The Dark Matters Quartet

by Claire Robyns

  “Did Lily say anything to Ana about her prospective groom?” he said, assuming that’s where Neco’s information came from.

  Neco shook his head. “Is there something specific you’d like to know?”

  His name, for one. Which brought to mind another dilemma. If Lily decided on him, would he refuse her? Kelan and he, by his silence, had agreed. Lady’s choice. How could he expect Kelan to shoulder the responsibility of Lily if he wasn’t prepared to do so himself, if it came down to that despite his efforts?

  He’d taken an outside look at himself a short while ago and he hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Not one bit. Strip that man’s honour as well, and there’d be nothing left to rebuild on. And, he guessed, that answered that question.

  “There is something I’d like to know,” he replied to Neco at last. “Did Kelan send you after me?”

  “Lord Perth merely noted, in passing, that you were on your way into town.”

  After he’d searched you out to do so.

  “You didn’t have your walking stick with you,” Neco went on. “There’s a seventy-eight percent probability you’d not make it back up the mountain.”

  “Only seventy-eight percent?” Greyston mocked wryly, even if his tone would be lost on the celludrone. “I’m doing better than I thought.”

  “Less twenty-percent when I took into account you would be drinking.”

  “That leaves two percent, which may not be much, but enough to charge me with taking care of myself, Neco. You know I hate being watched over.”

  “That two percent went to the possibility of a demon encounter,” Neco said. “You cannot argue with zero percent.”

  “You certainly know how to slam a man’s ego, Neco,” Greyston muttered, knocking back the remainder of his ale. “Have I ever told you that?”

  “Many times.”

  NINE

  Greyston was a light sleeper when not aboard the Red Hawk or at his home on the island of Es Vedra. He was awake before the door clicked open, dagger in hand before the pointed tip of a booted foot appeared in his line of sight.

  He shoved the dagger beneath his pillow and hauled himself up against the headboard. The sheets barely skimmed his hipbones, but damn it all, if a lady wanted to enter his bedroom at the crack of dawn, she’d best be ready for the consequences.

  “Oh!” Lily gasped. “You’re awake.”

  “Were you hoping to sneak up on me?” he asked casually.

  “Of course not.” Her eyes widened and froze on his naked chest. “I expected I’d have to…wake…you.”

  His mind went to the pleasurable ways she might have gone about doing that, which came with a whole other set of consequences he hadn’t thought to apply to himself. Her gaze, while not precisely sensual in its static shock, heated through him with the stark reminder that he was in bed and naked, and the last woman who’d invaded his dreams stood a short tug away.

  He slid the sheet a little higher and yanked the pillow from behind onto his lap.

  “You’re here now and clearly I’m awake,” he sliced through a clamped jaw. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait?”

  She finally snapped her gaze free and spun about, putting her back to him. “What do you think?”

  “A sudden urge to discover if I sleep fully dressed?”

  Her small noise of distress put him to shame. “Lily, come back,” he called softly as she started out the door.

  His ardour and the accompanying irritation dampened when she actually paused and turned. Bastard that he was, he knew she’d never enter the bedroom of a man lightly. “I promise to behave.”

  She managed to both grimace and nibble that lower lip while her gaze skittered everywhere but at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep a wink last night and it appears to have affected my brain. I shouldn’t have come into your bedroom…like this. I don’t know what on earth possessed me.”

  He patted the spot beside him on the bed. “Talk to me.”

  It took her a moment more to decide her mind. Chin high, brow creased, she pushed the door closed and stalked across the room, grabbed a shirt draped over the chair and tossed it to him, all without looking his way once.

  He slipped the shirt on, even doing up a couple of buttons. His eyes didn’t leave her once. So much for being…what had she said? De-pruded. Her very prissy, rigid back begged to differ.

  And damned if the old Lily didn’t pull harder at his core than the new one. “I’m decent.”

  “Are you sure?” She peeked over her shoulder before turning.

  He patted the bed again. “Shall we?”

  She dragged the chair closer instead, was still brushing down her skirts when she blurted in a tiny voice, “You kissed me.”

  “I did?” he croaked. She couldn’t have any recollection of the other night. She hadn’t—ice laced his blood. Her powers hadn’t developed to synchronize dual realities with his time runs, had they?

  His confusion wiped the hesitancy from her voice and manner. She stopped fidgeting and met his gaze straight on. “Before you ran off and disappeared for months. You said the thought of my kisses drove you mad and then you kissed me.”

  The tension left him in a breath of relief. “Oh, that kiss.”

  She frowned at him. “You told me I was beautiful.”

  “You are.”

  She batted his admission aside with the wave of a hand. “You asked me if I could ever consider running away with you to Es Vedra.”

  The reason behind Lily’s early morning visit dawned on him. The priest was due this evening to perform the ceremony and the only thing still undetermined was the name of the groom. “Lily, things have changed.”

  She threw her hands up. “I don’t want to hear about you being dark and me being light! I don’t want to hear about how you’ll destroy me!”

  It’s the truth. But she didn’t want or need to hear that.

  “You honestly can’t see why I’d rather marry you than Kelan?” Her gaze was so open, so bare, he almost relented.

  “I’m not asking you to love me,” she said softly. “I won’t shackle you to the ground, expect you to give up anything—anyone… I’m not asking for a real marriage, Greyston, but you and I have a history. We’d be far more comfortable with each other in this arrangement.”

  “That history is exactly why we wouldn’t be,” he said.

  His words stung. He could tell by the jerk of her shoulders, by the way her gaze closed down on him. She’d probably taken his meaning back-to-front, tossed it around a few times and come up with something stupid and hurtful.

  He didn’t set her straight. That would just lead her further down the path he was trying to steer her from.

  “The McAllister name has a lot more substance than mine,” he pressed. “I’m not deserting you, Lily. I’m here until this war is over and I’m not running again.”

  “You say things like that…” She shook her head at him. “If you’re really not here for me, if you really don’t care one way or the other—”

  “Lily, I do care for you.” He spoke without thought and immediately regretted it.

  There was no dismissing his past, no living in the future she might be envisaging. That could only happen with a lie, an omission of truth that would infect and fester until only rot remained.

  “There’s a letter in the drawer.” He nudged his chin at the writing desk. “You should read it.”

  “How sweet, you wrote me a letter.” She stood, placed her hands on her hips and glowered at him. “You know what, Greyston? I’m not inclined to believe anything you’ve said or written. I think, perhaps, it’s time I started listening to my own instincts and do you know what they’re shouting at me? You’re trying too hard to push me away.”

  “Just read the damn letter, Lily.”

  “Fine,” she snapped, going over to the desk. “I’ll read the damn letter.”

  Greyston folded his arms behind his head and leaned back against the headboard.

  She y
anked the drawer open and shoved it shut again, almost ripped the letter in her irritation as she slid the crumpled piece of paper from the envelope.

  He wasn’t bothered.

  He had every word memorised and a piece of paper wasn’t something to get attached to.

  My darling child, if you’re reading this, that would mean I never got to know you, nor you me, but I already love you with a fierceness that hurts when I think of what you by needs must be put through.

  A few lines in, she glanced sharply at him. “This is the letter your mother left in Duncan’s care?”

  “I tried to toss it a number of times,” he said with a grim smile. “Neco kept rescuing the bloody thing.”

  “Oh, Greyston.” She sank down at the foot of the bed, her eyes on the page.

  Her brow crumpled, marking her passage. I do not make this decision lightly, nor are my reasons as noble as others may hope, or assume. When the worst of times are upon us, and they shall arrive, my child, I will not have my family led blindly to their demise.

  You shall be our eyes, our ears, our warrior.

  Duncan McAllister wishes to save the entire world, but I must own my selfish nature and release my soul without regret. I simply wish to save my family.

  A pained expression crossed her face, and when she caught her bottom lip between her teeth surely hard enough to draw blood, he knew she’d reached… I have been warned that bearing another child will not bode well for me, but if that must be so, what is my small sacrifice compared to that with which I am charging you, my beautiful, unborn babe?

  She read on, and then the stubborn set of her jaw softened.

  The innocent, ignorant, powerless, all shall fall about you and you may never forgive me this great burden I’ve placed on you, but how could I bear to watch you fall with the rest? You will survive.

  In this dark world that approaches, you will be our warrior, our saviour, our means of fighting back.

  But above all, my darling, you will survive.

  “Your mother loved you dearly.” Lily lowered the letter to her lap and took a long minute before lifting her gaze to him. “Does it help?”

  He wasn’t anyone’s warrior.

  He’d broken his family apart and none save him survived.

  No, he wanted to shout. No, it doesn’t help to know how badly he’d failed his mother.

  A shadow had settled in Lily’s eyes and he knew that wasn’t what she was asking. Her mother had made the same decisions for her before she was born and Lily would never know what her mother had been thinking, hoping for, what had driven her to such drastic measures as allowing Duncan McAllister to inject demon blood into her womb. Lily would never know and he was the reason why.

  “If your mother could speak to you from the grave, she’d say the same thing, Lily,” he answered. “She wanted you to survive.”

  “My mother had fifteen years to talk to me,” she said with a disgruntled huff. “Fifteen years to explain, to prepare me for what was to come. There’s only one conclusion I can draw from her silence. And wanting me to survive is not a decision she’d have regretted or been ashamed of.”

  Greyston averted his eyes, studying the pattern of blue and black roses on the drapes. “Do you remember when I told you about me seeing your mother arrive at Cragloden, just before the gas explosion?”

  “Yes…”

  “There’s more, Lily. I overheard a conversation between your mother and Duncan. She never told you, because she never intended to send you to Cragloden. That’s what she was doing there that weekend. Perhaps she wanted you to have an edge one day in a demon-infested world, but she never meant for you to take on the demons for the whole world. She told Duncan that you wouldn’t be joining his war.” He turned his gaze back on her. “To me, that sounds very much like a mother protecting a child she loves just as dearly.”

  “You overheard all that.”

  “I’m not making this up, Lily.”

  The haunted look in her eyes cleared. “Thank you, Greyston.”

  “I should have thought to tell you long before now.”

  “When? You haven’t been here,” she reminded him as she folded the letter carefully and returned it to the drawer.

  “You wouldn’t have come back, would you?” She faced him again. “If it was just for me?”

  Greyston shrugged. It was, he’d learnt, a most effective way to lie outright. “Kelan is more than capable of protecting you.”

  “So far as I know, you don’t trust the man a whit. But mention ‘marriage’ and suddenly you’re championing him.”

  “He’s the wiser choice, Lily.”

  “Is it still a choice?” She came closer. “My choice?”

  “We’re all in this together,” he said hesitantly. “We’ll muddle through to a solution that best suits everyone and the situation and, yes, your choice counts.”

  “Excellent,” she declared, flashing him a smile as she spun away from the bed.

  “Lily!”

  “Hmm?” She was at the door before she turned to him.

  “What the hell does that mean?” He narrowed his eyes on her.

  “It means your main objection appears to be that our history might muddy the temporary wedding vows. Well, you’ve made it quite clear; we don’t have any history worth recalling, so that argument is moot.”

  What? When had they had that conversation?

  “My argument is not moot,” he groused, but only the door was listening as it swung closed behind her.

  TEN

  Kelan wasn’t sure what amused him more. Lily emerging from Greyston’s bedroom at—he checked the time—just gone half past seven in the morning or the colour of guilt scorching her cheeks.

  “I’m fully aware of the time,” she said primly, glaring at the fob watch balanced on his palm.

  “I never said a word.” He couldn’t resist arching a curious brow as he tucked the watch into his pocket.

  “Yes, well, not everyone sleeps in until midday.” She drifted across the landing in the direction of her own bedroom. “We weren’t engaged in anything improper. We’ve been up and about for ages.”

  “Since you’re up,” he said, suppressing a chuckle, “Armand is ready to proceed with Ana’s memory transfer.”

  “Right now?”

  “It will hold until you’ve had breakfast.” He banged a fist on Greyston’s door.

  “Wait!” Lily yelped.

  “What?” came Greyston’s growl from the other side.

  Kelan pushed the door open to the sight of Greyston yanking on a pair of trousers. The state of the bed sheets and his mussed appearance did naught to uphold Lily’s vehement protestations.

  Across the landing, another door slammed shut.

  His immunity to the pair’s indiscretions slipped a little, an incongruence Kelan didn’t care to examine too closely. He was hardly a pious host and, all going according to plan, Lily would be married by evening.

  “It isn’t what it looks like,” Greyston informed him, seated on the edge of the bed as he pulled on his boots.

  “So Lily claims.” Kelan stepped inside and got to the point. “You mentioned there were laws of nature that limit how you sift time.”

  “I can’t go back further than thirty minutes and once I’ve displaced time,” Greyston said, shooting him a glance, “I can’t do so again for at least another twenty-four hours.”

  “And are you limited by these laws at this moment?”

  “Is this your subtle way of asking if I’ve been a good boy lately?”

  “Just answer the damn question.”

  Greyston grinned. “I’ve been a good boy.”

  “A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will do.” Kelan crossed the room to draw the drapes.

  The rising sun washed in from over the ocean and he was relieved to see the light showed none of the suffering on Greyston he’d expected to find after hearing he and Neco had stumbled home in the wee hours of the morning.

  That would make it two
nights in a row they’d gone tavern-crawling in a town that, to the best of his knowledge, only had one tavern.

  “Armand has hit a snag,” Kelan said. “His latest trial didn’t run as smoothly as he’d hoped.”

  “Is Ana okay?”

  “She’s lost two memories from his set of control data.”

  “Two memories out of what?” Greyston slid a slender dagger inside his boot and stood. “Twenty, thirty questions he was tracking? And that with only a partial transfer. Does Lily know?”

  Kelan let his silence speak for him.

  “Of course she doesn’t.” Greyston ground out a curse.

  As much as he appreciated the value of his newfound allies, Kelan missed the days when he hadn’t had to justify himself in triplicate. “There could be a wealth of information lying dormant in that memory sap.”

  “And it could be worthless,” Greyston said bluntly. “Not worth the risk.”

  “Armand has assured me he can complete the transfer in under ten minutes,” Kelan explained with aggravated patience. “That gives us twenty minutes with Ana to examine the memories before you take us back. The damage will be reversed. The transfer will never have happened and you’ll fill us in on everything we missed.”

  Greyston looked less than impressed at the brilliant plan.

  “You weren’t going to tell me either, were you?” he said after a pause. “If for some reason, I wasn’t able to rewind time this morning, you’d have said nothing and gone ahead anyway.”

  “I’ve always thought supposition to be a monumental waste of time and energy. What if the sun forgets to rise and set tomorrow? What if the demons win?” Kelan turned from the accusatory stare—probably meant to damn his soul—and reached the door in a couple of long strides. “We proceed straight after breakfast.”

  Having spent time with Neco and Ana, he understood the unnatural attachment Lily and Greyston had formed with their celludrones. But they were machines, constructed of steel bones and celluloid skin and the creative genius of Duncan McAllister for a single purpose.

  Kelan had made plenty of tough decisions in his life. Choosing between the potential to mine memory sap dating back to when his uncle was alive and the fabricated humanity of an automaton wasn’t one of them.