By the second week, we’d upgraded to two connected suites in an extended stay hotel. Despite my urging, Carl refused to stay with Dawn and Ian. They’d already begun work to relocate Monique’s halfway house and research facility. Even after her betrayal and tragic end, they gave her a memorial service. Julian and I didn’t attend, but it sounded lovely — white doves and wreathes of French lavender. She had touched many lives.
Her star pupils decided her work had been noble and should continue. They needed Carl’s help more than we did, but he stuck around. Despite being slightly exasperated by his terminal optimism and urging him to go, I was secretly thankful to have him there. With Julian so aloof, I had no one else to talk to, or worry with. Carl was good at distracting me, and I needed that.
My life, or the one I had lived before, was an official wreck. My mother had filed a missing-persons report in both Oregon and California, I failed my second-to-last quarter of pre-med, and without me, my soccer-team didn’t make the playoffs. Those were the least of my problems. The Cabal remained a threat, though they didn’t have to come for me now that I’d given the Cloak a legitimate reason to put me at the top of their most wanted list.
I was officially Rogue, all on my own merits. We were now three generations of criminals, Andreas, Julian, and me.
The night Andreas woke was the same that Esmond showed up on my doorstep.
Carl was gone on another blood-run. I left Julian with his semi-coherent Sponsor as I hosted the Mirage Agent.
“You look well,” he commented, sipping watered-down instant coffee.
“Things are looking up tonight.” Julian’s vigil was hopefully at an end. We could pick up where we’d left off and move on. I was ready to crawl out from under the shadow of the aftermath. I wanted to see Julian smile at me again. I wanted him to hold me tight, and kiss me, and tell me that we were going to be okay. And mean it.
“You’re not surprised to see me?” Esmond set his coffee down and made no move to pick it back up.
“Julian explained to me how you’re sort of like a cockroach. You pop-up and disappear at will and you refuse to die.”
“Charming to the last, Julian.”
“Katya called me when you showed up,” I confessed, hiding a smile.
“Really?” Esmond looked genuinely surprised — slightly less composed than his “pretend-surprised” face.
I shrugged. “I guess I made her promise to, just before I passed out.”
Esmond leaned back in his armchair and crossed his leg, flashing me with argyle before he adjusted his creased slacks. “I’m touched.”
“But you’re here to collect your due?”
“We made a deal.”
“Yes. And you delivered on your end.”
He nodded in agreement.
“But I’m not ready. I can’t leave him right now.”
Esmond sighed. “You can’t stay with him either, Alexandra.”
I furrowed my brows. No one called me Alexandra but my mother. “Alex,” I corrected. “And he’s my Sponsor, where else would I go?”
“Home.”
I shook my head. “This is home.”
“What of this new addition to the family? How is the happy couple holding up?”
I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest, shaking my head. Why did he have to be so damn penetrating? He wasn’t touching my thoughts — I would feel it. Carl had been working with me on my shielding. Was it that obvious I was worried about how Andreas would affect things with Jules? “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
“They can’t answer your questions about who and what you are.”
“And you can?” I shot back. This was not the right time for this conversation. Andreas had just woken up.
Esmond steepled his fingers over his curvy lips and rocked his foot back and forth. “The Grigori can.”
I glared at him. “Okay, fine. Do they know who my father was?”
“Is.”
My throat went dry. Voices filtered into the sitting room from Andreas’s suite, and I finally remembered to blink. I wasn’t ready. That was the only thought that swam to the surface of my shock. I wasn’t ready to leave Julian, even for a short time. I wasn’t ready to face the enigma of my origin — not when my future was still so uncertain. “I need time.”
“We thought you’d say that.” Esmond stood. “In that case, I’m to stay in Seattle and monitor you.”
I scowled. “What does that mean?”
“Whether you care to admit it, Alexandra, you are a danger to those around you as long as your abilities go un-checked and un-trained. The Grigori, and now myself, are responsible for you. Someone must be.” He forced a smile.
I scowled deeper.
Esmond pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “This is my temporary residence and my cell number. We should begin lessons immediately.”
I took the card with a sigh. Esmond showed himself to the door.
Esmond?
He paused, but didn’t turn around.
I never thanked you.
“You can thank me by not making my job such a chore, Alex. We don’t bite.” He winked at me over his shoulder and vanished like smoke. If my face hadn’t been stunned frozen, I would have smiled.
I went to bed alone that morning, despite my hopes that Julian would finally come to me. I woke to shouting the next night. I shot out of bed with the gun I kept under my pillow already in my hand, and slid down the hall in my T-shirt and underwear.
Carl bumped into me, tip-toeing back around the corner. He went pale, then tried to hug me to his chest and usher me back towards my room.
“What’s going on?” I craned my neck to look past him.
He shook his head mutely and pushed me back.
I held my ground. “What’s the matter?”
Something slammed against the wall. I dodged quicker than Carl could react, though he followed on my heels. The handle to Andreas’s room was locked. I jiggled it, and when it didn’t open, I stood there listening.
“Get out of my way!” an unfamiliar voice bellowed. It had to be Andreas, and he had a set of pipes on him.
“You’ll have to come through me.” Julian. Loud, but calmer.
So, they were just having a disagreement. Andreas hadn’t gone whack again. The tension in my shoulders eased. I lowered the gun, giving Carl a confused look.
“Don’t think I won’t,” Andreas said. “We both know you can’t keep me here.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
A bark of laughter. “This from someone screwing a Grigori Agent!”
I stiffened at that.
“You don’t know her,” came Julian’s strained answer.
“I don’t want to know her! You’ve gone fucking nuts! She’s one of them!” Another laugh, high-pitched, almost maniacal.
“She’s also one of us.”
Andreas scoffed. “I don’t care. You can’t trust them — you know that. Have I taught you nothing? You kill them, you don’t suck them or fuck them.”
“She’s different.”
“Get out of my way, Julian.”
“No.”
Thudding footsteps shook the floor. I winced when I heard the sound of flesh and bone smacking together, and then a series of grunts and curses. Something toppled to the floor and broke. I reached for the handle again.
Carl put out a hand to stop me. “I don’t think you should go in there.”
“They’re going to hurt each other.” I shrugged him off, twisted the handle until it broke, and shouldered the door open.
The fight broke long enough for both parties to gawk at me, then Julian stepped between Andreas and me as the other man shot forward.
“This? This is her? This scrawny little girl?” he got in Julian’s face, stepping from side to side to get around him.
Scrawny?
“Alex, get out,” Julian ordered.
“I don’t think so.” I took another step into the room.
This was ridiculous. I had given Julian enough space to figure it out on his own. I took a sideways step and squared off with the shorter man, who didn’t miss a beat. Andreas grabbed me by the wrist and twisted it faster than I could blink. I dropped the gun. He spun me around so my shoulders were pinned to his chest.
Julian’s eyes darkened with rage, but his voice came out firm and even. “Let her go Andre. This is between us.”
“She is the only thing between us.”
“Hold on a minute,” I piped up.
“Choose,” Andreas demanded.
I shook my head at Julian, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze fixed on Andreas with raw, seething anger, his fists pumping at his sides.
“Choose!” Andreas yelled.
“I can’t!” Julian shouted back. “She’s mine.”
Andreas sputtered and loosened his grip on me enough that I broke free.
“Jules—” I started.
Julian’s face fell, and his shoulders slumped as if all the fight had drained out of him. He shook his head. “No, Alex. This has nothing to do with you.”
This has everything to do with me.
“Please, just go.” I’d never seen Julian look so beaten down — even when we hadn’t been sure Andreas would wake up. His eyes were haunted with torment and despair. Because of me.
“Go?” I choked out.
Go?
“Please.”
I gathered up all the dignity I could, given the situation, and nodded. But first I turned to Andreas. He wouldn’t look at me. He’d collapsed to the edge of the bed after Julian dropped the last bomb, and was studying the pattern in the nappy hotel weave.
He didn’t look anything like the rabid creature I’d freed from that cell. He filled out his clean clothes, and we’d buzzed his sandy brown hair — it had been the only way to get the mats out. He would have been handsome, if not for the harsh frown lines cutting his face.
My timing sucked, but I knew they would be talking for a long time and I wasn’t welcome. I had to at least defend myself, get my two words in. Well, okay — it was more than two words.
“Just so you know, this scrawny little girl and a squad of Grigori Agents saved your ass. And his.” I nodded at Julian. “So, if you have any issues with the second chance at life you’ve been given, you can take them up with me.”
I turned on my heel and stormed out. Julian shut the door behind me. I hated being closed out, knowing he was facing his past and deciding his future without me. But he’d asked me to go. Even though he didn’t mean it that way, I thought, maybe he was right. Maybe it would be better to let Julian sort things out, let the dust settle. He had a lot to adjust to between me — the new addition to his life, and Andreas — back after an eight-year hiatus. I had already been enough of an inconvenience.
Maybe I should really go.
Esmond had been right. What a surprise. Andreas wouldn’t tolerate me, and Julian wouldn’t choose. I couldn’t let him choose, because either way, I lost. If he chose Andreas, he broke my heart now. If he chose me, he’d lose Andreas and slowly come to resent me, then break my heart later. I’d caused him enough grief. He deserved some peace, and I only complicated things. I left them to talk and went to pack my bags.
Chapter Twenty Three
Where are we going?” Carl walked into my room without knocking and didn’t take a breath between noting my half-packed bag and posing the question.
“We aren’t going anywhere.” I slammed a drawer shut with my hip. “I’m going to San Francisco, to see the Grigoric Council. I have a promise to keep.”
He propped himself against the bedpost, his expression falling like I’d just told him I killed his puppy.
“I’m coming back.” I punched him in the shoulder, trying to make light of it.
“When?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I figured I should let things quiet down around here, ya know?”
“You’re running away again.”
“No I’m not.” I threw the last of my underwear into my duffle.
A knock on the door interrupted Carl’s retort. We turned in unison to find Andreas standing in the doorway. Carl shot me a questioning look. I answered with the barest of nods. He left without another word, a wake of indignation trailing behind him.
My gaze remained fixed on Julian’s Sponsor— my counterbalance in this complicated equation. His striking blue eyes stared at me too, as if taking me in for the first time.
“Well?” I asked, long after the door had closed behind Carl.
Andreas narrowed his eyes, studying, considering. “I came to offer you an apology.”
I let out a humorless laugh and crammed some hotel shampoo bottles into a side pocket.
“Do you accept?”
I faced him and crossed my arms over my chest, thinking he couldn’t have any idea what his close-minded prejudice was costing me. Hadn’t he thought about what he was doing to Julian? I wasn’t going to let him tear Julian up, even if that meant backing down. Sorry wasn’t enough, especially when it was insincere. “What are you apologizing for?”
His jaw clenched, but he looked me right in the eyes when he answered. “Julian was most adamant I listen to the whole story before passing judgment on you. I listened, and I realize I reacted rashly. I was disrespectful and crude, and I apologize.”
He looked like he was chewing glass, but he got full marks for form. It was a good apology. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“And, I should thank you…for saving my life, and for your part in freeing me from prison. I understand I attacked you. I’m sorry you were hurt.”
I sniffed and turned away, nodding my head as I zipped my bag closed. “I accept. Thank you.”
“You are leaving?”
I nodded again.
“Does he mean that little to you?” His tone was thick with reproach.
I kept my back to him and swiped at the hot streaks rolling down my cheeks. “He means that much.”
Esmond’s number was long distance, and our suite had crappy cell reception. I had to take Carl’s phone downstairs and across the street to get a signal, but I welcomed the fresh air. It helped me collect myself before calling. I woke Esmond up, but he said he was on his way. He didn’t question my sudden change of heart, which was a good thing. One good tug and my resolve would unravel. As I climbed the stairs and walked down our corridor, I told myself I was doing the right thing. Julian needed to be able to settle back into his old life without my interference. I would take care of my commitment to the Grigori. Esmond would be off babysitting duty. Everyone would be happy. Well, everyone except for Carl. And me.
It’s only temporary. I can get my head on straight, get things figured out…
“What is this?” The accusation in Julian’s gaze cut deep when I slipped back into my room. He sat on the end of the bed, my bag between his feet.
“What does it look like?” I braced myself against the ache in my chest. I didn’t need the deep breaths, but they sure helped. You can do this. You’re tough, remember?
“It looks like you’re running away.”
“It’s not like that.” I shook my head and set Carl’s phone on the dresser. I wasn’t. At least, not for the reasons he thought.
“Then what?” He schooled his face into his normal impassive expression, and it didn’t hurt so much to look at him anymore.
“I made a deal.”
“You don’t have to go now.” He kicked the bag aside when I reached for it.
I pinched my lip between my teeth to keep the tears in check. “Jules…”
“Give me a reason, Alex.” He gripped my arm, forcing me to face him.
Give me a reason to stay.
I shrugged. “There are lots of reasons.”
“Andreas won’t live under the same roof with me.”
He shook his head and pulled me half a step closer. “I took care of that. Try again.”
“Things are a little hot up here. I thought I should lay low for a while. Everyone would be safer.”
“I can keep us safe.” He glanced down at my hand as he laced our fingers together, then at my face as if he hadn’t seen me for weeks. His gaze filled with warm chocolate, fierce tenderness, disarming heat. I could taste him on the back of my tongue — honey and spice. It would be so easy to ignore every one of my carefully thought-out reasons.
“Anything else?”
“The Grigori can tell me about my father, Esmond says.” I sounded less and less sure with each bullet point.
Julian nodded and pulled me closer, until I was standing right between his legs. “I understand that’s important to you, but you don’t have to go tonight, and you don’t have to go alone.”
Always Mr. Reasonable when I was completely out of sorts. And I could never read him. Jules was like Kryptonite to my psychic abilities. That was the real reason. I needed to know for sure — why did he want me to stay? Only because I was his responsibility? Because I’d helped him and he felt indebted to me? The past two weeks had slowly chipped away at my hopes for us actually having a real relationship. It hurt too much loving someone that always kept me at arm’s length. Andreas’s reaction had only dealt the final blow.
I stared at the floor and shook my head. I’d made up my mind, hadn’t I? This was a wise decision, acting on sense, not emotion. My emotions wanted me to fall to my knees and bury my head in his lap. To press him back on the bed and let him make me forget everything else. “I think you need time to figure things out. I’ll only be in the way.”
His laughter carried a bittersweet note that made my eyes sting. “Yes, you’ll be in the way. I want you in the way. What part of mine forever did you not understand?”
I gave him a pained expression and tried to pull away, but he held on. Hot tears flooded my vision. “That’s not enough.”
Cloak of Deceit: An Alex Moore Novel Page 26