by Jaz Primo
“Oh, yeah. Roman,” I said.
“Why not ask him to join us?” she asked.
“Nah, he looks like he’s in deep thought,” I said.
“You have the weirdest sensibilities sometimes, you know? Speaking of weird, where’s your sister lately? I haven’t seen her around.”
“Uh-oh, hater alert,” I teased.
“Whatever. Paige is okay, I guess,” she said.
“So, where’s she been hiding herself lately?”
My mind raced for a viable answer.
“She’s gone out of town to see some friends,” I said.
“But she’s meeting up with you guys for Thanksgiving, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said. “She’ll catch up to us by next week.”
Chance stared at me. “Okay, but my bullshit meter feels like it’s getting ready to peg. You wouldn’t BS me, would you, Caleb?”
I gave her my best innocent look. “Me? Never.”
She crunched on the end of a carrot stick. “Just make sure that’s true, mister. I don’t give second chances very often.”
“Okay, I get it,” I said. “No second chances.”
The remainder of our conversation was far easier to negotiate.
As soon as I left Chance at the student center, I got on the phone to the person who often seemed to pull miracles out of a hat: Alton’s assistant, Marla.
“Hey, Marla? Listen, I really need your help with some last-minute Sunset Air tickets for three,” I said. “And could we please keep this just between us for the time being?”
* * *
“London? Tomorrow night?” Dane demanded. “I thought we were leaving the day after tomorrow.”
“What can I say? Plans changed.”
“Why the hell am I just now hearing about this?”
“It was sort of a last minute decision,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes at me.
Lyra threw her arms into the air. “Will somebody please decide where the fuck we’re supposed to be for more than a week at a time?”
I gave her a sharp look, but Dane held up his hand.
“C’mon, sis,” he said. “We’re world travelers. And spending some time in our old haunts wouldn’t be so bad, would they?”
“Whatever. It all pays the same, I suppose,” she said.
Roman, on the other hand, appeared reflective from his seat at the kitchen counter.
“Roman, how would you like a prolonged vacation visiting your family?” I asked. “Of course, if you’d like to go to London you’re welcome to, and I can probably get another ticket. But I thought you’d like to—”
“No,” he interrupted. “Actually, given everything in recent weeks, I’d relish some time with my family. My dad’s complained that they don’t see enough of me as it is.”
“Good. But I want to keep this under wraps; it’s a surprise for Kat.”
“Fine by me,” Roman said.
Dane nodded, but Lyra appeared less than pleased.
“Well, we had all better start packing then,” Dane said.
The next twenty-four hours passed quickly, and before I knew it, we were seated in a comfortable cabin for the lengthy Sunset Air flight to London.
Due to the time change, we landed only a couple of hours prior to sunrise. Thankfully, I had managed to sleep a little bit during the flight.
Upon disembarking from the plane, Kat and Marla stood in the practically deserted receiving area to greet us.
Kat adopted a knowing expression on her face.
“Aw, hell, this was supposed to be a surprise,” I said with a stern look at Marla, who merely shrugged.
“To your credit, it was certainly a surprise when I heard about it,” Kat said.
I gave her a bland look as she reached out to embrace me.
“Surprise,” I murmured.
She gave me a warm kiss.
“So, you’re not annoyed that I showed up early?” I asked.
She smiled. “Me? Not in the slightest.”
Well, that was gratifying, at least.
“Welcome, Caleb. I’ll have your things taken to the hotel,” said Marla. “Your uncle Alton has asked that you see him once you’ve had a chance to rest a bit.”
The realization hit me like a speeding comet to the face.
Oh, yeah…my chat with Alton…about my leaving town abruptly.
I swallowed hard.
I had forgotten all about that.
Then I noticed that nobody was speaking and I saw Dane staring at me. On top of that, Lyra looked at me as if I was an alien bug who had jumped out at her.
“Pardon me, Ms. Kendrick, but did you say Uncle Alton?” asked Dane.
Marla folded her arms before her with an amused expression on her face.
“Marla, would you please take Caleb to see about their luggage?” Kat asked. “We’ll catch up to you in a few minutes.
I looked up at Kat, but knew better than to challenge her when she had that telltale determined expression on her face.
She spared me a momentary wink and reached out to run her fingernails down the back of my back, eliciting a shiver that ran all the way down my spine.
I dutifully followed Marla.
“What’s that all about, do you think?” I asked once we reached the escalators.
I noticed that two men wearing business suits, who were standing nearby, fell into step behind us.
“I suspect that Katrina would like to clear the air a bit with Dane and Lyra,” she replied. “Speaking of whom, how do you find them?”
“Difficult,” I replied. “It’s been somewhat of a challenge, really, though Dane’s starting to grow on me a bit.”
“Ah,” she said. “And Lyra?”
“A completely cold-hearted bitch,” I replied.
“Caleb,” she chastised. “My word, but I’m surprised to hear something like that from the likes of you.”
I mildly regretted my frank assessment, but only slightly, for the mere sake of it sounding rude.
“Truth hurts,” I said. “Besides, I’m sure you’d hear as much, if not worse, from her.”
Marla retrieved her smartphone from her purse.
“Something the matter?” I asked.
“No, just routine checking in,” she replied, beginning to text.
“Is Alton still angry with me?” I asked.
She paused in her texting. “I’ll let you determine that for yourself, if you don’t mind.”
A sour feeling formed in the pit of my stomach.
Chapter 20
Katrina
I watched Caleb and Marla walk away before turning toward Dane and Lyra. Then I motioned for them to follow me over to a relatively deserted portion of the terminal.
I turned to face them. “Is there a problem?”
Lyra started to speak up, but then folded her arms before her and looked at her brother.
“Really? You’re not even baited to touch that one?” he asked his sister. “Honestly, you’re a mystery even to me sometimes.”
“Shut up,” Lyra said.
He shook his head at her before turning his attention to me.
“Problem? Not exactly, General,” Dane replied. “Curious? Absol-bloody-lutely.”
“Please, do proceed,” I said.
“Uncle Alton? As in Alton Bloody Rutherford, the nearly millennium-old vampire and our employer?” he asked.
I arched my brow at him and he appeared slightly unnerved.
“By the by, just to be clear, when I said our employer, I had me and my sister in mind,” he added. “You notwithstanding, General.”
“Naturally,” I said. “The term is one of endearment for both Alton and Caleb. You might know that Mr. Rutherford is quite fond of Caleb.”
“Ah,” he said.
He paused, as if internalizing what I had just said.
My smartphone buzzed and I read a text message from Marla that concerned me.
“How are the two of you getting along with Caleb?” I
asked.
Dane hesitated before answering.
“Well, General, it’s not smashing, but it’s coming along,” he replied, looking at Lyra. “A bit of work in progress, wouldn’t you say, sis?”
I stared at Lyra, unwilling to accept yet another quiet deference to her brother.
“Um, sure,” she said, folding her arms before her once more. “It’s been a rough start.”
“Do you like him?” I asked her.
Her mouth opened and then closed.
“Not so much,” she said.
“Thank you for your honesty. While I regret hearing that, it’s not essential for your duties,” I said. “That is, unless you’d prefer to be reassigned to something else.”
Lyra took a deep breath and looked at her brother in silent query.
“Do as you will, darling,” he said. “But I’m going to give it a go for a bit longer.”
She frowned at him. “Really?”
“What can I say? I’m a classic glutton for punishment,” he said.
“You would be,” she said before returning her attention to me.
“It’s truly your choice,” I said. “And there’s no hard feelings either way. I only want what’s in both of your best interests.”
Lyra appeared a little taken aback by my response.
I noticed that Dane’s eyebrows rose.
“You know, I’m going to go get a coffee and let you two talk for a few minutes,” he said. “Would either of you care for anything?”
“You don’t even like coffee,” Lyra said.
“I do right now,” he said, gesturing toward me.
“No, thank you,” I replied.
“Give us a bell when you’re ready,” he said before quickly walking away from us.
“Your brother is oddly charming,” I said. “Bit of a lady killer, too, I’d imagine.”
“He certainly thinks so. Oh, he’s the dog’s bollocks, for sure,” she said. “When he’s not being a complete wanker.”
I spotted a momentary crack in her usually hard shell. Then her expression smoothed over again.
“Tell me, has Caleb been rude to you?” I asked.
“I think we’re a bit rude to each other,” she replied. “But he doesn’t go out of his way, if that’s what you mean.”
“Lyra, I hope that you won’t mind me being forward, but my hands are relatively full working with Mr. Rutherford on international vampire affairs. I don’t have the luxury to worry over Caleb’s daily security detail, much less his relations with those detailed to protect him,” I said. “That being said, would you care to share your view on why the two of you can’t seem to get along?”
She looked at me as if I had just challenged her to eat something heinous.
“Oh, but this is hellish,” she said, hiking her hands atop her hips.
“Perhaps,” I said. “But trust me when I say that there will be no hard feelings from what you tell me.”
She took a deep breath and let it out in one long exhale.
“You know how sometimes when you meet someone for the first time, and you’re not sure why, but you just don’t get a good vibe from them?” she asked.
I nodded. “Okay. The eternal conundrum surrounding first impressions.”
“Well, your Caleb just rubbed me the wrong damned way, ever since we first met,” she said. “I dunno. He seemed really full of himself, despite there being something infuriatingly simple about him, too.”
“Simple?”
“Yeah, I mean, like he was a deer in the headlights. You know, sort of naive,” she said. “And he comes off as the worst sort of nerd.”
“Not a fan of nerds?” I asked.
“They’re just so awkward, and yet, they’re supposed to be all smart and everything. Smart arses, the lot of them,” she said. “But then, they don’t ever know really anything about the real world; just whatever they read in a bunch of books, or whatnot. They’re just such twats.”
I took a moment to consider what she had told me.
“You were what—twenty-something—when you were turned?” I asked.
“Twenty-two,” she said. “Dane and I were turned at the same time, actually.”
A somber expression formed on her face. “We were told that it would be a damned shame not to age together as twins.”
“So, you really hadn’t seen much of the world by then, had you?”
“Well, no, for me not really. It was Dane who had been the street-wise one between us.”
“And you and Dane were turned in—”
“1976,” she said.
I thought, from reading their files, that they were relatively young as vampires went.
“You know, Caleb’s already twenty-seven now,” I said. “And he was—still is, at times—relatively naive. He’d had a rough time growing up, you see. He bunkered inside himself for a number of years after that.”
She frowned at me. “Excuse me, General, but why are you telling me all of this?”
I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I just hoped that you might see some parallels between the two of you, that’s all. We’d better signal your brother now and then rejoin the others.”
Lyra retrieved her mobile phone and started texting.
“Please tell him we’ll meet up in the parking garage,” I said. “Section A-47.”
She quietly walked alongside me as we proceeded toward the escalators.
During our descent, she sighed.
“Caleb’s quite unlike any mate I’ve had as a vampire,” I said. “I’ve found him to be both endearing and sincere. And he’s very intelligent.”
She gave me a sharp, sidelong glance and then stared straight ahead.
“Growing up, I dated a really smart boy while I was in Upper School,” she said.
“Oh?”
I felt relieved that Lyra was sharing anything personal at all with me.
“His name was Thomas. He had it all: dishy, popular, athletic. Everybody loved him, even the teachers,” she said. “Tickety-boo Thom, his mother used to say. I always hated that.
“Anyway, Thomas used to ask me questions about stupid facts and all sorts of rot. I think he used to enjoy making me feel stupid or something,” she said.
“I can’t imagine that was easy to endure.”
“He used to laugh at me,” she continued. “ ‘Til one day when I’d had about enough and told him to stop. I said that he wasn’t treating me right, and I wanted us to stop seeing each other. He actually slapped me, the bugger.”
“Thomas sounds like a truly horrible person,” I said.
“He was a real bastard in the end,” she said. “Dane saw to putting him right, though. Afterwards, Thomas wouldn’t even blink an eye at me. Sometimes, I would step in front of him in the hallways at school, just to see him give me a wide berth. It was like my own little private joke to play on him. I wanted him to suffer.
“Later, I found out that he’d gone on to Cambridge,” she said. “He’d always talked ‘til he was blue in the face about that damned place. I’d bet he fit in nicely there with all the other tossers.”
I remained silent as we walked to the parking garage.
“I can see why you might not care for college types,” I said.
“Can’t stand them,” she said.
“Lyra, you realize that Caleb’s not anything like Thomas,” I said.
“Yeah, maybe not,” she said. “But I couldn’t help thinking of Thomas when I first met your mate. That sort of first impression is hard for me to get beyond.”
Frankly, given everything, it seemed that Caleb and Lyra had a long hard row to hoe together before anything positive came about between them, if ever.
Still, stranger things have happened.
“I won’t hold you to your assignment to guard Caleb, if you prefer,” I said.
She remained silent for a few moments.
“No, I’ll stick with Dane,” she said. �
�For now.”
“I appreciate that, and I hope that you might eventually see a different side of Caleb,” I said. “Perhaps if you could see him for the kind of man that he truly is, you might find that he’s not so bad.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she said. “I mean, you obviously think highly of him. And I suppose Mr. Rutherford, too, what with calling him uncle and all that.”
“He’s my mate. I love him. And yes, Mr. Rutherford thinks quite highly of him, as well,” I said. “But believe me when I say that I’d never tolerate a moment of behavior from Caleb like you experienced from Thomas.”
She chuckled. “I can’t begin to imagine that you would. I’d wager he’d never survive the moment.”
She was definitely right about that.
“Lyra, I appreciate your sharing with me about your past and Thomas,” I said. “And I’ll keep your confidence, but it also might help if Caleb understood what you told me.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” she said. “I’m not all that comfortable talking about it. I’m surprised that I even told you.”
As we exited the elevator to the parking garage level, I turned toward her.
“You are a quiet one,” I said. “Why is it then, do you think, that you were able to share with me just now?”
She frowned. “I don’t know; an odd whim, I suppose. I respect you, at least.”
“I wondered when you two would be along,” Dane said, walking out from behind a nearby concrete pillar.
“No coffee?” I asked.
“Nah, changed my mind, after all,” he said, looking at his sister. “Everything all right?”
“Tickety-boo, dear brother,” Lyra said.
She and I exchanged knowing looks while Dane narrowed his eyes.
“Tickety-boo?” he asked with a pained expression.
Lyra snickered.
“Aw, never you mind; I don’t want to know,” he said, throwing up his arms and marching toward the SUVs that were parked nearby waiting for us.
Chapter 21
Caleb
I waited outside the SUV while Marla sat inside, talking on her phone.
Then I spied Kat walking alongside Lyra while Dane strode well ahead of them.