But of these many types, I couldn’t be sure to which family Fallon belonged. Maybe he wasn’t Fae at all, but something else. He was powerful, no doubt there. And he had a strange attractive quality that begged to be noticed. I hadn’t been able to help myself. The words spilled out of my mouth like water through a broken dam. Whatever he was, Raif certainly had him pegged. Dangerous. I could ask around to learn more about him, but I didn’t want to further raise suspicion by asking questions. No, I’d have to wait until he contacted me and then decide if his solution to loosening Delilah’s lips was worth finding Brakae. In the meantime, I had to calm the hell down before I wore a path in my rug.
My winding trek brought me to the kitchen, and my pace slowed as I neared the safe hidden in my wall. The bricks came loose with a gentle tug, and I set them on the counter. I gave a quick turn of the dial and pulled the door open. From the back of the safe, bright green pulsed in the darkness. The emerald pendulum hummed with energy, beckoning me with every surge of brilliant light. I’d almost forgotten about my strange gift and its mysterious giver over the past few days. I plucked the bauble from its resting place, the emerald warming my palm. My eyes drawn inexorably to the pendulum, I walked toward the window, the noonday sun nearing its zenith in the sky.
I pinched the silver chain between my thumb and forefinger and let the stone dangle in my line of sight. The sun reflected within its depths, and the sound of time passing within my soul began to slow until the seconds were no longer recognizable as individual beats, but rather, a distant, ominous echo, like thunder rumbling from far away. On its own willpower, the stone swung toward me, enticing me to stare into the fathomless green that devoured everything around me until there was nothing left but me, the silver chain, and the glowing green stone dangling from it. A vibration tickled the air around me, and the landscape of my apartment melted away until I stood atop a knoll, brilliant with spring grass and smelling of fresh rain. The sun had just begun to rise in the east, and moving steadily toward me was a girl in flowing white robes.
Smiling, the adolescent, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, raised a hand in greeting, sauntering through the grass as if she had nothing but time to waste.
“Welcome, Darian!” she called from twenty yards away. “I was wondering when you’d find me.”
I looked around at the vast landscape of rolling green hills, a little more than freaked that I was no longer standing in my apartment. Like the pendulum now bunched in my fist, this place stretched on forever, with neither beginning nor end. “How in the hell did I get here?” I asked as soon as the girl made her way to me.
She simply looked around as if her guess was as good as mine. A soft breeze blew her raven hair, and clear blue eyes swept me from head to toe. She looked familiar, this girl, enough like the child and the woman from my recent dreams to lead me to believe they were all related. But how? Related through a dream? That was a lot to swallow, even for me.
“You’ve been chosen by Fate,” the girl said. “And I’m so happy with the choice. You’re more than capable to serve your purpose.”
Oh joy. Who was I? Anakin fucking Skywalker? “Did you give me this?” I opened my hand to show her the emerald. “By way of a falcon?”
The girl smiled and reached out to close my hand around the stone. “It belongs to you,” she said.
“Not that I don’t appreciate it…” Actually, I didn’t appreciate it. Not a bit. “But I’ve got a lot to deal with right now. And being—ah—transported to wherever this is does not mesh with my already complicated life. So I think you’d better take your jewelry back and go find someone else to play with, okay?”
If the girl noticed my condescending tone, she didn’t let on. An enigmatic smile graced her lips, somehow more menacing than pleasant. “Protect the key, Guardian.” She looked wistfully to the sky as the morning sun broke through the clouds. “Time is a precious thing.”
I felt my body go suddenly slack, the ring at the end of the pendulum’s chain still looped around my finger. It dropped from my palm, jerking as the slack ran out. A peace swept over me as if my upside-down world had been set aright. For the first time since arriving on the knoll, I noticed the absence of time’s cadence. I could no longer feel or hear its steady beat within me. I closed my eyes, absorbed in the bliss of silence, and when I opened them again, I was standing in my apartment, looking out the picture window as the sun dipped into the west and out of sight.
Five minutes. I couldn’t have been gone more than five minutes, but the sun was setting. It had been noon only moments before. How could nine hours have possibly passed in that brief time?
The sound of my elevator grinding to a stop tore me from the shock of the moment. Tyler emerged, panicked and looking for a fight, armed with both a wicked-looking knife and a Glock. He stopped short of storming the kitchen and dropped his weapons at his side, looking just as confused as I felt. “Darian! Thank the gods. Are you all right? What’s going on? Where the hell have you been?”
I stuffed the pendulum in my pocket. Tyler was already about to implode from worry. I didn’t need to give him anything else to freak out about. “I drove out to the PNT building this morning to see if I could get any more information about Raif’s daughter out of Delilah.” No use lying about that. “I didn’t want to wake you, so I borrowed your Buelle. Then I came back here. Must have fallen asleep. I’m sorry. I should have called.”
Tyler’s jaw dropped, and he looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. “Darian, you’ve been gone for two days!”
Raif paced around my kitchen, obviously agitated, while Xander sat as serene as ever in the chair in my living room. Tyler sat beside me on the couch, holding on to my hand with an iron grip. He couldn’t seem to peel his eyes off me either. I guess he figured if he blinked, I’d disappear again.
“You mean to tell me you have no recollection of the last two days?” Raif’s voice had risen to nearly a shout, but it was only frustration that fueled his tone.
“I told you, I remember waking up, taking Tyler’s bike to the PNT, seeing Delilah briefly, and then driving home. I’d barely made it through the front door when Ty came storming up.” What happened in the five minutes between my arriving home and Tyler’s arrival was no one’s business but mine for right now, lost days or not.
“Why in the hell did you go back there to talk to her?” Okay, Raif was shouting now. And it wasn’t because of frustration. He was flat-out pissed. “I told you to stay the hell away from that Oracle!”
“Raif—”
“You were not instructed to visit that facility. You talked your way in under false pretenses. You attempted to interrogate a prisoner under magical restraint! What has gotten into you? Have you lost your mind?” Those last five words roared across my kitchen.
Throughout Raif’s tirade, Xander sat stoic, his fingers in a steeple resting against his pursed lips. I could practically see the gears grinding in his mind as he processed every tiny syllable passing between us.
“You violated a direct order, Darian. How should I deal with this?”
Oh no. Raif did not just treat me like some low-level greenhorn. “You don’t have to deal with this, Raif. I’m a freelance employee. I’m not a royal subject.”
Raif raised a brow to Xander, and I suddenly felt as if I’d just dug my own grave. “I’m afraid that’s not necessarily true,” Xander said in his rich velvet voice. “You agreed to work under retainer; therefore you are subject to reprimand. And if you’ll remember, Darian, you set out the terms of our agreement. You requested to work directly under Raif, taking instruction specifically and solely from him. If you disregarded his request to leave the Oracle be, then I’m afraid you did, in fact, violate a direct order from your superior.”
Fuck me, the asshole was right. I’d screwed myself over with my own stupid rules, making sure Xander couldn’t use me to play his adolescent games. I could have kicked myself.
“But since we’re on the subject…” God, Xander, le
ave—it—alone. “What is this all about? Why did you go back to see the Oracle?”
Shithead. Just had to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. I kept my mouth clamped shut. No way in hell was I going to supply him with any information.
“The day we took Delilah into custody,” Raif answered for me, “the Oracle tried to trick Darian into releasing her by saying she had information concerning Brakae’s whereabouts.”
Tyler squeezed my hand. Hard. He’d known what I was after, but his overbearing show of—ouch!—affection, let me know he obviously agreed with Raif and felt I should abandon my quest.
“I see,” said Xander, having nothing more to offer. “Darian, stop by my home tomorrow. We’ll discuss the terms of your reprimand.” He stood and stared down at Tyler with a contemptuous sneer. “I assume I can count on you to keep your eye on her tonight? If you need assistance, Jinn, I can send Dimitri over. I’d hate to see her slip through your fingers for another two days or longer.”
“She’s not yours to worry about, Xander.” Tyler’s fingers left my hand as he wrapped an arm protectively around me. “I know how to protect what’s mine.”
Xander’s cold smile betrayed the hateful venom in his glare. A muscle ticked in his cheek, and he cast a glance my way before dissolving into shadow and disappearing completely. I stood, shooting a glare of my own in Tyler’s direction before crossing the kitchen to Raif, who was about to follow his brother’s exit.
“Raif,” I said again, unable to form the necessary words to calm his anger. He took a step toward me, and I flinched, thinking he meant to strike me. But instead, he pulled me into a hard embrace, laid his cheek against my head, and like his brother, became one with the shadows.
I stood with my arms hanging at my sides for a stunned moment. The brotherly gesture from Raif had been no less shocking than a right hook to my face. Emotion swelled in my chest, rising to form a tight knot in my throat. Nothing short of an outright plea would have strengthened my resolve more.
I would not rest until I found Brakae.
A sigh from the couch reminded me that I wasn’t in my apartment alone. Annoyance replaced tenderness as Tyler’s proclamation that I was essentially his property echoed in my mind. I rounded on him, my hands clenched into fists. “Why didn’t you just lift your leg and piss on me? It would have had the same effect.”
“Where have you been?” Tyler said instead. I’d never heard the tone of his voice so hard; it was low and serious, nearly shaking with controlled emotion.
“I told you”—I looked at the floor, unable to meet his gaze—“I’ve been here the entire time.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Though the emerald had without a doubt transported me somewhere, I’d never actually left my apartment.
“Bullshit.” He choked on the word. “I’ve been here more than once over the past two days. You weren’t here. I couldn’t feel you. It was almost like our bond had been broken or the distance between us was too far for me to sense you.” I looked up to find Tyler’s head resting in his hands. “Darian…I thought…I couldn’t sense our bond. It was like you didn’t exist.”
The annoyance melted right out of my body. While I’d felt as though I’d been gone only a matter of minutes, to the rest of them—Ty, Raif, Xander—I’d been gone without a trace for a couple of days. I thought about how I’d feel if I woke up one morning and Tyler had left without a single clue to his whereabouts. In fact, I knew from experience how it felt to be abandoned by someone you loved. I would be crazy with grief and worry if Ty disappeared. Hell, I’d probably slice up anything that walked too close until I found him. But despite that, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the emerald. More than once the confession had been at the tip of my tongue. Something had made me swallow it back, however—a compulsion to keep this secret to myself and not divulge the information to anyone. Why couldn’t I have had this problem earlier today—well, two days ago—with Fallon?
“Ty, I’m so sorry.” I moved to the couch, where I stood before him, burying my fingers in the thick curls of his hair. “I had no idea.”
“Raif seemed pretty distraught over your disappearance.” Tyler’s tone became the same mixture of jealousy and suspicion he’d used days before. “Even more than Xander. I guess the sonofabitch can’t handle a couple of days away from you either.”
Christ, not this again. “Tyler, how many times do I have to tell you there’s nothing between Raif and me besides a deep respect and friendship?”
“Doesn’t feel like it to me.”
“You’re unhinged. Seriously.”
Tyler’s eyes flashed with emotion. I could see the concern, but just barely. Something else festered below the surface. His emotions were volatile, shifting without notice. I stroked his face, my own fear tickling at the edges of my senses. Call it intuition, or foreboding, but I had a feeling that these sudden flashes of jealous temper were only the beginning. “I don’t want him here,” he said in a low growl.
My hands shook from a healthy dose of anxiety. I kept my voice calm and even as I tried to soothe him. “That’s going to be tough to agree to when we work together, Ty. Take it easy. He’s. Just. A. Friend.”
Tyler shook his head, as if cleansing his brain of dust. “You’re right.” God, he sounded exhausted. “You’re right. This is stupid. It’s the bond; it just needs to settle. I’m still a little on edge. Darian, you seriously have no memory of where you’ve been?”
“No.” The lie escaped my lips so easily, without the bitter taste of remorse I thought I’d feel. “I thought I’d been here the whole time. I don’t remember anything about the last two days.”
That much, at least, was true. This wasn’t my first encounter with a deviance in time. When I’d been kidnapped by the creepy teenagers who’d fed themselves to the Enphigmalé, I’d counted the days with perfect clarity. Though to my perception, I’d been on the island for nine long days, when Raif came to the island, he told me only twelve hours had passed. And now, minutes had slipped through my fingers with the girl on the knoll while days flew by around me.
I stared down at the ring on my thumb, the symbol of Tyler’s binding. He lifted his head to stare up at me, his arms winding tight around my waist. Pressing his cheek against my stomach, he breathed in deeply and held his breath. “I couldn’t feel you. It nearly drove me mad. I’ve never been so empty, so scared. How can I protect you if I can’t even find you?”
Those words were enough to send me to my knees. I knew exactly how he felt. We held each other for a long moment, the silence wrapping around us like a thick length of rope. I’d almost lost him, not once, but twice. And the emptiness I’d felt was like a razor slicing my heart to shreds. Mere words would not suffice to convey my feelings. He’d be so much better off without me. His life wouldn’t be in danger; he wouldn’t have to constantly assert himself to Xander. He wouldn’t suffer the anguish of wondering if I was dead or alive. And even though I knew all of this, given the opportunity, I doubted if I’d ever be strong enough to let him go. I needed him like I needed air. And the only thing I could offer him in return was an existence steeped in danger and the constant threat of death.
That reminded me. “You’re healed from the attack?” The last time I’d seen him, someone had tried to use him as a pincushion.
“Completely.”
“And in the past two days,” I said, almost unable to bring myself to ask, “have you been safe? Tyler, if anything ever happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.”
He took my face in his hands, his mouth covering mine. His tongue traced my lip before delving into my mouth with such care, I thought I’d cry. I draped my arms around his shoulders and kissed him deeper, allowing him to coax me into forgetting—just for a while—about the dangers that stalked us both.
Chapter 12
I arrived at Xander’s the next day, nearly dragging my ass up the front steps. I knew I was in for it today. First I’d have to tolerate Xander’s reprimand—and hope it didn’t
involve our spending any quality time together. Then I’d have to deal with Raif. And frankly, at this point, I’d have almost chosen to spend the day with his brother over enduring Raif’s displeasure.
No one greeted me at the door when I rang the bell. I waited for forty-seven seconds before I let myself in. I didn’t usually need an invite to cross the threshold. But since I was in deep shit with Raif as well as Xander, I thought I’d better mind my p’s and q’s. I paused for a moment in the foyer as I decided on a course of action and opted for the lesser of two evils by seeking out the King of Shaedes. After a fruitless scan of the first floor, I found Xander in the training room in the basement of the house.
He hadn’t heard me approach as he delivered a roundhouse kick to the large sandbag suspended from the ceiling. Bare-chested, he was clothed in just a pair of athletic pants. But for our first meeting, I’d only ever seen Xander perfectly coiffed and sitting on his proverbial throne. I couldn’t help but admire his form—both his technique and his body—as he followed through with a solid punch, block, kick combination. He moved with the graceful precision of a leopard on the prowl as he twirled and swept his foot at an invisible opponent’s leg, came up with a solid elbow to the bag, and spun again, delivering a kick that sent the bag spinning and rocking in a figure-eight pattern.
Disciplined. Skilled. A true warrior. I could respect—or rather, admire—Xander this way, muscles glistening with sweat, stray strands of blond hair falling from the band that secured the hair at the nape of his neck. I leaned against the doorjamb, enjoying the show as well as the stay of execution. I wasn’t exactly eager to hear how Xander and his brother had decided to reprimand me.
“Like what you see?” His voice echoed in the gym.
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Xander’s mouth to tarnish his perfectly beautiful body. “I’m here to discuss my formal reprimand.” I’d rather eat glass than admit I enjoyed the view.
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