“Oh. Yes, kyrios killed him.” Her voice was empty.
“Kyrios means?”
“Master. It was the only thing I was ever allowed to call him.” She’d hated him with a fury that rivaled the gods before Leonidas died. Afterwards she was too empty to hate him.
“Did he – did he keep you?”
“For another few months, then he died in a battle. His soldiers believed it was because he broke Leonidas and me apart. If that was true, it was the only kindness Apollo or any of those gods ever gave me.”
Now that sounded bitter.
“So that’s why you’re so calm in the face of everything? Because he died?” Alaric said it as gently as possible, but the observation still hurt for some reason.
“I’m calm because I have to detach from this life to survive it. That’s what Leonidas had figured out so quickly, and what he tried to teach me. If I detach, then none of it matters.” Tara winced as she breathed deeper than she should have and the torn muscle over her stomach sent pain rushing through her.
“It does matter.”
Oh no. He was contemplating something stupid. Tara could see it in the way his brows knit together.
“No.” Her voice came out stronger than it should have with the blood loss and the pain she was in. “No, Alaric. You will not do anything stupid. You will deliver me to Luca, or whomever Luca tells you to. You’re not betraying the man who saved you for no reason.”
Alaric stared at her hard. “I can talk –“
Tara raised her hand and stopped him. “No. There is no saving me, Alaric. Gormahn doesn’t forgive, and he will not forget that I am meant to serve.” He clenched his jaw and she knew he was angry with her, but she’d accept that if it meant he lived. “I’m not losing another good person over a moment of weakness.”
Light suffused her skin just then, starting out faint before it grew to the bright golden light of the gods’ power, and the pain and exhaustion in her body just melted away. Tara hadn’t even realized how much the room smelled like blood until the scent of rain overwhelmed it. Alaric didn’t even notice, he kept arguing.
A bitter laugh burst out of his mouth. “Me? Good? Did you already forget what I told you? I let my father kill my mother twenty feet down the hall from me. I’ve killed men with my own hands.”
“I’ve killed men too, Alaric.” Tara responded with a frigid tone as her strength returned, the glow a steady brightness in her skin.
“I signed up to kill a man, kidnap his girlfriend, and deliver her to some other man because he had enough money to pay me to do it.” He shoved himself to a standing position and rubbed his hand across his mouth as he raised his voice, “I agreed to deliver you like you were some object. I’m no better than your kyr- krysis –”
“Kyrios.”
“That! I’m no better than him!” Alaric was shouting, but she just shook her head.
“The fact that you even feel guilty makes you more like Leonidas than you want to know.” She knew he was angry with her because she wouldn’t fight her fate. It may have been easier for him to hate himself if she was asking him to let her go, but there was nowhere to go. The curse was a part of her, and someone would always claim her. Freedom wasn’t possible.
“I am not a good person, Tara.” He stared into her eyes as he said it, because he believed it.
She met his gaze and stood in the tub as her skin blazed with golden light. “Then neither am I, Alaric.”
Maybe it was the fact that she was glowing with the power of a goddess, or that her stomach was still caked with dried blood, or that in the silence after their statements the bullet slid from under her shirt to drop onto the robe – but Alaric didn’t fight with her anymore. He walked out of the bathroom and left Tara standing there as the glow faded, and Eltera’s presence slid away.
Chapter Eighteen
Seattle, Washington
Kiernan had his arms around Neala’s waist as they sat in bed surrounded by maps and photos spread out across the bedspread. He’d pressed his back against the headboard, his knees on either side of her as she sat with her legs crossed, hunched over the documents. Neala had been completely absorbed by finding Tara since the moment Eltera’s letter had arrived. Since then, almost every hour, a small explosion had gone off in his living room dropping more papers into his house.
If he wasn’t terrified of being disintegrated for suggesting it, he’d ask Eltera to be a little more subtle. His neighbors were going to start wondering why he was setting off firecrackers inside, in February.
“Mo ghaol, you need to sleep.” It felt like the right thing to say, even though technically with Eltera’s power Neala didn’t truly need to.
“Shh.” Neala raised a hand as she reached forward to grab another photo of a hotel in Milan. Kiernan didn’t mind the view of her stretching forward like that, but knew better than to say anything about it.
“Will you at least eat if I make you something?” He sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. The photo was about two inches from her nose and he shook his head a little at the thought that he could distract her for even a moment from saving one of her sisters.
“I think she’s here.” Neala handed the photo to him over her shoulder, blatantly ignoring his questions. He took the photo in his hand and tilted it so the glare wasn’t on it. It looked like a high-end hotel, and from the other documents that had appeared he knew it was in Milan, Italy.
“There have to be two hundred rooms in a building that size. Even if we went and stood in the lobby, there’s a chance we would never see her, and she may have already moved on.”
“Check the time stamp.” Neala said and leaned back against his chest and he moved the photo until it was in front of them both. Glancing at it, Kiernan did a little math in his head.
“This was only a few hours ago.” He was shocked. How did Eltera have this?
“I think someone is tracking Tara.” Neala was smiling as she said it, her hands opening to gesture over the piles of papers and photos. “And I think Eltera is stealing their surveillance and sending it to us.”
“I knew I liked her. So, who is Tara with right now?”
Neala leaned forward against his arms and pushed a stack of papers to the side before pulling out another large black and white photo. It was of Tara leaning back against a Maserati smiling while a man stood very close to her, also smiling. He was clearly about to kiss her.
The timestamp was an hour after the hotel shot.
“I don’t know who he is. None of the notes we’ve received have named him.” Neala’s pale blue eyes focused on Tara’s face. “Do you think –” She stopped herself, but Kiernan knew what she was asking.
“Are you wanting to ask if I think that’s real? If they could care about each other?” Kiernan asked it seriously, waiting until Neala looked up at him. They stared at each other for a moment, and he knew both of them were replaying everything it had taken for them to be together.
She nodded.
Kiernan blew out a breath, his eyes tracing the man’s face, searching for signs of artifice, but the man’s expression seemed honest – it looked like the beginnings of love. All encompassing, world-ending, caught up in the moment, early love. “I think it could be real, if they get a chance.”
A small explosion went off in his living room and both of them jumped slightly. No matter how battle-hardened you were, the boom of an explosion is still loud, and you’re kind of an idiot if you don’t flinch.
At least that’s what he told himself as he shook off the spike of adrenaline and followed Neala as she bounded off the bed and into the living room. She’d already got her hands on the heavy parchment that meant another note from Eltera and her cheeks were suffused with blood when she looked up at him.
“What is it?” Kiernan asked.
A smile spread across her face. “His name is Alaric, and we need to get to both of them before they lose each other.”
“Looks like we’re going to Italy.”
Chapter N
ineteen
Milan, Italy
Tara knew Alaric needed space so she stripped and showered first, washing away the sweat and blood from the night before. Once that was done though, with her hair dried, she had no choice but to leave the bathroom. With a fresh towel wrapped around her she stepped out and found him in the chair by the window, staring out at the drizzling rain.
He looked exhausted, completely rung out, and she wished she knew what to say. His brown hair was lank, brushing his forehead, and it bothered her that he didn’t even glance at her because he had to know she was standing there. Laid out on the couch were all of the clothes from the box, messily folded, and she wondered what today would bring. Clearing her throat she decided to speak first, “Alaric?”
“What, Tara?” His voice was empty, and she sighed. Maybe it was better this way, better to have shoved him away so that he wouldn’t take on some pointless crusade to protect her. His was a death she couldn’t carry on her conscience. If that meant making him angry with her, and keeping him that way, she’d do it.
“Nothing. If you want to be an asshole, go ahead.” Tara crossed her arms over the towel as his head whipped towards her.
“Oh, so I’m an asshole now? What happened to me being a good man?”
“I’m not talking to you if you’re going to behave like this.” She adopted the haughty tone she’d heard from so many rich socialites over her years with Gianni, and it had the desired effect. Alaric stood and kicked the coffee table, cursing under his breath as he stormed around it.
“Behave like what? Like someone who wants you to give a shit about your life?” He stopped a few feet away from her, those confusing eyes boring into her, but she kept her expression flat.
“The shower is free if you’d like to use it.”
He laughed and wiped a hand across his face. “Sure. I’ll take a bloody shower. I know I don’t even have to remind you to stay in the room, you have no interest in running anyway.” Alaric sneered the last few words and then brushed past her to slam the door to the bathroom.
She flinched, chewing on her bottom lip as she listened to him stomping around. Then the water started and she forced a deep breath, her ribs expanding and contracting with ease now that Eltera had healed her. It took a matter of minutes to get dressed and then she caught sight of his duffel bags open on the bed. All of his clothes were already shoved into one of them and the few weapons he had left in the other.
Where did he actually live?
Surely he didn’t just float from hotel to hotel.
That was a question she would have been able to ask him last night, when they had almost ended up in that bed together – but she couldn’t ask it now. Part of her regretted that she had missed out on the opportunity to be with someone she wanted, but it would have made everything worse. It would have complicated everything beyond repair, and she would have never been able to stop him from believing all of his noble ideas about her being free.
The water shut off in the shower and she waited by the French doors as he stepped out, a towel wrapped around his waist. He stopped still, his eyes more green than golden brown this morning as they took her in. The navy skirt was short, still a few inches above her knees, and the white blouse was thin and breezy. Alaric’s brows pulled together, and she could feel that he was about to speak – but then his cell phone buzzed on the table.
He jerked his eyes away from her and snagged it, glaring at the screen. It was the perfect opportunity to stare at him while he was distracted. Alaric was gorgeous. His body was carved muscle, deep ridges formed his abs, and she had felt the strength in those arms when he had wrapped them around her. A faint shadow of stubble painted the lower half of his face and it made him look a little older, more like the dangerous man he really was and less like the charming boy he played himself off as.
Dangerous.
Tara pulled her eyes away from him and focused on the ends of her hair, the golden strands wrapping around her finger before she released them only to do it again. Yes, he was dangerous. A killer. A gun for hire. But she was dangerous too, and being around her was even worse. Wherever she went death and destruction followed. She was a commodity that people were willing to kill for. A walking target.
She swallowed down the bittersweet emotions that had flooded her the night before when she’d been high on the music, on the dancing. The magic of feeling for just an evening that she was real like one of those mortals in the club. Free to do as she wished. Free to kiss who she wished.
But she wasn’t.
Just because there was no master at the moment didn’t mean she was allowed to run around recklessly putting people in harm’s way. There would be a new master soon, and that would be for the best. Alaric would be safe. The farther he was from her the better off he would be.
Glancing up she caught Alaric staring at her, an odd expression on his face, but it disappeared as soon as their eyes met. “I have to make a phone call, and I need to get dressed.”
“Of course.” She stepped out of the doorway so he could get into his room.
As he passed her he turned and pointed at the couch. “Gather whatever you want, we have to move hotels. They know you’re here.”
“Okay.”
He stayed in the doorway for a moment, a muscle in his jaw ticking like he wanted to pick their argument back up, but then he turned away from her and shut the doors. Instead of eavesdropping she did as he asked, stacking the clothing that she was actually interested in wearing, leaving the ultra-short mini-skirts and the strange lingerie contraption, which she was sure would require a manual to actually put on. Those she dropped into the wastebasket. Then she gathered the bloody towels and robe into a pile and lifted them, walking back into the living room.
Where the hell could she put these things?
Looking down at all of the red made her a little nauseous.
How much blood had she lost in the last few days? In her lifetime?
Buckets of it, barrels of it. A veritable ocean of blood.
On battlefields. In tents and houses. On dirt floors and stone ones. On expensive tile, and cheap, splintering wood.
Her eyes wandered to her skin, pristine and perfect, and she wondered if there was an inch of her that had not been bruised at some point, that had not bled. Tara had not missed the faint scars that marked Alaric’s body, and she envied that his past was something he could point to. That he had marks to tell his story for him.
Tara had no scars. She was perfect, just like she was supposed to be. On the surface anyway.
Just as she was getting lost in thought, the French doors opened and Alaric gestured inside. “Come in here, we need to talk.”
Sighing, she dropped the ruined linens on the floor and followed him.
He arched an eyebrow at her as he zipped one of the duffels closed. “You got blood on your shirt.”
Looking down she saw that he was right. A section over her stomach was now marred by red blotches. She shrugged. “There are more clothes.”
“Right.” Alaric rubbed his fingers over his eyes and then dropped his phone onto the bed. “So, he's meeting us tomorrow in Morocco.”
“Okay.” Tara nodded, suppressing the turning in her stomach by detaching a little further from the situation.
“Don’t you care?” Alaric’s expression stayed controlled, his tone empty.
“No.”
“You don’t care?”
“No, Alaric.”
“You don't care what he wants with you?” He stepped around the bed, moving closer to her, his eyes challenging her.
She almost laughed. “I know what he wants.”
“And you don’t care?” There was an edge to his voice now, low and threatening. Anger was brewing beneath his flat expression like a storm on the horizon, and she was just waiting for it to hit.
“No.”
“That’s bullshit!” He growled, taking a few more steps until he was towering over her. “You can’t just not care about wha
t he will do to you.”
Tara trained her voice to be calm, trying her best to make him see reason. “Alaric,” she shook her head slowly as she spoke, “I don’t care.” I can’t.
“Don’t lie to me!” The storm hit with his thunderous outburst, and all of his false calm shattered with the force of it.
He was furious at her, and she wanted to shake him, to make him understand the reality of her situation. To make him understand that there was no room for her to care, no room for her to argue against the will of a god.
It was infuriating.
“I’m not lying to you! I DON’T CARE!” She raised her voice, shouting back at him, but it was a mistake. He snapped and closed the gap, lifting her completely off the floor before throwing her backwards onto the bed. He was on top of her in an instant, grabbing at her arms as she tried to shove him off. “Alaric!” She shouted his name as he slammed her wrists down over her head, pinning her, his breaths coming hard above her.
For a moment she was just irritated with him, frustrated by his stubborn refusal to see reason – but then he pressed a knee between her thighs and forced her knees apart.
No.
“You don’t care?” he growled, tightening his grip on her wrists.
Tara hated the twist of fear she felt deep in her stomach as she looked into his eyes, a muddled mix of green and brown that were currently framed by the raw anger pulsing through him. Furious with her or not, this was not going to happen. With a sharp jerk she freed her wrists and slammed her hand into the sensitive tissue by his shoulder. He grunted in pain and grabbed her wrist, bending it backwards until she yelped, before slamming her hands down beside her, holding them in place with his whole body weight. The dull ache spread up her arms as he let out a growl.
“You don’t care about this? This doesn’t faze you?” The questions came out harsh as he spat them at her, and she clenched her teeth against the frustrated scream she released. With his weight unbalanced by his effort to keep her arms pinned it wasn’t difficult to plant her foot on the bed and throw him off. She twisted her hips sharply, rolling him off of her as she slammed her knee into his side. She’d always been good at hand to hand. He looked surprised as she unseated him, and as she sat up she caught his arm in a tight grip as he reached for her again.
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