by I. T. Lucas
Frustration came on the heels of an overwhelming need to shield Carol from all the ugliness. He wanted to create a cocoon for her, a place where she would be safe and free to be herself, soft and sweet and tempting. But he was in no position to pamper her, let alone protect her.
Besides, Carol was an independent and adventurous spirit, and she would not have appreciated him trying to coddle her.
He could, however, redirect the conversation.
Wrapping an arm around Carol’s shoulders, Lokan pulled her closer to him. “The Russian can be useful for many things. He can arrange assassinations, and he can supply the clan with weapons they can’t get their hands on legally. All for the right price or in exchange for keeping the dirt I have on him from reaching Putin.”
She tilted her head. “Extortion?”
“Precisely.”
Carol straightened her back and turned to face him. “I can think of another thing he could be useful for. He can get me on the island.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “He can bring me along as his plaything. We then pretend to have a fight, and he leaves me there. I find a way to get myself assigned to the harem, and when I’m done with the investigation, the clan organizes an extraction, maybe even with Gorchenco’s help. I can still dream-share with you from over there. It is not limited by distance, right?”
“It’s not. But there is one big hole in your crazy idea. You are too beautiful to get assigned housekeeping work. You would get conscripted into the brothel, and to ensure your cooperation, an immortal will attempt to thrall you. Game over.”
Huffing out a breath, Carol slumped back on his arm. “What if I have a disability? I won't be suitable for the brothel if I have a lame leg or if I’m deaf. I can pretend.”
“Wouldn’t work. We have doctors on the island, and every girl gets a thorough physical before being put into service.”
“You are smart.” She waved a hand. “How about you come up with some ideas instead of shooting down all of mine?”
She looked so disappointed, but he couldn’t let her think her plan was actionable.
“They were all very clever and inventive, but you can’t do it alone. With me, it was dangerous. Without me, it’s suicide.”
Carol shook her head. “I’m not giving up so easily. What if I can thrall the pilots? I just need them to cooperate with me for a little while, so a thrall might be enough.”
“The compulsion makes them unsusceptible to thralling. I made sure of that.”
“Crap, and double crap. What about shrouding? I’m better at that than thralling anyway. I can make myself invisible to them and sneak onto the transport plane.”
“My instructions to the pilots were about not accepting orders from anyone they are not supposed to, and about not revealing any information about the island, so shrouding might work on them. But it will not work on the immortals who check all incoming planes.”
“Well, I won’t have to hide if I come with Gorchenco, right?”
“This is futile. We are going round in circles. You are not doing this, and that’s it. Hell, I wasn’t sure about this plan when the idea was for me to go with you, but I’m absolutely certain that you can’t do it alone.”
Palming the back of his neck, Carol pulled him down to her. With their noses almost touching, she looked into his eyes. “I’m not giving up. If you and Kian and Turner put your heads together, I’m sure you will come up with a solution.”
Instead of answering, Lokan closed the rest of the distance and kissed her. “I can’t think straight when I’m lusting after you. Let’s go to bed.”
3
Kian
After Carol’s visit, Kian had put in a couple of hours of work and then grabbed his pack of cigarillos and climbed up to the roof.
It was too early in the day for that, and he was well aware that he was going through the fancy little packs way too quickly, but Merlin had given him a great excuse for indulging.
While he and Syssi were trying to conceive, it was imperative that he kept calm. The biofeedback Merlin had prescribed had helped some in the beginning, but that was because of the novelty. It had become really annoying really fast, and Kian had dropped it, managing his stress the old-fashioned way. Making love to his wife, smoking, and drinking.
How did that mesh with his insistence on healthy eating?
It didn’t.
Except for the lovemaking, which was a healthy and productive activity. The other two couldn’t be justified. But then he had no aspirations to sainthood, and he was fine with sinning as long as it was done in moderation.
Right. Keep telling yourself that. It’s lack of self-control.
Then again, Syssi had told him on more than one occasion that he was being too hard on himself, and that it was only adding to his stress. Perhaps she was right. Hell, he knew she was, but he didn’t know how to be any other way.
Besides, how was he supposed to keep calm with his mother breathing down his neck about freeing her sister, and Carol coming up with crazy rescue plans?
He prayed to the Fates that Lokan’s dream mother looked nothing like Areana, so he could put this whole insanity behind him and go back to the much less stressful routine of managing the clan’s business empire.
And he wasn’t even being sarcastic.
Making money for the clan wasn’t emotionally demanding. No lives were at stake, and he enjoyed the game.
Hell, he thrived on it.
When his phone rang, Kian was tempted to let it go to voicemail and finish his cigarillo in peace, but regrettably, he was too anal for that. Pulling the phone out of his pants pocket, he glanced at the display and was glad he’d decided to answer.
“Andrew. What’s up?”
“I talked with Tim. He can take a day off tomorrow and do both portraits. He wants six thousand for both and a gourmet lunch to be delivered to him while he works.”
“Not a problem.”
“You are aware that it’s highway robbery, true? The going rate is no more than five hundred apiece.”
“Yeah, but Tim knows that he is the best and can demand any price he wants. I have no problem with that.”
In fact, after the big deal Andrew had made about Tim’s outrageous demands, Kian was expecting to pay more.
“He’ll be glad to hear that. By the way, I’ve been thinking about the order in which we should have the portraits drawn. I suggest that Annani go first, so we know what Areana looks like, but we don’t show it to Lokan. Then when Tim draws the portrait from Lokan’s memory, we can compare the two.”
Kian tapped his cigarillo, watching the ash float down and disperse. “It doesn’t really make a difference who goes first. What I’m worried about is Tim’s residual memory of the first drawing when he draws the second. It might affect him subconsciously.”
“The bigger problem is Annani getting influenced by the one drawn from Lokan’s memory,” Andrew said. “She wants his mother to be her sister, and after so long, she might not remember Areana's face so well. And as to Tim, we will have to thrall him before he goes to see Lokan. Which brings up another issue. The guy is crusty and suspicious. He might be immune. Which is a big problem given who he will be spending time with.”
“Right. We need to test him before we let him see Annani. If he can’t be thralled, she will have to tamp down her glow and pretend to be human.”
“Does she have any normal everyday clothes? And she should put her hair up too.” Andrew chuckled. “Not that anything is going to make Annani forgettable. Tim might be too stunned to draw.”
“From what I’ve heard about him, your guy doesn’t seem like the type who’s easily shaken.”
“True. Where do you want to do this? I don’t want to bring him to the keep and then discover that he is immune to thralling, and I can’t test him myself because I still can’t thrall for shit.”
“We can use the office building across the street from the keep. If Tim is immune, we will take him down to the underground parking a
nd blindfold him before taking him to the dungeon. Is he going to be okay with that?”
“He will probably ask for more money. When do you want to meet up?”
“Ten in the morning tomorrow. I’ll text you the address.”
“Good deal.”
4
Lokan
As Lokan stepped out of the shower, the phone rang.
The only one who ever called him was Arwel, and the timing was not a coincidence. It was a reminder that nothing in his plush prison was private, including their lovemaking.
Carol claimed Arwel wasn’t watching the feed or listening to it, relying instead on his empathic ability, but that wouldn’t have told him when they were done showering. Thankfully, there were no cameras in the bathroom.
Perhaps from now on they should only have sex in there. Except, there was no hiding from Arwel’s empathic senses. Lokan liked the guy, but he hated the intrusion. It was like having a mental threesome every time he and Carol had sex, and Lokan wasn’t into sharing his woman with another male.
Wrapping a towel around his hips, he padded to the living room and picked up the receiver. “Were you waiting for me to be done?”
“In fact, I was. I have maps for you to mark the location of the island on. Tell Carol to get dressed.”
Lokan’s gut twisted. “Give us ten minutes.”
He’d been wondering when Kian was going to collect on the promise, and had been vacillating between keeping his word or going back on it. The problem was that Lokan still wasn’t sure that he was doing the right thing.
He felt like a fucking traitor. Hell, he was one. It didn’t matter what excuse he used to ease his conscience. The bottom line was that he was about to reveal the Brotherhood’s most guarded secret.
“Was Arwel asking about lunch?” Carol walked in with a towel wrapped around her body. “He must be hungry.” She smiled and winked. “Someone didn’t let me out of bed until way past lunchtime.”
“He could have used the vending machines.”
Lokan was hungry too, but he was perfectly fine with the trade-off. Two hours in bed with Carol were well worth the price of an empty stomach.
“Arwel is bringing in maps for me to mark the island’s location on.”
“Then I should hurry up. While you guys are busy with that, I’ll go upstairs and make us lunch. In the meantime, you can snack on pretzels.”
“Thank you.”
She stretched up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “No need to thank me. That’s how I show affection. I like feeding people. Especially you.”
Cupping her bottom, he lifted her up and kissed her properly. “Snatching that towel off of you is way too tempting.” He let her down. “Get dressed in the bathroom or the closet. I don’t want Arwel to see you naked, even if he is your so-called cousin.”
It still baffled him how the clan members could regard each other as closely related when in fact they were separated by many generations and had very little genetics in common. Had it been drilled into their heads? Or was it something they felt instinctively?
Carol rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
By the time the door to Lokan’s jail apartment opened, Carol had not only gotten dressed but had also made coffee and put snacks on the table, one small bowl of mixed nuts and another of pretzels.
Walking in with an armload of maps, Arwel sniffed the coffee and smiled. “How did you know that I needed a caffeine boost?”
Carol shrugged. “I’m a good hostess.”
Arwel dropped the maps on the table and walked over to the bar. “Are you going to make lunch? Or do we skip straight to dinner?”
“I’m making lunch, and later I’ll make dinner.” She patted his arm. “See you later, boys.” She kissed Lokan’s cheek. “Play nice while I’m gone.”
“What’s with the paper maps?” Lokan asked when the door closed after Carol. “It would have been much easier on a screen where I could have enlarged the picture. You are aware that the island is tiny, right?”
“I’ve printed close-ups of satellite images. I had no idea that there were so many islands in that area of the ocean that were not marked on any of the official maps.”
“That’s because most are insignificant in size.” Lokan lifted one rolled-up map and spread it over the dining table.
The size was so blown up that it was difficult to figure out what he was looking at. There was no major landmass, just a lot of ocean dotted with scattered rocks.
He spread out another one. “You could have at least included the coordinates. These satellite photos are useless without them.”
“You said that you didn’t know the coordinates but could recognize the island by sight. That’s why I brought you these. I didn’t think you would have a problem pinpointing the island.”
“I need to piece them together.” Lokan gathered the photos and went into the bedroom.
Spreading them over the bed, he matched them up like a puzzle, and once he had the entire map of the area, finding the island was easy. “That's it.” He pointed.
Arwel pulled a red marker out of his shirt pocket and circled the island. “How do you fit so many people on it?”
“The warriors live underground, and it goes deep. We have eleven floors going down.”
“Impressive. Who built it?”
“It was a joint effort. My father brought in human crews, but he also put the warriors to work.”
Arwel grimaced. “What happened to the humans?”
“I ensured their silence. What did you think, that we killed them all?”
The Guardian shrugged. “Doomers show no regard for human lives.”
“That’s true to an extent. My father believes that the goal justifies the means, but he is also averse to waste. Unless killing off humans benefits him in some way, he doesn’t condone it.”
Arwel snorted. “A true humanitarian.”
“It is what it is.” Lokan walked over to the bar and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. “Do you want some?”
Arwel shook his head. “I’m good for now.” He started collecting the printouts from the bed. “What I don’t understand is how you managed to keep the island hidden in this day and age. What about satellites and airplanes and drones?”
“It’s not that people don’t know that the island is there. They just don’t know that it’s populated, and it’s not interesting enough to investigate.”
“You have a resort. I’m sure you don’t keep it dark at night. Any ship or plane can detect the lights.”
Lokan smirked. “The island is privately owned, and it does not belong to any country. And just to be on the safe side, we also spread rumors that the island was used for nuclear testing and is still unsafe.”
“There are ways to check those things.”
“We make sure that no one bothers.”
5
Carol
“Perhaps we should invite Arwel to dine with us.” Carol put two paper cups on the table. “I feel bad about him eating alone in his room.”
Lokan grimaced. “He is with us in spirit, and unfortunately, it is not just an expression.”
She sat down and put a napkin over her lap. “Does it bother you so much?”
“Of course it bothers me.”
Carol waved a dismissive hand. “It’s not so bad once you consider the alternative. A different Guardian would have watched and listened to the feed. At least Arwel only senses our emotions.”
Lokan cut into his steak and speared a chunk with his fork. “That’s what he tells you. I’m inclined to accept that he mutes the audio and dims the video when we are having sex, but he is not doing that at other times. Otherwise, how would he have known to call right as I stepped out of the shower?”
Frowning, Carol glanced at the surveillance camera. “I’ll have a talk with him.”
“It won’t help. That’s what he was told to do. He’s doing his job.”
“His job is not to spy on you.” That job was hers. “And he doesn'
t have to listen to everything we say to each other. He is here to make sure that you don’t escape and that I’m safe.”
“Right.” Lokan attacked the steak with renewed vigor.
The way he was going at it with the knife, he was going to cut through the plate along with the tabletop.
As soon as Carol had entered the cell, she could feel Lokan’s agitation crackling like an electrical current. She’d smiled, kissed him, and had tried to chitchat about this and that, but if anything, her efforts had only made it worse.
Perhaps once Lokan was full he would feel better. She’d noticed this about men. Because most were not attuned to their own feelings, simple things like hunger and fatigue irritated them. But since they didn’t make the connection between the physical discomfort and their mental state, they instead looked for objective reasons for the agitation, and if there weren’t any, they made them up.
To have a pleasant time with a guy, it was prudent to make sure that he wasn’t tired or hungry or thirsty, and if he was human, that he wasn’t ill.
“How is your steak?” she asked, to start a conversation.
Lokan shrugged. “It’s okay.”
Talk about grumpy.
Perhaps giving up the island’s location had upset him?
Was he blaming her?
It wasn’t her fault. In this, she was just a bystander. In fact, Lokan had probably been spared a much harsher treatment because Kian was mindful of her feelings for him.
He’d get over it. What was done was done, and there was no point in dwelling on it or reassessing the merit of his decision or lack thereof.
She decided to give diversion another go. “Do you want to watch a movie after lunch?”
He looked at her as if that was the dumbest suggestion ever. “I’m not in the right mood for watching a movie.”
