“What movie are you and Jules going to see on Saturday, Ruby?” Caroline asked, as she wandered past Ruby’s desk.
“Don’t know. Haven’t decided yet.” She kept her eyes glued to her keyboard and tapped away industrially.
But Caroline didn’t take the hint. She exhaled. Loudly. “It must be so nice to have a friend like Jules. Someone to go to the movies with when you don’t have a boyfriend to take you.”
“I’m sure you’ve got plenty of guys lined up. You always go out Saturday night.” And every Monday morning, you regale us lesser beings with how much your date spent on you, and how perfect he is, blah blah blah.
Caroline sniffed, and somehow managed to make it sound ladylike and yet woebegone. “Not this Saturday. I’m still pining after—” she paused theatrically “—Josef. Breaking up with him really hurt, you know?”
“Josef?” David slid to a halt outside the door to his office. “Do my ears deceive me? I thought you dumped him.”
Ruby gave up pretending to work and fixed her gaze on Caroline. This should be good—
“I did,” Caroline said. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt right here.” She fluttered a hand over what she probably thought was her heart.
“It’s the left side,” Ruby said.
“Huh?”
“Your heart. It’s on the left side of your chest.”
Caroline chose to ignore that comment. “I mean, even though Josef had become rather predictable in bed, we had, like, a connection.”
Yeah. Like from his wallet directly to Caroline’s perfectly manicured fingers. And how the hell could a man be predictable in bed after only a couple of weeks? Actually, scratch that. She so did not want to know.
“I feel so lost and alone now Josef is gone.” Caroline sighed again and this time, she gave it her all. Even her shoulders managed an Oscar-worthy droop. “Weekends are the worst, don’t you find, Ruby? It’s awful being all on your own the entire weekend, with nothing to do except imagine everyone else out having fun with their friends.” Cue crocodile tears glittering in her eyes.
Oooh, she was good.
Both Liz and David cast glances at Ruby. Glances that screamed “You’re a big bad meanie for not immediately inviting Caroline along on your girls’ night out with Jules.”
Great.
Ruby could feel her mouth opening, the invitation hovering on the tip of her tongue. She ground her teeth together and swallowed it. “Yeah,” she said. “Weekends can really suck when you’re on your own.” God knows she’d suffered enough of them.
Caroline trailed her fingernails along Ruby’s desk. And when Ruby remained silent, she sniffed a little more. Then reached across to grab a tissue from the box on the desk and used it to dab at her eyes.
Liz and David were goggle-eyed by now, waiting with bated breath to see how Ruby handled the pressure.
“You know what I miss the most about Josef?” Caroline asked, her voice catching just a little.
Ruby surprised herself by managing not to fall into that trap. Borrowing Caroline’s idea, she extracted a tissue from the box and blew her nose. Loudly.
Unfortunately, Liz just had to ask, “What?”
“Do tell,” David said. “I bet you miss his gorgeous big Swiss—”
“Accent,” Caroline interrupted, ignoring David’s snigger. “The way Josef used to say my name just made me feel sooo special. I really, really miss that.” A single tear rolled down her cheek.
Ruby knew Jules would be pissed off to the max but she couldn’t take the drama any longer. She rubbed her temples, groaning inwardly. Jules would just have to deal. “Fine, Caroline. If you’ve nothing better to do Saturday night, of course you can come with us. Don’t blame me if you’re bored out of your tree, though. All we do is watch a movie and guzzle popcorn. It’s hardly exciting stuff.”
Caroline smiled. “I’m sooo lucky to have you for a friend, Ruby. Let me know when and where, okay?”
“Okay.” Crap. She was such a soft touch.
And all the way through her jog for five minutes, walk for five minutes, jog for five, walk for five, cardio session, Ruby wondered how she was going to break the news to Jules. Or whether she even should. If Caroline just showed up, it would kinda be obvious what Ruby had done. And maybe, if she was really lucky, Jules wouldn’t make too much of a fuss in front of Caroline.
Hah. She was delusional. Jules couldn’t stand Caroline. Of course she’d make a fuss. Either way, Ruby was doomed.
Her swimming lesson went a little better this time. At least she managed to stay on top of the water. But that was pretty much the highlight of her day because it turned out to be one of those days when she was busy as heck, but never seemed to accomplish anything.
All the way home in the bus, Ruby replayed the conversation with Caroline in her head. And the one with Mike, this morning. And the one before that, with Kyan. By the time she got changed, and started off on her run, she was grateful for the distraction. Except it didn’t go the way she hoped, because her body went on auto-pilot, freeing her mind to worry and angst and dither. Not even the straps of her bra, which chafed something wicked, could yank her from her thoughts.
She fished the key from her pocket and opened the front door. But instead of making a beeline for the shower, she paused, resting her forehead on the doorway.
On top of everything else, she’d been trying not to think about this moment all day. And now it was coming back to bite her on the bum. What on earth was she going to say to Kyan? She didn’t have a clue how to begin to apologize for being such a bitch to him.
Suck it up and deal, Ruby. She straightened her shoulders and went inside to face the music.
Her house was eerily quiet. She wandered through to check the kitchen. And the bedrooms. Hmm. Mike and Kyan were out. Typically, Mike hadn’t left a note to say when they’d be back, either. Doubtless Mike was showing Kyan the sights. Or they were sitting in a pub fending off feral women.
Her gaze caught on the tissue paper-wrapped bundle that had been left on the phone table in the lounge. When she picked it up, she was vaguely surprised to discover the crystal hadn’t vanished.
She plopped onto the couch and carefully unwrapped the broken pieces. She didn’t know what she expected to see—perhaps that something about it had fundamentally altered, like the pieces had fused together again. Or at the very least, the color had altered. Something to indicate it was no longer the hellish prison that had trapped a man for hundreds of years.
But it was just as she remembered: an unremarkable, silvery blue, blade-shaped hunk of stone. Nothing special. Certainly not something that screamed supernatural otherworldliness.
She turned the two pieces over in her hands, investigating how they fit together. Her heart beat escalated until it thudded in her ears. If anyone chose this moment to enter the room, they would surely hear it.
Her breath caught in her throat. She fitted the two halves together and held them, waiting for—
Something.
Nothing changed. Her world didn’t turn on its head and realign. The two pieces didn’t magically fuse into one whole piece of kyanite again.
She let the crystal fall into her lap and leaned back, closing her eyes.
A vision rolled through her tired, vulnerable mind.
In the shadowy interior of a large awning, Kyan reclines amidst a mass of brightly colored cushions. His slightly bored gaze rakes a bevy of beautiful, scantily clad young girls who all wait, heads bowed in demure silence. He clicks his fingers imperiously and the girls step gracefully aside to reveal a plump feminine figure, swathed head to toe in layers of gauzy material.
Kyan jerks his chin at a girl with huge doe-like eyes. She grabs a trailing tail of gauze. She tugs it, gathers the excess material in her arms and tugs again, repeating the action and causing the figure to spin like a drunkard as the material unwinds about her.
One last tug and the woman is revealed.
She is naked. She is so
dizzied by the spinning she loses her balance and falls to the sand, landing on her ample rear in an inelegant sprawl of pale limbs and bare flesh.
Kyan raises his hand. He is about to choose. The younger girls titter at the unabashed yearning shining in the woman’s eyes—in her eyes, for the woman struggling to her feet is Ruby.
Her hope dies when Kyan chooses another. And when he does spare her a glance, her heart shrivels, for his mouth is pursed with disgust.
He turns his back. And as he strides from the tent with his chosen female slung over his shoulder, tears course silently down Ruby’s face. She—
Uhhh!
Ruby’s eyelids popped open and she cast a quick gaze the length of her body. Thank God. She was still fully clothed, slumped on her couch with the crystal pieces lying her lap.
She swept them aside onto the couch cushion and told herself that it’d only been a daydream—her imagination playing tricks on her.
It’d felt so real though—the gauzy material wrapped so tightly about her body. The nauseating displacement of being spun around, struggling to keep her balance. The sand grazing her naked butt as she fell. The blissful coolness of the shelter provided by the awning, such a stark contrast to the burning flush of rejection and humiliation that even now warmed her face.
She grabbed the TV remote and channel-surfed. But the distraction did nothing to help, especially when all she noticed were slim, glossily perfect female newsreaders, or equally perfect young things acting out what passed for teenage angst in sitcoms.
Her wandering gaze lit on the phone. Before she could talk herself out of it, she dialed international directory services and asked for Chalcedony Laureano’s phone number.
As she waited for the call to connect, her stomach crawled up into her mouth. This was probably a bad idea—real bad. Did she really want to know everything Chalcedony had discovered about Wulf, Kyan, and the rest of the Crystal Warriors? How would that knowledge change the way she felt about Kyan? Could she reject him if it was in her best interests to do so, or was she even now, in too deep?
“Hello.”
The unexpected masculine voice booming from the receiver made her jump, and she nearly dropped the phone. “H-h-hello,” she squeaked.
“Who am I speaking to?”
Shi-it. This had to Chalcedony’s husband. Lord Wulf, Ruler of the Moving Sands, or whatever the land he had supposedly ruled over was called. “Ah, it’s Ruby Roberts here. Is… is… Chalcedony Laureano there, please?”
“Chalcedony is asleep.”
“Asleep?”
“It is very, very early in the morning.”
Oh crap. She’d forgotten about the US-NZ time differential. “Oh. I’m sorry to wake you.”
“Perhaps I may help you, Ruby.”
“Um, well, I don’t want to keep you from your bed.”
He chuckled. “You are too kind. However, since it was my turn to convince our daughter to sleep rather than play in her crib, I am wide awake. What is wrong, Ruby? Is my kinsman’s behavior troubling you?”
“Wh-who’s behavior?”
“Kyan’s.” His voice was harsh—no love lost between Kyan and Wulf.
“Um, would I be right in thinking you know exactly who I am, and what I’m going through with Kyan?”
“Indeed, you are correct. I know all about you, Ruby, for Kyan was quite… effusive in his description of you. And from what I hear, you are far too good for the likes of him. Are you bonded? Or is there yet a chance you might escape Kyan’s wiles?”
Whoa. He really really didn’t think much of Kyan. “I’m not entirely sure, Mr, er, Lord um—”
“You may call me Wulf, Ruby. I am not Lord of anything in this world of yours. I am ruled first by my Chalcey, and now my daughter, who has me wrapped around her tiny finger. Such is the fate of Wulfenite, former Lord Keeper of the Shifting Sands fief.”
Was that a hint of laughter in his voice? Certainly his deep affection for his wife and daughter was evident. Lucky, lucky Chalcedony.
“Do you want to know about the bond, Ruby?”
“Yes. Please. Would you please tell me everything you know.”
He was silent for a long, excruciating moment. “Are you sure, Ruby? Ignorance is oftentimes a more blissful state than being fully aware of the consequences of one’s actions. Or inactions.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Very well. The bonding is twofold, Ruby.”
“Twofold? I thought that once we were chosen as life-mates, that was it?”
“Nay. First, there is exchanging of true names.”
“Oh, right. We might have done that one already. Did you and Chalcedony suffer any, ah, unusual side effects with that one?”
“Uttering each other’s true names rendered us both unconscious for a time. I do not recall it being a particularly pleasant occurrence.”
“Me, neither. Sorta like someone whacked my head with a cricket bat.”
“I do not know of these cricket bats, but I do remember feeling as though a horse had stomped on my head.”
“Yeah, that’s the one. And Kyan passed out, too. So I’m guessing we’ve exchanged true names.”
“I believe so.”
Okay, what’s next?”
“Bonding intimately.”
A blush heated her face and slowly crawled down her neck and chest. She fanned herself with a hand, grateful Wulf couldn’t see her reaction. “Um, how intimately?”
“Sexual intercourse,” he said.
“Ah.” Talk about consequences. Just not quite the consequences she’d imagined.
“I gather you’ve already—” he paused as though searching for words that would not give offence “—allowed Kyan to seduce you?”
“Yeah. So I suppose we’re bonded then. No way around it.”
“That is not necessarily the case. How many times, Ruby?”
“Excuse me?”
He huffed a sigh. “I apologize if I seem to pry, however this is important. How many times has Kyan seduced you?”
In a corner of her mind, while she fought to contain her embarrassment, Ruby found it very interesting that Wulf presumed Kyan had done all the seducing. She considered being offended. But only for a few seconds.
Like she’d have dared play the seductress. “He and I, er, we— Twice.”
“That is good news.”
“It is?”
“You are not yet irrevocably bound.”
“We’re not? But I thought I had no choice. I thought that after a month, I’d face some sort of a test, and there was no way I could get out of it.”
“It is as Chalcey explained to your brother. Unless you engage in sexual union with Kyan three times, you are not irrevocably bonded. You have only to refuse Kyan’s advances from this moment forward, and at month’s end there will be no Testing. Chosen life-mates or no, Kyan will be drawn back into his crystal, and once more become a prisoner of the Crystal Guardian’s spell.”
“Three times? It takes three times before we bond? We’re not bonded yet?” She slumped lower on the couch, sticking her legs straight out in front of her. And Mike knew this. Yet for some reason he hadn’t revealed this… this… extremely pertinent fucking fact. How could he not have told her? And, more to the point, why? This was her heart he was playing with. Her happiness. Shit—her life!
Her thoughts roiled and seethed. And when the original thrust of anger and betrayal faded enough to be bearable, Mike’s motivation became all too clear. He was a St John’s medic—a life-saver. And to his mind, by not telling her, by letting her think she had no choice but to await the Testing, he was making certain Kyan had the best possible chance to survive.
But what about her?
How would she survive when all this was over and Kyan latched on to some hot babe who was more his type because there was no magical attraction holding him to her? When the spell dissipated and Kyan finally saw her for who she was, how would she bear the pity in his eyes?
Wo
uld Mike be able to pick up the pieces and put her all back together?
Mike had Annie. Ruby had no-one.
“Ruby.” Wulf’s deep voice, oozing compassion, cut through the hurt. “What are you going to do?”
“Do? About what?”
“About Kyan.”
“I don’t know.” The sigh shuddered through her. “I really don’t know.”
“’Tis difficult, I know. Unless Kyan has fundamentally changed, he is a man who is overly reliant on his handsome face to lure women to his bed. Last I knew of him he was too concerned with his own pleasures to pay heed to how his actions affected others. It was not always so, but— Perhaps that is a tale for another time. Know this, however, I do not wish for him to suffer the crystal again. I would not wish that hell on any man.”
“That place he was trapped in,” she said. “I felt it—experienced what Kyan felt. For a short time, but it still haunts me. It’s indescribably horrible.”
“’Tis more terrible than you could ever know,” he murmured.
“So I guess it’s up to me, then. Ruby to the rescue. Now there’s a bloody laugh. Me, rescuing someone like Kyan? Hilarious.”
“Do not denigrate yourself, Ruby.” Wulf used one of those stern, lecturing tones that parents used on children. “Perhaps my kinsman is not beyond redemption. Perhaps he is capable of learning what it means to give yourself to another, to be truly joined in mind, body and soul. Kyan spoke of you with more wonder in his voice than I have ever heard when he described a woman. I believe you are special to him.”
“Yeah. Thanks to the Crystal Guardian and his delightful little magic spell. Kyan would never have given me a second look, otherwise.”
“Maybe so. One thing I have learned in this life is that the Crystal Guardian somehow sees deep into our hearts and our souls. Pieter did not choose you on a whim, Ruby. He knows the kind of love we are searching for. Even if we are not consciously aware we are searching for it, he knows.”
“I hope so,” she whispered. God, she hoped with all her heart that she was the woman Kyan really wanted.
The Crystal Warriors Series Bundle Page 46
