Dishes cleaned, she went to the back of the Jeep, thankful she’d pulled the stuff she had. Part of her worried about being out of her parents’ good graces at the moment, but Heather needed rescuing, she needed to figure out Boone, her To Do List was growing by the minute.
Inside, she put the box on the rough-hewn coffee table, and waved a hand at it.
Boone looked at her, one hand hovering over the top. She nodded once, and he opened it. Inside were all the intel they had on Heather. Her life, her ancestry, her known preferences, where she’d traveled to, all of it. Including that it was the Veritatis who had her, last known location was Denver.
He said nothing, going over every note, through all the folders, and she saw him raise his eyebrows a few times. “You guys get this much intel?”
“Yes.” She thought she could trust him, though a small doubt was trying to grow in her mind.
“We’d kill for it, but the old men forbid it long ago.” He put down the second to last folder. “Shame, because with all of this kind of information, we could be so much more efficient.”
“I didn’t give you this info to hand over to the Iudex.” Her voice was calm, quiet.
He glanced up, surprise on his face. “Of course you didn’t! This is your information, not ours, and I won’t betray your trust, even if I have to do it to my friends and family.” He read two pages. “I thought you knew me better than that.” He sounded hurt.
“I do, but I also needed to put that out there. We need to go after her and keep her alive. The Praesidio will give her a life in Showtime, a job in her field, the possibility of a family, love. Can the Iudex offer the same?” She needed to know. Now or never, she needed to know.
“I don’t know where they go when we get them. I’m being honest. We don’t get this level of intel. Nor are we allowed to know what happens to them afterwards. My job is to get them to the old men.”
“Before we go after Heather, I have to have your word she will go to Showtime.” She turned, taking one of his hands. “I’d rather we worked together, but I know they are treated with reverence in the city. I can’t say the same for the Iudex.”
He said nothing, leaning forward and kissing her. She lost thought, and leaned into it, wanting more, wanting his hands on her, more of that glorious pleasure he’s bestowed on her before. Wanted it, needed it. She had to see where it went and understood why so many women sought it. It was a drug, addictive, and it killed the pain of the present for a few moments.
He pulled back. “I can’t give you that word, Iroida. Not without lying to you. Not after what they did to me.”
She felt as if he’d slapped her in the face. “You’ve seen her ability, she cannot remain in the public, you know this. For her safety and for the safety of every human on earth. She has very little control, and I can guarantee the Veritatis are, at this moment, egging her to use it, for them. We can train her to control it, and to live a long, decent life.”
“As a monkey in a cage. And your parents aren’t exactly merciful. How will they act around a human who can alter your perception of reality? And is thought to be able to enforce it on the gods?” He sat straight, a stubborn tilt to his chin. “No matter where she goes, she’s a big weapon. And they will use her. When she realizes that, she survival instinct will kick in, and from having seen it, it’s a powerful one, tied to her ability. Is Showtime really the perfect place?” He was intense in his questions. “Answer me, none of those were rhetorical.”
She couldn’t, not honestly. Mextli and Nasi could very well use Heather, same as the Iudex and the Veritatis. Damn it, Boone was right. She could name several of the humans, with abilities born of DNA mutation rather than lineage, where her parents had used them in subtle ways.
They needed a different plan. She couldn’t see any place better than Showtime.
The name slipped into her mind before she could stop it. A name she’d been forbidden of thinking, from saying, from learning the fate of. Yet, there it was.
Pruella.
Chapter Nineteen
Boone
It was the expression on her face. She’d thought of something. An inner light flicked on, and her eyes grew cunning, thoughtful. He suspected she was at the most dangerous.
“I might have an idea, but…” she stood, and paced in the small room.
“Go on.” He watched her, fascinated.
“If memory serves, my older sister lost her immortality to a man, so should be long dead. But that doesn’t mean much. I was a young child at the time.” She turned to look at him.
He schooled his features. If what Fenrir said was correct, and Pruella had children, Guardians had been birthed by this sister. But he couldn’t tell her that. “But you’re thinking there might be descendants?” He tapped his chest, “Like me?”
“Why not? Romulus and Remus were demi-gods, twins who spawned an entire race of descendants with ability. Surely my sister could have done the same. She wasn’t a god, or even a demi-god. She was merely a creation with abilities, like me.” A strange emotion crossed her features, and Boone responded.
Standing he took her in his arms, pulling her into his chest and holding her head. “You are not merely anything. And it is possible. Where did she go?”
Iroida put her arms around his waist, holding as if she was drowning. He made gentle rocking motions, feeling her relax a muscle at a time.
“Rumor is that she crossed the Atlantic but take it with a grain of salt.” She was leaning into him, letting him take her weight.
It felt right. She belonged in his arms, her weight against him, her body perfect against his. “I’m going to need to call a friend in an off-Iudex line. He’ll look and not tell the old men.”
She nodded but didn’t leave his hold.
“We’ll do that in the morning,” he whispered, his body demanding, instinct egging him to taste, touch, feel. And yet he couldn’t. Not without her express permission, knowing exactly what it would cost her for that decision. Taking a deep breath, he pushed it all down. Away.
“Let’s find out what happened to your sister, but in the meantime, I really need sleep. I still have some sore spots and feel the day in my bones.” He grabbed her shoulders, peeling her off. He wanted to cry out, howl at anything, to get her back where she belonged.
She stumbled but righted herself. Moving away, she nodded. “I have a cell phone, encrypted. I can redo the password, so it can’t be traced or hacked.” She gave a pointed look at the cot.
“I’ll sleep in the truck. I just need some blankets.” Boone had slept in worse places, with far less. But to sleep in bed with her was courting danger. He watched hurt cross her face, making him want to apologize and relent. But Fenrir’s words sang in his mind, and without her knowing all the options, he wasn’t going to take advantage of her.
She offered thick wool blankets, a pillow and a small mat. “The seats go down in the back, it should help.”
He grabbed her chin, raising it. “I’m doing this for you, I promise. I wish I could tell you everything, but a death oath forbids it. I want it as badly as you.” He leaned forward, giving her a short kiss.
She offered a shy smile, and looked down, a light pink tint flowing over her cheeks.
It was cold out, and he put the seats down, rolled out the mat, and made a pallet in the back. It was going to be a really long night if the current cockstand in his pants was any indication.
The morning sun shone through the windows, shining across his eyes. Rolling away and groaning, he pushed up, and flopped back down. It’d taken until the early streaks of light to fall asleep. From the sun’s place in the sky, he’d say it’d been four hours at most. Shaking off the groggy feeling, he sat up, and waited. Moving arms and legs, he did a “hmm” face and smiled. He hadn’t felt this good in weeks. He owed Fenrir a solid.
Out of the truck he walked far from the shack and took care of pressing needs. Back at the front door, he raised a hand to knock.
The door swung o
pen. “I have breakfast cooking, the password changed, and you need to make a call. When you’re done, I have some news as well.” She yanked him inside, slammed the door shut, and walked to the iron stove. Cans were next to the door, and the smell of stew filled the cabin.
She handed him a tin bowl and spoon. He dug in, ignoring the voice at the back of his head to mind his manners. His appetite was back and in demand.
The shack cleaned, and everything covered, they left. She drove and handed him the cell phone. He called Marcus.
“I need you to trace a lineage, please, off book.” He didn’t bother with a greeting. Marcus would be suspicious.
“Go.” Marcus didn’t need anything, and Boone felt a bit of future information slide into his mind. Marcus would be next. He was next for something big, and it could be good or bad, depending on what he did.
“Guardian, um,” he looked to Iroida for guidance. His eyebrows rose at her mouthed three thousand years ago, Rome. “Three thousand years ago, Rome. Name of,” he put his hand over the mouthpiece and gave her a questioning look.
“Pruella.”
“Pruella. Nasi and Mextli, parents.”
“Wait. Mextli was an Aztec god,” Marcus whispered.
“Yes, and just as damn scary. Let me know, please? This number,” and he tapped to end the call.
“One word about my age and I’ll show you time travel.” She sounded grumpy.
“Sweetie, you’re beautiful, and an older woman. Believe me, it’s every man’s fantasy.”
She rolled her eyes, and he laughed.
They drove in silence, and he suspected she was trying to get her news into a semblance of order.
“I dreamt of Pruella last night. Of the time I knew her, when I was very young. She was vibrant, filled with life. She’d walk into a room and all eyes would be on her. I can remember parties where the men flocked around her, one a general in the Roman army. He, unlike so many others, wasn’t an arrogant ass. He was a good man, who cared for his soldiers, and Romans.” She was silent, and he felt her fall into the past. Contradicting emotions rolled off her in delicate scents, her face changing expressions. Clearing her throat, “Pruella fell for him, and who could blame her. The next time I saw her, she was on the floor of her room, Mother screaming at her for losing her mortality, with blood on her thighs, crying out in pain. Part of what Mother screamed was that Pruella had sacrificed her immortality for a man.”
Boone looked out the window, wondering if he was free of his oath yet. She knew and was trying to voice it. In that moment, a weight lifted, one he hadn’t realized he’d taken on. It’d been while injured, so it had felt like nothing after Fenrir’s howl. It was the cloak of the oath. It was gone. Eighty pounds off his body.
He took a deep breath. “Yes. Apparently if you have intercourse, you lose more than your virginity. It means sacrificing your immortality.” He wondered if Nasi and Mextli knew and were protecting the women or keeping them under control. It was a fine line.
“But I also suspect it is more than that, Boone. She screamed at Pru, ‘You will have children and unable to deal with their power.’ I’m not sure what that means either, but I do know my sister might have had kids, and we can find them. If so, well, we might find more answers, and a way to keep Heather safe from all the agencies.” She pushed the Jeep onto the highway, heading west. Two miles later, they turned south, and she put on the cruise control.
The cell phone rang, and she glanced at the screen before handing it to him.
“Yeah.”
Marcus’s voice, quiet, “Dude. What did you fall into?”
“What?” He knew that tone. Something big was afoot, and the old men were going to know soon.
“I found her.” The sound of tapping on the keyboard filtered through the phone.
“Found who? You mean her descendants?” He frowned at Iroida.
“No. I mean I found Pruella. And in plain sight.”
Chapter Twenty
Iroida
It was the expression on his face. The sheer shock, the rapid blinking of his eyes, the tilt of his head. She said nothing and waited.
“You found Pruella? As in alive?”
Nothing more was said, and she couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation.
He put the phone in the cupholder, an elbow on the door, chin in palm. He stared out the window, face carefully blank.
“Well?” She found a place to pull into. Once in park, she turned sideways. Putting a hand on his shoulder. “He found my sister?”
Boone offered her a shell-shocked expression. “Well, yes and no. She is alive and is no longer in North America. She is, in fact, overseas, Cyprus to be exact. But it seems she gave birth to more than twenty daughters. The Iudex have a no contact order with them.” He blinked a few times, “All of your older sisters are with her.”
She straightened in the seat, gripping the steering wheel, and staring at the forest ahead. They weren’t too far from what was going to be mountain passes into Idaho, and then drop down to Utah. They had a long drive, since she’d gotten a message that Heather had been taken to Salt Lake City. There was a Veritatis center in the big city, and likely she was being held there.
Iroida didn’t know what to do next. Fly for Pruella? And her other sisters? How many?
“Heather is a priority, Iroida. We have to go and get her. Then we decide what to do about your sisters. She’s alive, and you have nieces. An extended family that you nothing about. Let’s work on getting Heather first, okay?”
She nodded. Yes, finding her sisters would have helped with some info, but Boone was right, she needed to get Heather first. They would decide where she would go after that.
Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she took them out of the parking spot, and they drove for Utah.
The silence had stretched, awkward at first, but now comfortable. For whatever reason, he was letting her have the lead, to talk when she was ready instead of demanding she talk to him at that very second. She was grateful, being allowed to work through her chaotic thoughts.
Another tension crept slowly into the cabin, and she had an idea it was because his thoughts had turned. His body was different, a tautness that wasn’t there before. It brought to mind the feel of his hands on her, and she heard him release a light moan.
“I don’t know what you are thinkin’, honey, but please, go back to wondering how to work through the bombshell of the news of your sister.” His hand pressed into his groin, and he shifted. She caught his look of agony and frowned. Not knowing any better, she put a hand on his arm, “Are you okay? Does something hurt? Can I help?” Her every instinct said to help him, give him relief.
She just didn’t really know from what.
“Iroida, I’d love nothing more than several hours of your help, but we have to get to our destination, and helping me will definitely throw a spanner in the works.” He closed his eyes and held still.
She wasn’t sure what he spoke of, and realized her naivete wasn’t a good thing, despite Nasi’s words over the centuries.
She looked for courage to ask. She wasn’t sure if she had it or not. For the first time, she didn’t charge in. It was several hours before any stop, and the air in the Jeep was bringing new sensations into the forefront. Making it damn hard to ignore.
Taking a deep breath, “What are you talking about, Boone? Please, don’t laugh, because I honestly don’t know. I mean, yes, I read all the romance books, but they are not really a great place to learn what is truly happening.”
His body, already tense, turned to rock. She saw a small tic at the major muscle in his jaw, his eyes widen slightly and hold. “Iroida, love, I…” he swallowed, “I want to tell you, then show you. But I’m already in pain over here.”
“I’m sorry.”
He closed both eyes, rubbing his forehead. “I’m sorry, not you. I forget you are so innocent. Maybe not of violence, and the way humans are assholes, but in relationships. I’ll answer any question.
”
“What takes hours?” she put an elbow on the door and leaned against a fist. She drove one handed, the road deserted. They had time.
He swallowed. “Making love to you. It will take me hours to do all the things I imagine doing. To taste every inch of your beautiful tan skin. To memorize every curve, to learn the basics of what you like, and what you want. To see how far I can push you.” His voice, as he’d spoken, had become deeper, harsh. She’d seen his hips move under the seatbelt.
Her breathing increased, and while he’d spoken in vague terms, there was something in his voice that said guilty pleasure, and an intensity she’d never experienced in her long life. A heaviness, and a pain of need settled deep in her groin. Her breasts felt full, her nipples painful against the soft sports bra she wore.
“And?” she whispered.
“You would give up everything for a few hours?” he sounded strangled.
“No. I would give it up for you.” She glanced at him, and as their eyes met, the cabin of the SUV became unbearably hot. She was uncomfortable, though not for any reason she could voice. The best she could say was she now understood the phrase and the sparks flew. The descriptions in the multitudes of romance books made sense, and she wanted to see if he would try all of them on her. She’d always skimmed the intimate scenes of the books, because they were confusing. Now she got it. And she wanted it.
He shoved both hands over his head, pulling his hair. It’d gotten long over the last few weeks, and without thought, she reached out to touch it. He froze under her fingers, and the silkiness of the strands left her breathless. Her mind tried to conjure images but had no context for the need incinerating her from within.
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