voice cool, distant and dangerously polite.

  Justin shivered, but before he could formulate an answer that would stop Christian from reaching for his sword even metaphorically, Ryan slapped his hand on the table top. “He didn’t say it in so many words, but I will, Christian. Justin’s right and so is Deonne. You three can supply a…” He grimaced. “A human side to this that humans can relate to. Deonne can coach you on how to keep the media from ripping your private life to shreds.”

  Rob put his hands flat on the table. “Ye’re insisting on this, Deasmhumhain?”

  Ryan picked up the cane and leaned on it. He blew out a breath. “As head of the agency, I could insist, yes. You’ve all given oaths to serve the agency to the best of your abilities, when you agreed to become travelers. This falls under the heading of serving the Agency. But I’m not going to insist, Rob. It’s your life, not your vocation the media want a piece of. I’ve been through that meat grinder myself. It’s not fun. But it’s not the Purgatory you’re thinking it is right now, either. It can be managed and it will help us, in both the short term and the long run.”

  “Then you’re asking, Ryan?” Tally questioned, her voice soft after Rob’s harsh interrogation.

  Ryan considered her. He nodded. “Yes, I’m asking. Please.”

  Rob and Christian exchanged glances and Christian straightened up. “Very well, then,” he replied. He glanced at Deonne where she hovered at the end of the table near Nayara’s side. “I hope your tactics for keeping them beyond the boundaries we choose are ironclad. I only ran media networks in my day. I sat behind a desk.”

  Deonne smiled at him. “You forget, Christian. We’ll be calling this conference. We have the ability to turn off the sound feed and go home whenever we don’t like the questions. Vampires already have a reputation for being closed-mouthed and peculiar, so shutting up and walking away won’t harm that reputation in the slightest. Anything you give them on the warm and human side will be a plus.” She crossed her arms. “You can’t lose on this one.”

  “We’ve already lost, remember?” Brenden growled. “That’s why we have to do all this silly theatrics and media pandering.”

  Deonne’s smile grew warmer and larger. “Then your score can only go up, can’t it?”

  * * * * *

  The meeting was creeping toward the three hour mark.

  Deonne understood that Justin would not openly acknowledge her in this room full of the most powerful vampires on the planet, but it was straining her patience to sit next to him for so long and not be able to touch him or talk to him or let down her professional guard and just relax against him. It had been so long since she had seen him. Weeks, by her subjective time line.

  The discussion around the room had moved on to Gabriel’s military and political objectives, which meant Deonne could relax just a little, the heat and focus off her. She slid back onto the bench beside Justin and let her thigh rest against his.

  What was it about him that drew her attention so powerfully? He was so utterly not her type of man. She had always considered her preference in men to run toward the sophisticated, polished, urbane man. She liked professional men who wore designer suits and high fashion clothes, who knew the difference between scotch and whiskey and cared. Men who had not just a career, but possibly a business or maybe even a small empire to call their own.

  In the last year, Justin Edward Kelly had turned that presumption upside down and inside out.

  He wasn’t even human and that right there, if she was keeping score at all, was something that her father would have a fatal coronary infarction over, if she had still been telling him such details…or talking to him at all.

  Justin looked anything but sophisticated, despite occasionally wearing designer suits. He wore them well, but he always looked at odds wearing them, like he would be far more at ease in the shirts and stockman trousers he favored. He was a rangy Australian, with broad shoulders, far-seeing grey eyes that in the right light looked silver, and dirty blonde hair that was almost brown, that sometimes Deonne suspected he lopped off with the wide-bladed knife he often kept tucked in the top of his boot.

  Despite working and living in Sydney, he seemed to exhale the countryside into any room he was sitting in.

  He was a walking portrait of rough, unfinished edges, so why had he even drawn her eye? Deonne was normally repelled by such uncouth men. They spelled trouble. Their attitude toward women were usually undeveloped and as unsophisticated as their palettes.

  Except something ancient lurked in the back of Justin’s eyes. She had seen it the first day she had met him and it had been enough for her to not dismiss him out of hand. It may have been a hint of his vampire soul. She was still trying to work that out. But it had caught her attention and made her really look at him.

  There were layers to Justin. No man who had lived for the centuries he had could possibly be as simple and uncut as he let himself appear to be.

  That was how she had been caught. A glimpse into his eyes.

  And now she sat beside him, wishing desperately for another look into his eyes after weeks away from him and he had yet to look at her directly since she had walked into the room.

  Justin made her feel like a twenty-year old fresh out of college and as unsure of herself as she had been in that bad, mad, lonely time when she had gone days without speaking because there had simply been no one around for her to speak with.

  When his hand curled over her thigh and squeezed, even while his head was turned away from her and toward Ryan and Brenden as they argued over a defense policy, Deonne gripped the thick edge of the timber that made up the table top to stop herself from reacting openly. The remainder of the meeting was an unfocused, indistinct blur to her. She was grateful that Ryan disbanded the meeting barely fifteen minutes later and that she wasn’t called upon to answer any direct questions. She wouldn’t have been able to pull together a coherent answer if her life had depended upon it.

  As people climbed over the awkward bench seating and drifted away from the table, Deonne breathed her first full breath since she had sat down, and recalled Tally’s soft query, before the meeting.

  He’s really under your skin, hmm?

  Justin turned on the bench to look at her fully for the first time since she had walked into the room. “You’re dressed to stop hearts again, Rinaldi.” His thumb rubbed over the corner of his jaw as he propped his chin in his hand to study her.

  She gathered her reading board and accessories together, taking her time over it. “Hardly a sizzling achievement as everyone in this room except Pritti and Kieren can stop their hearts any time they want. Including you, Kelly.” She eased herself out from under the table, got to her feet and straightened her skirt.

  “Where are you going?” Justin asked.

  “I have a global media conference to arrange in less than two hours, three media-phobic interviewees to shepherd through the shit-storm they’re going to face, and a dozen one-on-ones to supervise after that.” She frowned. “I guess that should be three-on-ones, but you know what I mean. Christian is going to be a major pain in the ass to direct, because he thinks he knows this business…and he does, just not from in front of the cameras.” She picked up her gear, propped it on her hip and looked at Justin. “Why do you ask? Was there somewhere else I was supposed to be?”

  He gave it almost a full thirty seconds, just looking at her, his grey eyes steady.

  Deonne stood absolutely still, fighting to not look away, or drop her gaze, or to give any hint of her feel
ings. She almost, almost broke. It was terrifying, having him study her like that. What was he thinking? What did he see when he watched her with his predator’s gaze? Could he see right inside her and glimpse the truth in her heart? Could he tell how much she longed to be alone with him, so they could speak the truth openly?

  Then he rose from the bench and swung his long legs over one at a time, so that he was standing facing her. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets. It pushed the sleeves of his long sleeved shirt up his arms and exposed the tanned forearms and strong wrists. Muscle and sinew moved under his flesh as she watched. “Seeing as you’re so short on time?” he added.

  “You? Help me?”

  “No one has anything else for me to do.” He shrugged. “I could be useful.”

  She hesitated. “You ever worked in communications before, Kelly?”

  The corner of his mouth lifted and his eyes twinkled with good humor. “I’m in sales. You may not like it, but sales is communications’ bastard cousin. Same skills, except we make the money.”

  She pressed her lips together to hide any negative reaction to that outrageous thought. “I’m glad you think so.” She shifted her board to the other hip. “I am going to need help, even if it’s someone to hold Tally, Rob and Christian’s hands and keep their temper tantrums away from any camera lenses.” She lifted up a warning finger. “But you do what I say without question. No second guessing me because I’m young or female, or not Australian, or not vampire, or not with the agency, or any other excuse or reason that suddenly flashes to the front of your conscience as you decide to go off and do something hair-brained. Do we have an understanding?”

  Justin tilted his head. “Someone has been telling tales about me.”

  “A great many someones,” Deonne assured him, “and I listened to them all. Do we have an agreement, Justin? You do what I say and no arguments? It’s going to be tricky enough, this conference, without worrying about whether the help is doing what it was told.”

  Justin grinned. “A tricky conference, huh? You’re starting to sound more Australian every day. I think I’m rubbing off on you, Rinaldi.”

  “Like cat hair?” she asked sweetly.

  He snorted.

  “Agree, Justin. I really need to get to work.”

  “You’re serious?” he asked. “What do you want, a scout’s pledge or something?”

  “You were never a boy scout,” she replied with complete certainty.

  “Too right. They hadn’t been invented yet.” He pulled one of his hands from his pockets and held it up, the fingers together. “I swear I will do anything you tell me to do. Does that sound about right?”

  Deonne fought hard to not let her expression shift or her face give away the sudden flurry of images and thought/feelings flickering through her mind at the idea of Justin Edward Kelly doing exactly what she bid him to do, because none of those imaginary commands had anything to do with communications—not the corporate sort, anyway.

  The most powerful of those ideas blazed at the front of her mind, stealing most of her attention and her breath, for it was a snapshot image of him on his knees and naked for her to toy with. The idea of having power over him was laughable, but intoxicating at the same time.

  The mild amusement in Justin’s expression evaporated as his gaze pinned her to the spot. “So that’s an idea that appeals to you, huh, Rinaldi? We’ll have to see where that road takes us.”

  Her heart and clit…her whole body bloomed with a heated need, that rose up inside her like the swell of a warm wave. Deonne drew in her breath slowly and with great care, riding out the spike of intense longing. She pulled her gaze away from Justin and stared at the floor, marshalling herself. There were still too many vampires around with their supersonic hearing and smell, to give herself away with a simple gasp.

  When she knew she had herself under control once more, she lifted her gaze back up to Justin’s face.

  He was still watching her, but the urbane, amuse expression had fled. There was a feral, hungry glint in his eyes and his lips were parted, the way he held them when his teeth were descended.

  Her heart slammed against her chest. “Justin….” She wasn’t sure if she was encouraging him or warning him. She let her gaze flicker around the room. He wasn’t stupid. Justin was many things, but he was no idiot and he would know she was warning him that there were still too many people around them to allow themselves any personal indulgence.

  He swallowed. She could see his larynx move along his throat. “What is your first order, then?” he asked. His voice sounded perfectly normal. Completely under control. He gave her a small smile as he lifted a stray wisp of her hair back and tucked it behind her ear. She had been heard and understood.

  His fingertip slid down the edge of her jaw, leaving tingling, burning flesh in its wake. Then he lifted a brow in enquiry, waiting for her answer. The amusement was back in his eyes and Deonne suddenly knew that the afternoon was going to be filled with these microscopic landmines. He was going to take his revenge in tiny sips – a hidden caress here, a delicate stroke there, all designed to zap her nerves and steal her self-control as only he knew how.

  The bastard.

  Chapter Six

  Stockholm, Sweden, 2264 A.D.: Ryan glanced at Nayara as she shut the heavy timber door, hiding Deonne and Justin from his view. It didn’t matter—Justin’s caress of the woman’s face had been more than revealing and Deonne’s body language had spoken of high sexual tension.

  Nayara gave Ryan as small smile as he resettled his balance against the cane. He refused to think about how much he had been using it today. “Is that why you insisted Justin be here today?”

  “In part,” Nayara replied, picking up her box of boards.

  “How long have they…?”

  “A while.” She fell in beside him as they started down the long corridor toward the branch’s administration offices.

  “Is it serious?”

  Nayara just smiled.

  “It’s Justin,” he complained. “I thought I was beginning to know him. But Deonne Rinaldi is the last person I would have associated with him.”

  “Then I guess you don’t know him as well as you thought you did,” Nayara replied placidly.

  He thought that one over for a while. “Does anyone know him better than you or me? He was one of the first the agency signed up. If we don’t know him, who does?”

  “I imagine Deonne does,” Nayara told him. “At least better than we do.” She let her shoulder bump against him. “Think you can get a teeny bit more speed out of that stick there, hop-along? I have a media event in need of a location and not a lot of time in which to find it.”

  “You have no sympathy for the disabled,” he muttered.

  “True. I steal crippled people’s auto-walkers and every time I see a deaf person, I’m overcome with the urge to yank their artificial ears out, run away and smelt them down for the silver and diamonds and if you don’t hurry up I’m going to kick your cane out from under you and steal that, too.”

  He straightened up and held it out to her. “Here you go.”

  “My hands are full.” She shrugged, the box lifting with the movement. “Sorry.”

  Ryan dropped the cane back to the floor with not a little relief. The few steps he’d taken without it had been precarious and he was aware that Nayara had observed each drunken, weaving step, too.

  The silence that fell was thick, writhing with everything she wouldn’t say.

  “Just this one emergency,” he promised her. “Then I will concentrate on figuring out what the hell is wrong with me and find out how to fix it. But we have to get through this.”

  The silence stretched another few steps.

  “Cáel would kill you if he saw you pushing yourself this way,” she said. “We don’t even know what is really wrong with you—”

  “You think Cáel hasn’t gone right back to three hours of sleep a night, ouzo and ea
ting once every two days?” Ryan asked her, trying to keep his tone free of anger. The anger was a product of the fear her questions were building in him and he didn’t like that he was responding to it with this shitty macho reaction.

  What was wrong with him? His reactions were all screwed up and unpredictable.

  Nayara pressed her lips together tightly, riding herd on her own inappropriate reactions. Damn, when had they both got so good at controlling themselves this way? In Constantinople, they would have screamed and fought and resolved their differences in bed.

  “How would I know what Cáel is doing?” Nayara asked. Her voice was neutral but her posture was stiff with hurt and upset. She missed him, of course. Much more than Ryan, because he had only just started to notice Cáel’s absence, now he was awake again.

  “Cáel isn’t the only one pulling crazy workloads, is he?” Ryan asked softly. “You’ve been covering for me, and trying to rebuild an entire station at the same time. Have you had any rest at all?”

  “Who needs rest?” she asked. “I’ve made sure I’ve fed on schedule and I haven’t jumped back into the past more than Christian has recommended. I’ve been careful, Ryan. Other than that, hard work is exactly what I want right now.”

  Because the busier she is, the less she’ll think about Cáel…and me, Ryan added for himself. It was the unspoken other half of her sentence.

  He nodded, politely agreeing with Nayara, as they moved into the administrative area of the branch. “So, what sort of location do you need for the conference?” he asked, deliberately changing the subject.

  * * * * *

  Norstedthuset, Stockholm, Sweden, 2264 A.D.: Nayara placed a tall glass with a graceful handle in front of Deonne. “Here, with my thanks. You earned your salary today, Deonne.”