Love Is in the Air (22 page)

Sal doubted very much that the story had anything to do with Tyr’s thane or the duke, so she squeezed his hand, urging him to continue.

He sighed. “When Dyn not only brought her grandfather back to speech but daily watched his infirmities fade, Lainli became fascinated with all manner of Praxis.”

And Tyr, Sal suspected. She could only imagine a young Tyr. What had his features looked like before they were hardened by his years of servitude? By the slight glint in his eyes, she could guess a little of Lainli as well.

“Was she pretty?”

“It was widely rumored the youngest prince had sought an audience, but found himself rebuffed at the duchy’s gates.” A smile flickered across his lips. “She sought the Path, rare for her age, rejecting all suitors.”

“Until you?”

Tyr’s grin turned downward. “Lainli had no worldly interest in one such as me. She wished only to blend her knowledge of the witch’s weir with the potency of Praxis.”

“So she began her descent?”

“No!” he answered forcefully, then lowered his voice. “With the blood of a beast we’d slain still beneath my fingernails, I was resolute against offering her any of the secrets of Praxis. I taught her only minor root potions and bloodless distillations.”

“But?”

“Given the taboo of our discourses, they were held in secrecy during the late hours after the servants had sought their beds.”

No matter their high and noble purpose, Sal knew once you put two teenagers together unsupervised, late at night, the hormones would do the rest of the damage. Tyr didn’t have to explain what happened on one of those long, dark, intimate nights.

“Were you caught?”

“If only we had been, perhaps Lainli would still be alive.”

CHAPTER 71

Sal’s brow knotted. “She died after you…?”

“No, no,” Tyr corrected. “We indulged our lesser instincts only once and swore to keep our studies to the library and in the presence of my thane.”

“Okay.” She waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “Then I don’t understand. How did she die?”

Tyr struggled to speak, but ended up gulping instead. These events had clearly occurred over a decade ago, yet his pain felt fresh and sharp. Would this be how Sal thought of Maria later? Would this ache ever subside? If Tyr’s wrestling to even talk about his loss was any indication, it appeared not.

“Once the duke was well on his way to walking without a cane, we were due to leave, when Lainli’s belly betrayed our…”

For several seconds, Sal didn’t understand to what he eluded, then blurted out, “She was pregnant.”

The words sounded like a horrible accusation in this cramped, chlorine-bleached closet. If sex with a dead blood was considered a sin, what would an illegitimate child be thought of as? Sal didn’t want to utter the next words. “What happened?”

“The lady-in-waiting who noticed her lack of menses was put to death, and despite Dyn’s—”

“Wait. Wait. Wait.” Sal still hadn’t processed the horror of the first passage. “They killed the maid?”

“Of course.” Tyr’s eyebrows quizzed her as to why she doubted him.

Still revolted, Sal clarified. “They killed her because she mentioned Lainli’s period was off?”

“If word spread of not only our union, but the child within her…” Tyr’s throat constricted, and he couldn’t continue.

“
Your
child within her,” she added gently, as tears misted over his normally glacial eyes. Sal could only imagine what it felt like to have one’s baby be considered an abomination. It was one thing to find yourself born to discrimination, but quite another to have your offspring despised before it was even born.

He paused until his throat loosened. “Dyn begged that if the procedure must be done, to allow him to perform it, but—”

“Procedure?” While Tyr didn’t answer her, Sal suddenly realized what he meant. “They forced her to have an abortion?”

It sounded as though bile burned the back of his throat as he finished. “The old witch they brought from the far, far south was nearly blind, and when she tried to… The cries that came from that room… Lainli’s screams… Dyn overcame the guard and broke in, but… his effort was in vain. They banished us from their lands even before the funeral.”

Sal pulled his hand to her, holding it tight, trying to give him some sense of her sorrow for him and for Lainli. Tears at the edge of his lids, Tyr turned to her.

“Salista, can you not see? You thought me damned at birth, but my ruination came from my own hand.”

“Tyr. You were just—”

Outside the door, a nasal voice asked, “Is somebody in there?”

Tyr was on his feet, blade drawn, before she could answer.

CHAPTER 72

Sal jumped to her feet, reacting on instinct. Her heart and mind were still consumed by Tyr’s pain. With luck, her action knocked a mop across Tyr’s path. For that fleeting instant, he was blocked in. She used it to her fullest advantage.

Opening the door, Sal exaggerated stumbling out into the hall, making certain to awkwardly, but quickly, close the door behind her. “God, this is so embarrassing.”

Before her stood a tall, mop-headed student. Even though his stern face looked like someone had elected him hall monitor, the guy’s eyes wandered up and down her form, checking her out. After the fierce, pure intimacy she experienced with Tyr, this grad student’s sophomoric interest repulsed her.

Which didn’t mean she wasn’t above using it to her advantage.

“I was looking for Dr. Hing’s laboratory.”

Sarcastically, the kid pointed down the hall to the sign that announced in large yellow letters—”Dr. Hing’s Clinical Experimental Laboratory,” but Sal squinted. “Sorry, forgot my glasses, but hey, maybe you could help me.”

The student puffed up at her interest. Sal had spent enough time at this school and gotten into enough trouble with the administration to talk her way out of just about anything. So she began babbling on about her dissertation and asshole advisor that wouldn’t put her doctoral thesis through to the committee, for the only reason that her work was way over his head.

The mop of tight curls bobbed up and down in sympathy. The kid’s Browncoats Forever T-shirt and innocent face felt almost surreal, given the fact that Tyr’s knife was within inches of his heart. She didn’t need to be in the same room as the hunter to know that his patience had reached its limit.

“So I got pointed in the direction of Dr. Hing to help flesh out my ‘directed’ intercellular healing model.”

The kid looked a little surprised. “So you really are looking for Lionel?”

“Yeah. Tonight’s his office hours, aren’t they?”

“Oh, I thought you were trying to crash our ‘while the cat’s away the mice will play’ shindig.”

“Come again?”

The student shrugged. “Hing’s at the hoity-toity party over at Alcatraz, so we thought if the lab was empty, why not get our groove on?”

Now all those jubilant students passing by made sense. She had just assumed that Lionel was a really inspiring teacher. Now it turned out he was just a really endangered teacher.

Sal turned on her heel, rapidly heading toward the exit, and then realized she’d just left the kid standing there. “I’ll come back next week.”

“Sure you don’t want to tag along?”

“Thanks, but I’ve really got to get working.”

Without a look back, Sal practically ran from the laboratory complex.

She should have realized where Lionel was headed tonight. An event that she herself had been asked to attend. The damned fund-raiser. They’d lost hours of valuable tracking time waiting at the lab.

Damn it, how had the beast gotten one step ahead of them again? Then she remembered poor Mika. Hing’s assistant must have known his plans for the night. The beast had pulled that essential fact from the grad student.

Once onto the campus proper, Sal broke out into a run, angling south. 19th Street, to the north, was closer, but had far less taxi traffic. They couldn’t depend on the buses this time.

She looked at her watch. The boats were loading with hopeful department heads and wealthy patrons at Fisherman’s Wharf right now. It was only a fifteen-minute ferry ride over to Alcatraz. Even with the mini-tour of the bay included in each year’s festivities, everyone would be disembarking within the hour.

Sal doubted if Lionel had much time beyond that.

Luckily, her route was exclusively downhill, and she made it to Lake Mead Boulevard in record time. It was still early enough in the evening that taxis were trolling for college students heading over to the Market district to hit the DNA Lounge or some other hipster club.

Flagging a taxi down took less time than catching her breath. She wasn’t surprised when a hand reached out and opened the cab’s door for her.

Tyr.

They exchanged grim looks as they loaded themselves and the laptop into the cab.

“Fisherman’s Wharf,” she said, pulling a bill out of her wallet. “And there’s a hundred in it for you if you get us there before eight.”

CHAPTER 73

After being slammed forward as the cabbie squealed to a stop at the corner of Taylor and the Embarcadero, Sal pulled out the money. Granted, the ride had been mildly nauseating. It involved driving in bus-only lanes, plus going the wrong way up a one-way street, but he had delivered them at the Wharf with five minutes to spare.

Tyr was already out of the taxi when she handed over two twenties to cover the fare, and then the hundred to cover the expediency. On second thought, Sal gave the guy another twenty.

Just as she had hoped, a lone boat waited at the dock, held back for those urbanites who wished to be fashionably late and miss the bay tour. The ferry looked ready to launch. Grabbing Tyr’s hand, she ran toward the gangplank.

They were about to make it onto the boat when an usher stepped in front of her. “I’m sorry madam, but this is a private event.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m Dr. Calon, representing San.Francisco General Hospital.”

The man looked at her jeans and sweaty T-shirt. “Not in those clothes, you’re not.” He then looked at Tyr’s wide shoulders, broad belt, and tight leather pants. “Now him… He can do anything he wants.”

“Down, boy,” Sal warned the salivating usher. “I’m sure you’ve got extra costumes for latecomers.”

Looking disappointed, the man waved them aboard. “Down on the lower deck, you’ll find what’s left of the selection. But I’ve got to warn you that in your size…” He emphasized “size” as long as he could, then continued, “There’s just a scullery maid, a strangely Marilyn Monroe inspired number, and something that would have horrified Liberace.”

“Fine,” Sal said as they made their way up the plank. What did it matter? She wasn’t here for a fashion show. She just needed to blend in.

But as they boarded the boat, the quality of the costumes surprised her. Clearly, the theme of this year’s gala was a medieval masquerade. There were knights, maidens, jesters, and even a king, on deck. She forgot how full-out everyone went for this benefit. Socialites jostled for position in front of the photographers.

Eschewing the press, Sal guided them through the costumed throng.

Finally, they were nearly to the stairs that led to the lower deck when the “king” passed by with his golden crown.

Tyr dropped to one knee, bending his head in supplication. “Sire.”

The elderly gentleman chuckled, thinking Tyr a really enthusiastic partygoer. “Now that’s what I call getting into character.”

Even though Sal tried to tug him to his feet, Tyr would not rise until the man was out of sight.

“He’s not a real king,” she hissed. “He’s in costume.”

Tyr’s brows knitted together. “He wears the crown of coronation.”

Sal didn’t have time to explain the intricacies of a masquerade. They needed to get below deck, find an adequate costume for her, then get Lionel the hell off the island before the beast consumed the physicist’s knowledge.

“What is this costume?”

Trotting down the stairs, she answered, “It’s something you wear at a party to look different than you normally do.”

“Explain party.”

Clearly, he had never been to grad school. Sal opened her mouth to explain, then shut it again as she found the rack of costumes. Tyr would just have to figure it out later. The guide hadn’t been exaggerating. There wasn’t a great selection left overall, but in a size eight? An ugly, green shift hung beside a very non-medieval red satin cocktail dress, right next to possibly the most hideous purple and blue gown. The thing was lined with sequins and feathers.

If only she could fit into a size four. There was a noblewoman’s velvet dress. And a size two? The most gorgeous fairy-like gossamer gown she’d ever seen hung at the end of the rack.

Sal shook her head. Heaven forbid that a woman actually had hips.

Snatching the rough-spun shift off the rack, Sal went behind the dressing screen and changed as the boat’s horn announced their departure. The coarse wool scratched at her skin. However, comfort wasn’t highest on her priority list.

Smoothing the ugly cloth, she stepped out from the screen. Tyr’s eyes were impossible to read. Barefoot, Sal trudged over to the mirror. She hadn’t been expecting Chanel, but dear God, she looked frumpy. There was absolutely nothing attractive about her, or the dress. Her looks really shouldn’t have mattered, but somehow they did. After all, they were hunting the beast—and saving a professor’s life,.

But there was no getting around the mousy green shift. Sal went to head back upstairs, when Tyr stepped in front of her.

“This costume is essential for us to move freely amongst the nobles?”

“No. Yes… Well, kind of.” Sal really didn’t want to discuss it.

He closed the distance between them. “Then this will not do.”

“You know that you’re not exactly in silk and lace yourself.”

“I am dead blood,” he said, and, for the first time, used the term with a sense of pride rather than shame. “Lowly servants and mighty kings alike invite me to their hearths. I stride fiercely where others fear to tread.”

So enamored by his tone was she that Sal didn’t react in time when he grabbed her right shoulder seam and tore the sleeve off.

Sal gasped. For one thing, a fantasy brewing in your subconscious coming to life was startling. And for the other, well, she wasn’t sure what the other was. “What do you think you are—”