Byzantine Heartbreak (25 page)

“I...” Cáel cleared his throat. “I just know facts. Dates.”

She shook her head. “You know a lot more than that. Where, Cáel? You’re right, Ryan is wounded and bleeding and he wants to hide from us both. Where would he go where he thinks neither of us would consider trying to find him?”

The answer was so obvious when she phrased it that way. “Ireland,” Cáel said. “But not the little village where he came from, because he told me about it. Somewhere else meaningful to him, that he thinks we don’t know.” He recalled the dates and facts of Ryan’s history. “
Cathair Saidhbhín,” he said, remembering.

“Where is that?”

“It’s on the coast in County Kerry.” Cáel hesitated. “Ryan’s wife died there,” he added.

Nayara’s eyes widened. “His
human
wife,” she breathed.

Cáel nodded. “They had a cottage on the cove. The Normans...” He hesitated. “Ryan hasn’t even told me this story, Nia. He very carefully set the rules of the book so that he wouldn’t have to.”

“But you know, anyway,” she said, her voice distant. Cáel could see that she was already thinking far ahead of their conversation. The stupor her shock had thrown her into had worn off. Her eyes were glittering with the drive of her personality now. She pinned Cáel with her direct gaze. “When?” she demanded.

“He wouldn’t risk going back to the same year,” Cáel pointed out. “He wouldn’t risk meeting himself, or her, and potentially starting a time wave. But he wouldn’t risk jumping too far forward or earlier than the time he knows, either. Not without preparation, the way he leapt away just then. He would risk running into political problems, wars, Norman reprisals, invading armies, even his own people battling among themselves, if he moves too far outside his known date range.”

“And when was he there? I can avoid those years.”

Cáel gave her the single year. “They were barely wed,” he told her.

Nayara nodded stiffly. “I’ll bear that in mind,” she said, moving around to her side of the big desk.

Cáel shoved his hands in his pockets and curled them into fists. “So...you’re going to jump there blind?”

“I’m not that reckless,” Nia replied. She pulled a pair of long knives out of the drawer. They were sheathed in slender cases and she tucked them into her boots. Then she pulled out a leather drawstring purse that looked battered and ancient. It jingled as she tied the strings around her waist. Gold, unminted coins that would serve as ready money no matter what era she landed in, Cáel suspected. “Ophelia was born in Kerry. I’m going to read her mind.” She turned to pluck a dark cloak from the hook where it hung behind her desk and threw it around her shoulders and tied the strings. It was an incredibly makeshift wardrobe, but it was surprisingly versatile. It would get her through most periods of history as long as she didn’t try to pass herself off as either too rich or too educated.

“You can’t read Ophelia’s mind unless she’s in human form,” Cáel pointed out.

“And she is, right now. She’s back in France again.” Nia’s mouth lifted in a tiny smile. “Her favourite era.”

“How are
you
going to get back there?”

“I know that marker. We all do.” Nia wrinkled her nose. “So many clients want to drool over Josephine.”

“I imagine that was what you thought I wanted, when I picked that tour, last year,” Cáel replied.

“At first. I know now that you were probably watching us more than the French court.” Nia came around the desk to face him. “Your game was very long term, wasn’t it?”

Cáel gave a small shrug. “High stakes deserve long range thinking.”

Nia nodded. “I’ve learned that from you,” she said. She fell forward, toward him, her arms slapping around his waist, pushing him back, tumbling him off his feet. “Surprise,” she whispered breathlessly as they fell.

* * * * *

Cairo, Egypt. 2263 A.D.

Demyan was not prepared for the sorrow and regret that left him almost immobile, after it was done. In all the years he had lived, he had been able to preserve most of his human morals, except for when the symbiot took control. The conditional standard allowed him to live with the facts of his vampire life.

Now he had crossed that line.

Pritti crept into his arms, settling in his lap and wrapping her arms around him. He could feel her gratitude and her grieving mix together. It helped. Just a little.

For a long time they stayed that way, while the fire burned lower, then died altogether. Finally, as morning arrived, Pritti looked up at him with a direct, steady gaze that held no animosity, no fear, no hatred.

“You’re a kind man.”

It was a simple enough statement, but it touched him deeply.

That was when he noticed the tic in the corner of her eye again and with the impact of a thunderclap, he put together the last piece of the puzzle. All the evidence of late: The limp he’d noticed, her absent-mindedness. The fact that she rarely teleported anywhere, or even spun on the spot. She’d been hiding it all along. He touched her eye. “No...not you. Not yet,” he said despairingly.

“Yes, me,” she said softly. “And soon.”

There was nothing more to say after that. So he held her, instead.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Agency satellite station. 2263 A.D.

Justin stood up and stretched, then bent backwards, making his spine pop and snap. He finished by tilting his head to either side, stretching his neck, then sighed.

Demyan, Rob, Christian and Brenden all watched him in silence. Rob looked baffled and slightly amused.

“You make that look utterly real,” Rob observed. “I even feel tired just watching you do it.”

Justin grinned. “I spend nearly all my time with humans, mate. It pays to blend in. It’s the little things that make all the difference.”

“None of us are human here, boy,” Brenden growled. “So are you just showing off?”

Justin shrugged. “It’s habit now. After I’ve been sitting still for a long time, I stretch like I’m ironing out all the kinks. Humans do it all the time. So I do it. I don’t even think about it anymore.”

Christian smiled, enjoying Rob’s amazement.

Rob sat back, crossing his arms. “You study them a lot, then. Humans, I mean.”

“Enough to pass as one. I’m not planning on travelling anytime soon.”

Christian could see the natural ‘why not?’ form on Rob’s lips, but he held it back. It would be too probing a question, stepping over the line of polite conversation.

Justin cracked his knuckles. This time he grinned. He was doing it deliberately. “I’m taking a break, boss,” he told Brenden. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Brenden scowled even harder. “If you must,” he said curtly.

Justin patted Brenden’s shoulder as he passed his desk and hurried out of Security, stepping through the doors before they had fully opened.

“What’s his hurry?” Demyan asked.

Brenden growled under his breath.

“What?” Rob asked.

“I said,” Brenden replied heavily, “better to ask ‘who’s his hurry for?’”

Demyan scowled.

Christian was startled. “
Justin
? With someone here at the agency? He’s actually seeing a non-human?”

Brenden sighed. “Well, she’ll be non-human soon enough, I suppose.”

Rob’s lips parted in surprise. “
Dionne Rinaldi
? Out of all the vampires she could have picked, designer-clad not-a-hair-out-of-place Rinaldi chose uncouth, outback raised Justin Kelly?”

Brenden poked at his keyboard with his two thick forefingers, his scowl even darker. “Don’t think there was a lot of choosing in it. I spent hours dealing with complaints about noise from the quarters all around hers. She weren’t being too picky, the way I hear it...and everyone else heard it in the aft starboard far quarters.” He stabbed at the keyboard again, more viciously this time.

They all stared at him, absorbing this little tidbit in amazed silence for a bit.

“That old dog,” Demyan said at last. “He didn’t say a damned word. Not even a twinkle in his eye.” He stood up and glanced at Brenden. “I’m...I’ll be back in my quarters for a while, if you need me.” He moved out from behind the station he had been using, nodded at Rob and Christian and strode out of Security.

Rob watched him leave, then turned and surveyed the whole Security area. “No Pritti,” he muttered.

“She might be sleeping,” Christian pointed out. “Why do you mention that?” He appreciated Rob’s intuitive ability to marry up odd facts and arrive at unexpected, yet correct, extrapolations.

Rob shook his head. “Are Pritti and Demyan...?” He trailed off delicately.

Brenden scowled. “How would I know and why would the gods care?” he said and continued reading displays.

Christian considered the question, thrusting aside any distaste or surprise. “It’s possible,” he said judiciously. “But why would either of them seek such misery?”

“What do you mean?” Rob seemed almost shocked.

“Pairings between vampire and psi are doomed. Demyan is essentially immortal. And Pritti’s short, hot life is nearing its end. Any relationship they develop can only be guaranteed to end hard and quickly.”

“You could say the same thing about vampire and human,” Rob pointed out. “Justin and Dionne...?”

“Yes, but unlike psi , humans can be made vampire, if they chose that path. Psi can’t be made. Their blood rejects the symbiot and their raging metabolism fights the symbiot’s control. To try to make a psi vampire brings only a swifter, more painful death to them.” Christian sighed. “We learned this two centuries ago and the experience is still vivid. No vampire would attempt it again.”

Rob looked down the passage where Demyan had disappeared, a frown marring his forehead. “If they were desperate enough, they might. Love drives men to extraordinary deeds.”

Christian rested his hand on Rob’s forearm. “I know,” he said. In his memory, still perfectly preserved, he could recall at will the precious moment when he had looked up from helping Tally and baby Jack out from the arrival chamber, to see Rob standing in the agency lounge. Waiting for them, as he had miraculously contrived to do for over nine hundred years since they had left him in the past.

Rob stirred and looked back at Christian. His smile warmed. “Let’s go home,” he said, his voice a note or two deeper.

Christian stood up. “We’ll finish up here later,” he told Brenden.

Brenden waved them away with an impatient flick of his hand. “Go hug your wife,” he growled, turning back to his station with a scowl. “And send Kieren back here. I could use his help since everyone else is buggering off. It’s not like you’ll want him in the room with you for the next while or so.” And he laughed loudly at his own weak joke.

But there was only Christian and Rob left in the room and they just rolled their eyes.

* * * * *

Cathair Saidhbhín, County Kerry, Ireland. 1195 A.D.

There had been rumours of strangers in the area, a few weeks before, so when the two figures appeared on the cliffhead above the beach and he didn’t recognize them immediately as locals, Ryan knew he’d been found.

He came to a standstill on the beach, letting the wind whip the hair out of his eyes, watching them.

A man and a woman, both tall, the woman redheaded.

Nia.

His gut clenched, even as he admired their tenacity and ingenuity. It wouldn’t have been easy to find him, even with Cáel’s copious research to help.

There was a cry of a lonely gull overhead and the slow roll of the waves against the grey sand of the beach, but other than the three of them, the beach was utterly deserted. All the fishermen had pulled up their boats just before noon, their day’s fishing done. Their nets were spread over the upturned hulls, drying in the weak sun and wind.

The beach curved in a long crescent for two miles and the only sign, other than the boats, that humans knew it existed was the path Cáel was carefully picking his way along down the cliff and far off on the promontory, a tiny puff of smoke from a cottage that couldn’t be seen from here, because it was tucked away behind protective trees and bushes.

There was a stew warming on the fire in that cottage, but Ryan had a feeling he wouldn’t be eating it any time soon.

Nia stood for a moment longer on the cliff top, then she disappeared.

Then appeared next to his side.

“And you didn’t bring Cáel with you? That’s ungentlemanly of you,” Ryan told her.

She was wearing a travel-stained cloak and under it, petticoats and a skirt that looked like something she might have bought at one of the stalls in Killarney on market day. A money pouch hung from her waist and Ryan had no doubt her twin long knives were tucked into her boots. Her shirt was the top half of the green velvet dress Ryan had last seen her wearing on the station, but it showed signs of wear, stains and rips.

Her hair was loose, tangled and a glowing rippling red. Her lips were free of makeup and were naturally red. Ryan thought she looked glorious. His heart ached at the sight of her.

“Cáel wanted me to come ahead. To talk to you alone, first.”

“Ah. So he wants his pound of flesh, too.”

Nayara rolled her eyes.

“You look like you’ve been travelling hard, Nayara. How long did it take to find me?”

“Two weeks, subjectively. We’ve ranged up and down a couple of hundred years, looking for hints of you and we’ve been closing in on you the last day or so. You may have heard about us. We were open about asking after you.”

“I heard,” Ryan confirmed.

“How long have you been sulking here, Ryan?” she asked, a hand dropping to her hip. Attack mode.

Sulking
? An interesting choice of words. He pulled his cloak in tighter around him as protection against the chill wind. “Not long. A week. But I’m known here. I’m local.”

“I know. Your wife came from here.”

Ryan didn’t think he could be any more surprised than he was right then. “You know about Siobhan?” he asked. Then he realized. “Cáel. Of course, he would have found out about her eventually, I suppose. I am the only one left alive who remembers her—who knows about her. I don’t know who told him.”

“You were human, Ryan. You married in a human ceremony. There are records for these times. Church records, records of state. Lyle Bean found them because he’s a good researcher. Not because he found someone who knew.”

“Ah.” Ryan grimaced. “I had forgotten about that.” He glanced toward the cliff. Cáel was either injured or he was deliberately taking his time traversing the path. Either way, he was giving Ryan the time he needed to adjust to this.

He looked at Nia. “I wasn’t hiding Siobhan from you.”

“I know.”

“You do?” he asked, surprised again.

“She’s been with you all along, your entire life. The medallion was hers, wasn’t it, Ryan? The Celtic tree of life you gave Salathiel—she gave it to you, first.”

Ryan glanced down at the base of her neck, where the medallion now rested. His throat constricted. It took him a moment to gather the courage to speak. “It was her wedding gift to me,” he said. “She’d heard about the myth of the tree of life, how it meant immortality. Life springing up endlessly. It appealed to her. So she had the medallion made for me. Our marriage was six weeks old when the Normans rode through the village on a scouting tour. One of them took a fancy to Siobhan, but she would have none of him. So he killed her for her defiance...and me, because I tried to stop him.”

Nayara touched his shoulder. It was a diffident, shy touch. “The one that had told her about the tree, about immortality. He was a vampire?”

“So I discovered when I woke and found myself one. For Siobhan, it was too late. But he grieved over her loss and saved me to compensate.”

Tears were sparkling in Nia’s eyes. “Did you grieve, Ryan?”

“I did for a long time,” he admitted. “But then I met you and I didn’t need to anymore.”

“And now you’re just being a stubborn, idiotic son of a bitch,” she added.

The switch took him by surprise. Again.

Nayara pulled her hair out of her face and twisted it out of the way of the sharp fingers of the wind. “You heard me, Ryan. You’re a moron.”

“
I’m
the moron?” he asked. “You’re the one that was fucking him in the middle of your office. It didn’t occur to you that I wouldn’t walk in at some point? Or were you hoping I would?”

But Nayara didn’t quail or collapse back down into herself as she might once have. She put her hands on her hips. Anger glittered in her eyes. “Why shouldn’t I fuck him in my office?” she demanded.

Ryan drew in a breath to answer and couldn’t find one—not an answer that he could speak aloud. He shook his head. “That’s not the point—”

“Yes it
is the point
!” she screamed. At the sound of her voice, seagulls that had settled around them, hoping for scraps of food, took off with raucous cries, lifting up into the wind.

Ryan even took a step back.

And Nayara stepped towards him. There was no mistaking the anger in her eyes now. “Answer the goddam question, Ryan. Why shouldn’t I fuck Cáel in my office? Or anywhere I damn well want to?”

Cáel was striding across the beach now. He wore a cape with a hood and a richly embroidered long tunic over soft hide boots. There was a good belt with a brass buckle pulling the tunic in around his waist and an eating knife in a good sheath hanging from the belt. It made him look rich and foreign, which explained away his features, which were exotic for here and now.

“Ryan!” Nayara snapped impatiently.

Ryan looked back at her and realized he was putting off answering her. He’d rather face Cáel than deal with Nayara.

His heart was racing, like he had run the length of the beach.

Nayara tilted her head. “Why can’t I fuck Cáel?” she repeated, her voice dangerously low.

Cáel reached them. Despite the challenging climb down the cliffside and the long walk over the beach, he seemed barely taxed. He looked at Ryan, his gaze running from head to foot.

Ryan swung his fist at Cáel’s face, telegraphing the punch and fully expecting Cáel to get his hand up to block it like he had in New Orleans. And for a sucker punch like that, Cáel would be fully justified in swinging right back.