by Vivian Wood
“Wow. You could fit my apartment in this room like… three times,” Echo calculated.
Rhys raised a brow, his lips twitching.
“You should see the rest of it,” he said.
Mere Marie appeared, but to Rhys’s relief Aeric managed to divert her attention, drawing her to the side for a recap of the day's events. If Rhys was lucky, Aeric would leave out the part where he’d rage-shifted into his bear and took off down the street in broad daylight. Lucky for Rhys, the shifter magic was such that his clothes were intact when he’d returned to his human form. If he’d wound up naked, the other two Guardians would never have let him live it down. When Gabriel threw Rhys an impatient glance, Rhys picked up his cue and guided Echo toward the foyer.
“How about we take that tour right now?” he suggested even as he practically pushed her out of the room and toward the stairs.
Echo let him hustle her up the stairs without any questions, for which Rhys was grateful.
“So the first floor is Aeric’s. The second is mine, the third Gabriel’s. The fourth floor belongs to Mere Marie and Duverjay, both of whom I’m certain you will meet soon enough.”
“Who are they?” Echo asked as they climbed to the second floor landing.
“Mere Marie is the boss, for lack of a better term. Duverjay is our butler, after a fashion.”
Echo nodded but didn’t comment, apparently reserving her judgments. When they left the staircase, Rhys realized that he should lay some ground rules for Echo’s stay.
“The fourth floor is off limits at all times,” he told her. After a moment’s pause, he added, “Actually, the only floor you should enter is the second. Aeric and Gabriel will not welcome your presence in their rooms.”
Whether or not that was true was debatable, but Rhys couldn’t stand the idea of Echo in another man’s bedroom, even a man as harsh and disinterested as Aeric.
“All right,”Echo said with a frown. “So… I guess that limits me to your room then?”
“Rooms, plural. And the entire first floor, of course.” Rhys cocked a brow. “That’s only about… Three thousand square feet? Plenty of room to move about.”
Echo shot him a look but didn’t respond as she followed him to the first door on the second floor landing. Rhys opened the door and waved her inside his personal living area. The left side of the room was occupied by side an antique fireplace with towering bookshelves lining the walls. A pair of leather wingback chairs sat before the fireplace, and next to them was a small side table that held a couple of leather bound volumes, several bottles of scotch, and a single rocks glass.
The library was completed by a large, heavy oak table with two stiff backed chairs. A pile of papers, pens, and books lay on the table, evidence that Rhys used the table often. The table sat before a massive picture window, making it a beautiful spot to work.
The right side of the room was divided evenly between a tidy workout area and a more technical workspace, a desk set up with a bank of computer screens and a number of high-end gadgets. The right side was divided in the middle by a door, and Rhys opened it for Echo.
He led her through to his bedroom, a brusque and simple affair featuring a fourposter bed, a massive armoire, and a brace of bedside tables. This room also had a spectacular picture window, complete with a chaise lounge so that one could sit and look out onto the bustling pedestrian traffic of Esplanade Avenue. The chaise was the only soft touch in an otherwise near barren room.
“Come through this way,” Rhys said, taking Echo by the elbow.
He guided her through another connecting door and into a lavish bathroom with both a spa tub and a fantastically large shower. It was Rhys’s favorite feature of his private rooms, especially since unending hot showers were a uniquely modern convenience that he loved.
Heading through the last adjoining door and the other side the bathroom, Rhys showed Echo into the guest room. The guest bedroom consisted of a comfortable looking queen size bed, a small wardrobe, and a bedside table. It also had a single bookshelf filled with books, none of which Rhys himself had selected; they'd simply come as part of the decor. Beside the bookshelf were a very nice overstuffed chair and a reading lamp, two more pieces that had already existed when Rhys moved in.
Echo look around with some interest, nodding her head. She looked at Rhys and gave a sort of satisfied shrug.
"It's nice," she said, her expression giving way nothing.
"Well, it sort of… came this way," Rhys admitted sheepishly. "If you can imagine, I'm not much of an interior designer."
His words made Echo smile, and the magnetic tug in Rhys’s chest drew him to her once more. Rhys’s eyes skated over her figure, from her mane of blond hair down to her generous breasts and hips, then back up to her blush-pink lips.
Just now, Rhys found resisting her nearly impossible. He wasn't sure if it was the mating bond or just chemistry, plain and simple, but when Echo looked up at him, their eyes met and Rhys couldn’t look away. Amethyst clashed with emerald. His fingers itched to touch her. His mouth suddenly felt parched as he thought of the way that she might taste, his body tensed in anticipation at the very possibility of her skin brushing up against his own.
Rhys noticed a hot pink flush spreading across Echo’s cheeks, and for a wild moment he thought that she might feel just as he did. The attraction, the undeniable and sudden lure. Rhys’s curiosity grew by the moment, and Echo’s lips parted as she took a tentative step toward him.
She’d hardly moved, but it was more than enough to seal both their fates.
The second Rhys moved forward Echo retreated a few steps, moving back toward the door. In a heartbeat Rhys was crowding her up against the door, his nostrils flaring as he dragged in several lungfuls of her tempting scent. He could still smell the sunshine and flowers on her skin, but now there were underlying notes of anxiety and excitement. Arousal, too, though it was no doubt dampened by all the other emotions flitting through Echo’s mind at the moment.
Rhys was having none of her ambivalence. He caged her against the door with his arms, taking a moment to appreciate her delicate stature as she tipped her face up to look at him. He watched her for long seconds, trying to read the myriad expressions flickering in her wide lilac eyes, but she was a puzzle too complex for him to solve as yet. Echo’s tongue darted out to wet her lower lip, her apprehension and desire becoming evident, and Rhys could wait no longer.
He drew the moment out, wanting to savor the first taste of his mate. He brushed back her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Then he traced the line of her jaw near her ear with his thumb, noting her shiver with a note of deep male satisfaction. He slid his thumb under her jaw and angled her face up to his liking, leaning down slowly, letting his breath fan over her lips for a beat before he pressed his lips to hers.
The second their lips touched, something happened inside him, deep in his chest. It was as if a feeling of tightness was eased, while at the same time something loose within him was made fast and unmovable. Echo made the softest sound and moved closer, her hands skating up his shoulders and lacing behind his neck. Her lips moved against his and then parted sweetly, a clear invitation to deepen the kiss.
Every ounce of Rhys’s blood was roaring in his ears as he curled one hand over Echo’s ribs and thrust the other into the silken mass of her hair. His bear was bellowing, a fierce and satisfied sound, driving him on. Time had slowed for a moment, but now it sped up.
Rhys flicked his tongue against Echo’s, tasting her fully. She responded, her fingertips digging into his nape, her breasts heating his skin where they crushed against him. Rhys groaned into her mouth when her hips brushed his, and he felt her startle when she found him hard and wanting.
Truth be told, he’d been hard since the moment he laid eyes on her, but the barest touch from Echo set him aflame. Breaking the kiss, Rhys tugged her head to the side and nipped her earlobe, nearly losing himself when Echo moaned for him.
Unable to stop himsel
f, he buried his mouth at the juncture of her neck and shoulder and marked her with his lips and teeth. Not a mating claim, not without her consent and awareness, but a hint of what was to come. His free hand came up to cup her breast, finding and teasing her hardened nipple through her dress and bra. He explored the fullness of it, pleased at its round weight, and trailed kisses over her exposed collarbone.
Only then did Rhys slow, realizing that it would be brutish of him to fuck her and claim her without any understanding on her part. And if he took her here, now, bent over the bed just the way he was imagining, Echo shouting his name as he fucked her so well she’d never look at another man…
Well, if he did that, he’d be unable to keep himself from claiming her. Something told him that Echo, a thoroughly modern woman, would take exception to Rhys dominating her in that way. She would accept it, and soon, but… perhaps she’d need some time to adjust to him.
“Rhys?” Echo asked, her chest heaving as she tried to control her breathing.
“I don’t…” Rhys paused, uncertain how to phrase it. “I don’t want to take advantage of you. We’ve only just met.”
Echo looked up at him with such confusion, it nearly killed him. Rhys stepped back and took her hand, pulling her over to the bed.
“Sit with me,” he encouraged her.
A deep flush of embarrassment was spreading over her face and neck already, so when she pulled away, Rhys wasn’t terribly surprised.
“I… I have to go,” Echo said, turning away.
“You can’t,” Rhys said, his pleasure fading. “You’re not safe. That’s why you’re here, remember?”
“You can’t keep me here,” she said, shooting him an aggravated look.
Words of disagreement were on the tip of Rhys’s tongue, but he held them in. He might be able to keep her here, but he wouldn’t.
“I only want you to be safe,” he said instead. “There’s a lot you don’t understand yet. The man who had you kidnapped, Pere Mal… He’s dangerous, Echo.”
His words must have been the wrong ones, because Echo frowned.
“Safety is relative,” she told him flatly. “There’s no reason for this Pere Mal guy to want me. I don’t even live in the Kith world. I just… I can’t stay here. And honestly, I don’t even know why you care. We don’t know each other.”
And though Rhys wanted to argue, he couldn’t. She was right about the last part, and he wasn’t quite ready to throw the mate situation in her face. She’d already dealt with a lot today.
“Echo—” he started, trying to figure out what to say, but she was already heading for the door.
Rhys waited a full minute, trying to calm himself before he chased after her, not wanting to truly scare her off. By the time he made it to the landing, she was on the stairs. Before he made it to the ground floor, the front door closed with a slam.
When he stepped outside, Echo was gone.
6
Chapter Six
Echo
Echo scuttled to the end of the block opposite the Manor and turned back, biting her lip. The Manor itself was heavily warded enough that it was indistinguishable from the street, blending in with the other buildings in a way that simply diverted the onlooker’s attention. It was a clever spell, well cast enough that Echo couldn’t quite look at the Manor though she’d only just left.
She watched the spot she assumed the Manor to be in guiltily, waiting for the inevitable. Rhys emerged a minute later, looking around with a bewildered expression. Echo had thrown on a cloaking spell of her own, one of the very few spells she knew by heart, and though Rhys might feel her presence nearby, he wouldn’t be able to lay eyes on her.
She watched him with no little bemusement as he stalked out onto the street, cutting through a gaggle of young women who stopped in the middle of the road to gawp at him. Echo couldn’t blame them one bit.
Rhys was six and a half feet of pure muscle, his brown hair kept short, his reddish beard perfectly trimmed. He still wore his black tactical gear, though he’d stripped off the heavy bulletproof vest he’d worn earlier. The clothes clung to him in just the right places, showcasing his muscular back and lean hips. Echo hadn’t checked out Rhys’s ass yet, but she was willing to bet it was as glorious as the rest of him.
The best part was that he didn’t even bat an eyelash at the pack of younger, thinner women who were staring at him, making no effort whatsoever to hide their interest. Rhys was single-minded…
….and only a dozen yards away now, thanks to Echo taking so much time to drool over him. Echo winced and bolted, guilt wracking her once more. Surely once she got further away Rhys would turn back and leave well enough alone. They had some kind of connection, sure. The chemistry Echo had felt between herself and him had been out of this world, like nothing she’d ever experienced.
In a funny way, it reminded her a little of the way Echo’s mother had long ago described meeting Echo’s father.
Love at first sight. I looked at him, he looked at me, and we just had to have each other, Echo’s mother had explained with a laugh and a blush. At the time, four year old Echo had just pretended to gag, though her interest in her mysterious father was vast.
Shaking the memory of her mother away, Echo realized that she needed to decide where she was going instead of just wandering around and making herself a big fat easy target for the man who’d kidnapped her before.
Pere Mal, she thought, turning the name over in her mind. It did sound familiar, though she wasn’t sure why. An even bigger mystery was why someone would want to abduct her, of all people. She didn’t associate with many Kith, didn’t spend time in their world except to visit The Market once a week for her herbs. Hell, she went out of her way to dampen her psychic abilities, block out her powers so that she could keep her head down and live a normal life.
Sighing, she realized that she’d gone on autopilot, let herself start walking toward her home in Mid-City. If this Pere Mal guy was looking for her, her house and her work would be the first two places he looked. She circled back, avoiding the Manor altogether, and headed back toward The Market. She’d chained up her baby blue cruiser bicycle near the entrance she’d used earlier, and if she was going to go where she needed to go, she didn’t want to be on foot.
After she hopped on her bike, she headed in the opposite direction of the French Quarter, pedaling toward her Aunt Ella’s house in the St. Roch neighborhood. Tee-Elle, as Mz. Ella Orren was affectionately known to everyone she met, would have some answers to Echo’s questions.
There was also every possibility that a fresh batch of the city’s best praline cookies and pecan pies would be cooling in Tee-Elle’s kitchen right about now. Echo checked her watch and grinned; it was four-thirty, prime pastry time at her aunt’s house.
Tee-Elle wasn’t Echo’s relative by blood, but she and Echo’s mother had grown up together. As a wild white girl and a dorky black girl whose families split a duplex shotgun house in the upper Ninth Ward, Tee-Elle Orren and Cadence Caballero were joined at the hip.
Tee-Elle had taken Echo into her home after Echo’s parents had both passed within six short months of one another. Tee-Elle was Echo’s guardian and substitute mother from age six on. Twenty years later, she was still the first name on Echo’s admittedly short list of friends and family.
Echo climbed off her bike on the sidewalk in front of Tee-Elle’s whimsically decorated, neon green bungalow. Carrying her bike up to the front porch, she chained it to the railing. Tee-Elle might be a neighborhood legend, but an unattended bike in this neighborhood would vanish quickly — no cloaking spell necessary.
Echo raised her hand to knock on Tee-Elle’s door, her lips quirking up at the hand-painted sign that read, New Orleans — Proud To Swim Home. A little Hurricane Katrina joke popular with locals, though it’d been ten years since the storm had taken Tee-Elle’s previous home. Nothing could keep the woman down, and nothing could keep her out of her beloved neighborhood, either.
Before
Echo’s knuckles could rap the battered aluminum front door, it swung open. Tee-Elle beamed out at her, giving a delighted cackle at the sight of her beloved niece.
“Giiiiiiiiiiirl!” Tee-Elle crowed. “It’s about time you got your butt up in my house. You musta smelt them pralines, huh?”
Echo laughed and hugged Tee-Elle, finding her aunt’s good cheer infectious.
“You know it,” Echo said, slipping into Tee-Elle’s familiar patterns of speech. “I haven’t had one of your pralines in a good long while.”
Tee-Elle turned and led her into the house, and Echo’s grin widened when she saw that she was wrapped in a rainbow-colored robe with a wild zebra print all over it. The woman didn’t so much wear clothes as swaddle herself in bolts of fabric, and she often wrapped her long, thin gray braids in a clashing piece of cloth, giving her a rather eclectic and eccentric appearance.
Tee-Elle went straight to the fridge, and Echo was shocked to see that her aunt had a brand new, enormous double-door refrigerator. The appliance looked monstrous in the old-fashioned kitchen, and looked especially huge next to the woman herself, who stood at 4’10” on a good day.
“Tee,” Echo said, wrinkling her nose. “What is that?”
Tee-Elle pulled out a carton of whole milk, Echo’s childhood favorite, and set it on the table with a wink.
“Don’t you worry. Tee-Elle’s doin’ real good with her business, miss lady,” Tee-Elle told Echo.
Echo eyed the fridge and wondered how many pecan pies it took to buy such a thing. Not that it was her business, but the whole family was insatiably nosy.
“I can get my own glass,” Echo told Tee-Elle, who huffed and shooed Echo into a chair.
Echo repressed a giggle when her aunt had to use a step stool to get two glasses down from the wall cabinet.