“We’ll leave you to whatever business you were about,” Lexi added. “When you see Serena, let her know we came by. I’m really looking forward to seeing her.”
Reginald blustered a farewell behind them, Jagger wedge protectively in-between them.
“You’re looking forward to seeing her?” It was all Galena could do not to nudge Lexi in the ribs. “Laying it on a little thick, don’t you think?”
“No, I really do want to see her. And then I want to pop her eyes out with a spork.”
“A spork?”
“Oh, geez.” Lexi slung an arm around Galena’s shoulders. “We need to get you out of Eden more.”
* * * *
Eryx landed outside the castle entrance and threw the front doors wide.
“She’s got Jagger and Galena with her.” Ludan touched down a step behind him, his gruff reminder filled with confidence Eryx couldn’t muster.
“You get a mate and send her into the nest of a woman who helped kidnap her and we’ll talk. Until then, shut it.” Eryx angled for the library.
“It was the right move.” Ludan came up on Eryx’s right. “They’d clam up if you went. Serena’s parents will yak all day with Lexi.”
Eryx strode to his study and the bar situated to one side of his desk. “You’re awfully damned chatty.” He tilted the first bottle and checked the label. Strasse, not what he wanted. Vodka, didn’t want that either. Schnapps, oh, hell no.
Balvenie Fifty.
Perfect.
Eryx finished pouring, but kept the lid off. Ludan was right. Lexi wasn’t in danger, not with Jagger with her, but he’d need at least two rounds good old-fashioned whiskey to take the edge off waiting. Maybe three.
The Scotch burned slow and warm down his throat. “Thought you were gonna do murder in front of the whole council before they finished with Brenna. How about you get loose-lipped about that?”
Footsteps sounded behind him, muted by the thick carpet, but Ludan kept his silence.
Eryx turned.
Ludan glared out the back window, the afternoon sun a hard slash on his tense face.
He could cheat and sample Ludan’s emotions, but that was a shit move. “You got something I need to know?”
“No.” Talkative had never been Ludan’s thing and brooding was expected, but this level of agitation? Something was up. Eryx motioned with his glass and turned for the bottle. “You want one?” He poured without waiting for an answer.
“Yeah,” Ludan answered.
Eryx capped the bottle and handed off the drink.
Reese’s voice rang in Eryx’s head, the ping of his presence registering just out side the castle. “My malran.”
“My sister’s not here, but I’m guessing you know that,” Eryx said.
“I know she’s with Lexi looking for details on Serena and Maxis, but I’ve already found Serena, and information you need to know.”
Eryx sat behind his desk and opened the study doors with a thought. “Follow my link to the library, first floor beneath the staircase.” He twisted toward Ludan. “Think you’d better get situated. We’ve got company.”
Ludan hesitated with the tumbler halfway to his mouth. “Who?”
“My new briyo.” He reclined in his chair. “Says he’s found Serena and some information for me.”
“You send him on a run?”
Distant footsteps rang against the foyer stone.
Eryx shook his head, thankful he could stop worrying about Lexi and Galena at least. “No, though I’d rather have that viper coiled up in his vicinity than Lexi or Galena’s.”
“Not sure I trust him.”
And wasn’t that a nut cruncher, because Eryx still wasn’t sure he did either.
Reese rounded the corner, steps purposeful, but unhurried. With his work pants, tall boots, and loose shirt, he looked better fitted for tending his homestead than running down traitors. He’d knotted his hair up good and tight though. Stupid that such an innocent gesture eased his worries for his sister, but it did.
Halting ten feet out from the desk, Reese dropped to one knee. “My malran.”
Fuck this was awkward. The guy had the Shantos emblem plastered on his forearm, an impressive showing from Galena if he was truthful, and here he was kneeling like someone off the street. Damn it, he hoped Galena knew what she was doing. “Pretty sure that mark on your arm means you can toss the formalities.”
Reese stood slowly, the tension in his shoulders telegraphing uncertainty. “I had a visitor at the homestead today.”
Eryx glanced at Ludan and sipped his Scotch. “From?”
“Serena.”
Ludan plopped on the couch behind Reese. “He’s in a touchy mood. Better get it all out quick.”
Like Ludan was in a place to call anyone moody. “He’s right,” Eryx said. “Spill it.”
“I was packing, waiting on the couple I planned to sell the land to, when Serena showed up. The high points? She and Maxis have mated, she’s learned Maxis plans to swipe a busload of humans, and wants to wash her hands of the whole thing. But after learning what he almost did to me via link, she’s afraid she can’t get free of him. She’s hoping you’ll grant her a pardon and keep her safe in zeolite until you kill him if she turns over the info.”
Ludan put a leg on the table in front of him and lifted his glass. “Nice.”
“Maxis mated Serena?” Eryx had a hard time getting past Serena trusting anyone long enough to get through the ritual.
Reese nodded.
“And she came to you because I pardoned you?”
“Pretty much.”
Interesting, but he wasn’t buying it. The mere fact she’d submitted to the mating link said how deep Serena was in with Maxis. The question was whether Reese was in on it too.
Eryx opened his senses. Manners only mattered in polite situations, not those that could end you with a knife or elemental strike in your back. “You think she’s telling the truth?”
Reese tilted his head. Not much, just enough Eryx knew he’d caught the shift in energy. If he knew what Eryx was about, he didn’t show it. “No. She put on a great show, but I’ve seen the two of them together and there’s no way she’s regretting being tied with Maxis.”
A bite of anxiousness and a prickle of fear registered against Eryx’s gifts, but no deceit. If anything there was a smooth undercurrent of hope. “So what’s your spin on their plan?”
“It’s bait,” he said. “They think you’ll rush in to protect the humans and plan some kind of ambush in the process.”
“Too simple.” Ludan clunked his empty tumbler on the table and leaned both elbows on his knees. “They know you’re not that stupid.”
Eryx steepled his fingers and rested his chin on top. “You think Maxis would bait a trap and not be there to spring it?”
“Maxis has a hard time letting go of anything outside of grunt work,” Reese answered. “He wants you, or something you being there will accomplish. He’ll want to see it play out.”
Ludan stood and headed for the bar with his glass dangling from his fingertips. “You better figure out what your trap is first.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Eryx said. “If we’ve got a chance at catching Maxis and Serena in one place, we can permanently take him out of play.”
“Yeah, about that.” Reese stepped forward, some of the wariness Eryx had sensed earlier creeping back in. “I think it’s time I share some news that may make you rethink your end game.”
Chapter 26
Reese fought the need to shift his feet, no small task with the intensity flying off Eryx just five feet away. Maybe he should cut bait and leave while he could.
Eryx sat foreword in his chair. “Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like this news?”
Oh, he wouldn’t like it. He’d probably tag him as a nut job too, but at least he’d lay it out there this time. He sucked in a breath and his stomach muscles clamp
ed tight. “There’s a bigger deal going on than Maxis and the rebellion. Something bigger than Myrens and humans.”
Eryx stared him down. “That’s a hell of a segue. Think you’d better start at the beginning.”
He did, starting with the first visit from Clio and the spiritu. How she’d encouraged him to appeal to Maxis on the basis of brotherhood, and how she’d shown after his link to Maxis had been severed and explained Maxis was a linchpin in some bigger deal that could screw all their races.
“So let me get this right,” Eryx said. “A whole other race of beings exist who are responsible for keeping things in balance. If Maxis gets his way and starts enslaving humans, things get out of whack. Does that sum it up?”
“It sounds crazy, I know, but she was real. And she knew things. Showed me things only someone who’d known me since birth could know.”
Ludan let out a tired exhale behind him.
Eryx studied him. “What else did she say?”
“If I understood it right, you get more points if you do things the hard way. Killing Maxis only puts a few points in your ledger. Getting him to surrender scores you a motherlode. If you run in and annihilate him, you’re not doing much for the balance toward the good and may end up bringing Myrens, humans and spiritus up short in the long-run.”
Eryx closed an overlarge leather tome on his desk and tapped the top with his thumb.
Quiet settled so thick it pressed Reese on every side. “I didn’t want to tell you. I wasn’t even sure I was supposed to because Clio never told me one way or the other. But when Serena showed up, I knew how you’d respond.”
“That I’d want Maxis dead?”
“Exactly. It’s the same thing I wanted, what I’d originally planned to ask you for before Clio came to me.” He paused and tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. He nearly choked on his dry tongue. “If you think about it, it makes sense. The more difficult path is always the one to give the most payback. If I’d shared the truth with Ramsay at my swearing in, I’d have faced a bigger hurdle, but the rest of my life would’ve been different. Honest and free of the shame I carried around for all the years after. Why wouldn’t this be the same?”
Eryx kept his eyes locked on his desk, distant.
“I took the chance in coming here, knowing what you’d think. If there’s even a shred of truth to what Clio told me, I figured you thinking the worst about me was better than risking throwing things out of balance. What you choose to do with the information is up to you.”
Eryx still didn’t respond.
He waited a handful of heartbeats longer and turned for the door. Eryx and Ludan’s stares weighted his shoulders, but neither stopped him. It didn’t matter what they thought. He’d done the right thing, no matter what the repercussions. He’d learned that much and he had Galena as a mate to show for it.
Well, he’d had her. No telling what would happen when she learned the curve ball Reese had thrown her brother.
* * * *
Galena cast her senses out across the garden, wild rainbow blooms dancing on the late spring breeze in what was left of a beautiful sunset. Lavender, mango, and midnight blue blended on the horizon and stretched across the hillside protecting the castle. No visible signs of her mate registered, but he was there somewhere, likely tucked inside the arbor at the garden’s center.
The stone balustrade scraped her palm as she moved along the terrace. She’d expected Eryx to grill her on the details of her visit when she returned. Instead she’d learned her fireann had been holding out on some pretty worrisome information for their race, an emotional slap she’d failed to cover. Even now her pride stung.
She sifted through the reasons Reese might have withheld his trust and wandered down the castle steps, through the winding white sand paths. The simple cotton sheath she’d worn to council left her arms bared to the cooling evening air. Exotic perfume and the fresh bite of greenery surrounded her, soft like her footsteps. Only the fine hairs that escaped her intricate braids tickled her neck and face, an odd but interesting sensation after years of feeling her hair’s weight on her back and shoulders.
This wouldn’t be the last of what she and Reese would face together. If she trusted him enough to take him as a mate, she had to believe in him long enough to give his reasons. To set the expectations for their future and grow as a unit.
Her steps quickened, the need to see him, to connect with and touch him, driving her heart to an urgent rhythm.
The arbor came into view, natural walls thick with ivy and dotted with ivory, bell-shaped blooms, and a wrought iron dome with more riotous vines. Their link promised he was inside, but it wasn’t enough. Not until she laid eyes on him. She rounded the edge and her breath slipped out on a slow sigh.
Reese lay stretched out on the center bench, hands tucked behind his head as he peered through what he could of the ivy. One foot rested on the bench, knee bent, a casual pose to anyone else, but it was a ruse. She felt the knowledge to her bones. Maybe not as succinctly as Lexi or Eryx might manage, but this was her mate. His unease jangled against her nerves, a scratching tension along her arms and legs.
“Reese?”
He started and stood up, another clue how deep his worry ran. Sworn warrior or not, his skills were on par with an elite and no one caught such a man unaware unless his emotions distracted him. “You finished with Eryx quicker than I thought.”
She should have known when he’d said he’d wait for her at the castle something was wrong. “Eryx doesn’t beat around the bush when he’s anxious for time alone with his mate.” She closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest. The soft cotton of his ivory shirt tickled her cheek. “I’m beginning to understand why.”
He hesitated a second as though she’d shocked him, then hugged her back. His kissed the top of her head. “He told you everything?”
She inhaled deep, the smell of forest and spice unlocking her tension. His heart pounded beneath her ear. “Everything.”
He stroked her spine, long calming sweeps that left a delicious heat in their wake. “Does he think I’m nuts?”
Damn. She should have seen that coming. A person with a pristine history and a rock solid reputation would have had a hard time dropping information like that with Eryx, but with Reese’s background, it had to be nervewracking. “Eryx is more open-minded than most. You forget it was dreams that led him to Lexi. He’s got a healthy respect for things he doesn’t understand.”
He cupped the back of her neck. “And what do you think?”
So, this was why he hadn’t told her. “I think I’ve heard a tiny voice in my head too many times to dismiss the concept.” She pulled back to see his face. Gold lashes lined his hooded eyelids, his forest eyes broken only by sage slivers. “If I’m honest, something spoke to me the night I saw you in front of Maxis’ house.” She cupped one side of his face and his evening stubble scratched her palm. “I wish you’d told me.”
Reese pressed his forehead to hers. “I wasn’t sure I was supposed to, let alone if anyone would believe me.”
“I believe you.”
He tightened his grip at her waist.
She tilted back, needing eye contact. “So what are we going to do about it?”
Reese’s laugh rumbled against her and his lips curled in a sardonic slant. “See if we can find a way to get my brother to surrender, cure the realms of hunger, and negotiate peace for all of them while we’re at it?” He sat on the center bench, pulled her between his knees, and tugged her onto his lap.
“You joke, but it sounds like the spiritu think you’re the key in all this,” she said. “That you have the angle necessary to bring Maxis around.”
Reese cradled her close and she let her head lull against his shoulder. “Clio said I was the hook in Maxis’ life. The one bright spark. Though how they intend for me to leverage that, I don’t have a clue.”
T
he V of his shirt hung open and Galena splayed her hand along the exposed skin. Faint hairs teased her palm, his warmth spreading up her arm. “Your mother is what you have in common, maybe that’s where you should start.”
“Start how?”
Galena shrugged. “Tell me about her. Did she talk much about Maxis?”
Voices sounded from far away, laughter moving away from the castle as the bulk of workers made their way home.
“She hated leaving him,” he said. “It was the one regret she had, leaving him behind.”
“She talked about it a lot?”
She felt more than saw him shake his head. “Maybe once or twice when I saw her looking sad, especially when I was younger. Most of it I read.”
Galena pushed away. “Read it where?”
“Her journals.” His gaze grew distant and his lips tilted in a sad smile. “I found them after she died. I don’t think I really understood how bad leaving him bothered her until I read them.” His eyes sharpened.
“What?” she said.
He focus on the hollow of her throat, his brow furrowed as though puzzling out a complex riddle.
“Reese, what?”
“The pain in those books, you can’t help but feel it. The first time I read them, I couldn’t put them down. She had a gift for words. A way that made me feel like her experiences were my own.”
“You think the journals might be the key?”
Reese eyed her. “It can’t be that. It’s too—”
“Easy? Why? Because it’s not about strategy and warfare? Swords, electricity, and fire?” She couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it all. “Isn’t the basis of the spiritu’s message that more is gained through peace than violence?”
He squeezed her leg, his thumb working in a distracted circle.
“I’d imagine getting Maxis to read journals would be the tough part,” she said. “Getting them in front of him when we don’t know where he’s at makes it even more of a challenge.”
“You really think what’s in the journals might sway him?”
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