by Lynsay Sands
"Your father is bastard too," Kira growled when she finished.
Beth nodded solemnly.
Kira hesitated, and then moved to sit at the table with her. She stared at Beth in silence for a moment, and then said softly, "I almost would rather my father send me to brothel than kill my love, Bogdan."
Beth opened her mouth, and then paused and read the girl's mind, wincing when she saw a naked young immortal being pulled from a bed of rumpled silk sheets as an equally naked Kira tried to hold on to him and begged for his life. Her cries had no effect, and she had to watch as he was dragged out of her room through a pair of French doors to be beheaded. His blood was vivid crimson against the white snow.
Blinking the visions away, Beth considered the girl, knowing Kira had let her see those memories on purpose. They had been too clear and not at all disjointed as thoughts often were when you were reading someone who was trying to veil their thoughts.
Kira had let her see more than that, though. She'd let Beth see thoughts and feelings that were clearly a cry for help. Frowning, she asked, "Was he your life mate?"
"My father says no," she admitted sadly. "But I loved him."
Beth covered her hand and squeezed gently.
Seeming to take strength from that, Kira sat up straight again and said with disgust, "My father tried to make it up to me by promising I could attend any school I wished."
"And you picked this one," Beth murmured.
"My father hates Lucian Argeneau," she announced, her jaw tight. "Lucian Argeneau is in Canada, and so--"
"So you wanted to attend a school in Canada," Beth finished for her.
"Da," Kira said with a nod. "He was furious, but he could not refuse because he had promised."
"Why didn't you pick a university closer to where Lucian lives, then?" Beth asked with curiosity. "Say, in Toronto or something? That would have made him even angrier."
Kira made a sound of disgust. "I did not realize the country was so big. I thought I would be close enough to both California and Toronto."
Beth stared at the girl for a minute, reading her state of mind again, and then said, "You plan to feed off a mortal the moment we leave and force the Council to have you beheaded."
Kira shrugged wearily. "My Bogdan is dead. What is there to live for?"
"I don't know," Beth admitted. "But it's a shame you're willing to give up so easily when there are still so many ways to punish your father. I mean, sure he'll be upset when you die, but he'll get over that and move on. It seems to me there are better ways to make him suffer for longer."
Kira lifted her head and peered at her uncertainly. "Like what?"
Beth shrugged. "You could always drop out of the university here, move to Toronto and see if you couldn't train to become a Rogue Hunter for the North American Council. That would probably really piss him off."
Kira sat up straight again, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "That truly would infuriate him."
"Especially since you'd be training and working under Lucian. He runs the hunters. I'd imagine that would be like a thorn in your father's side every single day for as long as you did it."
"Da," Kira breathed with building interest.
"But Rogue Hunters cannot feed off the hoof," Beth pointed out.
Kira waved that away. "I prefer my blood cold anyway. Is disgusting to me off the hoof. I only did that to--" Pausing abruptly, she met Beth's gaze and smiled sheepishly. "You knew I did not like to feed directly from mortals."
Beth smiled. "Yeah, I kind of picked up on that when I first read your mind."
Kira nodded, and then asked anxiously, "Do you really think I could be a hunter?"
"I think now is the perfect time for you to sign up for it. We are shorthanded at the moment and desperate for help."
Kira grinned. "I have some training already. I am a good shot with a gun and a bow and arrow. I trained with swords and even took some martial arts."
Beth raised her eyebrows. "Then I definitely think they will be interested in hiring you."
Kira smiled, and then reached out to squeeze Beth's hand. "Thank you. You have given me something to live for."
Squeezing her hand back, Beth nodded and then stood. "We fly back to Toronto the day after tomorrow. The plane leaves at noon. You can come with us if you wish."
"Da, I wish," Kira said determinedly. She got to her feet as well and then glanced at her bodyguards with a frown.
"They can come too if you like," Beth assured her. "There is room."
"In truth, I would rather they not come," Kira said with a grimace. "But they will insist, and if I refuse them, my father will probably cut off their heads too."
"Charming," Beth murmured, moving toward the door as Scotty opened it. Spotting Matias across the hall flirting with a young redhead, Beth said, "Matias, give Kira the address of the airport we landed at."
"I will text you!" Matias said, smiling at Kira.
Beth raised her eyebrows and glanced to the Russian girl. "You know each other? He has your number?"
"Da. He is terrible flirt . . . and persistent," she added, rolling her eyes. "I gave him number to shut him up."
Chuckling, Beth offered her hand. "I hope to see you there on Sunday."
"Da." Kira nodded firmly and shook her hand. "Dosvedanya."
"Dosvedanya," Beth murmured the Russian good-bye and then turned to start up the hall.
"It went well?" Matias asked, falling into step beside her as they headed toward the elevators.
Beth nodded, and then said, "So, Matias, am I right in guessing you were the one keeping an eye on Kira?"
"Si," he admitted and shrugged. "It was no trouble. She was in a lot of my classes and likes the same clubs I do."
"Well, it looks like you won't have to keep tabs on her anymore."
"Why?" he asked with surprise.
"She plans to move to Toronto," Beth explained. "In fact, I think she's flying back with us. So don't forget to text her the address of the airfield."
"Speaking of which," Scotty said before Matias could respond, "I do no' think Mortimer and Lucian are going to thank ye for this."
"The girl was planning on suicide by Council," Beth said solemnly as they reached the elevator. "I had to do something."
"Kira?" Matias asked with surprise, trailing her onto the elevator. "Suicide?"
"Her father cut off her lover's head a couple months ago," Beth explained quietly. "She isn't taking it well."
Eyes widening, Matias raised a hand to his throat, but said, "That explains why she was not receptive to my advances."
"I don't understand," Donny said, and Beth realized he hadn't caught the first part of the conversation when he asked, "Why would Mortimer and Lucian be upset with Beth? What did she do?"
"She suggested the lass move to Toronto and train to be a Rogue Hunter," Scotty explained.
"Really?" Donny asked, and then pursed his lips. "She might do okay. She's big enough for the job."
Beth grimaced at the comment. Kira was a good six feet tall. She was not only voluptuous but muscular as well. The sword training she'd mentioned had shown in her physique. Still, Beth thought as the elevator doors opened and they crossed the lobby to the exit, size didn't make a good Enforcer. Smarts did. She was only five-foot-three and considered herself a damned fine hunter.
"I'm hungry," Donny said suddenly as they headed for the parking lot. "Can we stop at a coffee shop and get doughnuts on the way to the house?"
Beth glanced at him with disbelief. "Seriously? There were probably twenty or thirty food stalls in that place where you could have got food."
"I want a doughnut, though," he said with a shrug.
"They probably had a doughnut shop in there somewhere too," she said with exasperation.
"I will stop at a Tim Hortons on the way to the house," Matias said as they approached the SUV. Beth suspected he made the offer to keep the peace.
"Oh, good." Donny beamed at the man as he followed him around
to the driver's side of the SUV. "I like the ones they have with white icing and all those pretty sprinkles."
"Such a girl," Beth muttered under her breath with disgust as she reached for the front passenger door handle.
"Allow me," Scotty said on a chuckle as he got there first and pulled it open for her.
"Thanks," Beth murmured, a little flustered by both his nearness as he leaned around her to get the door, and the chivalry displayed by the action.
"My pleasure," he assured her with a smile as she slid into the seat. He waited until she was settled and then closed the door and got into the seat behind her as Matias and Donny got in on the other side.
"Well!" Matias said cheerfully as he fastened his seat belt and started the engine. "Is this not wonderful? Business is done and now we can play."
Beth turned to him in question. "What did you have in mind?"
"Dancing!" he announced happily. "The girls here, they do not know how to dance, my cousin. You and I will show them."
Beth chuckled at the claim, but shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"
"But doughnuts first, right?" Donny said from the back seat.
"Si, si, doughnuts first," Matias assured him. "We will stop there on the way back to the house, and then you can all change while I order the pizza, and we will eat properly before we go out."
"Will anything be open by then?" Beth asked dubiously, glancing at the watch on her wrist.
"Cousin, you are forgetting the time difference again. It is not even yet ten o'clock," he said in a pained voice. "I promise we will be at the club by midnight and have hours to dance before it closes."
"Starbucks!" Donny squawked suddenly.
"I see it," Matias said with exasperation.
"Are we sure Donny should have coffee?" Scotty asked, sounding disgruntled. His voice sounded so close she was sure he had leaned forward in his seat.
Turning, she saw that she had been right, but merely shrugged. "Our trainers thought it best to find out how you reacted to things like coffee before you were on the job. We are done with business now, so we might as well let him see how he handles it."
Scotty looked dubious, but merely nodded and sat back in his seat.
Six
"Can you no' turn this music down? I think me ears are bleedin'," Scotty complained from the back seat.
Beth chuckled at the claim, and leaned forward to turn it down, but then asked, "So you'd rather go back to Donny talking?"
"Hey!" Donny bent to peer down into the SUV from where he stood on the back seat with his head, shoulders, and chest out of the vehicle through the sunroof. "What happened to the music? Did you shut it off? Did he shut it off? Do you think it's broken? Maybe it's not the radio. Maybe it's the station. Maybe the satellite was knocked out of the sky or--"
"Turn it back up!" Scotty barked.
"That's what I thought," Beth said with a laugh and cranked up the volume again.
"Yeah!" Donny shouted and straightened to continue playing air guitar in the open night air as they sped down the highway. She should have probably ordered the boy to sit down and put his seat belt on, but honestly, he'd turned into such a chatterbox once the caffeine had hit him, she'd rather risk it. Beth made a mental note to herself to warn Mortimer that Donny shouldn't be allowed coffee. Ever. He was one of the immortals it did affect.
Much to everyone's relief, it was only a couple moments later when Matias slowed as he approached the driveway of a nice ranch-style home she thought might be clad in light brown brick. She wasn't certain. While the increased night vision immortals enjoyed allowed them to see relatively clearly in the dark, it wasn't that great when it came to colors. But between her night vision and the fact that the driveway ran up the edge of the property a good thirty feet to the side of the house, Beth was able to see that while the front yard was small and neat, the backyard was absolutely huge with more than enough room for the large six-car garage and the attached outbuilding it housed.
The driveway led up beside and past the house to those buildings, but it also had a branch that broke off to run along the front of the house. Matias turned onto that, and steered them up to the front door before stopping.
The minute Matias shut off the engine, the loud raucous music died. Donny immediately dropped back into his seat.
"Man, we're here!" he exclaimed as if they might have missed that fact. "I was really rocking it. You have great taste in music, Matias. We should unload, huh?" Throwing the SUV's side door open, he bounded out of the back seat and ran around to the back of the vehicle.
"Ye had to let him drink the coffee, didn't ye?" Scotty said with disgust.
"Espresso," Beth corrected him. "And it's better we know how he reacts to it now than on the job. Fortunately, he has lots of time to get it out of his system. We're on a bit of a vacation right now," she reminded him with a smile.
"Yeah, great," Scotty said, following the younger man out of the vehicle. Beth couldn't help noticing he sounded unimpressed.
"This Scotty, he is a grumpy bastard, no?" Matias commented as he undid his seat belt. Smiling at her then, he added, "And he has the thing for you."
Beth froze in the process of getting out of the vehicle, and jerked around to stare at him with dismay. "No, he doesn't."
Matias just grinned and nodded slowly. "Si, he does. He was wanting to tear my head off at the airport when you were in my arms. He has the thing."
Beth glanced nervously toward the back of the vehicle to make sure that Scotty wasn't hearing any of this. Much to her relief, she could see that Donny was busy chatting his ear off, hopefully preventing his hearing their conversation. Just in case, though, she decided she'd best keep her voice low. Turning back to Matias, she hissed, "He's eight hundred and some years old, long past the days of sex and crushes and whatnot. He doesn't have a 'thing' for me. And if you say that in front of him, I'll scratch your eyes out, wait for them to grow back in and then scratch them out again."
The old threat merely made Matias laugh and shake his head. He did, however, get out of the vehicle rather quickly and hurry around to join the men at the back of the SUV. He probably hoped there'd be safety in numbers, Beth thought with disgust as she got out to follow him.
"So, there are only three bedrooms," Matias was saying as she joined the men. "Two of you will have to share a bed."
Beth scowled at his suggestive tone and the way he waggled his eyebrows as he glanced between her and Scotty. She really should scratch his eyes out, she thought grimly, but merely said, "Scotty and Donny can share."
"If there are three bedrooms, why do we have to share?" Donny asked. "Beth can have one. Scotty can have one. I can have one. That's three bedrooms. That's good. Three bedrooms is good. It's perfect. Like it was made for us. Three bedrooms, three people."
"Three bedrooms and four people," Matias corrected him. "One bedroom is mine already. So, you will share."
"Great," Scotty growled, dragging a large leather bag out of the back of the SUV.
"That's okay. Really. It'll be okay. We can share. I'm a good roommate. I don't snore. Do you snore? Never mind. It doesn't matter. Fine. It'll be fine. We're fine," Donny shot out in staccato sentences as he followed Scotty into the house.
"Oh, si, the Scotty, he has this thing for you and he has it bad," Matias said with delight as they watched the two men disappear into the house.
"Why?" she asked with exasperation as she dragged her bags out one after the other and began to sling them over her shoulders. "Why would you even imagine that?"
"Because he has not killed you for letting Donny drink the espresso. Even though he knows he will be stuck with the man tonight."
Beth tried to hold on to her scowl. She truly did, but couldn't help it and her expression cracked as a laugh slipped from her lips. She covered her mouth quickly and shook her head. "It isn't funny. Donny is going to make him crazy."
"Nah," he said lightly. Taking two of her bags, he reminded her, "We are going dancing. Donny can wo
rk the caffeine out of his system on the dance floor and I will finally have a proper rumba partner again. Truly, chiquita, the girls here do not know how to dance."
"Dancing. Right. I forgot about that," Beth said with a smile as they headed into the house.
"Forgot about what?" Scotty asked, meeting them in the entry. His hands were empty, and Beth glanced past him to see that he'd set his own bags on the floor just inside the door of the first room on the left, a small living room decorated in earth tones and overstuffed furniture.
"That we are going dancing and Donny can work off the caffeine on the dance floor," Beth explained.
"Oh, dear God, aye," Scotty said with relief. "If I have to share a room with the lad chattering away like he is now, I'm like to kill him."
"Speaking of which, where is he?" Beth asked.
"Hey! I found the kitchen!" Donny's voice came from the back of the house in answer. "Does anyone else want blood? I found the fridge. And food! Good food! Cheese and sausage. Whipped cream. Dip too. I love dip. Are there chips? Jeez, this is great stuff. Things I haven't had since I started training. Bologna and salami! Sliced smoked turkey! I could make us Dagwoods!"
"Bologna?" Beth peered at Matias with disbelief. "Your mother would shoot you for even bringing all that junk into the house."
"It tastes good," Matias said helplessly.
"Oh wow! Look at the backyard. It's huge!" Donny cried and then asked excitedly, "Are those dogs back there? Man, they're beautiful. Scary-looking too, but they're probably nice dogs. They just look scary. Right?"
"Dogs?" Beth asked, her eyebrows rising. Matias had always wanted a dog. But his mother, Aunt Giulietta, thought they were messy and smelly and wouldn't let him have one as he was growing up.
"Si." Matias beamed at her. "Two Dobermans. They are beautiful. I only put them outside when I am not here so they do not ruin the furniture. One of them, Chico, he tried to eat the couch when I left him home alone for a couple hours, so now they must wait in the kennel until I can be with them."
"I see," Beth said and shook her head. "Aunt Giulietta hasn't visited you here yet, has she?"
"Si," he assured her. "Mama has been here twice, but I had a friend keep the dogs while she was here both times."
