Realm Walker rw-1

by Kathleen Collins

  “Hmm.” She couldn’t tell if that was Ben or Jeremiah, but she was betting on the latter. Ben was probably too focused on her to worry about anything else.

  “She’s not leaving with you until I’ve had a chance to talk to her.” Juliana knew he wanted to make sure they didn’t collaborate on their story.

  “There are cameras in the hallway. Surely they showed you everything you needed to know.” She was glad the anger in Thomas’s voice wasn’t directed at her. She was also thankful her smile wasn’t visible.

  “It was...destroyed. We caught nothing since shortly after Nathaniel left. And there are none in this cell or your bar.” Actually there were several cameras in the Den but she wasn’t about to enlighten him if Thomas wasn’t.

  “Your lack of surveillance is your problem, not ours.”

  She understood that Thomas was only trying to protect her and she appreciated the gesture, but she had a job to do. She rolled her head to the side so she could see her boss. “Ten minutes, Ben. You get ten minutes and then I’m going home.”

  He studied her for a minute, his eyes flickering between her and Thomas. “Fifteen and you do your own reports.”

  “Fine. Let’s get it over with.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Juliana started to stand and Thomas stopped her. “Wait,” he said. “I need a moment with her before you interrogate her.”

  “It’s not an interrogation, it’s a debriefing and the whole point of talking to her now is to get to her before you do,” Ben argued.

  “I have to heal her and you are not going to watch.” Thomas’s voice was glacial. “You will go down the hallway, out of sight but within hearing distance if you must. I am not asking.”

  Ben hesitated for a moment, his jaw tight, and then he nodded once and led everyone down the hall.

  “You don’t need to do this, Thomas,” she told him as soon as they were gone. “You must still be weak.”

  He laid a hand along the side of her face and looked into her eyes. “You were injured because of me. I will do what I can to make it right.”

  She had a feeling he wasn’t just talking about recent events. It wasn’t his job to fix her, but she wasn’t sure how to convince him of that. Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face.

  He lowered his voice so only she could hear. “You are my responsibility, Joya, whether you like it or not. Not because you are my mate, or because my sister found you on the street and brought you home. You are mine because I want you to be and I intend to take care of you. You’re just going to have to get used to it.”

  A tear slid down her cheek and he wiped it away with his thumb. “We have much to discuss, but now is not the time.” He moved the hand from her face and bit into his wrist. He pressed the wound to her mouth and she held onto his arm while she drank from it. As soon as she felt the familiar tingle that told her it was working, she stopped.

  “I need to go,” she told him after a moment. He nodded and didn’t stop her when she stood. She felt the heat of his eyes on her until she joined Ben out of sight of the cell.

  He gestured for her to follow and led her out the door and around the corner. As she trailed after him through the halls, she thought about the revelation her father had made. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that she wasn’t limited in lives like a cat or terrified that any time she came close, her father might not reach her in time to save her. She was going to have to start being more concerned with her wellbeing. After years of thinking otherwise, it was a blow to discover she was only mortal. It was really going to hamper the way she did her job.

  She followed Ben into a small room. He could call this a debriefing all he wanted, but he had taken her to one of the interrogation rooms. She took a seat with her back to the mirror and watched while he shut the door and took the seat across from her.

  “What were you thinking?” His voice was low, but the fury in it was unmistakable.

  “About what precisely?”

  “Well, let’s start at the beginning, shall we? How about your decision to keep the information that Thomas Kendrick was in fact demon-ridden to yourself until after you went to his house? Or your subsequent decisions to pursue him with no backup? Pick one.”

  No matter what answer she gave him, it wasn’t going to be good enough. He was angry. At her and at the Council that kept him from doing his job.

  When she said nothing, he continued. “You deliberately disobeyed a direct order to terminate the vampire Thomas Kendrick. Not only did you disobey that order, you got the Council to aid you in your insubordination.”

  “There was no reason to kill him. I saved him. Besides, if I had followed your orders, the demon would have just jumped to another host.” She hated having to explain herself to him. “It’s called using my brain instead of a cursed policy manual.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched as he clasped his hands together on the table. “And when you arrived at the Den and found him actively torturing someone, why didn’t you neutralize the threat?”

  “Again, what was to keep the demon from jumping? Or worse, slaughtering everyone because I opened fire from the door?”

  “The same way you kept it from jumping downstairs, I assume.”

  She couldn’t tell him about the spell or her father. “We had the cell downstairs. We needed the demon contained to do what we did.”

  “I will ask you again: when you saw the demon in control of Thomas Kendrick torturing others, why did you not follow protocol and destroy the host in an attempt to be rid of it?”

  She was pretty sure she’d already answered that question. “You ever face a first-level demon, Ben? No, of course you haven’t. None of us had before this. I did the best I could with the knowledge I possessed. You know, like watching the cursed thing walk off in a corpse. What was to stop it from doing it again?”

  “The fact that your sword is specifically enchanted against demons, perhaps?”

  She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. They weren’t going to come to an agreement on this so there was no point arguing with him.

  “I’ll tell you what I think. I think you allowed your feelings for Kendrick to cloud your judgment. You allowed it to interfere with your job.”

  “Bullshit.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to rein in her temper before speaking again. “The demon wasn’t rampaging or irrational. When it saw I was there, it stopped what it was doing and turned its attention to me.”

  “Then why do we have a dead vampire?”

  She sucked in a shaky breath. She’d forgotten about Tony. Well, not forgotten about him so much as pushed the sorrow to the back of her brain to deal with later. It had been easy when she had to focus on saving Thomas, but now there was nothing else she needed to do. Nothing else to take her attention. And what upset her more than anything else was Ben was right.

  She’d made a decision and it had cost her friend his life. If she killed Thomas, Tony might still be here. She’d had to choose between the two of them and she’d made the selfish choice. And she couldn’t say she wouldn’t do it again.

  “That happened too fast to stop, and I was already in the process of getting the demon to the cell.” She’d lost some of her bravado with the memory of her friend’s final moments and her voice was quiet.

  “And what if the demon had turned on the humans? Would you have killed it then?” He was baiting her. Trying to get her to react.

  “It didn’t.”

  He slammed his hands palm down on the table. “But what if he had? What if it had tied a human to a chair and cut off pieces? Would you have stood there and watched? Would you have stopped it then or would you still have looked for a way to save your lover?”

  She resisted the urge to tell him Thomas was her mate, not her lover. That would shut him up for a couple of minutes anyway. She put her own hands on the table, stood and leaned toward him. “The demon didn’t go after the humans, and I am not going to speculate a
bout what I may or may not have done. You know that it’s impossible to say what might have happened. We’re done.”

  “No. We’re not.” He stood so they were looking each other in the eye. “That’s the point. Your feelings for Kendrick are interfering with your ability to do your job. You’re one of the best agents I have, but I won’t have you putting yourself and others at risk for one man no matter who he is. Do you understand me?”

  She straightened. “Yeah. I understand. I understand the Council and I kept you from killing Thomas. Not one thing would be different if he died except your orders would have been followed. But they weren’t and you’re pissed and taking it out on me.”

  His face burned red. “That’s it,” he said and held out a hand. “Give me your badge. You’re suspended. Three weeks, no pay.”

  She stared at him in disbelief for half a second. “Fine.” She slipped the badge off her neck and slammed it down on the table. “Take the cursed thing and choke on it.”

  “Juliana,” he said, stopping her at the door. She didn’t turn. “I’m doing this for your own good.”

  “Don’t make this about me. This is all about you. Don’t think I don’t know it.” She stepped out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

  Nathaniel, Jeremiah and the vampires were all waiting in the hall for her.

  She turned to Jeremiah. “Tell Ben he can have his report in three weeks. I’m not doing it if I’m not getting paid.”

  “He suspended you?” Nathaniel asked, his mouth dropping open.

  “Got it in one.” She turned to Michael and Thomas. “Let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  They took a portal back to Michael’s and he poured them all a drink. They sat silent for a while. Thomas watched while Juliana sat cross-legged on the floor and cleaned his blood off her sword. He had wanted to take Juliana home, but she’d insisted on coming here first at Michael’s invitation. He wasn’t about to let her go without him. “So your father is the dark fae god of death?” he said more to break the silence than anything.

  His bride and his second shared a smile. “Yes, that’s my father. And before you ask, I still don’t know my mother. My father claims he couldn’t possibly be expected to remember who she was. He only found me when I died—nearly died—the first time.”

  “You knew already,” he said to Michael. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.”

  Thomas swirled the liquid in his glass. “When I first discovered that you two were sleeping together, it bothered me, infuriated me actually.” Juliana made a choked sound and he held up a hand to stave off her protest. She shook her head and Thomas waved a hand through the air in dismissal. “None of that. I’ve known since the beginning. My reasons for saying nothing about it are my own. But since I have returned I am finding that it is the incessant, never ending stream of secrets that bothers me the most.”

  “If we’re going to talk secrets, exactly how long have you two been United?” Michael asked.

  Good, Michael was just as irritated as he was. “Jealous?”

  “Just wondering why it wasn’t mentioned.”

  “It was none of your concern,” Thomas answered.

  At the same time, Juliana said, “He left.”

  “Things might have been different if I’d known,” Michael insisted, his voice quiet. Thomas’s little bride had gotten under his friend’s skin more than even the man himself was willing to admit. Or perhaps he didn’t know. But Thomas knew, could see all the signs. It was an affliction he suffered from himself.

  “Not to change the subject,” Thomas said, meaning to do exactly that, “but why precisely did you get suspended?”

  Blood rushed to her face and she looked down at the sword in her lap. “Not following protocol.”

  Michael snorted. “You never follow protocol. What’s so special about this time?”

  She shook her head. “Ben says I allowed my feelings for Thomas to cloud my judgment. Really, he’s pissed the Council interfered and he’s taking it out on me.”

  “He’s right,” Thomas said. “You should have killed me.”

  She frowned at him. “I would have done the same for Michael. Or Jeremiah. Or even Ben. That’s just how I operate.”

  Fury spiked through him. “Did your father’s revelation that you are not immortal escape your notice?”

  “No it didn’t but I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same things all over again.”

  He should be furious with her, angry she put herself at risk, but he couldn’t help but wonder what it said about her feelings for him. He’d just about worked up the nerve to ask her when she yawned.

  “Come. I’ll take you home,” he said instead.

  * * *

  “I can take her home later if she desires,” Michael said. He finished his drink and set his glass on the desk.

  “What do you mean, ‘if she desires’?” Thomas said frowning.

  “As we’ve already discussed, she’s stayed all night in my bed plenty of times before. I don’t see why that needs to change.”

  Her eyes widened, but she kept her mouth shut. What the hell was Michael playing at? There was a game going on here that she didn’t understand at all.

  A muscle twitched in Thomas’s jaw. “And as we’ve already discussed, she is my mate. You will not touch her again.”

  “I don’t think that’s up to you,” Michael said. “I have sworn no oath to you. Or have you forgotten?”

  Thomas studied him for a moment. “I have not forgotten, old friend. Nor will I forget this. Come along, Juliana.”

  She glanced between them. “I need to speak to Michael. Call for a car and I’ll be down in a moment.”

  The muscle twitched again. “As you wish.” He turned without another word, went down the stairs and out the door.

  She rose and slid the sword back into its sheath. “‘She’s stayed in my bed plenty of times before’? Seriously? Are you trying to get yourself killed? We’ve never even kissed.”

  Michael’s mouth twitched. “We know that, but he doesn’t. He’s thought we’ve been sleeping together for years.”

  “And you knew this?”

  “I’m the one that paid Eric to tell him.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why?”

  “I thought a little competition might bring him home sooner, but apparently not. If I’d known you two were United, I might have dragged him back whether he wanted to come or not.” His voice was little more than a growl by the end.

  “You know this ends now. I won’t have him thinking we slept together.”

  He shrugged as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, and to him it probably didn’t. “Up to you. I’ll go along with whatever you want. But it wouldn’t hurt him to think it for a while longer in my opinion. He’s already put a bounty on Raoul by the way.”

  “What did he do? Make phone calls while Ben was interrogating me?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. Only Thomas would put a price on someone’s head while sitting in the middle of the Agency and not think anything of it.

  “He’s long gone by now. You and I have pursued him, true enough, but it’s nothing like the hunt Thomas will mount.”

  “Someone had to tell Raoul that Thomas was coming back,” she said. “They got here at almost the same time.”

  “I’ve thought about that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know who it could be. Remember, Thomas didn’t even tell me he was returning until he’d done it.”

  “That’s not much of an argument considering he thought you were screwing his mate.”

  Michael laughed as she’d intended him to.

  “I better go.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he merely nodded once. “Take care of him,” he said.

  She went outside to find Thomas leaning against the side of a limo. Not exactly what she had in mind when she told him to call for a car. He held open the door for
her and she scooted across the seat so he could slide in beside her. They were quiet until they turned onto her block.

  “Do you love him?” he asked, his voice so low she barely heard him.

  “Not like you mean, but yes, I love him.” She glanced over to find him looking out the window on the other side of the car.

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means if he were to suddenly disappear from my life, I would be most unhappy with you. He’s one of my best friends, Thomas. You can’t ask me to give him up just because you’re back.”

  “You will not sleep with him again. That is not a request.”

  She’d been about to tell him that she’d never made love to Michael. That the only time they’d shared a bed had been in some backwoods motel when they only had one room available and she’d made Michael sleep on top of the covers. Thomas’s demand and the tone he made it in had her snapping her mouth shut. Maybe Michael was right, maybe it wouldn’t hurt him to keep thinking more had gone on between them for a while.

  “You don’t get to dictate to me, Thomas. You get to ask. Nicely. If I’m in a good mood I may agree.”

  He nodded but still didn’t turn to look at her. “I’ll leave, Joya, if that is your wish. It was never my intention to bring you pain.”

  She blew out her breath in frustration. “This isn’t an either/or situation. I’m not picking him over you. I’m telling you that you don’t get to tell me what to do. You get to ask. Or tell me what bothers you. Period. Besides, you swore.”

  He turned to her, brow furrowed. “What?”

  “You swore you weren’t going to leave again and I’m holding you to that.” Her chest was tight, her breaths shallow. She prayed to all the gods for the strength to do this. To give him another chance.

  A flurry of emotions flew over his face until it settled into his familiar blank mask. “I find it hard to believe you wish me to remain after what I discovered.”

  “As much as I would like to blame you for everything, the only thing you did was make a stupid decision. Followed by more stupid decisions.”