Knights of Black Swan, Books 7-9 (Knights of Black Swan Box Set Book 3)

by Victoria Danann

  He looked where she pointed. “Could be. It’s red.” She tried it and smiled. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “It’s our first real meal together.”

  “You don’t count half a protein bar.”

  “Okay. It’s our first meal together with furniture involved.” She smiled as she chewed a piece of cheesy bread. “You take good care of me.”

  “Glad you noticed.”

  “Who’s taking care of you?”

  He stopped dead still. “What do you mean?”

  “Who’s making sure you got enough sleep, got a shower, got breakfast? I’m not used to being a taker. Doesn’t feel right.”

  Raif’s eyes traveled down her body suggestively. “Well, if you’re saying you’d like to return some favors…” She giggled and he looked mesmerized. “Is that a yes?”

  She took a forkful of something that looked like hash. “It’s a maybe,” she smiled with a teasing flirtatiousness she didn’t even know she had in her.

  Seeing that look directed at him, Raif felt like all the blood in his body rushed to his groin. If he didn’t know how badly she needed to replenish her body’s reserves, he would have lunged at her. That, plus there was business to take care of first.

  “If that look means what I think it means, then I’m your guy.”

  She stopped with her fork in the air. “You’re my guy?” He nodded. “But you’re putting conditions on that? You’re my guy, but only if I’m looking at you with a promise of carnal delight?”

  Raif lips parted in reaction to paralysis of tongue while he tried to sort out what he was supposed to say.

  “You should see your face,” she laughed. “I’m just kidding. Don’t look so scared. I’m not making a claim on you or anything like that.”

  Raif stood and started stacking all the food, some on the little desk-table, some on the dresser. She watched dumbfounded as he carefully built towers of food. First a plate, then a stainless steel cover, then a plate, and so on until he’d cleared the entire bed. Then he took the plate Mercy was working on and set it on the nightstand before sitting beside her. Close beside her.

  “Mercy, do you want to make a claim on me?” Her lips parted and her eyes moved to his lips before coming back to his beautifully pale eyes. “Say yes. Because that’s what I want. Hel yes I’m your guy. Whether you’re looking at me like you want to eat me or looking at me like you want to kill me.” He smiled. “Which, in its own way, is almost as cute.”

  He reached over, took her hands in his, and intertwined their fingers. “Sir Nightsong.” Gods he liked the way that sounded. “Let’s talk about the speed dating thing.”

  He groaned and closed his eyes. “Not again. I told you I…”

  “Just listen. I heard your story. It’s only fair you hear mine.” With clear reluctance, he nodded. “I’m not an overly emotional person. The way you made me feel that day, well I hated you for it. I practically ran out of there. I was out on the streets, crying and not able to stop. It was so humiliating to put on a spectacle like that. In front of all those strangers. The way people looked at me. Curiosity. Sympathy. Disdain. I hated you for that, too.

  “So, like I told you, I went back to work and decided that dating isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I told myself that I had what most people want, fulfilling self-actualizing work. I threw myself into mentoring grad students and volunteered to serve on a couple of boards. I’d been busy before, but I was determined to fill every minute of every day.”

  She stopped and looked away. He didn’t say anything, but squeezed her hand in a gesture of encouragement.

  “The thing is,” she looked up at him, “it still didn’t get you out of my mind.” Raif’s face went slack at that revelation. That was, apparently, the last thing he’d expected to hear. “I despised you for rejecting me the way you did, but I was also, I don’t know how I should describe it, obsessed I guess.”

  Raif’s face was as full of wonder as if he was witnessing a miracle. “You were obsessed with me?”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “That’s… awesome. Also sick and perverted. But go on.”

  She laughed. “Anyway, as the time went by I couldn’t recall your face in detail. All that remained was an impression of black hair, pale eyes, naughty boy beauty.”

  He stifled a laugh. “Naughty boy beauty? Please, I’m begging, never say that in front of other people or I’ll have to commit honor suicide.”

  Mercy rolled her eyes. “Do you want me to finish or not?”

  “I do,” he said and closed the inch between them so that they were sitting as close as two people can sit.

  “That’s pretty much it. The supreme irony is I took this job thinking it would be the very thing I needed to finally get you out of my head and stop obsessing about you. You know the rest. I got on that plane and there you were.”

  “Can I ask a couple of questions?”

  She suddenly looked guarded. “Like what?”

  “All the flirting with my partner?”

  “Oh.” He could see the blush start to rise in her cheeks. Fascinating. He reached up and trailed a fingertip down her face to see if it made her skin hot to the touch. “That was my insurance policy to be certain I didn’t give away that I was attracted to you and making an even bigger fool of myself.”

  That answer seemed to please him immensely. “Women are evil.”

  “Nah. Just me.”

  “Next question. Are you claiming me?”

  In a move that took the breath from her body, Raif pulled her up and rearranged her on the bed, on her back, and tucked underneath him. He buried his face in her neck and inhaled her scent, then started nibbling, which made her gasp, her body arching toward him in a ritual of reflex as old as the race.

  “Not letting you up until you say it.”

  She started laughing at the way her body responded to him so completely and immediately, as if her genetic particles were reaching out in hopes of combining with his.

  “Yes.”

  He lifted his head up so he could look into her face. “Yes?” She nodded, looking at his lips with a hunger that was both invitation and demand. “You and me? Exclusive. Right?”

  “Right.”

  He gave her the kiss she was asking for. She didn’t know that kisses could be so thorough or last so long. Or that they could communicate so much feeling. She felt the swell in his jeans grind against her. Her body rocked upward in response.

  With a frustrated growl and without warning, he tore away from the kiss and practically leapt from the bed. That left Mercy staring in confusion and wondering what the devil just happened. She was learning that Raif liked to do things fast and abrupt. No grass growing under his feet.

  “Duty calling, babe. We got business to take care of first.”

  “What business?” He looked at his watch. “We’re expected downstairs in twenty minutes for debriefing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Means we have to go tell our story to our boss and my team mates. You have just enough time to finish eating and get some clothes on. I’m going to take a shower while you do that, then I’ll go down with you.”

  She sat up and scowled. “That woman. Who was in here last night. She said the man with her is my boss.”

  Raif looked interested in that. “What was his name?”

  “Um, I don’t know. I was tired and it’s kind of hazy.”

  “About my size? Buzzed hair? Brown eyes?”

  Mercy nodded. “That seems right.”

  Raif whistled long and low. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough.” He took hold of the door knob. “Back in fifteen minutes.”

  When Mercy walked down the hallway with Raif, she was more than happy to stop at the elevator and make good use of it. There was a lot to be said for a few hours’ sleep, a good breakfast, and being clean, but she still felt like she’d been run over by a semi.

  When they got off the elevator Glen was waiti
ng to walk them to the room that had been reserved for their use. There were four others waiting: Torn, Gun, Rev, and Farnsworth. Rev was at the far end of the oblong table. At the end nearest the door, two chairs were situated side by side. Assuming that they were meant to sit in those two, Raif pulled out one of the chairs for Mercy.

  She looked up at him for reassurance, silently communicating that this was her first debriefing. He nodded almost imperceptibly and, when they were seated, he reached for her hand under the table. Her eyes kept going to the handsome woman sitting at the end. She knew that woman was lying about being her mother because, for one thing, she wasn’t nearly old enough. That woman looked no more than ten years older than she, if that.

  Glen pointed at the coffee service. Looking between Raif and Mercy, he asked if he could get them anything.

  “Black. No sugar,” said Raif.

  Glen looked at Mercy. “Water. Please.”

  While Glen was busy with his volunteer mission of filling beverage requests, Rev decided to get the party started.

  “This is not a formal procedure, just co-workers eager to hear what happened. It goes without saying that we’re very happy and relieved to have you back, but frankly, your sudden appearance in the middle of the night is, if not a miracle, at least a mystery.” Glen took his seat again after delivering drinks. “I’m going to ask you to simply tell us how you came to be here. If we have questions, we’ll try to save them until the end, but make no promises. Sir Nightsong. Dr Renaux. You have the floor.”

  Raif cleared his throat. “I was the one taking a turn inside the burial chamber with Dr. Renaux when the quake occurred. Professor Yanov had left to retrieve documents at Dr. Renaux’s request. So we were the only two.” He glanced at Mercy, almost like he was asking for confirmation. “When I realized what was happening, I saw that the cavern was collapsing between the exit and our location. The only possibility of survival was to go deeper into the mountain. So I grabbed Dr. Renaux and we ran for it.

  “We lost our footing a few times when the ground heaved under us. One of those resulted in a scrape on Dr. Renaux’s leg, but it wasn’t deep. That was the only injury we sustained, other than the minor bruises and soreness that you might expect from repeated falls.

  “When it was over, we stopped to let our minds catch up to what had happened and outline our options.”

  Raif told the rest of the story with surprisingly vivid detail, leaving out any mention of interaction between the two of them. Mercy could tell that he must have performed the activity of debriefing many times because he did it with such obvious ease.

  At one point she was horrified to realize she was nodding off. The combination of still being tired, knowing that she was safe and secure, and the comfort of listening to Raif’s voice was lulling her to sleep like a lullaby. She jerked up when her head started to droop toward her chest.

  “Are we putting you to sleep, Dr. Renaux?” Rev sounded amused.

  “I’m sorry. I…”

  Raif cut her off. “When we’re sitting here in this nice clean climate controlled room with a nice breakfast under our belts, perhaps my telling doesn’t adequately convey what she’s been through. Of course she’s tired. She should be upstairs sleeping right now.”

  Rev was studying Raif with interest. “No offense was intended.” He turned his gaze on Mercy. “Would you like to be excused, Dr. Renaux? Sir Catch will escort you to your room if this is too much too soon.”

  “No,” she said simply and quietly. Raif leaned over and whispered something in her ear. “No… sir.” She looked at Glen. “Is the coffee option still open? All the way? Cream and three sugars.”

  Raif smiled at that and committed it to memory. Glen quickly and expertly prepared a cup of coffee to her specifications and set it down in front of her.

  “Dr. Renaux,” Rev addressed her again. “Do you have anything you’d like to add?”

  She looked at Raif and suddenly found tears filling her eyes. It surprised her more than anyone. Worse, it seemed her throat had closed up and she was finding it hard to talk. He looked at her with worry and was squeezing her hand harder. She remembered Raif telling her that something similar happened to him on the plane when she’d made an overture.

  She held up her index finger to indicate that she needed a minute to pull herself together. All the men except for Raif looked away, thinking they would spare her embarrassment. After a few minutes the stream of tears slowed and she was able to speak in broken sentences. Glen, who was considerate to a fault, gathered up the paper napkins on the coffee service tray and laid them in front of Mercy. She immediately grabbed one and used it like a tissue.

  “I just want to say that…” She pressed her lips together tightly to try to contain the turbulent emotion, but to her dismay her body was out of her control. She was overcome with waves of feeling that had to be released and could only find release in tears. “I was sure we were going to die.”

  She looked over and smiled at Raif through her tears. Everybody in the room knew that they were witnessing two miracles. The first was being in the presence of a couple who had escaped certain entombment, against all odds. The second was being in the presence of a couple who had fallen in love, against all odds.

  “But Raif… Raif joked about dying, a lot. But the whole time he acted like we were lucky to be alive.”

  A look passed between Torn and Gun that said, “Who is she talking about?”

  “And we are. Lucky to be alive. All because of him. There’s no one else like him.”

  Farnsworth was silently crying at that point. Glen might have been resisting the urge.

  “No doubt that’s true,” Rev said, recalling every word he, in both incarnations, had ever thought or said about the members of Z Team. The fact that it turned out that one of the miscreants saved his soon-to-be-stepdaughter’s life only underscored the fact that life is strange. “Anybody else have questions?”

  “Aye. Ask ‘em where they spent the night last night.”

  Raif practically lunged at Torn thinking he would rip the shit eating skin from the fucker’s face. Torn would normally open his arms in a smarmy challenge, but he really wasn’t in good enough physical shape, after his own ordeal, to be goading his partner into an MMA match. So when he saw Raif coming for him, he didn’t cower, but his eyes did flare as he braced for a world of pain.

  Fortunately for Torn, Gunnar was sitting between them and tackled Raif to the ground. “Rafael! Stop! He’s hurt. On the D.L.” That made Raif still. “He’s hurt,” Gun repeated. “You’ll have to take it out of his hide after he’s had a chance to mend.”

  Farnsworth looked at Rev. “Does this sort of thing happen often?”

  Rev shook his head. “Only with this bunch. Thorn. In. My. Side.”

  “Okay. Get off me,” Raif said. He stood up and got in Torn’s face. “Apologize to her.”

  “Why?” Torn said.

  “You tried to embarrass her.”

  Torn looked at Mercy sheepishly. “Sorry. You know I like you.” He winked at Mercy and Raif lunged for him.

  “Fucker!”

  It took both Gun and Glen to get him to the ground that time. The only thing that restored order was Mercy leaning over Raif, as he was on his back, pinned down by two of his team mates. She said, “You know I don’t care who knows that I was sleeping in your bed last night. You’re my guy and I want everybody to know it.”

  At that all the straining and tension left Raif. He went still on the floor, completely relaxed. Glen and Gun eased up.

  “You good?” Gun asked.

  Raif nodded and smiled. “I’m good. I’m her guy.” He looked toward Torn. “But you better control that loud-mouthed moron because the next thing he says is going to put him in traction.”

  Gun turned to Torn. “You got that, loud-mouthed moron?”

  “Aye. ‘Tis no much fun here anyway. I’m ready for a pre-lunch whiskey.”

  As they were filing out of the room, Glen was sayi
ng, “You’re not having any whiskey until you turn over those pain pills.”

  The four who were left in the room stared at each other for a minute. Finally, Raif leaned toward Mercy. “Would you like to hear what she has to say?”

  Mercy took a long time to answer, staring at Farnsworth the whole time. At length, she nodded.

  “Would you like us to leave the two of you alone?”

  She shook her head immediately. Raif looked at Farnsworth as if to say, “Well. Here’s your chance. It’s now or never.”

  Slowly Farnsworth got up, walked the length of the room, and sat down on Mercy’s other side. With a quiet calm she said, “I’d like to tell you the story if that’s alright.”

  Mercy studied the woman’s face for a few seconds and nodded.

  Farnsworth began by saying, “My name is Susan Farnsworth. I also work for The Order, which is how I was able to find you.”

  She went on to relay the entire story. How young she’d been when her parents made the decision for her. How they and the adoption staff had persuaded her with the argument that she had no way to raise a child and that a couple of means who wanted a baby would be the best thing, they would dote and spoil and overeducate.

  “In a perfect world.” Mercy found her voice. “That’s what’s supposed to happen in a perfect world. My adoptive parents were killed in a car accident when I was still a baby. I was raised by a widowed grandmother who didn’t want me and could barely stand the sight of me. The relationship was neglectful at best and abusive at worst.”

  Farnsworth let out an almost inaudible whimper.

  Mercy pressed on. “Why now? Why did you decide to look for me now?”

  “They said the records would be closed to protect the adoptive parents and you. They insisted that it would be the best thing for you to be left alone and said that, if you wanted to find me when you were an adult, you would. The former Sovereign convinced me that I would never be at peace until I looked for you.”

  Mercy’s eyes went to Rev. “And you’re in a relationship?”

  Rev blinked once slowly. He wasn’t accustomed to being addressed in that tone by people who worked for him. He took a deep breath and remembered that it was a peculiarly unique circumstance. “She’s my fiancée.”