Dissonance: An Echo Trilogy Novella (Echo Trilogy, #2.5) (2 page)

When Nik didn’t respond to
Neffe’s
cautioning to take care, Neffe made to reach for his arm, but stopped herself
short. Instead, she made a fist. “If you’re at all
unsure .
 . .”

“Nik is not entirely confident in his ability to wield his
sheut
so specifically.” The words had been uttered using
Nik’s vocal chords, tongue, and lips, but their cadence and accent hinted at
another speaker entirely. One quick glance at Nik’s face, at the open, relaxed
expression and the opalescent irises now staring back at me, confirmed it—Nik
was no longer in control; Re was. “I will do this for you instead,
Neferure
.” His lips curved upwards in a smile that looked
nothing like Nik’s. “Personally, I’d rather not feel the pain of this ring
tearing through our flesh.”

“I—I—” Neffe stammered. “Of—of course not, Great Father.” She
cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t have
actually .
 . .
I mean, I—”

“It is fine, child,” Re-Nik said, touching
Neffe’s
arm. “I understand more than you think. Now, shall we begin?”

2

Wanting & Waiting

“I am
so
excited,” Kat said, bouncing on the balls of her
feet as she stood at the bottom of the grand stairway in the main house—what
I’d come to call simply “the house.” It was easily a mansion, and as
classically designed as it was on the outside, it was equally modern and
subdued on the inside. And the thing was enormous, boasting at least a dozen
bedrooms and enough secondary rooms to complete a small neighborhood.

Watching my youngest—that I knew of—sister from one of several
understated gray couches in the sitting room beside the entryway, I smiled to
myself. In her cut-off jean shorts and flowy T-shirt, and with her hair coiled
up in a messy topknot and the worn leather satchel containing her sketching
supplies that seemed to be on her at all times lately hanging easily across her
body, she looked the stereotypical eighteen-year-old. She
looked
carefree and confident, not a worry in the world. My smile
wilted. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I think we’re all ready to get out and stretch our legs somewhere
that isn’t
here
,” I said,
interrupting my souring mood by filling the silence. “. . . and
isn’t packed full of Nejerets.” I glanced at Neffe, who was seated on the
opposite end of the couch from me, flipping through a scientific journal like
she was skimming for the season’s latest and greatest in a fashion magazine. “I
meant no offense, of course, it’s
just .
 . .”
We’d been cooped up in the compound for the past week, and I was fairly certain
we were all starting to feel like caged animals.

“Trust me, Lex, I get it.” Neffe offered me a minute smile without
actually looking at me. “I’m as eager as young Kat for our little trip into the
city.” As was I, though after the dream I’d woken from again this morning, I
wagered I had very different reasons than the others. More than anything, I
needed to reassure myself that the recurring nightmare had been only that: a
mere figment of an overwrought mind’s overactive imagination.

I returned my attention to Kat, taking note of her suddenly stiff
posture and how her hands balled into fists at her sides. She took a deep
breath. Then another. And I waited for the impending explosion. She could stand
Neffe calling her “young Kat” less than Neffe could stand Nik’s nickname of
“princess.”

Kat took one more, deeper breath, and I was in the middle of
mentally commending her for her unusual show of self-restraint when she opened
her mouth and yelled “
Marcus!
” up the
stairs. Very, very loudly. My ears rang from the unexpected influx of way too
much sound. Sometimes heightened Nejeret senses could be a real pain.

“Okay!” I jumped up and rushed to the stairway. “Let’s not do that
again .
 . . ever, hmm?”

Kat turned to me as I approached, her expression sheepish.
“Sorry.”

I touched her shoulder as I passed her and headed up the stairs.
“I’m going to check on Marcus. I’m sure he’s getting ready right now.” He’d
better be, if we wanted to make the ferry. Ascending the final few stairs, I
glanced back at Kat. “Go track down Dom and Nik, will you? Let them know we’re
about to head out.”

“Yeah, okay.” And just like that, she was back to bouncing as she
skipped along the hallway that led to the other rooms deeper in the house.

“Thank you for not leaving me alone with her,” I heard Neffe say
under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear.

I rolled my eyes.
Family .
 . .

***

I stared down at the sparkling ripples of water from the upper
deck of the ferry, seeing another time, another place in the Puget Sound’s inky
depths. In my mind, I was surrounded by jagged limestone outcroppings and sand and
the driest heat I’d ever felt. Before me, Marcus—or, rather,
Heru
—knelt on the rock-strewn sand, a tall wall of
limestone on one side of us, a pile of boulders on the other. My memory of him
staring up at me while he pledged his life to mine was so fresh in my mind it
might as well have happened mere hours ago, not thousands of
years
ago.

I shook my head and frowned, embracing the refreshing sea air. It
was a perfect August day in the Sound—a solid eighty degrees, ideal tank-top-and-sandals
weather. Ideal ferry weather.

“My father would have enjoyed the ferry ride greatly today,” Neffe
said from beside me. She’d been my silent companion at the deck railing for
some fifteen minutes, and I’d utilized that time to thoroughly lose myself in
thought.

“Mm-hmm.” Thinking of Marcus—or, more specifically, of his
absence—I suppressed another frown.

“Whatever the Council of Seven was discussing must have been very
important for him to miss this,” Neffe added, and I glanced at her, just long
enough to see the concern in her eyes. I’d fought hard to keep our little day
trip alive once it became clear that Marcus wouldn’t be able to leave his
virtual meeting with the Council for hours yet, and Neffe had been my main
ally, but I hadn’t expected Marcus to actually agree. As silly as it sounds,
considering I’d gotten my way, I felt a little let down.

“It was important,” I said. “—
ish
.” I
caught a glimpse of Nik out of the corner of my eye; he was leaning against the
railing several dozen feet up deck from us, his back to the water as he kept a
close eye on everyone and everything within his range of sight. Marcus and the
Council had been discussing him, specifically whether or not they should force
him to be the ninth member of the Council of Seven, what with me being the
honorary eighth member and the Council having a hard time making any decisions
now that they boasted an even number of members. Remotely, I wondered if they’d
be changing the name now that the “of Seven” no longer applied.

Marcus had called for a short break when I’d come upstairs to
check on him, but not before I’d heard the heated voices coming from the
conference room.

“I can’t leave right now, Little Ivanov,” Marcus told me, regret
filling his burnished golden eyes. “We’ll have to postpone until tomorrow.”

I pressed my lips together and studied his resigned features. “Are
you sure you have to be here for this?” I asked, flicking my eyes toward the
shut door behind him and the conference room with its six monitors, one for
each of the members of the Council of Seven. I’d ducked out of the meeting when
Dr. Sands had arrived a couple hours earlier, and it had been little more than
a silent standoff when I’d been present. The discussion was pointless, which
I’d already
expressed .
 . . thus the silent
standoff. But none of them knew Nik—or Re—as well as I did, not even Marcus.
I’d tried to tell them that nobody could make Nik do something he didn’t want
to do, especially not when Re himself had no interest in taking part in the
Nejeret governing body, but several of the Council members had refused to
believe me. Surely Marcus’s time was better spent
elsewhere .
 . .
like in Seattle with me.

Marcus reached out and curved his hand around the side of my neck,
brushing his thumb slowly over my lips until they parted. He made a low,
guttural sound, something between a groan and a sigh. “Much as I hate to see
such disappointment in your eyes, Little Ivanov, yes, I need to be here for
this.”

Grasping his wrist, I turned my face to the side and kissed his
palm. Meeting his eyes, I pulled back a hairsbreadth and said, “But
I
don’t.”

I watched Marcus’s striking features tense. “
Lex .
 . .”

I stood a little taller. “There’s no reason I shouldn’t go without
you.” Before he could protest, I barreled on without thought. “We’ve had zero
indication that anyone has any interest in hurting me right now,
and
Saga and
Heimdall
already scoured
the stable portions of the
At
and saw
nothing
to
be worried about in Seattle today. Besides, Dr. Ramirez rearranged his entire
schedule today to fit me in.” Apparently he had an artifact for me to look at,
though I had no idea what it was or where he’d come by it, just that it had
made him think of me. His email a few days back had sparked unexpected
happiness, as though he was my last true connection to the purely human world,
and now with the dreams about him dying, I was especially determined to visit
him today.

“Plus,” Neffe said from behind me, “both Nik and Dom will be
there, and even you’ve all but admitted that Nik is better at protecting Lex
than you are.” I sucked in my breath and leaned back a little as soon as the
words were out of
Neffe’s
mouth. That had been the
absolutely wrong thing for her—for anyone—to say to Marcus.

My bond-mate withdrew his hand and clenched it into a fist, and my
whole body tensed in anticipation of what I was betting would be a rather grand
argument. Marcus closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly released it,
then relaxed his hand and looked at me. “Very well, Little Ivanov, if you still
wish to go into the city today, you have my—”

My eyes narrowed in anticipation of the next word that would come
out of his mouth, and he paused. So help me, if he even started to utter the
word “permission
” .
 . .

Marcus’s perfect, chiseled cheek twitched. “You have my
blessing
.”

I flashed him a humorless smile. Clearly we were still working
some of the kinks out of our relationship.

“Yes, well, my father can spend all day in his precious meeting
for all I care.” Neffe nudged my shoulder. “At least we get to get out and have
some fun, yeah?”

I met her gaze and smiled, knowing full well it didn’t touch my
eyes. I felt off, and not only because Marcus hadn’t been able to join us. No,
it was something else. Something different. It was as though I was waiting for
something to happen; I just didn’t know
what
I was waiting for.
It’s probably just the dream,
I told
myself.

Neffe touched her fingertips to my forearm. “I’m going to run in
and grab a coffee. Do you want anything?”

I shook my head. “Thanks, though,” I said absently, and she walked
away. In my periphery, I spotted Kat approaching from the stern, her sketchbook
hugged to her chest. Her expression darkened suddenly, and she made an about-face
and headed instead toward the bench where Dominic was sitting. Turning to
confirm my suspicion of what she’d seen, I leaned my hip against the railing,
not the least bit surprised to find that Nik had moved closer. His back was
still to the water, but he now stood right beside me.

I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. “You
know,
you have the most interesting effect on people.”

He glanced at me sidelong, his pale eyes glittering. “I hadn’t
noticed.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure.”

“I’m not the only one who has an
interesting
effect on people, you know.” Nik turned his face to me,
his usual smirk
absent
for once.

“What are you—” My eyes widened. “You mean
me
?” I said,
touching the tip of my index finger to my chest.

Nik tucked his hands into his jeans pockets—they were a dark gray
instead of his usual black, his concession to the warm weather—and shrugged one
shoulder. His gaze grew distant, and he nodded slowly. “You know, when I first
met you in that temple back in Men-
Nefer
, I thought
it was the
sheut
you carried, but then when I sat
with you on the bus, more or less
sheut
-free,
well .
 . . that blew
that
theory all to
hell. I was actually a little nervous to talk to you.” He laughed to himself.
“I mean, even with just a sliver of
Re’s
sheut
, you were still the most intimidating person I’d ever
met—other than the Great Father, of course.”

“Of course,” I said dryly, mostly because I was too caught off
guard say anything else.
I
was intimidating? Like, Nik-level
intimidating? I turned back toward the water and leaned my forearms on the
railing.

And still underneath the confusion at Nik’s revelation, I felt it:
that oh-so-strange sense of waiting.