“Then she lives through it after the fact. That remains the important factor. Thorn would kill us himself if she went after him.”
I knew this was Szar now.
“Then give her something. Letting her think he doesn’t love her and never did is just wrong. This could be done a different way.”
“Then let him explain it when he returns.”
I knew it. He will be back. I wanted to jump up and down like a little girl.
“All I know is he better make up for what he’s doing to her. I’d sure as hell comfort her with every intention of keeping her.”
“That right there would get you killed. He’s dying inside too. They are meant to be together and all that junk...blah, blah, blah. He will take care of the problem and then tell her why he had to leave. For now, you butt out and be her friend only.”
Forget jumping, I wanted to dance. He loves me. He loves me. That was worth a whole night of heartache to hear this conversation. I backed up three feet and pretended to bang my toe on the wall. I heard them go quiet as I rounded the corner.
Whether it a good thing or not, I saw the look in Calum’s eye. He bent close and asked how I was feeling. I faked a sad look well, but was taken aback when he winked at me from an inch away.
“You forget, Thorn’s not the only one who can sense you’re near. And you knew mine first,” he whispered low enough only I heard.
I hitched a breath, closing my lips. He knew I was listening. He told all that for my benefit. “Oh, Calum. I can’t thank you enough.” I hugged him not quite reaching around the middle of him. He was one huge man.
“Whatever you need Stace, I’m your man.”
Szar cleared his throat. “Get your hands off her. dude.”
“She needs those who care about her around her right now. Just ask her.”
Calum needed this and he just gave more to me than I could ever repay. “He’s right. I’d feel better if Calum was my sparring partner today. He won’t coddle me.”
Szar scoffed, “Okay, sis. If you say so.”
“I know so. I’ve gone round and round with him in a sparring ring and have yet to beat the boy. Give me a knife any day.”
Szar looked at me funny. I wasn’t being sad enough. Oops! I still wanted to scream out in joy. I slumped my shoulders and turned my back to both of them, “Forget it then. I’ll just go back to bed.” I dragged my feet and sighed loud.
It worked.
“No. That’s fine, sis. Calum it is then. If he can keep you out of the bed rather than in it, I’m down with that.” His face warped into a disgusted look as I faced him again. “Ugh. Scratch the bed comments. Just don’t go near her room,” Szar pointed into Calum’s face.
“Scouts honor,” Calum grinned wickedly.
I was still too happy to get mad.
We sparred with swords, for which I lost religiously, and a bo staff loaned to me by Cord that he was akin to part with for even a precious few minutes. He even gave up the other information I needed. The bite on my neck was obsolete. It was just to scare me. Yes, she had my blood and could use it to track me, but that would mean she’d have to catch me again. Ha!
The day waned on with a few secret answers slipped to me in code mostly. I knew that Cas was with Drac. He was cornered into to doing something owed to the former Lord Drac without the ability to return. I had to infer that he was told to cut me lose to perform this task, but I didn’t get any other information that helped me reason the task as being pertinent.
The only other fear that arose was the current location of Nara who owned the now reclaimed Godslayer. Whether she knew where Cas was at the time when she attacked me, I didn’t know. However, I feared she did have a few more details than considered giving she attacked me precisely when Cas left who just happened to be with her sired father. Coincidence, I think not.
What I needed to do now, was get information. When I knew what Cas was expected to do, I could act. I also worried with why the guys were with me if he was in that kind of trouble. Why weren’t they helping and why weren’t they able to help? Or why were they asked not to help? Watching me exclusively seemed unlikely the best way to solve this unless it was Nara they were thwarting off by being so easily seen.
I moped and cried at all the right times using Calum to hold me and make it all better. I knew in my head that Cord and Szar found it odd and that I was using Calum for all the wrong reasons, but he was offering. I reasoned it out as being just a good friend ever if I ignored the permanent look of want in his eyes. I smiled and played the friend like I should, nothing more.
I slept a little more the next night even with the anxiety of what I still didn’t know. For sure, I got another lucky break the next day. Cord checked on his faction and left early. Szar said he’d go home to shower and change and be back in an hour. Calum was using the weight room while I was being forced to sit in the corner on the makeshift window bench I created the night before to “stay in his sight” while the others were gone. A guard was at the door. And I was on a mission.
I woke up in the night with the brightest of ideas. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was a plan.
He didn’t answer when I called so I texted.
Call or text me. I need to talk.
I pretended to play on my phone in front of Calum while I waited.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long.
Call n 5.
Yes. I squealed making Calum stop midlift. “You okay,” he asked.
“Yeah. I beat the game.”
He laughed. “At least you’re smiling,” his easy grin faded when he looked over at the guard then back to me. “You okay with a few more sets.”
I grew up with a weight room in the sparring room and guys galore doing what Calum dearly loved. "Growing muscles" as I called it. Their eyes stayed dilated with the constant thrill to bulk up a little more. I never minded...the watching. Kassie and I faked many a sword fight to...just watch.
“Sure. I’m going to the bathroom and will be back in a few.”
The space between his brow rose like it did when he wasn’t happy, “Can it not wait?”
“Uh, Calum. Maybe your body talks differently to you, but mine is saying it has to go. I’m not for giving out details.” I plucked my hand on and off my hip to make my point.
He looked back at the guard. “Clark.” The unnamed, now named, moved inside the door. I'd met several new guys in the last twenty-four hours. “Will you stand inside her bedroom door and keep both eyes on her bathroom door as she enters and exits. No detours.”
He asked, but it was telling. Clark, the typical dark haired guard with all manner of weaponry for clothes, nodded and followed me out. It amazed me how the Vampires wore as many weapons as the Hunters, but didn't make a sound in movement. Hunters were patterns walkers. You could here the slide of their sword being drawn just by the swagger of their gait.
Once in the secluded bathroom, I silenced the phone and climbed in the shower, then crouched down. Staring like it was a bomb about to go off, I checked the battery life and messages just to be sure.
It lit up.
“Stace.”
“Lee,” I said low. The dang shower echoed. “Just a minute.” I hoped out and turn the shower full blast, then huddled in the farthest corner. I held the phone back to my ear, “I’m back.”
I was met with silence.
“Are you there, Lee?”
“Um, are you in the shower?”
I giggled low, “No. I needed to mask my voice. One of Cas’s guards is right outside the door.”
More silence. “Why did you text?”
“I don’t have much time so I’m just going to put it out there. I’m not stupid enough to know you’re in the dark about anything so I know you know something about where Cas is and what he’s doing. I know he’s faking leaving me so don’t try to cover it. I already weasled that out of someone. I know he’s with Drac and I know he’s doing this to keep me safe and secure in his eyes. What I wa
nt to know is what he has to do and when he will have it done? Oh, and where at the moment, is the infamous Nara?”
Silence.
“Lee?”
“You’re asking a lot, Stace.”
“I know. I can owe you later. I need this Lee. I’m not a ratter. I just want to know what I can do.”
“If I tell you what I can, will you do as I ask?”
I thought on this. “Didn’t I do as you asked the other day?”
“I mean it. You won’t have Cas to push you to refuse it. You’ll do exactly as I ask.”
I bent a major rule I’d kept till now with Lee. I went with my heart. “I trust you.”
A soft gasp went through the phone. I guess he needed to hear that. Hey, I was getting better at people relations just not exceptional at it yet. I pray I wasn’t screwing up too bad with Calum first, and now Lee.
“Call me at exactly midnight, be clothed, and tell your fellow conspirator Hunter to be packed tight.”
“You knew it was Calum?’
“This game will get worse before it gets better. Sainthood didn’t include any man with whom you, Anastacia Anat, deals with.”
The way he pointedly said “you” gave me a distinct feeling he was specifying just me and the men in my life. Since I knew very few girls, that meant close to anyone I knew.
"My one request."
"Yes?" I hoped it was something I could hold to.
"Act indifferent, not defeated."
The phone clicked just as there was a knock at the door. Startled, I turned the water off and yelled through the door, “Just a second.” I pocketed my phone in the back of my jeans and turned the lock. Calum nervously paced outside and abruptly halted in front of me when he looked up. Running his eyes up and down me several times he said slowly his voice purposely detached, “Clark. That is all. Can you stand outside the door?”
I heard Calum’s phone ring. He silenced it without looking, but glanced down afterward at the message. His face froze into a pinched lemon before he barked out, “What? No shampooing in a seventeen minute shower? You don’t smell different.”
I know I turned bright red. I side checked Clark to see if he was following the line of thought. “I wasn’t aware you were keeping tabs.”
Calum rubbed his chin and half-screamed behind him for Clark to leave.
Clark was blushing heavily before saying, “No...sir. Szar said not to let you be alone in her room.”
Calum shot an angry hiss at him. “Like hell. Tell Szar where he can go and the horse he rode in on.” Calum’s phone buzzed again and he checked it.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Clark’s Vampire teeth protruded just enough to make himself clear. “I need you to leave.”
Calum shouted off three very distinguishing insults either intended for Clark or my brother or both and pointed a finger at the door for me to leave to. I hightailed it out and ran down the hall back to the weights room.
“No. We’re sparring, Miss Priss. Get your ass downstairs.”
I didn’t argue. Not when he was like that.
Once again, guards were stationed down there always near us with Cord and Szar still gone. Szar should have been back now.
In the middle of the floor, Calum informed me he was going to work on grappling. I didn’t feel like I’d ever need much hand to hand combat skills and Cas had taught me what I did know, but I didn’t argue.
When his hand landed on my butt in the choke hold maneuver I knew wasn’t part of the grappling Cas taught, I grunted and used a little Valkyrie “umph” to kick him off. He flew sideways and fell on his own hard butt. Revenge was sweet.
“I didn’t mean for it land there, Stace. It’s par for the course.”
“Make your par land three feet off the course then Calum. Hands off.”
Grabbing a hand towel and wiping his brow, he faced away from me for a minute or two. I glanced at the guard at the top of the stairs. There was no other way out of the room and the windows were too small, so he was standing more in the foyer than the stairway. It was the closest to privacy I’d had other than the bathroom and I knew now that was Calum's intention in coming down here.
“Teach me to use the sword with my right hand,” I asked him when his back was to the guard.
He looked at me weird then glared. He walked over and picked up the long sword with such grace, I speculated he practiced walking that way. It was too lithe and smooth for his build. His powerful legs leaned over as he placed the sword in my right hand. In my ear he said, “If you tell me why you were in a room with the shower going and came out in the same clothes and dry as a bone.”
I gulped. “That’s something I want to talk to you about.”
His brow lifted in disbelief. “Really?”
“I texted a friend.”
“Who did you text, Stace?” He walked forward to make me back up and land across the front of him. He’d probably like that too much. My stomach was a mess with the buzz of electricity from grappling with him.
“Say his name Stace.”
He knew. How do they all know before me? They were all disturbed in the brain. “If you knew I called Lee, then why are you asking?”
“Because I wanted to see if you’d go without me.”
Stupid men. “Your point?”
Calum steamed more if that were a possible description for it. “When were you planning to tell me?”
“Now sounded good.”
He huffed at me and walked away with the sword in my hand. He glanced up at the stairs and came back just as fast.
“Stace. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I know I want Cas safe.”
“And if he can’t come back yet. Are you prepared for that? What you might see?”
Now that scared me. A very shaky yes escaped my lips, but it was a lie.
“You will regret this, Stace. One hundred percent.” He sounded so sure. “Come on. You need to clean up and get in bed. What time?”
“Midnight.”
“I will be in your room.”
“How?” He wasn’t allowed.
“Szar got back half an hour ago. Cord’s eating. It won’t be a problem.”
“Do they know?” I panicked.
He raised a sweat drenched brow, “And if they do?”
“Oh. No reason. I just know my brother.”
“And he would object for very good reasons. You know, I didn’t tell you about Thorn to make you reckless. It was solely for your personal stress.”
Personal stress? He talked so out of character sometimes. “Whatever. I’m going. He would go if it were me.”
“Yes. But it’s different.”
I turned on him from where I’d started up the stairs. “What is that supposed to mean, Hunter boy?” I ended up still looking at his chest from where I stood on the bottom step and was forced to look upward.
“Just what it is. You’re a female worth doing anything for, so nothing is barred.”
“I suppose that’s a compliment, but how is saving or protecting Cas any different?” I was touched, but didn’t show it. He didn’t need any leverage to help his cause.
“Men don’t see it that way. I know you’re the big bad leader and all, but your still the female we’re protecting. Put that aside and see that you are a beautiful, strong woman that we see as the perfection that makes us worth living for to achieve as a prize we can call ours if she will allow it. Our life depends on you. If we lose you, we lose everything.”
“I’m not a prize.”
“In all that pouring of pansy ass guts, you get that part the most?” He wiped his hand over his forehead to move the fallen hair away.
No, I heard the very maturely spoken words of a wonderful man. “It breaks my heart to break yours Calum because we have a history that will forever stay in my heart. I can’t imagine the girl who will be lucky enough to have you, but I will beat her ass if she doesn’t appreciate you the way I do.”
He half smiled, but the line
between his brow told me he was still upset, but like me, he chose to ignore the obvious. “I will be sure to keep that in mind. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
In bed, dressed in “work” clothes with all the needed “tools”, I waited for midnight. I charged my phone and sadly watched it for the last thirty minutes willing it to ring. I would see Cas soon. That drove my every thought.
I contemplated going to Calum’s current room. I know he said he’d sleep a few hours while Cord took watch over me like the hawks they were being, but it unsettled me to have them sleep here when Cas wasn’t. Not that I wasn’t appreciative of their efforts, it was just upsetting that it had to be this way.
Calum made sure it was arranged that he was the one in front of my room at the allotted time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A fool thinks himself to be wise…
Buzz! The phone vibrated at precisely midnight by it and the clock on the wall. The alarm clock was a minute off.
“The car is a half a mile from the front main gate. Black Mazda. Key in the ignition.”
Click.
Guess stealth is a given, but Lee was hard to figure. He may be a spy for all sides, but he had some skills to get him there. And access to more than me in the goods department. He just wasn’t the boy I knew before if I knew him at all.
I flew out of the covers only to be faced with Calum standing on the balcony like he’d been there a while. I peeked at the bedroom door seeing it closed and then whispered, “How did you get there?”
“You call yourself stealthy. I walked right by you.”
That concerned me. A lot. “Come on.”
Sneaking out was rather easy considering all the overdone surveillance and guarding. Calum told me he asked Claire to make a dessert worthy of the time the guards were putting in. She loved to bake so much I doubted she read into it in any way. Who knew Vampires were easily seduced with sugar intake. Well, Claire’s Double Chocolate Cream Cake was to die for.
Through the trees and on the street, I found the car easily enough. Moving through the shadows I couldn’t help but realize I hadn’t ever “walked” through the woods at his court or anywhere near it. I’d only ever flown with Cas.
Shadow Queen Page 11
