by Lisa Kumar
He inspected his nails. “Out.”
She stopped in her tracks. “Out?”
“Yes,” he said patiently as if talking to a toddler.
Panic kindled in her gut. “Where did he go?”
A peeved expression streamed across his face. “I’m not his keeper.” He leaned back in his chair and threw his arm across the backrest. “Besides, when I asked, he didn’t tell me.”
“You let him go?”
“What was I suppose to do? Tie him up? He’s a grown elf, for Eria’s sake.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Exactly. He’s an elf on the loose in an alien place. Think of all the trouble he could get into.” Just the thought of it made her breath quicken until she feared it’d come in gasps.
“I warned him about the trouble.”
That was supposed to make her feel better? Shaking her head, she pointed at him before she started to pace in a circle. “You should’ve come and gotten me.”
He cocked that insolent brow of his. “So you could’ve chased him down the hallway while you were naked?”
She froze. He had a point, damn him. “Still, you should have let me know.”
“What do you think I’m doing right now?”
Other than being maddening? “I meant sooner.”
“He left a minute ago.”
Knowing she shouldn’t try to pick a fight with him, she sighed. “Okay.” She ran a hand over her face. “Did he take his cell phone with him?”
Aistiane had procured both him and Eamon one, as well as manufactured documents that would give them an acceptable identity.
Eamon motioned toward a side table. On top of it lay Andrian’s new phone.
She pinched her nose and sighed. Great, just great. What good was the dang thing if he didn’t carry it on him? In all fairness, though, he probably merely forgot about it. He wasn’t exactly used to technology. Swords, bows, and knives were more his speed. “Any idea where he could’ve headed?”
Eamon appeared to think for a moment. “None. He’s taken Archie out multiple times when you’re at work, as you know. More than once or twice, he’s gone out by himself.”
That last part was new information to her. “Why didn’t you ever mention the latter to me?”
“He always came back after a few hours. It didn’t seem like anything that mattered. After all, even I’ve wandered about the area a few times in the last week and a half.”
“You’ve both been joy walking about?”
Eamon angled his head to the side but otherwise held perfectly still. “You do know we’re adults and actually have a task we have to fulfill here?”
His chiding tone made her blink. “Yes.”
“Then how do you expect us to do anything while you hold our hands?”
“I ... I ...” His words were true.
“We need a guide, not a caretaker.”
She exhaled a deep breath. “You’re right. Sorry, I can’t help but worry. You two haven’t been here long, and if something — ”
“If something happens, we have you and especially Aistiane to help us.”
He said “help” as if it grated on him, but she recognized the truth in his words. “That’s true. Aistiane can definitely pull strings that I can’t.”
A confused look passed over his face, so she continued. “That just means she can get people to do what she wants.”
His lips curled. “That she can.”
Seeing that further conversation about Aistiane could lead to a rant, she guided the subject back to Andrian. “So if he doesn’t return home by morning, what do we do?”
“Celebrate?”
“Eamon!”
He chuckled. “So serious, aren’t you? We’ll look for him, of course.”
“Okay, that’s a plan I approve of.” She stood in front of the sofa, at a loss of what to do next. Oh, she knew what she should be doing — having that talk with Eamon about the fated mates. This latest development, however, threw her nerves for a loop.
Eamon patted his lap. “Come here.”
“On your lap?”
“You’ve been on my lap before,” he said, smirking.
Heat zinged to her cheeks while an answering warmth pooled between her legs. “We’re out in the living room, not in the privacy of the bedroom.”
Eamon wagged a finger at her. “Dirty girl, I just meant to talk.”
She stared down at him. “You’re the king of sexual double meanings, and you’re calling me dirty?”
“I never said it was a disagreeable quality.”
With a good-natured roll of her eyes, she plopped sideways onto his lap, eliciting an oomph from him.
“Easy, woman, you’re not as light as you look.”
She scowled and elbowed him in the stomach. “You better not be calling me fat, not if you want to be doing anything tonight.”
“No, never that. I was merely warning you to be careful of the precious commodity down there.”
“What, you’re planning to sell your services as a stud?”
“I could, but I prefer to reward those who are worthy.”
Laughter burst from her. “Your ego has no bounds.”
“My ego is my sense of self-worth?”
“Yep.”
He nodded lazily. “I know where my talents lay.”
“Your problem is that you think you’re skilled at everything.”
“Not everything, just merely at most of everything.”
“Oh, that’s so much better,” she said, sarcasm oozing through her tone.
He pulled on a lock of her hair before he leaned in closer. “Well, I’m proficient at most endeavors I turn my mind to. But as much as I’d love to keep talking about myself, I think we should have our conversation so we can move onto better activities tonight.”
His breath shivered across her cheek, firing up all her nerve endings. A moment passed before she could find words. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She attempted to sound like he didn’t affect her, but his wide smirk told her she was fooling no one. The smug elf knew how he could play her body and make it sing.
She forced her mind to switch gears. “So why didn’t you tell me how you could see the potential mates?”
“Because I’ve still been processing it myself. It’s not as if I knew you’d be given the ability too.”
Yeah, all that was probably true. “When did you know about the mates having a yellow aura?”
“When Aistiane arrived unannounced last Sunday.”
“So how does the whole thing work?”
“Like you would guess — you see the yellow aura, and you’ve found one of the prospective mates.”
She thought back to earlier that evening. The woman in the restaurant had been middle-aged, not old but not young, either. What would happen if they found fated mates who were in their sixties, seventies, or even older? Aistiane had mentioned how each human mate would share in their spouses’ longevity, but what if the human was already old?
While she certainly couldn’t claim to know much of elvin culture, she somehow doubted most elves would want to be saddled with someone who looked older than their grandparents.
Worry ate away at her as she stared at Eamon. “What if some of the mates are old? The woman we saw earlier wasn’t young. If they’re any older, I’m afraid that could cause problems.”
“Astute observation. All I know is Aistiane said the aura would show up when it was needed, not before. So it may work in reverse, too, and not appear after a certain amount of time has elapsed.”
His possible explanation made sense. She just hoped it really worked that way. “Once the mates are found, what’s next?”
He hesitated, which couldn’t be a good sign. “Aistiane briefly talked about it when she stopped by on Wednesday. We’re to take the mates to Eria until we can locate their bondmatess. From there, they’ll have the choice to complete the bond or not.”
A wary feeling exploded in her gut. What he’d just sa
id left so much uncovered. There were so many pitfalls that she couldn’t even possibly think of them all. At least, he’d said they’d have the choice of whether or not to bond, but how would they get them to Eria?
Surely, most wouldn’t go willingly. Part of her was frightened Eamon would say the graykindred would have to kidnap them. If that was the answer, she didn’t know how she could help Eamon and Andrian in any way. How could she not, though, when she knew what they all stood to lose? What their worlds stood to lose?
Only one way to find out — she exhaled and threw the question out there. “How are we to get them to Eria?”
Eamon’s whole body grew still. Even his breath seemed to pause. That definitely couldn’t be a positive sign.
He picked up another lock of her hair and stared at the strands as he ran his thumb and index finger over them. “There appears to be no way around it. We’re going to have to transport them to Eria. To do that without garnering undue attention, we need to transport them quickly and efficiently. The way Aistiane suggests is by rendering them unconscious and then taking them to a central holding place within Eria.”
Oh God, render the potential mates unconscious and put them in a holding place? That sounded even more horrific than her law-abiding heart had even feared. She wrapped a trembling arm about her middle. What they’d be doing was not only illegal but also so wrong. “That’s ... that’s terrible. I can’t be a part of something that would take another’s free will away.” Her voice rose in a plea for him to understand.
He gazed back at her steadily. “I know you feel that way, but Aistiane would say it’s for the greater good.”
“What do you think?” She didn’t know why it mattered, but it did.
He seemed to consider his words carefully. “I’m still not happy about the idea of allowing humanity to flood into Eria.”
Disappointment lay bitter in her mouth, nearly choking her with the pungent taste. “That’s the only thing you care about in all this?”
He stared at her, seeming to gaze right through her soul. “On some level I know what we’re being asked to do rests on the fine line between right and wrong. However, such distinctions have never bothered me, in part because I know how blurry they can be. Usually, nothing is ever as clear cut as it seems.” He smiled crookedly. “I’m much more amoral than you could ever hope to be.”
Hope to be? Her tongue swiped at her dry lips. “Why would I ever wish to be amoral?”
“Because it makes doing certain things more palatable when a surfeit of conscience doesn’t weigh one down.”
Oh God, his words revealed the stark truth of what he’d said about many areas being gray and how if one swam in amorality, it was much easier to handle. Scrubbing her hands over her face, she shook her head. “I hate that you’re right. It’s disheartening, depressing.”
She looked down, gazing at his shirt but not really seeing it. A finger slipped under her chin and tilted it up. Eamon’s surprisingly sympathetic face stared back at her. “You hate that I’m right because it’s me or because you find the whole principle of it wrong?”
“Both but mostly the principle of the thing.”
“Ah,” he said as if that explained a wealth of issues. “Well, that will take you some time to sort out, if you ever become comfortable with it at all.”
She groaned and let her head fall back against his shoulder. “You’re not helping.”
“As I’ve said, your moral streak is much larger than mine. It’s merely the truth. While something of this magnitude might hardly faze me, you’re an entirely different tale.”
Tilting her head upward and to the side, she glanced at him. “So what you said about the fated mates having a choice to bond or not — if they chose not to, they can return to Earth without any lingering consequences?”
A strange look flowed across his countenance. “It doesn’t quite work that way.”
Foreboding settled in her already tight chest like a lead weight, and she sat up straight to face him. “What do you mean?”
“From the moment two potential mates meet, a bond starts forming. Though it takes intent and consummation to finalize the bond, the tie is there right from the start. It’s merely a matter of degree and exists to some extent before any bonding. The bonding is typically the public ceremony before the consummation, but it can occur before any outward declaration if the couple is sexually active and has some intent to fully bind themselves together.”
Though she caught all his words, her mind had trouble processing all the possible repercussions. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “What effects do an uncompleted bond have?”
“Supposedly, a general feeling of malaise and dissatisfaction.”
“We’re sentencing these people to a lifetime of misery?” She pulled away from him, but his arms kept her in his lap.
“Only if they don’t go through with the bond.”
Like that was supposed to make her feel any happier? She crossed her arms over her chest right above where his arm was loosely banded about her. “And if they do? Would they be any more content?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m not a seer, so I can’t make that claim. But barring the occasional unlikely circumstance, I don’t know why they wouldn’t be. After all, these individuals are supposed to be meant for their Erian mates. Their souls should recognize each other soon after they meet.” He paused and then added casually, “Plus, if they complete the bond, the human mate gets the benefit of a nearly immortal life.”
With her mouth hanging open, she regarded him. “What?”
A lazy smile curved his lips. “Human mates share the lifespan of their elvin spouse and die when they die. Of course, the human mates don’t just drop dead but die over the course of the next few months as their life energies leave them.”
“Oh.” She frowned, filing away that mindbender for later. Right now, it was impossible to even imagine that sort of life, so she tackled another problem. “Even if their souls do meet on some level, how will they find their mates out of all the elves in Eria?”
“Aistiane hopes to create a location spell. It won’t give us the exact whereabouts of the elvin mate but more of a general area where he or she may be located.”
“How will that help in a populous area?”
His lips thinned. “It might not. There are still many issues, both those foreseen and those not, to work out. I certainly don’t have all the answers, and if Aistiane does, she’s not telling.”
The grumpiness in his voice reminded her of a putout child. It was more adorable than it should be and nearly made her crack a smile. The seriousness of the subject, though, set like an uncomfortable pressure in her chest, and the grin died on her lips before it could truly form. “Not having all the answers is what really worries me. What if we do more harm than good?”
Eamon didn’t look very concerned. “If it were just me, that would be a very possible outcome, but as much I dislike Aistiane, she knows far more than she lets on. I’m afraid she has more scruples than me, so I’m sure she’ll endeavor only to bring the best to both our worlds.
Meaning if he weren’t leashed, he probably wouldn’t. She put that troubling thought to the back of her mind. The situation was bad enough without her dwelling on how Eamon would likely leave the Earth to, as he’d so tastefully put it before, “burn.”
“Even with Aistiane spearheading this ... project, I’m not sure I can do this.” On so many levels, she saw her possible failure. She looked down, gazing at his shirt but not really seeing it.
A finger slipped under her chin and tilted up her face. Her eyes met Eamon’s. A burst of surprise wove through her. He wore a sympathetic expression that would’ve been out of place not even a week and a half ago. Who was she kidding? It was still a strange thing to see on him.
He twined his fingers through her hair and pressed his fingertips gently against the back of her head. “You can do this. And I’m selfish enough to want you to.”
“You dare to ask if I’m truly that selfish?” He quirked a brow as if in challenge.
“Never. I agree wholeheartedly with that assessment. What I meant was you really want my help?”
A troubled look skulked in his eyes, but he appeared to try to cover up any evidence of it with a smirk. “Though it pains me to admit it, you’re one of my few comforts on Earth. So far, you’re also one of my only contacts. I’m much too selfish to give that up willingly. After all, I do rely on you to a certain extent.”
The begrudging note in his voice showed how much he hated that fact. Her being human probably compounded the issue. It wasn’t exactly a declaration of love, not that she wanted one, right? Still, it was more than she’d ever expected from him — that against his will, he seemed to care for her.
It was a sentiment she returned against her better judgment. She cared for him. She wouldn’t be sleeping with him if she didn’t. He could still be an arrogant bastard, though most of the time he softened his harsh, sarcastic demeanor around her. Regardless, he was her arrogant bastard.
Her thoughts paused, and she looked at him only to see him still regarding her. Was he hers? God help her, she wanted him to be. She knew what lay beneath his cold exterior, and it wasn’t all horrible. He could be sweet and tender, even if those moments didn’t last long.
The breath seemed to be sucked from her lungs. If he were anyone but himself, she’d think she loved him. Love couldn’t play into it, though, could it? Some snide yet wise part of her jeered at her foolishness. Of course it could. She was lying to herself and knew it well. People fell in love with the most unsuitable individuals all the time. And she had — so quickly and so unwittingly, it nearly brought tears of despair to her eyes.
Caralyn, how could you be so stupid? So, so stupid? The words rolled around her mind like a chant. Worse, the voice sounded suspiciously like her mother’s with just a hint of her father’s thrown in for good measure.