by Lisa Cardiff
The touch was a surprise, and his words almost felt protective as they wrapped around her. She pulled her hand from underneath his and sat perfectly still. The sudden need to lean into him overwhelmed her. Wanting to be around him was crazy—he was a complete stranger.
“Somehow I find your deep concern over my relationship manufactured. Regardless, the only regret I have is coming to Ireland to see Dierdre. This entire situation could have been avoided if I ignored Peter and Grace’s advice.”
“Who’s Peter?” Kalen’s voice sounded jealous or angry. Avery couldn’t tell.
“Just a friend from work,” she said.
He shook his head. “Anyone who works for the Foundation is not your friend. Trust me.”
Desperate to convince him of Peter’s innocence, her voice almost sounded like a plea. “He’s always been supportive of me. Even when I wanted to leave the Foundation and I applied for a research grant with another historical society, he wrote a recommendation letter for me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m sure you didn’t get that grant, did you?”
“No, but that’s irrelevant. I realize I made it sound as though Peter and Grace persuaded me to come here, but that’s not accurate. I listened to them, but in the end, I made my own decision to seek closure and confront Dierdre.” Avery let out a soft laugh. “Funny, I think rather than gaining closure, I opened Pandora’s box.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Pandora’s box was opened long before you set foot on Irish soil. Regardless of what you decided, this was your destiny. We would have found you either way.”
For some reason, she didn’t doubt him. Hugging herself, she shifted sideways in the chair. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is my destiny. Maybe I was supposed to say goodbye to Dierdre and find my dad.”
The fire finally lit, as if it approved of Avery’s proclamation.
Kalen leaned away from the fire and turned from her. “Life’s not that simple.”
“What do you mean by that? What should I expect?”
Kalen stood up and faced her again, towering over her. His mouth curled into a slight smile. “Let’s just say I am not your dad’s biggest fan,” he said in a soft voice. “On a good day, we don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
“Okay.” Her voice trailed off and she didn’t talk again for a few moments. “I’m not sure what to make of that or what you’re trying to say—that you don’t trust my dad. Is that your point? Coming from you, that’s probably not a bad thing. If I thought about it for any length of time, I might even consider that statement an endorsement.” The pinching in the back of her eyes told her if he looked at her closely, he would see the glassiness of her eyes, and he would know she was upset. After all these years, talking about her dad still generated the same reaction. It was something she preferred not to share with Kalen. She half-hoped he would reach for her again and console her, but he didn’t make any move to touch her. The disappointment she felt at his failure was so irrational and unnerving that she questioned whether she might be losing her mind.
When the silence lengthened, an irrational anger flooded through her, and she lashed out at him, letting the bitterness flow out of her. “I hate you!” Avery stared at him accusingly.
Kalen’s eyes flashed with a hint of anger, or at least Avery thought they did, but the emotion was gone so fast and replaced with a dull, bored look that she wasn’t sure if she had imagined it. “No, you don’t, but it doesn’t matter either way.”
“Why won’t you answer any of my questions?”
“You don’t need me to answer your questions. Deep down I know you realize you’re not a normal human. Stop trying to be someone you aren’t. You’re special.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Avery yelled, rubbing her temples in frustration. “I’m not different. I’m awkward, and I have a boring job. Being chased through the streets by gunmen? That’s someone else’s life!”
He shook his head. “That’s not you. You’re so much more. If you wanted, you could puzzle the pieces together. Can’t you read what my intensions are? Isn’t that your party trick? If you stopped all your bullshit for a moment and focused like when you saw me outside the Foundation, you could read me if you wanted to or if you had any interest, but I think you’re too afraid of what you’ll learn.”
“I’ll admit that I saw you watching me outside the Foundation, but I don’t know what you are talking about beyond that. Let’s get back to the point of this conversation. How long are we going to stay here?”
He sighed, and they stared at each other. “We’ll probably leave first thing in the morning. Does that make you feel better now that you have your precious timeline?”
“Why not continue right now and get this meeting with my dad over with?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there are times that are better than others to arrange the meeting. I have a schedule to coordinate with others that can’t be dictated by you.”
Feeling frustrated with her inability to control any part of her life, she squeezed her eyes shut and took a steadying breath. “I guess that just gives me more time to escape you and the Foundation and return to New York. Now that I think about it, this whole meeting with my dad thing doesn’t fit into my carefully planned schedule. I’m not really interested in becoming involved in this nonsense between whoever your group is and the Foundation. Like I said, you could be a deranged serial killer for all I know.”
She hoped her statement would generate a response, even a flicker of anger. She got nothing more than him saying, “You can try.”
“Would that make your job or assignment more challenging? Now that would interest me,” Avery said churlishly while sitting stiffly in her chair.
He acted as though he didn’t hear her, and she wondered if she finally succeeded in pissing him off. Maybe he was simply bored with her and the conversation. He didn’t give a shit what she thought or wanted as long as he completed his precious assignment.
Avery rolled her shoulders in an attempt to regain her wits. If he didn’t want to talk or explain anything, then she didn’t need him either.
When the room had become deadly silent except for the crackling of fire, Kalen turned away from her and stared absently into the flames. He had to wait to bring Avery into the compound until tomorrow when the Faerie wall was thin enough to allow her to cross. Humans could die if they tried to crossover when the window wasn’t fully open. She wasn’t completely human, but she wasn’t completely Fae either. Every half-breed was different, so he didn’t have model to follow. With her Fae blood, he might be able to drag her through without thinning walls, but he wasn’t certain he could do it without harming her. Being so close to completing this mission successfully, he didn’t think he couldn’t bring himself to take the chance. He sighed, contemplating another day in close contact with her. With her never-ending questions and harassment, the time could not pass fast enough.
He wanted to keep everything professional and limit his involvement with her, but it was quickly becoming more complicated. He respected her strength and he found himself feeling increasingly protective of her just like when she was a child. Her tough exterior hiding a pain hovering just beneath the surface made him want to hold and take care of her. It didn’t hurt that she was beautiful either. Humans never held his attention before he met this girl, or at least not since Mary Margaret. It wasn’t for a lack trying. He had done his fair share of dabbling with human women. What male faerie could say otherwise? They were easy prey. There was nothing like a handsome face and Fae charm to win a mortal woman over.
Avery seemed more difficult to crack, but she wasn’t immune to him. He noticed the way she watched him when she didn’t think he was looking. Her easy to read emotions showed she lacked the worldliness and sophistication he saw in other women, but that might play in his favor if she were foolish enough to let him in.
Developing any kind of relationship with the girl, intimate or otherwise, was beyond impru
dent. He would use her attraction to him only as a last resort to control her. He didn’t want or need any further confrontation with Cian and he sure as hell didn’t want to experience a repeat of the situation with Mary Margaret.
Cian or his power with the Court didn’t intimidate him; Kalen could hold his own against him, and Cian wasn’t without enemies, but messy entanglements could taint his future aspirations. Showing any emotion toward this mission other than the desire to see its successful end would make him no better than Aerin. His record wasn’t squeaky clean, and he’d made some mistakes others at Court found objectionable, but he had spent too many years cleaning up his act and walking the line to screw up everything now. Given the current political climate around the Queen, he didn’t think she would remain in power much longer, and if he pulled off this mission, he might be a contender for the throne.
When he completed the mission his feelings for Avery would fade. He almost laughed when he realized this thought was becoming a nonstop mantra in his head, as if he were trying to convince himself of his own argument. With her threats to leave, it looked as if it may be harder to bring her in without coercion. She obviously didn’t trust him to keep her safe. Why the hell would he need or want her to trust him, when all he needed was to deliver her safely to Cian and the Queen?
Maybe it was because she had spent a lifetime trusting the fools at the Foundation. The Foundation was full of the most treacherous people he could imagine; including all those plotting for power at Court and Avery still held a glimmer of hope that the Foundation wasn’t full of a bunch of snakes. She didn’t come out and say it, but she still hoped the Foundation wasn’t behind her mother’s death or the shooting at her hotel.
He needed to get away from her for a few hours to check in with the Queen or Aerin. They didn’t have any idea that he was using one of the abandoned safe houses. Besides, he could always count on the Queen’s thinly disguised manipulations to make him see his attraction to Avery for what it was; merely the result of being in close proximity with a beautiful woman, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing he couldn’t control.
And so, there was absolutely no reason for what Kalen did next: turning, he walked with determined purpose across the room toward Avery, where he bent down inch by slow inch until he framed her face with both hands. His eyes moved to capture hers, imprisoning them as he brought his lips gently against hers. Electricity slammed through his entire body, her eyes closed softly, and her lips moved to match his movements. Kalen became more demanding, and his hands drifted from her face down her sides and across her midriff.
If he had any sense or if he contemplated the consequences of his actions for one second, he would get up and walk away. But she was so close and sweet, and too responsive to stop. She shivered when he began to unbutton the bottom of her shirt, moving her body closer to him. Grazing his hand over her chest, he felt her heart drumming, matching the erratic beat of his own heart. Just as he surrendered to the inevitability of what was happening between them, a log in the fireplace rolled off the metal crate and landed on the hearth with a loud thud. He jerked away from her as his sanity came rushing back, almost stumbling backwards in his haste to get away from her.
“I have a few things to take care of,” he said, moving toward the door. I’ll be back in a couple hours. Why don’t you try to get some sleep and recover while I’m out? It should warm up quickly now that the fire is going, but just in case you get cold, I’ll leave you my jacket.”
As he pulled on the handle to leave, he turned around and took one last look at her from over his shoulder. She was still stretched out on the worn chair adjacent to the fire. Her hair tangled around her pale delicate face. The skin under her eyes was shadowed from lack of sleep, her chin was smudged with dirt, and her lips were damp and swollen from his kisses. She was pretending to ignore him, but he could tell that she was abundantly aware of him. He walked out of the house and closed the door with a silent click then leaned against it.
“Damn,” he said. Somehow he knew the whole situation called for a stronger expletive, but that was of the only word that came to mind when he considered the mess he had made. He couldn’t allow himself to get close to a woman again. He had to keep his mind clear and remain emotionally detached.
He had no idea whether she’d try to run. There was a fifty percent chance she would. But she was tired, and she needed to recover. Those things alone would buy him some time before she tried anything. Besides, the nearest neighbor was a mile away. The abandoned safe house didn’t have a phone either, so it wouldn’t be easy for her to find help or a place to hide while he was gone. She couldn’t go far, and he’d find her anyway. If she tried to escape, she would realize quickly it was futile. She had nowhere to go, and she wouldn’t be safe anywhere right now except with him. Walking down the dirt road two hundred meters he turned a corner and pulled out his cell phone. It was time to check in and test the mood of Queen, and of course, he needed to make the pretense of checking in with Aerin.
Chapter 10
Thomas Flannigan was in rare form. He threw his favorite vase at the wall and watched the pieces scatter across the floor. He couldn’t believe he had spent more than a decade of his life nurturing Avery Conner, carefully grooming her through various people of his choosing, and now she was gone without a trace. She was going to be the highlight of his career, his legacy; his key to the power of the Four Treasures, but his plans didn’t mean anything if the Fae had already recruited her.
He was the one that found that stupid bitch, Dierdre, and lured her into the Foundation’s web. He manipulated her until she no longer knew what to believe and blindly followed his advice. He had arranged everything—Avery and Dierdre’s escape from Ireland, their new identification, and an education for Dierdre so she could support the girl. He invested his own resources to secure his legacy and future at the Foundation.
It was his idea to find a new or fake mother for Dierdre—who Avery still thought of as her grandmother—to monitor Dierdre’s every move. When Dierdre started having second thoughts about hiding Avery from her father, he forced Dierdre out of the picture so the woman he appointed as the kindly grandmother could direct Avery without Dierdre’s interference, and when the kindly grandmother wavered, he got rid of her too. He kept Avery all to himself and under his influence from afar. Avery had shown so much promise; he was sure she was going to be the one who could finally find the Treasures.
Just when he was ready to give Avery hundreds of years’ worth of Foundation research on the Four Treasures—hoping that she would make sense of the twisted riddles concealing their location—the Fae appeared and stole her from him. Peter had assured him Avery would do anything he wanted, and he believed him because Peter had proved remarkably efficient in his previous tasks, always exercising the utmost discretion and demonstrating an uncanny willingness to do whatever was asked of him. Thomas thought he couldn’t have done a better job, but now he wasn’t so certain.
Rising from his desk chair, he strolled to the window, contemplating his next move. Losing Avery and the Four Treasures was not an option. It was time he explained a few things to Peter and what it meant to Peter’s future if he didn’t find Avery. If that meant Peter had to get his ass on a plane and bring Avery into the Foundation himself, so be it.
Thomas smiled, turned away from the window and picked up his phone.
After one ring, Peter picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Peter, it’s Flannigan. Where are you?” Thomas said abruptly, his voice cold and restrained.
“Where most people are at five in the morning. In bed,” Peter said in an equally unenthusiastic voice.
“You need to get on the first flight to Galway. Avery is missing.”
“Missing? Did you scare her into hiding?” Peter said with thinly veiled patience.
Thomas knew the deafening silence on the phone was almost as good as an admission, but he hated admitting that he was wrong. “The Fae found her, a
nd I need you to bring her back. Stroke her ego a bit, seduce her if necessary. Just get her back.”
Peter sat up in bed. “How the hell did that happen? She wouldn’t have gone willingly to the Fae without contacting me. They must have taken her against her will.”
“I don’t think she resisted, or at least it didn’t look like it. Just give her a call and tell her you’re going to be in town shortly.”
“Can you give me a little background so I don’t make the situation worse than it already is?”
“I had to take out Dierdre. She was becoming unmanageable.”
An amused snort carried across the phone line. “Can you explain how exactly someone on their deathbed becomes unmanageable?”
“She wanted to explain things to Avery. She already told her that her father thought she was dead, and she intended to come clean. Getting rid of her tied up some loose ends. I should have done it years ago. Anyway, after her death, I went to her hotel with a couple operatives to bring her in just in case she became curious and started digging into her past. When we showed up, she was in the hallway with one of them, a male. We tried to take him out, but they escaped together.
“What do you mean ‘take him out’?”
“One operative took a few shots.”
Peter took a deep breath. “Jesus, you could have killed her. What were you thinking? It’s not as if you could have harmed him.”
“I thought it might slow them down or scare her into coming with us.”
Peter snorted in disapproval. “Maybe that would have been a good idea if she were stupid.” He swore under his breath and then said, “We don’t have the luxury of making rash decisions. You need to think of the consequences before you act.”
“The fog of war often confuses things, and this is war. Decisions are not always made with total clarity in the heat of the moment. She left her hotel room willingly with one of them. I had to act.”
