Refuge

by Karen Lynch

  The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, but I’d never dealt with anything remotely like this. Part of me was scared to death, while another part of me wanted to go to him and . . . do what? Tell him it would be okay? Tell him I cared about him, too?

  I curled up miserably under the covers and prayed for sleep. Pink streaks appeared in the sky outside my window before my body finally succumbed and let me slip into a temporary oblivion.

  Chapter 16

  THE SUN WAS high in the sky when I opened my eyes, letting me know I had slept straight through the morning. But it wasn’t the bright sunlight spilling into the room that woke me; it was the soft touch of butterfly wings against my mind followed by the sound of men’s voices in the other room.

  “She is not ready to see you,” Tristan said in a firm voice. “Last night was a shock to her, and she needs some time to process it.”

  “I frightened her. I need to talk to her, to explain.” Nikolas’s gruff voice made my stomach do a little flip, and I couldn’t tell if it was from nervousness or excitement.

  Tristan’s tone turned conciliatory. “Sara knows you would never harm her, and she’s the only one who wasn’t afraid of you last night. You and I both knew she would be upset when she learned about the bond, which is why we agreed to wait to tell her.”

  “I did wait,” Nikolas replied, a note of impatience slipping into his voice. “I left for almost three weeks.”

  “When you returned and asked to train her, you said you could keep your distance. Kissing her is not what I’d call keeping your distance.”

  Oh God! My face burned, and I pulled a pillow over my head to block out the rest of their conversation. As curious as I was to hear what Nikolas had to say about the kiss, I did not want to hear him talking to my grandfather about it. Did these people have no concept of boundaries?

  I waited a good five minutes before I lifted the pillow to hear silence in the other room. I waited another ten minutes before I dressed in the same clothes I’d worn after my shower last night. I cracked the door open to make sure Tristan was alone before I left the bedroom.

  He looked up from some papers he was going over at the table, and I realized he had stayed here with me instead of going to his office today. “Good morning.”

  “Morning,” I replied weakly, remembering what I’d heard of his conversation with Nikolas. “You didn’t have to stay with me.”

  “I wanted to be here when you woke up. Are you hungry?”

  My stomach growled in response, and we both laughed.

  He got up and took a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. I tried to argue that I could feed myself, but he ignored my protest and ordered me to sit. “I like cooking for someone again, and I’m going to make you the best omelet you’ve ever had.”

  I took a seat at the table and watched him chop vegetables and crack eggs into a bowl. I waited for him to say something about Nikolas’s visit or last night, but he seemed content to focus on cooking. I figured it was as good a time as any to tell him what I had discovered last night.

  “Tristan, when those vampires showed up I sensed them before I saw them.”

  He stopped beating eggs to peer at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I got this cold feeling in my chest just before the first one arrived, and it happened again when the other two came.” I saw his look of incredulity, and I didn’t blame him because I knew how it must sound. “It’s happened a couple of times before, only I didn’t put it together until last night.”

  “It happened back in Maine?”

  “No, only since I came here. The first time, I was out in the woods. It was the day Hugo and Woolf got loose. The other time was outside the movie theater in Boise.”

  “We have twenty-four hour patrols in the woods around Westhorne. It is unlikely that a vampire would risk getting that close to us.”

  “But it’s not impossible.”

  He studied me for a moment before he shook his head. “No, not impossible. If not for the three dead vampires I saw last night, I would say the possibility of a vampire showing up in town was slim as well. I’ll have someone check the woods, and we’ll add another patrol to be safe.” He went back to preparing the omelet. “You said you felt the same thing in Boise?”

  I told him about the cold sensation in my chest as we were leaving the movie theater. “I’m not suggesting the vampire I sensed had anything to do with the lamprey attack, but I am positive there was a vampire nearby.”

  Tristan nodded, but he looked troubled as he poured the egg mixture into the skillet. “Boise is normally very quiet. We see some lower demon activity – like lampreys in the sewers – but rarely vampires. I’ll ask Chris to assemble a team and investigate. If there was a vampire, it might have been passing through, but I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  His belief in me and his readiness to take action was both gratifying and reassuring. “Me either.”

  “Tell me, why do you think you can sense vampires now?”

  “Aine thinks it could have something do with the vampire blood on the knife I was stabbed with.”

  This time he turned to face me. “You saw the sylph? Here?”

  “No, at the lake a few days ago. She said she couldn’t come here because it would upset everyone.”

  “Did she come to ask you to go to Faerie with her again?” His voice held an edge of worry, and I rushed to reassure him.

  “No, she just wanted to catch up and make sure I’m doing okay.”

  Tristan finished making the omelet and slid it onto a plate. He laid it in front of me with a glass of orange juice and sat across from me as I took a bite.

  “This is amazing.” I moaned through a mouthful of food, earning a smile from him.

  “I’m glad you like it.” He clasped his hands together on the table. “So, you believe you can actually sense a vampire’s presence? If that is so, it would be an incredible ability to have.”

  “Yeah, and it’s a lot better than having to sniff them.”

  “Sniff them?”

  “You know – that awful odor vampires have. Of course, you can only smell it when you get really close to them.”

  His brow furrowed. “Vampires don’t smell any different from humans.”

  “You must have been too busy killing them to smell them because, trust me, they reek like road kill when you get up-close-and-personal with them. I only got that close to Eli, but I’ll never forget that smell.” I laid down my fork and shuddered at the memory.

  Tristan stroked his chin. “It must be an elemental trait that allows you to smell them. Interesting.”

  “You wouldn’t find it interesting if you were the one gagging on vampire BO.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  I took a few more bites of food. “Hey, we could always test my vampire radar. You could take me somewhere like Vegas and I can find them for you.”

  To my surprise, he did not dismiss my idea. “We could do that once you get some more training under your belt.”

  “Great, I’d like that. By the way, was Derek okay? Jordan threw him pretty hard.”

  “We treated him and took him to the hospital. He has a mild concussion and as far as he knows, he fell trying to climb up to the barn loft while he was intoxicated.”

  “How do you do that – make people forget seeing a vampire?”

  “We manufacture a drug from several plant extracts that allows us to modify short-term memory in humans. We’ve found that most humans are happier not knowing about the supernatural.”

  I nodded in agreement as I took a drink of orange juice to wash down the last of my omelet. Back when I thought I was human, I’d spent half my time learning about the supernatural world. But would I have been the same if my dad hadn’t been killed? I might have lived in blissful ignorance until vampires came looking for Madeline’s daughter or until I discovered I’d had stopped aging.

  “Sara, Nikolas was here before you woke up. He wants to see you. I told him you weren�
�t ready, but you should consider talking to him soon.”

  My stomach tightened. “I don’t know what to say to him. Can I have a few days?”

  Tristan nodded. “No one is going to rush you, but don’t leave him hanging long. This has not been easy for him either.”

  “I won’t. I just . . . I need a little time.” The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Nikolas, but I couldn’t face him yet. I certainly wasn’t ready to talk about our future or this bond between us. I carried my dishes to the sink and washed them. “Does Nikolas know that I’m going back to training with Callum?”

  “I haven’t told him yet.” Tristan crossed his arms over his chest. “Did you ask to switch because of what happened between you?”

  “Yes, but I really don’t want to talk about that.”

  “You know that despite everything, Nikolas is the best trainer for you.”

  I hung up the dish towel and leaned back against the counter, chewing my lip. I knew Tristan had my best interests at heart, but I was not going to discuss my feelings for Nikolas with him.

  After a moment, he let out an unhappy sigh. “I’ll tell him today.”

  * * *

  I stayed in my room for the rest of the afternoon and while everyone else was at dinner I snuck out and went to the menagerie. Sahir brought me a covered tray of food, and I suspected Tristan had asked him to keep an eye on me. I sat across from Minuet’s cage and told her about everything while I ate. Since the night she had scented me, she sat on the floor of her cage facing me every time I came to see her, and every now and then, she cocked her head as if I’d said something of particular interest. Sahir kept shaking his head and muttering that he’d never seen anything like it.

  When I finished my dinner, I noticed that Alex had crept closer to the front of his cage and sat listening to me talk to Minuet. The thing about a wyvern is that their expression never really changes so you can’t tell if they are just curious or planning to try to fry you. I decided to keep my distance, throwing him pieces of the steak I hadn’t finished. Although he preferred raw meat, he gobbled up the food I tossed him.

  Back in my room, I picked up the phone to call Roland, but I couldn’t dial the number. I shared almost everything with him, but how did I explain something I had trouble grasping myself? I hadn’t told Roland yet about kissing Nikolas or my confusing new feelings for him. I loved Roland, but there were some things you just couldn’t share with a boy.

  Thoroughly depressed, I reached for my sketchbook. I’d started a new one two weeks ago, and it was already filled with drawings of Hugo, Woolf, Alex, and Minuet. Who would have thought a few months ago that I would be drawing hellhounds, a wyvern, and a griffin from life?

  I opened to a new page and picked up my pencil. I thought for a minute about the scene I wanted to capture, and then my pencil began to move deftly over the paper. As I drew, I relived every detail of the bloody encounter in the barn. Jordan and I had won the fight, but I knew it could have gone very badly for us. If the three vampires had arrived together, we would not have been able to take them all at once. If I hadn’t recognized what Seth was in time or if I’d been with someone less skilled than Jordan – like Olivia – we’d be dead now. If my power hadn’t done what I’d hoped it would do, that vampire would have killed me.

  The sad truth was that I was a terrible fighter and I didn’t even know basic self-defense. I was years behind the other trainees, and if it wasn’t for good luck and my sporadic bursts of power, I could have been killed last night. Not to mention surviving the lamprey demons. Having power was great when it worked, but what I really needed was to learn to fight.

  I was putting the finishing touches on the drawing when there was a knock at the door. When I answered it, Jordan flashed a small smile and slipped past me without waiting for an invitation.

  “Hello, Jordan, would you like to come in?” I asked dryly, closing the door behind her.

  “Why thank you, Sara. I think I will.” She plopped down in my desk chair, and I went back to sitting on the bed. “So, what excitement do we have planned for tonight?”

  I made a face and picked up my sketchbook again. “Last night wasn’t enough for you?”

  Her face glowed. “That was the best party I’ve ever been to. You should have seen Terrence and Josh when they found out they missed all the action. They were so bummed.”

  “I’m sure you gave them a complete play-by-play, didn’t you?”

  “Of course.” She grinned and looked around. “You want to do something?”

  “Like what?” I was surprised she hadn’t already brought up Nikolas, but I was in no hurry to discuss him if she wasn’t.

  “Let’s go for a walk.”

  I looked up from my drawing. “It’s too dark to go for a walk. And since when do you walk anyway?”

  She snorted. “Since I met you I’ve killed demons in a movie theater and vampires at a party. Who knows what we’d run into out there in the woods.”

  “I’ve seen the kind of creatures that hide in the woods at night; trust me, you don’t want to meet them.”

  “Fine, then we’ll walk inside. God knows this place is big enough.”

  No place was big enough when you were trying to avoid someone who lived under the same roof. “Or we could just stay here.”

  “He’s not here, you know.”

  I pretended to be interested in my drawing. “Who?”

  “Olivia saw Nikolas and Tristan talking outside this afternoon, and she said Nikolas looked mad about something. Then Nikolas tore off on his motorcycle. Last I heard, he wasn’t back yet.”

  “Oh.”

  “So . . . you and Nikolas, huh?”

  I laid my sketchbook on the bed. “It’s not like that. Not like you think anyway.”

  Jordan let out a laugh. “Oh, I know exactly what it is. I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me about the bond. It’s not like I wouldn’t have found out soon.”

  “I didn’t know about it until last night.”

  She made a scoffing sound, but when my expression did not change, her eyes widened. “You’re serious?”

  I nodded, and she frowned. “How is that possible? A blind person could tell there is something between you two. And last night . . . ” She let out a low whistle. “I’ve heard about bonding males going into a rage, but that was scary.”

  “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure why I apologized because it wasn’t like I had caused it. Had I?

  She leaned forward in the chair. “I’ll tell you something else; males don’t get worked up like that over a casual friendship.” Her eyes took on a knowing gleam. “Miss Grey, I do believe you’ve been keeping secrets. Those must be some training sessions.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “I told you it’s not . . . we haven’t been . . . ”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “One kiss, okay, we kissed one time.” I fell back on the bed and pulled a pillow over my face. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Oh, hell no!” Jordan pulled the pillow out of my hands and bounced on the bed beside me. “You do not get to say you kissed Nikolas Danshov and then leave me hanging. I want details.”

  “What details? It wasn’t a date, Jordan. It was just one kiss.”

  She huffed and lightly punched my shoulder. “You are a piece of work. It’s never just a kiss with a man like Nikolas. So tell me, when did it happen? What did he say? Was it as good as I think it was? Duh, never mind. Of course it was mind-blowing. Just tell me, was he wearing his sword?”

  I opened an eye to stare at her. “Sword?”

  “What? I have a thing for men with swords.” She wagged her eyebrows. “The bigger the sword, the better.”

  I groaned and rolled away from her. There was no way I was going to tell her that Nikolas had been wearing his sword at the time. Thanks to her, I’d never look at it the same way again. Why had I ever thought it might be nice to have a girlfriend to share things with?

  “Well, a
re you going to tell me about it?”

  “Okay.” I heaved a sigh. “But don’t blame me if you’re disappointed.” I told her how Alex had burned me and Nikolas had followed me to the medical ward. “We had an argument and before I knew it, he kissed me. Then he stopped and said he didn’t mean to do it. He left and I didn’t see him again until last night.”

  Jordan flopped down on her back beside me. “He kissed you in a fit of passion? That’s even better. Don’t you dare tell me you didn’t like it.”

  The memory of Nikolas’s hands cradling my face as his mouth covered mine made my stomach do those funny little somersaults again. I’d never understood why other girls made such a big deal over kissing, but now I got it. Just thinking about it made my pulse jump and my breath catch in my throat. Were all kisses that amazing, or was that one special because of Nikolas?

  “I did like it,” I admitted. A lot. “But I’m not sure if he did.”

  “Uh, his behavior last night would suggest otherwise.”

  “Tristan told me people have no control over who they bond with and that males feel it a lot stronger. What if the bond made Nikolas kiss me when he didn’t want to?”

  She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “I don’t think anything can make that man do something he doesn’t want to do. The bond gets stronger only if the two people have feelings for each other. That much was pretty clear last night. So fess up.”

  “I do care about him, but he drives me nuts always telling me what to do.” I rolled onto my back and looked over at her. “This is really freaking me out. I’ve never even been on a real date, and now all of a sudden I have a life mate? I mean, I could have one.”

  “Whoa, you’ve never dated anyone?”

  “I had coffee with a guy once. Does that count?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. But Nikolas was your first kiss?”