Читать книгу Undying Hope - Emma Weylin - Страница 10

Haven curled into the snuggly, warm male chest and pulled a thick afghan around them. She imagined those friendly talking wolves had brought the blanket to her during the night. Her eyes snapped opened when she realized she wasn’t dreaming, and she really had fallen asleep on Quinn’s wonderful, beautifully bare chest. Having a mind of their own, her hands came up to run over the chiseled perfection.

The idea of mate would scare away most women, but Haven wasn’t so naive. She’d always known she wouldn’t have a choice. The next in line to rule the Black Rose would be her mate. For as long as the organization had been around, the elders had arranged the marriages of the men heading the group. If magic had stepped in to help her find a better mate, she wasn’t going to complain if he proved he was not like Mason. It was a damn good thing they were supposed to be mates, or she was going to have to have a serious talk with herself about the naughty thoughts flooding her brain.

His hand came up and trapped hers against his beating heart.

“Good morning,” he said. The soft cadence of his voice was slightly graveled from sleep. So incredibly sexy.

She blushed when her gaze met his, and she ducked her head. “I guess we got comfortable with each other last night.”

He scooted up into a half-seated position but still kept her hand trapped against his heart. He used the tip of two fingers to tilt her chin up. “It’s a good thing.”

“I come from an old-fashioned family,” she said without pulling away from him. “We don’t do these things. We have to be respectable at all times.”

“Your patriarch also wanted you to marry a meirlock.” He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re safe to think every opinion he has is suspect.”

She dropped her chin onto his chest and gazed up into his mesmerizing eyes. “What happens when your daughter doesn’t marry the man you want her to marry?”

“I will not be the one making the choice,” he said, and then frowned. “I’d have to accept a mating even if I didn’t like him, or I’d risk her death.”

She hid her face. She always managed to make stupid blunders when talking to a man she could imagine being with for the foreseeable future. “I’m sorry, I was just—”

“Asking a valid question,” he said, lifting her chin again. “All the ways humans have to pair off are as valid as anything else. I helped the first two Black Rose leaders choose mates for their daughters. That was the way marriage was done then. Today”—he brushed the side of his face along hers. His four-day scruff was silky soft—“I’d make sure she knew the difference between a good man and a bad one and trust that what I taught her was enough to help her find a good mate.”

“You do have a unique perspective on this,” she said softly. “We are from very different times. Was the past as horrible for women as some say it was?”

Quinn moved on the couch, bringing her with him when he sat upright. “It was horrible and wonderful for everyone, depending on what part of the world you were in and what you aspired to do with your life. Women had their issues while men had others.” He gave her a look to curl her toes. “I’d rather we talk about something less heavy this early in the morning.” Excitement lit in his eyes. “Please tell me you know how to operate a coffee machine.”

She laughed. “You don’t?”

“Nikon forbids for me to even boil water,” Quinn said. He stood up with her wrapped in one arm, pressed tightly against his chest.

That was the moment she realized how large he was. He held her suspended in the center of the room. The ceiling was easily nine feet, but he could reach up and touch the plaster if he wanted without having to stretch. He had to be seven feet in height, and he was easily twice, maybe three times, as broad as she was. He’d lifted her as if she weighed nothing, and her feet dangled a good foot and a half off the floor. All that size and power and he couldn’t make his own coffee? She looped her arms around his neck. “Do I want to know why Nikon forbids you to do it?”

“My last attempt resulted in some singed furs and a minor explosion,” he said with a straight face.

She wasn’t sure she believed him, but she’d go with it for now. “I can make you coffee. But I do need to get into the kitchen.”

“Let’s go.” He set her down next to the counter. He reached up to the highest cabinet and pulled down the can of ground coffee. “You’ll have to explain the coffee smell when the wolves get back or I’ll be in trouble. Nikon will piss in my most expensive shoes if I aggravate him enough, not often, but he will.”

That brought a laugh as she looked down at Quinn’s feet. Any shoe he owned would have to be specially made, so all of them were probably expensive. She grabbed the coffee pot out of the machine to fill it with water. “I’ll have to remember that. Do you know where the filters are?”

He reached over her head to pull a box of them down.

“Thank you.” She poured the water into the tank of the machine. “Where are they, the wolves I mean?”

“Probably outside.” He stretched, touching the ceiling with the flat of his hands and giving her an awesome visual of how all those muscles worked in unison.

Focusing on the task was best if she was going to behave herself. He was adorable as he stood there waiting for her to give him more instructions, but he hogged all the space around her. “Where are the mugs?”

He frowned at her as he crossed the kitchen to get them out of a cabinet that was ridiculous to keep glasses and mugs. She was going to have to rearrange this kitchen for the efficiency of normal-sized people. “How did the wolves get out there?”

“They know the code for the elevator,” Donovan said as he brought two mugs over and set them down on the counter.

She nodded. Of course they would know how to do that. Then she playfully pushed him back a few steps. “I need a little bit of space to work.” She still had time before Bastian would wake. That boy slept like a stone. “Once it’s running, then we can get all snuggly again.”

She could feel his eyes on her as she put the filter into the proper place before adding the right amount of coffee grounds. She set everything and switched on the button. As coffee machines went, this was an easy one. She turned around and leaned against the counter. “So the mighty Quinn can’t cook anything because his wolves won’t let him?”

“Pretty much,” Quinn said with a chuckle, though he did rub nervously at the back of his neck.

He had to be doing that on purpose. That chest was to die for, and, thankfully, it was also all hers. Forever wasn’t long enough to explore the vastness of his muscles. She cleared her throat. “When was the last time you tried?”

“Thirty years ago,” he said. “I keep telling Nikon I need to practice, but he refuses to believe me.”

“I see,” she said. She thought for a moment on how she could help him. She figured the Undying probably had some special way to educate their children. Bastian couldn’t be the only one, and she needed to switch Bastian’s school anyway. That would be the perfect time to teach Quinn to cook. “So then while Bastian is in Undying school, you’ll be attending cooking classes.”

His eyes went wide with worry. “You’re kidding, right? Do you have any idea the damage I could do in a cooking school? I could blow up the whole place.”

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. She padded over to him and petted her hand down his chest just because he was there and she could touch him. “How about private lessons?”

“Who’s the instructor?”

She did her best flirty girl pose and batted her eyes at him. “Me.”

A grin spread out over his face. “Sold. When do we start?”

“After I’ve had two cups.” She rested the side of her face against his chest. “Dare I stop to think about what is happening to us?”

* * * *

Donovan wrapped an arm around her and then dropped his chin on top of her head. His whole being felt a little lighter to have that one person who realized he was more than his power and his title. “That depends?”

She tilted her head back to look at him. “On what?”

“If we need to think about magic arranged marriages.” He bent down and brushed his mouth over hers. Her lips were soft like silk. His desire to take this mating further was strong and egged on by the treòir, but he held his power in check. Spooking her or demanding things that would come in time was pointless and counterproductive, even if having her breasts mashed up against his chest was driving him to distraction.

She rested her head against his solid muscle for a moment before she pulled away and retreated to the coffee maker. “What if I had married Mason?”

The treòir twitched. Donovan gritted his teeth as he struggled with its spike of anger. The treòir had less understanding of human interactions and didn’t always know why he couldn’t react in violence toward something that upset him. He leaned back against the L-shaped counter top and studied her for a long moment. “Mason would have been killed, and you’d have been freed to do whatever you want.”

She blanched. “That’s a bit drastic, don’t you think?” She turned and poured coffee into the mugs.

“Being tagged as a meirlock is a death mark. There is no escaping the sentence.” He crossed his arms over his chest. This was where the difficult parts of bonding started. Human women didn’t find understanding Undying law easy. Mason was an Earth Warrior. No prison in any realm would be able to hold him, and once the treòir inside turned down darker paths, there was no bringing it back.

She sucked in a breath. “Bastian!”

Donovan leaned over her and firmly put the mug back on the counter before turning her around to face him. “Bastian is a child. Has he killed anyone in cold blood?”

Her lower lip trembled. “No. He gets into fights sometimes at school. He just got expelled again yesterday because he was trying to protect one of the girls from something stupid one of the other boys said.”

Donovan stooped down until he was right at eye level with her. “He only needs a better way to control his treòir and some guidance on how to handle those situations.”

“You’re sure?” she demanded.

“I am.”

“Coming in, my lord.”

Donovan shook his head when he heard the voice of his Storm Warrior in his head. He refocused on Haven. “I am sure Bastian will be fine. He’s only in need of a little fatherly guidance, and we’re about to have company.”

Her brow furrowed, and then the walls shook as Donovan went to the door that appeared to be nothing more than a closet. When he opened the door, Memphis walked out. “I hate to bother you this early, my lord, but—” Memphis took a step toward Haven and leaned forward as he stared at her for a moment and then took in Donovan’s lack of dress and then back to Haven. “She’s wearing your shirt.”

“Aye,” Donovan said, letting out a long sigh. “It’s not as it appears, and even if it was—”

“Really?” Memphis grabbed Donovan by both of his shoulders and looked into his face. “She’s you’re lifebond?”

“I am,” Haven said.

Memphis let out a whoop and hugged Donovan tight before stepping back and clearing his throat. “Forgive me,” he said more formally to Haven. “I am Memphis Walker. The Cadeyrn’s Storm Warrior.”

“I will explain later,” Donovan said. “Memphis, why are you here?”

“I’ll go bother Sloan. I didn’t realize you were indisposed.” Memphis turned to go back into the wind portal room.

“It’s not public yet,” Donovan said. Memphis was a man on the list to tell right after he talked to his other brother, Wolf. “You wouldn’t be here if the problem wasn’t important.”

“Aye,” Memphis said with a polite bow of his head. “A Caden in Denmark suspects his Cadfael may have done something that requires your judgment. Haldur contacted me.”

“That is serious,” Donovan said. “Haldur’s take?” Memphis didn’t have to say anything. The answer was on his face. “All right. Give me two minutes. Make friends with Haven.”

* * * *

Haven furrowed her brow at the word Cadeyrn, but she didn’t say anything as she watched him leave the room and then turned to give Memphis as friendly a smile as she was capable. The man was huge, not as huge as Quinn, but still huge. Bastian might be on the short side of the Undying height scale, but then, he was only a teenager. She shied back a step. She could feel the power in the man. His was more like Quinn’s, but it was better to be wary of things she didn’t know. “Where is he going?”

“Denmark,” Memphis said, his eyes going to the mugs of steaming coffee on the counter. “He shouldn’t be more than half an hour.”

“Right, because a trip to Scandinavia is like a hop next door.” She turned back to the counter to see if there was sugar anywhere.

“It is when you travel by wind portal.”

She stilled and turned back to him. “That wind thing that opened for Kyros… You do it, too?”

Something akin to rage flashed across Memphis’s face. “You’re not afraid of me, so it wasn’t Lazarus you saw last night. What did you see?”

“I saw a vortex of wind with black and red lightning,” Haven said with a shudder. “The only meirlock I saw was Kyros.”

“And that would have been one of my brother’s portals.” He shook his head, and then his body relaxed before he grinned at her. “I could show you any part of the world you wish while we wait for Cadeyrn to return.”

She didn’t know what Cadeyrn meant. There was that word again, but the meaning for the Undying could be vastly different from what it meant for the Black Rose. “Bastian should be waking up soon and I should be here.”

“Ah, the boy,” Memphis said. “The one who should be here when he wakes would be Maverick.”

“Maverick?”

“Aye. Ean Maverick. He is the resident Earth Caden. He will want a look at the boy and, depending on his age, begin training as soon as possible.”

“Earth Caden?”

Quinn came back into the room. He stopped by Haven and kissed the top of her head before downing an entire cup of hot coffee. “Excellent.”

These men wanted to see if they could make her brain twitch. The man was fully dressed and carried a sword in a scabbard at his hip. A sword! “What are you going to do?”

“Make a judgment for a Caden in Denmark.” Quinn’s head cocked as his gaze locked onto hers. “If the Cadfael in that region has turned.”

“Oh,” she said, as she realized he might be going to put down a meirlock Cadfael. “All right. I’ll um, start breakfast, I guess.”

“Haven.”

“No. You can explain everything to me when you get back.” She forced a smile. “You need to do whatever it is that you do.”

“I can get Sloan,” Memphis said. “Though Darius would be better. I believe he has more dealings with those in Denmark.”

All these names were flying around, and Haven resigned herself to the fact she’d need to learn all of them. Quinn shook his head. “I need to speak with Wolf before there is a formal announcement. If one of the other Cadfaels show, I’d have to announce that I am bonding. I want to be the one to tell Wolf before giving the Cadfaels an official statement.”

“Very well, my lord.” Memphis bowed his head before opening the closet door.

Both men walked inside. Quinn stopped and winked at her. “I will be back as soon as I can.”

The door closed. The apartment rattled as if a violent wind gust kicked up outside. A second later, Memphis exited the closet.

Haven connected the dots. Memphis opened the portals and not Quinn. She had another question. “Why do you open the portal in there?”

Memphis chuckled. “A strong wind can do a lot of damage to inanimate objects.”

“Right,” she said. Why hadn’t she thought of that? “And he didn’t take you with him?”

“Kyros,” Memphis said as if the name answered everything.

Maybe it did. “I didn’t hear either of you talking about anything.” The elevator door opened. When the wolves came in with wet fur from playing in the snow, she understood how Quinn and Memphis had exchanged information. “Never mind. How long have you known Quinn?”

“If you don’t mind,” Nikon said as he padded up to her and rubbed against the side of her leg. “Can you get our breakfast? Look on the bottom shelf in the cold box.”

“I’ll get it,” Memphis said as he went to the refrigerator. “Roughly two thousand years.”

“Oh.” She needed something to do. “They eat their food raw?”

“It’s better for them,” Memphis said as he pulled out two packages of wrapped meat. “What do you know about us?”

“Nothing,” she admitted after a moment. “Do you want me to help?”

“Do you need to help?” Memphis asked with an edge of humor in his tone.

“I do,” she said and moved to the counter space he was using to unwrap the wolves’ breakfast. It appeared to be beef chopped up into large, bite-sized chunks. “You wouldn’t happen to know where their dishes are, would you?”

Memphis stilled from getting tomorrow’s wolf meal out of the freezer and stared at her.

“Just get some plates,” Medea said. “Eating off ceramic won’t hurt us.”

“Oh,” Haven said. She still felt silly talking to a wolf and knowing she would get an answer. “Would you prefer just having the paper?”

“Cadeyrn is very efficient and doesn’t like to wash dishes.” Medea rubbed the side of her head against Haven’s thigh. “Eating from a dish would be wonderful.”

Memphis reached over her head, pulled down two plain black plates, and set them on the counter. Haven served the wolves the meat on the floor.

She waited until they started eating before she went back to talking with Memphis. “Why is everything at giant height in this kitchen?”

Memphis chuckled. “Because a giant lives here alone?”

“Good answer,” she said. “All right. This is making me nuts. Start pulling things down. I have got to get this kitchen functioning for standard-sized people if I am the only one the wolves are going to let cook.”

To her utter surprise, Memphis did exactly as she asked. There weren’t many things that needed reorganized, and that had her hunting down a notepad and pen to start making a list. They had enough food to last Bastian one, maybe two meals. She was just putting the last cup into the cabinet next to the sink when the apartment rattled. A moment later, Quinn stepped out. His shirt was torn and the look on his face was heartrending.

Memphis paused.

Haven rushed over to Quinn. Her hand dipped into the hole in his shirt and came out red. “You’re bleeding. Memphis call—”

Quinn grabbed her wrist as he handed his sword off to Memphis. “I’ll heal.”

She studied his face. Part of her knew what he’d done. “He was…”

“Aye,” Quinn said. His glacier eyes bore into her. “It had to be done. Like when a werewolf turns. They don’t turn back.”

That was something she understood from her grandfather. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m going to get cleaned up. Stay with Memphis.”

Her shoulders slumped as he walked out of the room. “How am I supposed to help him if he won’t let me?”

“Go. Even if he won’t let you,” Memphis said. “I can man the frying pan if needed. Nikon won’t kick me out for cooking.”

Haven flashed a worried smile before running up to the room after Quinn. She figured she had as much right to be in there as he did since her stuff was there, but she did knock before she entered. A large, arching laceration covered his beautiful chest as he pulled on a clean black T-shirt, but the wound appeared like one that had been mending for a few days.

“I don’t need anything right now.”

“But maybe I do. What happened? I don’t understand.” She quietly padded over to the bed and sat down on the corner. She could guess he had to put down one of his own, but she hoped talking about it would help him.

“There is a new Cadfael in Denmark. I had to put down the last one,” he said wearily. He sat down on the bed next to her and rested the side of his head on the top of hers. “That part never gets easier. I guess, at least, it doesn’t happen very often.”

Right, of course he didn’t want to talk about this. Haven decided to ask questions about something else to distract him instead. “Cadeyrn, Cadfael, Caden—what do all those terms mean?”

He let out a short laugh as his arm looped around her. “A Caden is like a clan lord, for lack of a better explanation. We have the world divided up into provinces and territories, and the Cadfaels…” He made a face, as if he didn’t know what he should be saying next. “We don’t exactly rule over them. It’s like guarding them and presiding over the Undying who live within their province.”

“And your title,” Haven whispered, not sure she wanted to know.

He winced. “I preside over the Cadfaels.”

“Oh,” she said, trying not to let that sink in too deeply. “You’re their king.”

“Something like that, but not exactly.”

She lightly ran her hand down the side of his chest she knew wasn’t marked. “Then what, exactly?”

“I help them. I guide them. They are my people. When everything else fails them, I cannot.”

The weight settling down on them was tangible. “And you think you failed this Denmark Cadfael? Could he not come to you before he went down the wrong path?”

“Haven, don’t—”

“But I will,” she snapped as she stood and moved in front of him. “Yeah, I am sure it royally sucks right now, and I’m not going to tell you not to grieve, but you can’t let someone else’s failing also be yours. Would you have been able to help him if he’d have come to you?”

* * * *

Donovan blinked at her a few times. No one came into his personal space when he wanted to be left alone. They sure as hell wouldn’t yell at him not to feel however he wanted to feel after having to put down a meirlock. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” She stamped her foot and put her fists on her well-curved hips. “You’d help Bastian anyway if I wasn’t attached to him. Right?”

“That’s different,” he said, unsure if he should be amused or pissed off.

“No. The Denmark Cadfael chose not to ask you for help while you could still help him. That is not your fault.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but he realized she was right. “I’m trying. This is never easy.”

“Nor should it be,” she said as her voice went soft. She sat down on his lap and hooked her arms around his neck. “But you should only take on the parts that you had control over.”

He looped an arm around her. This was foreign to him. He wasn’t used to anyone taking the time to help him muddle through the feeling part of life’s darker necessities. “I’ll work on it.”

She narrowed her eyes on him before she leaned up and kissed his chin. “Good. Are you ready to come back down so I can make breakfast, or did you need more time?”

Donovan opened his mouth as a yowl of pain filled the penthouse.

Haven jumped to her feet and ran out the door. “Bastian!”

When they got downstairs, Bastian was balled up on the dining room floor with his hands wrapped around his head. The wolves were lying on either side of him while Memphis stood off to the side, gritting his teeth together. “Donovan!”

“I’ve got this.” He crouched down next to Bastian and placed a hand on the boy’s head. His treòir stretched out and easily suppressed the less powerful one. “It’s all right, young one,” the treòir said to Bastian. “The Storm will not hurt you or the lifebond. He is here at my behest to aid your power should danger befall us.”

Bastian’s treòir settled, and Donovan took the opportunity to take a cursory look inside Bastian’s head, only to have his worst fears confirmed. He pulled his mind back from Bastian’s as he sat on his heels. “Stay down for a few more minutes,” Donovan murmured. “That’s right. Just breathe in and out slowly.”

Memphis let out a breath. “Holy hell. What happened to him?”

“Mason Earthshaker,” Donovan said. “I am going to need to take him to Riordan and also have Haven checked out.” He scooped Bastian up as he contacted his brother. “Bastian has scarring from where he ripped out several compulsions on his own. I need for you to look at him now.”

“Bring him,” Riordan replied.

“Memphis, I need a portal to Riordan’s house.”

“Quinn?” Haven’s voice shuddered.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Bastian is fine. I just want some things checked out. Memphis will take you through if you’re afraid.” He ground his teeth together to suppress a growl. While he knew Bastian needed him more in this moment, he wanted to be there for Haven as she experienced all the newness of his world.

“Put me down,” Bastian said weekly. “I can walk.”

“I’ll take him through the portal,” Memphis said. “You should focus on your lifebond.”

“I don’t need anyone to take me through,” Haven said, but she nervously picked at her pinky.

He carefully set Bastian down and waited to make sure he was stable before turning to his mate. “I’d rather you’re with me if you’re worried.”

“But Bastian…”

His brow shot up. “You have people capable and willing to help both of you.”

She waited for Bastian to nod. He leaned against Memphis while rubbing the back of his head. “I will be all right. They don’t feel the same way Mason did.”

She drew in a deep breath. “All right. Let’s go. If Riordan can fix his headaches that would be wonderful.”

He wrapped his arm around her more for his comfort than for hers. He didn’t want to think about the sentence that had to be carried out for the Denmark Cadfael. There were only limited ways for an Undying to be killed. He preferred the one that involved a sword to the one he had to do by hand. With practiced techniques, he shoved aside the horrors of the day and focused on helping Haven through her first portal jump.

“The wolves!” she said when they got into the small room made entirely of tile.

“They are fine alone, and they will guard our home while I am not there,” he said.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Are you ready?”

“No, but Bastian needs a doctor who can actually help him.” Her hand curled in a death grip around his. “Let’s do this.”

Donovan nodded to Memphis.

Haven’s mouth dropped open as she watched a tiny tornado form on Memphis’s hand. The vortex grew and stretched until Memphis stood it on end. Sparks of violet and silver lightning streaked across the opening large enough to fit a man.

“It’s safe,” Donovan said. “Memphis, take the boy.”

Haven lurched forward when man and boy vanished into the portal. “Quinn!”

“They are safe on the other side. Do you want to walk through or would you prefer a lift?”

She canted her head as she glared up at him. “I’m not sure.”

He looped an arm around her bottom and lifted her up, clamping her tight to his body with one arm so they were face to face. “Close your eyes and you’ll never know it’s happening.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and ducked her face against his cotton-clad chest. “Just go.”

Donovan stepped through to the other side. “We’re here.”

Her eyes popped open as she turned to peek at her new surroundings. “We didn’t leave.”

“Look at the door.”

She did. “Oh. That’s not the same.”

“No. Everyone has their own symbol. That makes it easier for the Storm warriors to get to where they are going.” He set her on her feet. The portal rooms also allowed for lifebonds and children to travel between dwellings without needing a Storm Warrior in the case of danger, but Donovan didn’t tell Haven. She was already dealing with a lot. He’d save the lesson for later.

“Right. So, we’ll have Riordan look at Bastian, and then we need to talk about things we’re going to need.”

“You’re getting a check-up as well,” Donovan said.

“Wait…what? I’m fine,” she snapped at him.

“Humor me, woman,” Donovan said as Memphis opened the door and led them into Riordan’s healing den. The room was washed in calming blues and had Nadia’s touch for soft fabrics and comfortable furniture. A set of stairs went up to the main house, and a hall on the other side headed to private examination rooms.

“Where are we?” Haven asked.

“Riordan’s healing den. Most of his visitors are more likely to need him in his healer capacity than anything else.”

Her hand wrapped tightly around his. “I still don’t need a doctor.”

“What is causing the worst of Bastian’s headaches isn’t his treòir.”

“What? How do you know that?” She moved in front of him and planted her fists on her hips.

He leaned down and kissed her nose. “I was in his head with him to control the treòir. There is scarring there from a compulsion Mason had given him at one point. I want you checked for the same thing.”

Her eyes went huge. “Oh.”

“Exactly,” he said, turning around to lead her back into a more private exam area. “Don’t fight me, woman.”

She snorted at him. “If you say so, man.”

Even after the day’s traumas, Donovan couldn’t help the slight smile curving his mouth. Haven was already making an interesting addition to his long life.