Sydney moved up the stairs at a sedate human pace, even though she wanted to blast up them like a gunshot. Only, there were housekeepers and maids working in the upstairs rooms.
Alex was there before her, pacing the rug in front of the big bed. He turned as Sydney entered the big room and pointed to the en suite.
Sydney nodded. She could hear the shower running, too. “Why didn’t I hear him come in?” She sub-vocalized, because Alex would hear it anyway, and over the running water, Rafe would not.
Alex turned at the end of his pacing track. “Taxi at the back entrance.” His voice was bodiless, too. He pointed through the curved archway into the big walk-in closet they shared.
Sydney took two steps and looked through the arch.
There was an island of drawers in the middle of the closet, and a bench beside it. Rafe’s leather duffel bag sat on the velvet cushion.
There were flight tags on the duffel.
Sydney’s belly tightened and her chest ached at this hurtful reminder. He hadn’t even asked her to jump him there. He had taken a commercial flight. The fact was devastating. It hurt more than the reason he had gone to the States.
The water turned off in the en suite.
Never had the cessation of such a soft sound startled Sydney as much as that sudden silence did. It seemed to boom and throb in her temples, making her heart hurt. She would have to feed after these coming moments. She had been forced to feed for three out of the five days Rafe had been gone, anyway, for her heart had not settled despite all her efforts.
She realized she was staring at the en suite door, waiting for it to open.
Alex touched her arm. She nearly levitated from the floor. He gripped both her arms, to steady her, and rested his head against hers. “Breathe,” he murmured.
“I can’t,” she whispered back.
He rubbed her arms gently, in sympathy. Alex had fed twice since Rafael left, too.
When the door opened, Alex stepped away from her, straightening with almost a guilty jerk.
Rafael moved out into the bedroom. He was gloriously naked and still damp. Sydney caught her breath, trying to push away her almost instant reaction to the sight of his lean body, the olive skin and the muscles working beneath the flesh. She couldn’t afford to be distracted now.
Rafe paused, taking in that both of them were in the room. His smile was small and warm. “Well, hello,” he said, his voice warm, too. “The welcoming committee.”
“No, Rafe. We aren’t,” Alex said.
Rafe frowned. Was he actually puzzled by that?
“We’ve been waiting for you to get back—” Sydney began.
“I told you I would be gone for a week,” Rafe pointed out, his tone reasonable.
“That’s not the point!” Sydney shot back. Her voice was rising despite trying to prepare for this for days.
Rafe threw up his hand. “Uh-uh-uh!” He shook his head. “We do this the civilized way.”
Alex sighed. “Not when you’re wet and naked, Rafe.” His tone was also reasonable. Yet Sydney could see his jaw was working. He was riding herd on his reactions, too.
Rafe narrowed his eyes. “I see. Then I had better get dressed.”
Sydney moved aside as Rafe padded across the room to the closet and went inside. She stepped back again. She couldn’t help herself. She watched Rafe select trousers and a sweater—black, of course—and swiftly put them on. He didn’t glance at them. He didn’t speak. A tiny furrow ran between his brows. Was he concentrating? Trying to figure out what they wanted?
Sydney steeled herself against the fear which tried to rise because she could not measure Rafe’s mood. She had been able to for years. Now, she couldn’t even guess.
Rafe didn’t bother with shoes. He walked back out to the main room, and over to Alex and gripped his shirtfront.
“No, this isn’t the time, Rafe,” Alex said.
“Yes, it is. It must be. We say hello and goodbye, always, no matter what happens on either side of it.”
Alex sighed.
Rafe kissed him, a soft and lingering touch of the lips. “Alexander,” he whispered, then dropped his hands.
As he turned away, Alex closed his eyes, his face working hard.
Sydney rubbed her temples with both hands. She wasn’t sure she could take this.
Rafe moved to stand before her. He curled his hand around her neck and brushed her jaw with his thumb. “Sydney…” He bent and kissed her.
The touch of his lips was shocking. His gaze met hers as he let her go.
Sydney looked away. She couldn’t help it. Meeting his gaze would reveal too much of her own chaotic thoughts.
Rafe moved back to the bed and settled on it and crossed his legs. He rested his hands on his knees. “Now, say what you must.”
Alex glanced at Sydney. She could read his mind in that strained stare. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t know how to start.
Sydney crossed her arms. “You went to the States. We know why. And I’m not speaking for Alex. I’m pissed as hell about it, Rafe.”
Rafael sat like a statue for too many heartbeats. Then he said softly, “I should have expected that. Sydney the Detective. You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
“That’s not the point,” she said, although guilt stirred in her chest. She had called in favors going back years, tracking Rafe through international databases, then tapping contacts in police departments in California, who all tracked Rafe’s movements and faithfully reported back. As everyone who had known her in California thought she was dead, the work had been challenging.
Rafael’s face hardened. “I’m surprised you even noticed I was gone.”
“Rafe!” Alex said, startled.
“I’m including you in that, too, Alex,” Rafael replied. He bounced off the bed, suddenly angry himself. “So I went to California. It had absolutely nothing to do with either of you. Why do you both stand there, interrogating me?”
Alex threw out his hand. “You went to visit your family. Your previous family!”
Rafael flicked his hand, an irritated gesture. “Do not dare lecture me on identity security. I stayed incognito. No one knew who I was. I avoided cameras and CCTVs and cellphones. Everyone but the family still thinks I’m dead.”
“God, you will deny it until we drop you into it!” Sydney cried. “We don’t give a damn about security, either!”
Rafe spun to face her. His face worked. “I must be dropped into it?” He pointed at her and then at Alex. “Look at you. Joined at the hip. Elbows linked. Did you work out a script together before you came up here and shanghaied me?”
Sydney recoiled, stunned.
“Rafe, don’t be ridiculous,” Alex began.
Rafael confronted him. “No. Do not do that reasonable thing. This is not a reasonable discussion. Fight me, damn it!”
“You want us to be pissed?” Alex demanded.
Rafe laughed. “I want something out of you. Anything at all would be nice.”
Sydney squeezed the flesh over the bridge of her nose, trying to refocus. “What are you saying, Rafe?”
His laugh was as bitter as the first. “The great detective! You can’t see what is right before you, can you? Too busy poking into other people’s lives—”
“Rafael, stop,” Alex said sharply. “You can batter us with rhetoric, and passion and anger and you may feel as though you’ve won, but it won’t solve anything. Stop insulting Sydney. Stop provoking me. You’re using it as a shield. Drop the shield and talk to us.”
Sydney wanted to hug Alex. Or hold him and smother him with kisses. He’d seen what Rafe was trying to do.
Rafe pushed his sleeves up his arms, baring his forearms with violent movements. “Calm, huh?” He drew a breath. Let it out. “Can either of you remember why we came here?”
“To Granada?” Sydney asked, surprised. “It was your idea, Rafe.”
“No it wasn’t!” Rafael cried, thumping his fist into his palm. “I said To
ledo. Or Zaragoza, or anywhere in the north! Instead we came here, where Alex wanted to go!”
Alex rubbed the back of his neck. “I was offered the contract at the university…”
“No,” Rafael said. “You got the contract afterwards. For a vampire, you have a shitty memory. Or maybe you’re choosing to remember it that way. It makes a nice, smooth narrative, doesn’t it?”
Sydney pressed her hand to her chest. The urge to feed was building, exacerbated by this toxic outpouring. “This is getting way off the point—”
“No, this is the point,” Rafe shot back. “This is my land. My people. Only Alex took over, like he always does. The great interloper. Everyone talks about how polite Alex is, but that’s a complete crock. He smiles and does exactly what he wants and fuck what anyone else wants.”
Sydney couldn’t find any sane response. She was too floored to gather words together. She wasn’t even sure what she would say. She didn’t know what she was feeling.
She was numb with shock.
“Why go back to see people who think you are dead, Rafe?” Alex asked. “Why leave us?”
Sydney realized what he was doing. He was ignoring Rafe’s attacks. Batting them aside and coming back to the point, over and over. He would drive it home, no matter how furious Rafe got.
Did that make Rafe right? Did Alex always get what he wanted?
“I came back, didn’t I?” Rafe said to Alex, his tone hard.
“Why?” Alex asked.
For the first time, Rafe hesitated. “Why?” he repeated. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Suddenly, the words were there. Alex had shown her the shape of it with his odd questions. She nodded. “Yes, why, Rafe? That’s not what you do. You drift. You unconnect. You shy away.”
Alex drew in a sharp breath, as if Sydney had struck him with her words. “Yes,” he said. “In all of time, you’ve never stayed true to anyone. Not like Veris and Brody.”
“That’s not the way of the Blood,” Rafael said. “Those two are aberrations. You didn’t stay with anyone either, Alex.”
“I did,” Alex said softly. “I remained friends with Brody for centuries. Friends, Rafe. A true connection. You can’t claim a single friend in all that time. Not one.”
“And now you’re trying to pull away from us,” Sydney added. The words were difficult to say, because they were raw truth.
“Us,” Rafael repeated. His mouth turned down. “It’s always only ever been you and Alex, hasn’t it? I’m the attachment.”
“What are you doing, Rafe?” Sydney asked, appalled. “Are you trying to make us angry?”
“Yes, he is,” Alex said softly, his gaze upon Rafael.
“I don’t have to try!” Rafael cried. “I just have to speak the truth. Don’t you see? Why have you never gone back in time with me, Sydney? You dived back to that sandy hell of Alex’s in a heartbeat, but you’ve never even asked about my past.”
“You won’t talk about it!” Sydney shot back. “Neither of you do!”
Rafael nodded, as if she had answered his question. “The Sydney and Alex show. I’m just the useful tool who solves everyone else’s issues but mine.” His mouth turned down again. “At least my human families wanted me.”
“Some commitment that was, Rafe,” Sydney said, her tone withering. “A few decades, maybe a century, then they die and you’re free again.”
Alex caught his breath, as Rafael’s face sagged in shock.
Sydney drew in a shuddering breath, just as surprised as both of them. Where had that come from? Like many of the profound truths she had stumbled over in the last few years, this one had come from deep inside, rising like molten lava.
“Mama, why are you all shouting?” Liberty said, from the open door of the bedroom.
Sydney whirled, horror swirling through her. “Oh, honey, don’t be afraid!” She scooped her up.
Liberty looked at her with her huge brown eyes, sorrow and fear filling them.
“We’re just having a grown-up argument. People do that,” Sydney told her.
Rafael made a choking sound.
Sydney spun to face him again. “Rafe, I’m sorry. I don’t know where it came from.”
“Only you meant it,” Rafael said softly.
“Mama!” Liberty plucked at Sydney’s shirt, her tone pleading.
“We can’t do this now,” Alex said, his tone soft and soothing, to avoid frightening Liberty any more.
“We must,” Sydney begged. “We cannot table this. Alex, you and Rafael should go somewhere safe and sort this out.”
“I just got back—” Rafael began.
Sydney shook her head. “No. No excuses. No putting this off. There’s far more going on here than any of us realized. If we don’t air it, it will rot away and ruin…everything.”
Alex gave a great sigh. “Sydney is right, Rafe. It must be now. Will you come with me?”
Rafael hesitated.
Sydney made herself meet his gaze. “Please, Rafe.”
He made a soft sound in his throat. She couldn’t tell if it was irritation or surrender. “Very well.”
Sydney brushed Liberty’s hair from her face. “Are you hungry, sweetheart?”
Liberty nodded.
“I’ll get Liberty some lunch and…all the usual things,” Sydney said. Normal. She could do normal while Alex and Rafe sorted out the rest of their lives…she hoped.
Alex nodded. His expression was strained, too. He knew that the next few hours would be pivotal, too.
Sydney made herself walk out of the room as Alex and Rafe discussed where they could go in polite tones. She forced herself to respond as she always did to Liberty’s endless questions. Like Alex, Liberty had an insatiable curiosity.
Reassured by the shift back to everyday routine, Liberty chatted non-stop in a charming blend of English, Spanish and Arabic. It took mental energy to follow her chatter, which helped Sydney keep her thoughts away from what had just happened.
She had settled at the table with Liberty, to help her cut up her lamb chop and eat her vegetables, when Rafael came into the room, moving like a shadow.
Sydney watched him warily.
He didn’t smile. “I wanted to stay goodbye.”
“As angry as you are, you still want to?” she murmured, while Liberty focused on stabbing a pea with her oversized fork.
“Because I am so angry, I must,” he insisted.
Sydney’s eyes ached. Stung. She couldn’t speak.
Rafe made a soft sound and touched her cheek. “No, no…it is not for this I insist,” he said softly. “It is to reassure you.”
Sydney shook her head. “You insist because you want all your accounts squared away,” she replied. “Because you might not come back.”
Rafael bent and kissed her damp cheek. “I love you, guardián de mi alma.”
Then he turned and left.
More Time Kissed Moments
[11]
Canmore, in the Rocky Mountains, Alberta, Canada. A few minutes later.
Alex soothed her, with murmurs and words and kisses, his hands stroking. Sydney relaxed in his arms. Only with Alex and Rafael could she let herself be petty and weak.
Please let Rafael come back to them!
If only he did, she would listen and fix and change… She would work her fingers to the bone to show Rafael he was wanted and loved and that she needed him to stay.
She sighed. “Please let him come back.”
Alex kissed her temple. “We have this grand ambition to save time, to not change history, yet with everything we do, we change it. We have accidentally and deliberately changed history so many times, I am sometimes shocked we are all still standing here. Only, have you noticed the one thing which does not change?”
Sydney shook her head, her cheek rubbing against the soft cotton of his shirt.
“I learned something tonight,” Alex said. “From Brody. I will tell you about it one day…or perhaps Rafael may yet come to relate that story. Anyway
…I learned that the people in this house are so interconnected, it doesn’t matter how much we try to change things or keep them as we think they should be. We, all of us, have gone through trials and times we should not have survived…and yet we always come back to each other.”
“Always?”
“I’ve been thinking about it since I spoke to Brody. The four of us have known each other for centuries. We kept turning up in each other’s lives, over and over. Sometimes by design, sometimes by accident.
“Since Brody and Veris finally met Taylor, whom they have been waiting to find for hundreds of years, it is as though we have entered a new phase. You and Taylor, London and Neven and Remy…Marit and Alannah and Aran and even Jesse—”
“And Liberty and Jason,” Sydney added.
“They, too…all of us are repeating the pattern which the four of us maintained, only the numbers are greater and the repeats tighter and more concentrated. And I think I’ve stretched this analogy as far as it should go.” His arm tightened. “My point was, that we are all connected, and we all return to each other. Over and over again. That gives me hope.”
Sydney drew in a lungful of the cool air and let it out. “I will keep that in mind.” She kissed him.
A knocking sounded, drawing their attention away from each other.
Aran stood at the back door, his knuckles against the frame. “Time to go, guys.”
Alex took Sydney’s hand. “Let’s get him back.”
Everyone was gearing up as Alex and Sydney returned to the living room, except for David, who stood to one side, frowning.
“I did say only a small team should go, did I not?” he said, speaking to Veris. “We’ll be jumping into a public space. Too many will increase the chances of being noticed.”
Veris pushed a wide-bladed knife into the hilt on his belt and held his gaze. “I dare you to tell anyone in this room they can’t come.” He paused. “Please,” he added, with a fake bright smile.
Everyone paused, watching David. Waiting for him to single them out.
Sydney realized with a start that fifteen people were in the big living room. Even Alannah sat on the sofa, with Jason on her knee and Liberty tucked up against her.
More Time Kissed Moments Page 19
