His tone was sardonic, but underneath that was tightly controlled tension. No, Ezekiel wasn’t looking forward to facing Grayson, and exactly when had Natividad come to know him well enough to understand that he was far more afraid of disappointing Grayson than of any punishment the Master might mete out?
She wanted to say that Grayson wouldn’t blame him for anything that had happened, but of course she couldn’t say anything of the kind. She wanted to promise him that Grayson would forgive him, but she couldn’t even promise that. She wanted to touch his face, stroke that tension and unhappiness away. She might at least be able to do that. In a minute. Not out here in front of everyone. She shoved her hands into her pockets and said, her own voice sounding strange to her, “Then come be with me tonight. Because we don’t know . . . we never know, do we, how many other chances we might get. Because anything can happen.”
He was gazing at her now, his eyes meeting hers. She couldn’t read his expression, except for its intensity. “I was a fool, Natividad. That nonsense I said. About what I would do if you chose someone else. You don’t have to take that seriously.”
“You meant it when you said it.”
“Well, yes.” He wasn’t smiling. Whatever that intensity encompassed, it wasn’t anything as light as amusement. “But when I said it, I was a fool. I made you afraid of me.”
Natividad couldn’t suppress a smile of her own. She took a step forward—it only took one—and took his hands. “I know what you are,” she told him. “You’re not a fool. You’re a possessive black dog with control issues, but I’m not afraid of you. I’ve never been afraid of you. You make me feel safe.”
Everyone else was watching with fascination. Natividad tried to ignore them. Alejandro certainly hadn’t moved back, not a single step. She couldn’t ignore him. Especially not when he gripped her shoulder hard enough to bruise and growled, “She is my sister.”
Natividad patted his hand consolingly. “Yes, but you have to admit, ’Jandro, Ezekiel can keep me safe better than anybody else. Except you, I mean,” she added, though they both knew this was a polite fiction.
Her brother shrugged, not happy but not able to refute either Ezekiel’s strength or his willingness to protect her. “He disobeyed Grayson for you,” he said reluctantly. “Pudiera ser peor, supongo. You could do worse. But if he hurts you—” he cut that off and glowered at Ezekiel. “If you hurt her—”
Black dogs seldom let a challenge pass, but this time Ezekiel only gave Alejandro a little nod. He said to Natividad, his voice tight, “Have you thought about this? Are you certain? You understand: you need to be certain.”
Natividad didn’t say, I’ve been thinking about this all day. Nor did she say, I’ve been thinking about this since I met you. She only took one of the keys out his hand without looking, and still without looking tossed the other two to Alejandro and Keziah, and then since Ezekiel’s hands were empty, she took one of them in both of hers and drew him with her up the stairs toward the rooms.
She couldn’t get the key in the lock, though. Her hands were shaking.
Ezekiel took the key away from her and opened the door. The room within was dim, curtains drawn, a yellowing light overhead and dark coverlets of brown and blue on the beds. There was a wheezing air conditioner, paintings of blue flowers above the beds, and a thin brown carpet. The overwarm air smelled a little musty, but not actually bad.
“Not what I wanted for you,” Ezekiel said in a strained voice. He picked her up in his arms as though she weighed nothing and stepped into the room, bumping the door closed behind them. He said, “I thought, somewhere pricey, a honeymoon suite, pink satin on a huge bed, pink champagne chilling on the nightstand, bubble bath in the tub . . . pink bubbles, of course . . .”
Natividad laughed.
“Definitely have to arrange that for you,” he said, not smiling. “Later.” He walked across the room to lay her down on the bed. Natividad closed her eyes, shivering. She wasn’t sure whether she was scared or not, but heat was spreading through her body from her middle.
Ezekiel stopped, and straightened, and ran a hand sharply through his short hair in an uncharacteristic gesture of frustration and indecision. “I don’t want—Natividad, do you understand, a black dog—I can’t—”
“Shh,” she said. Sitting up, she took his hand in hers again. She liked his hands. They were slender and strong, with neat, short nails. And so pale in hers. She liked that, the contrast. His hand closed into a fist and tried to draw back, but she wouldn’t let go. She liked the way he stopped instead of breaking her grip, the way he would not use his strength against her. She’d known he would not. She said gently, “I know. I do know. My mamá told me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you—”
“Shh. You won’t hurt me.”
He lifted his other hand to brush the hair back from her face. Despite the warning he had tried to give her, the gesture was extraordinarily gentle. His hands were shaking, too, she realized. She liked that. She liked knowing she had made him feel that way, the same way he made her feel. She said again, “You make me feel so safe.” And then she said what she had felt too shy to say before: “You make me feel so special.”
“Natividad.” His voice was raw. He ran his palm across her cheek, traced the line of her jaw, brushed his thumb gently across her lips. “Natividad. You are so special. Let me make you believe it.”
-18-
Keziah was there, in Justin’s room, when he woke up. Justin realized this only gradually, waking to a soft gray light that turned the dingy white of the walls to pearl and lavender. She had turned off the air conditioner and opened the window to the chilly air, which smelled of rain and wet pavement. Somewhere near at hand a bird was calling, a bubbling run of notes that Justin did not recognize. He hovered between sleep and waking, until the creak of her chair, as she shifted position, finally drew him toward the light.
He sat up amid tumbled pillows, his breath catching, not knowing in that first moment where he was, and found Keziah sitting in a chair drawn away from the cheap table and angled to let her watch both him and the doorway. At once his sharp fear eased. Keziah. Yes. So he was safe.
She looked bored and wary and irritated with the world. And beautiful. And he felt safe, because she was there.
“You are awake at last,” Keziah said.
Her tone was flat and hostile. But the hostility was mostly a façade. And when exactly had Justin become able to see through that mask? He wasn’t sure. Maybe one of the times she had saved his life. Or, no. Maybe one of the times she had saved Ezekiel’s life.
He rubbed his face hard, trying to wake himself up the rest of the way. Only slowly did the events of the previous day and night reorder themselves in his mind. Yes. The hotel. Ezekiel had said neither Justin nor Natividad should be left unguarded. Justin . . . wasn’t quite sure how Keziah in particular had wound up on guard in his room. But he didn’t think anyone would have dared order Keziah to take that duty. Not even Ezekiel. No. She had made that choice herself.
Alejandro had looked a little suspicious of that arrangement, but Justin had felt relieved, even though he had been too tired to think. He remembered that. His subconscious seemed confident he could sleep safely with Keziah watching over him. He ought to have felt her presence, any black dog presence but especially hers, to be an unpardonable intrusion on his privacy—a girl, for God’s sake, a girl who had been watching him sleep—yet somehow he couldn’t work up any kind of reasonable outrage. He wasn’t sure he should think about that too closely.
She looked tired. He wondered if she’d gotten any sleep at all. She sat with her arms crossed under her breasts, one leg drawn up so that the heel of her boot rested against the chair’s cushion. Justin thought it would probably leave a mark. He supposed it didn’t matter.
He picked up one of the pillows he’d tossed aside and put it carefully back in place. Another. At last he asked, keeping his tone neutral, “You . . . how are you doing?”
Keziah’s e
yebrows lifted with faint surprise. “I?”
“Yeah, well,” Justin said vaguely. “Everything stayed quiet last night, I hope. Where’re the others? Anybody go find breakfast?” He tossed back the sheets and blanket and got to his feet. He’d slept in his jeans even though they badly needed to be washed. He felt stiff and grimy.
Keziah tilted her head, unsmiling. “Yes. I believe there are doughnuts. The kind with white sugar, I understand. And yes, I am glad to tell you, last night all was silent as the grave.”
“Your werewolf humor is not like our normal-person humor,” Justin told her. “Um . . . any sign of Ezekiel and Natividad, yet?”
The corner of Keziah’s mouth crooked upward, though Justin wasn’t sure he would have called her expression a smile. “The curtains of that room are still closed.”
“Right,” said Justin. He suppressed a brief twinge of envy for Natividad’s obvious certainty about what she wanted. And her courage in reaching out last night. Nothing secretive or underhanded, either: just a confident declaration right out in front of God and everyone. That was Natividad, though. A brave girl. He was years older than she was. He ought to be at least that brave.
He wasn’t sure he felt up to the challenge this morning, though. Besides, Natividad was a lot older than her actual years. And no wonder, considering how she had grown up. He might not have gotten her whole bio, but he was clear enough about that.
He felt old enough himself, this morning. He badly wanted the fortification of a hot shower and clean clothes before he faced this morning. He poked at yesterday’s discarded shirt, grimaced, slung it over his shoulder, and went into the bathroom. He shut the door, firmly. But he didn’t believe Keziah would intrude further. He was almost sure she wouldn’t. He was almost sure he was relieved.
She didn’t intrude. She was gone from the room when Justin came out, barefoot and rubbing his hair with a towel. The prickle of unease that went down his spine startled him: he had known Keziah’s presence didn’t bother him—which was strange right there—but he hadn’t realized until that moment that he was just more comfortable when he knew where she was. Or maybe when he knew she was nearby.
He found her out on the balcony, though, the moment he opened the door. She was standing directly outside the room, her gaze turned toward the brightening morning light. She was standing quite still, one hand resting on the balcony’s railing, her head slightly bowed. Her expression was hard to read. The early sunlight slid across the slant of her cheekbone and gilded the long line of her throat, glittered in the swaying crystal of her earrings and turned her eyes to a dark amber. She looked beautiful, and somehow not at all rumpled or grimy, even though she’d been dragged through just as much crap as any of the rest of them, yesterday. Some kind of special werewolf magic had brought her silk blouse through everything without a single stain or pulled thread. He could wish he had that kind of magic, but probably it wasn’t even something other black dogs had. He bet it was just intrinsic to Keziah. Her tight black jeans hugged her hips, pointed out other intrinsic attributes. He glanced away, took a deep breath, and looked carefully at the curtains drawn across the window of the room Ezekiel and Natividad shared. Still tightly closed, just as Keziah had said.
Fine, then.
“Doughnuts?” he said.
“We have acquired a box of our own, I am told.” Keziah turned and half opened a hand to invite him to proceed her along the balcony toward the third room along, whose door, Justin saw, was indeed cracked open. She added, “Also, Alejandro took some of your money and went to a McDonalds. Not wishing to disturb Ezekiel to ask for money, you understand.”
“Right,” said Justin. “Good idea.”
Alejandro and Nicholas had already eaten more than half the doughnuts, but Justin forgave them because of the greasy bags lined up on the bathroom counter. Biscuits with eggs, biscuits with eggs and bacon, surely somewhere in these bags were biscuits with eggs and sausage—ah, here. Justin took three. Plus a doughnut, sticky with powdered sugar. If anyone had ordered pizza or anything last night, he been unconscious before it arrived. He was pretty sure no one had. They’d all been so worn out from terror and adrenalin, it was a wonder they’d even thought to get chips at the gas stations.
Alejandro was settled on the bed nearest the door, on top of the coverlet. He’d appropriated most of the pillows, but he didn’t actually look comfortable. He had given Keziah and Justin a glare when they’d come in, plainly impatient to see his sister. Justin was just as glad that heavy disapproval wasn’t directed his way. Probably Ezekiel wouldn’t even notice it. Or care, anyway.
Nicholas was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, in the corner farthest from the door. He looked . . . better than yesterday, Justin decided. But still haunted. No wonder. Poor kid. The kid looked up at him with a quick sideways glance, though, as Justin rummaged through the McDonald’s bags, and his shoulders relaxed a little. The aura of the Pure, Justin diagnosed wryly. The effect no longer seemed so absolutely weird, though. Or it did, but not so unfamiliar, at least. He smiled at the kid and sat down on the floor nearby, leaving the other bed for Keziah, in hopes that she would quit prowling nervously around the room and settle down.
“How long will it take us to get back to Dimilioc?” he asked, more to get conversation and noise going than because he really wondered. Assuming that Ezekiel drove faster than the speed limit, but not insanely fast, he estimated it should be another, what, eight hours or so from here to northern Vermont.
“I think we should get there some time in the afternoon,” Alejandro said. “If we go soon.” He and Keziah traded a glance that Justin couldn’t read.
“Oh, food,” Natividad said from the doorway, in heartfelt tones. “Thank you, thank you, are there any more doughnuts?” She sent one quick, brilliant, embarrassed glance around the room, gave her brother a bright smile, and started peeking into the bags. “Oh, eggs, great!”
She was . . . glowing, Justin decided, described it well. She, like all of them, was wearing yesterday’s clothes and, like all of them but Keziah, looking a bit rumpled. But she’d put her hair up in a complicated figure-eight braid that accentuated her long neck and high cheekbones, and she certainly did somehow look more grown up. And very pretty. Not in Keziah’s league, of course, but still . . . yes, very pretty.
Alejandro had stiffened when his sister entered the room. But if he wanted to ask anything like Are you all right?, he suppressed it, with what effort, Justin could only imagine. He said instead, stiffly, “Buenos días.”
“Oh, buenos días!” Natividad exclaimed. “Sí, it is going to be a glorious day, you can just tell, can’t you? Maybe we can take turns sitting in the front so we can see out and let the air blow in!”
She was very cheerful indeed, Justin thought, amused. He expected Ezekiel would probably insist on driving again, and he suspected that in that case, Natividad was going to be the only person sitting up front with him, no matter how long the remaining drive.
He was right, too. And so was Alejandro. They drove through Newport just before three in the afternoon, and then took that whole series of progressively smaller and narrower and rougher roads in only a little more than an hour. Justin was a little disturbed to find himself relaxing more and more as they got closer to Dimilioc, as they drove at last through the little town of Lewis and took those last few bumpy miles to the Dimilioc house itself and came at last out of the pale green shade of the spring woods and into the bright meadow surrounding the house.
Ezekiel turned the van up that last long curve of the circle drive, took his foot off the gas, and coasted gently to a halt about twenty feet away from the broad porch. He just sat there for a moment, though, his hands still gripping the steering wheel, staring straight ahead out the windshield. Justin saw Natividad reach across the space between their seats and touch his arm, and he glanced at her quickly, sighed, and turned off the engine. The sudden silence was shocking, for here at Dimilioc there was hardly any sound at all o
ther than the random rustle of the wind in the new leaves.
Perhaps those in the house had heard the car approaching, because Grayson Lanning was already standing on the porch, at the top of the stairs. He was alone. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked . . . not very happy. Extremely forbidding, in fact.
Ezekiel turned and came back into the back of the van instead of getting out the driver’s-side door. Natividad followed, clearly in the spirit of all-for-one-one-for-all.
“It’ll be fine,” Ezekiel told them all, quietly. And added to Nicholas, who was looking terrified, “Don’t worry, kid. You’re not in trouble.”
“But—” said Nicholas, and cut that off.
“You’re perfectly fine,” said Ezekiel. “One of the few good things to come out of this whole mess.” He gave Justin a nod and Keziah an unreadable look. Then he stepped past them all, swung the back door of the van open, leaped down, turned to offer his hand to Natividad, and conducted them all to the foot of the stairs, where he somehow directed them without word or overt gesture to stand in a line, almost at attention. He did not, Justin notice, let go of Natividad’s hand until the last moment.
Grayson looked them over, one by one, taking his time, starting with Nicholas and ending with Ezekiel, with a thoughtful glance at Natividad that made it clear he hadn’t missed the new intimacy between her and Ezekiel. When it was his turn, Justin met his eyes, but not easily. Grayson wasn’t glaring, exactly, but the steady pressure of his regard was intense. No one spoke. Justin remembered after a moment that this was the rule: no one spoke before the Master of Dimilioc. He was just as glad. He had no idea what to say.
“Nicholas Hammond,” Grayson said.
The boy flinched, bowed his head, took a step forward, and went to his knees.
“You are welcome here,” Grayson said, his deep voice gentling. “I am grieved to hear of your loss and Dimilioc’s loss, but you are most welcome here. I understand you have a great ability to summon fire. That is a valuable gift. I gather you alone survived the vampire’s attack on your sept?”
Pure Magic (Black Dog Book 3) Page 35