No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1) (17 page)

“I think it’s best if you two have some
time apart. Let things cool down.”

At first I thought he was referring to
fighting with Liam. But then why had he looked at my mouth when he said that?
Had Liam told him? Or did he just
know
? I felt myself blushing, deeply.

Gideon suddenly looked really ticked
off. His eyes filled with anger…resentment? “You’re wearing me out, Draghail.
No more of that.” He admonished gruffly.

Which? Wearing him out or
all-that-other-stuff with Liam? I thought it wiser to leave it
unclarified
.

“I’m
really not hungry.” My highly odd morning continued on the path to getting
weirder as the next hour found me sitting across from Gideon at a café, with
plans for pancakes. I still felt too ill for any food to be sitting in my
stomach.

“Nonsense. You need to eat.”

“I feel kind of sick.”

“It’s just nerves.” He was engrossed in
his newspaper, folding it over to a new page, it rattled crisply.

Did he not get what he’d done to me? “I
think it was a little overboard to show me those accidents, to make me feel
them.”

He looked up from his paper. “I did what
needed to be done.”

We began another stare off.

Whatever. But what was that look on his
face? The emotions flickering across his face and through his eyes were
expressions of two differing sentiments. Anger was etched across his face, but
within his eyes I could detect… worry?

“Let’s focus on why we’re here.”

“I still don’t feel like eating. You
can’t make me want to eat.”

His response was to shake his paper and
return to reading.

I pulled out my phone and was about to
check my Facebook, but I didn’t have one anymore. It was so auto-pilot to do
that when I was bored or needed to occupy myself.

But I couldn’t now. I didn’t want to see
my old page; it would just be crammed with more sad messages, remembrances. So,
I kind of began to create a new one. I’d have to do more at a later time, when
Gideon wasn’t around.

He peered over the edge of his paper,
those eyes of bottomless blue burning into me—hmm, my sweater was nearly an
exact match—and I closed down my device. But I did it as though it was my idea,
not his glare that induced the action.

The waitress arrived and took Gideon’s
order after I told her I only wanted coffee.

“Are you sure I can’t bring you
anything?” She asked me. I shook my head.

“She’ll be having two eggs, basted
well—she hates the runny yolks. Bacon, crispy. And a mini stack of raspberry
pancakes.” Gideon rattled off.

I stared at him stunned, jaw agape. How
did he know that? That’s exactly what I would have ordered—if I wanted to eat
with him.

She smiled, nodded and told us it would
be up shortly, asked him if he would like anything else. She put a hand on her
hip and smiled sweetly. Too sweetly. Flashing too many teeth and too much leg.
It made me feel bearish. I shook myself. Stupid way to feel.

“Perhaps some more coffee, Lomhara.”

What?
Lowvara
?
Did he give all girls pet names? Because her name was not
Lowvara
,
but Amber…her nametag said so.

Bristly, I felt oh-so very bristly. Why
was I feeling like that? Ugh. What was it he had called me a couple of times
now? Something that began with a ‘D’ and I don’t think it was anything
endearing whatsoever with the way he delivered it, all disgruntled and growly
like. When he’d just said
Lowvara
to this girl, he’d
said it all warm and purring. I shoved it all under with all the other
crappy-feelings I’d been stashing away this week.

“
Lowvara
?”

“Excuse me?” He pulled his eyes from her
receding form as she wiggled away to the kitchen.

Blech!

“How did you know? Exactly how I like my
eggs and that raspberry pancakes are my favorite?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Uh huh.” I gave him a sidelong look,
not believing him. So was that some sort of Caomhnoir thing? Could he read my
mind? Had he received some sort of dossier on me that had listed my hobbies,
likes, dislikes…oh crap.

Worse.

He’s read my old Facebook profile and
posts.
That
was it. I
knew
that was it. No special power other than the all-knowing
freaking internet. I felt like slapping myself in the forehead. If that was
true what other Intel did he have on me?

He frowned at me, sort of. There also
seemed to be some sort of smile playing at the edges of his mouth, which he now
hid behind his coffee mug.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You read my
Facebook page?” Why did I feel so exposed? It was open to public scrutiny. Oh
wait. No, it wasn’t. It was limited to friends-of-friends. “Hey! How did you
access my Facebook page? You’re not on my friends list.”

He answered with a look that said, ‘Oh
please.’ He had come up with an entire new identity for me, complete with
photos—before he’d ever laid eyes on me—he could find me no matter where I
went, like he would
not
be able to get into my Facebook.

I sighed.

“I also found your author website.”

I looked back up at him. Annoyed, but my
interest was piqued to know his thoughts on my writing.

Yes, my ego was still with me.

“Interesting…”

Interesting? That was it?

“You write about all that supernatural
and paranormal subject matter, but you have a difficult time with this? With
us?”

“Well…maybe that’s why it makes me feel
crazy…because I did write about that. I did dream that. So now to live it makes
me feel like…I’ve lost touch with reality maybe. Wrote one too many and my
brain decided to chuck it all.” I shrugged and sipped my coffee.

“There’s still more that I need to
explain by the way…if today goes well.”

“You bet you do…you never even finished
answering my questions at my apartment.”

‘No sense in talking more about any of
it until you can show us that you mean business. That you mean to stay.”

“I told you…”

“Actions, not words,” he said sweetly as
Amber returned with a carafe of coffee. He looked her over, head to toe. She
didn’t miss his attention and gave him an even wider smile than before. I
didn’t like her, at all. I stole his newspaper and pretended to read it, so I
wouldn’t lose the coffee I’d managed to drink.

More…he said there was more to explain.
He wasn’t talking about my questions, but something else. What else could there
be besides, ‘Hi, your dead, here’s your new job. Oh, and by the way, death is
nothing like what you were taught to believe all of your life. And now
you
get to do the killing!’ Fun stuff.

I shifted on the mauve, faux leather
bench. Amber had left again. I leaned a smidge closer to him over the table
top. My curiosity was picking away at my patience. “What more?”

“Not here. Later.”

I hated that, when people teased with
tidbits of information that you then got to stew over for an indeterminate
amount of time, perhaps all day…all night.

I flumped back into the booth. “You
suck,” I stated simply. Did he really just look at my mouth ever-so-briefly
before stealing his paper back and raising it back up again?

Oh geez. Amber was back again, setting
our plates in front of us. His carefully, mine not so much. He paid her no
attention this time, merely thanked her without a glance. That was better. I
liked that better. I liked that his eyes were on me instead. But why his sudden
disinterest in her? And why should I care at all either way?

She departed with a fairly audible huff.

“Eat up,” he said as he sliced into his
fluffy little golden cakes. “Oh, actually,” he checked his watch, “before you
pour any syrup, you may want to do your cull first.”

“What?” I dropped my fork. It clattered
to the table top. I caught it before it could bounce to the floor, fumbled it
back to my plate.

“Your cull. Over there. Table six by the
window, two up from the restroom hallway.”

I glared at him. So breakfast wasn’t any
sort of make-up for nearly freezing me in my room—because somehow I knew he’d
done that…that it had come from him—or for breaking and entering, for scaring
the hell out me when I woke up, for threatening my life? No, it was all about
the cull. “You’re kidding me? Here?”

“Yes.”

“Yes you’re kidding or yes it’s really
here?”

“Yes, it’s really here. Table six.”

“But where’s Halah…or Nicklaus?”

“Halah…but she won’t be here until a
little later.”

At least that part was good news. “So,
why the breakfast?”

“We needed to eat.”

I glared at him.

“Don’t get insolent with me. You have a
job to do.” All humor had left his visage.

“Fine,” I said coldly. “Would you like
to refresh me on what it is I’m to do?”

He didn’t roll his eyes at me, I’d
expected that. He instead leaned across the table, placing his hand at the nape
of my neck and pulled me closer to him. Thankfully, he’d bundled up my hair
into his hand as he did or it would’ve surely trailed through my food.

His hand on my neck was electric fire
and I hoped he couldn’t feel the delicate tremor that coursed through me. He
was close enough to kiss.
Stop it
!
Don’t look at his mouth...don’t
look at his mouth.
I looked at his mouth.

And was rewarded with an image flashing
through my mind of him pulling me all the way in and crushing his mouth against
mine, firm and persistent. My pulse quickened. As quickly as it appeared it
fled. I would love to swear that he sent the image to me…but my heart, my head knew
differently. That something else in me knew it wasn’t him. It was me. My head
was crafting the images.

I tore my eyes away, raised them to his
eyes. What was that look? Shock? Mystification? Why did he look that way? Had
he felt me tremble ever so slightly at his touch? Would the embarrassment never
cease?

He cleared his throat lightly, shook his
head, as if to clear it, before he answered my question. “You…” he paused,
seemingly still taken aback by something, shot a darting glance to my lips and
spoke  quietly, moving his mouth to my ear, “You walk over there. You
brush up against him, stumble into him, whatever it takes, trip if you need to
and crash into him. But be sure your hand makes contact with him. Then say,
Scaoileadh. And walk on. Wait to the side a bit. Wait for the mhésen. That’s
it. Simple.”

“What’s the word?” It was another of
those foreign things that tripped up my tongue.

“Scaoileadh,” he whispered into my ear.
I suppressed another tremor.

“What does it mean?”

“Release.”

“Release. Scaoileadh,” I repeated. “Is
that the right way?”

“Perfect.” I liked how he said perfect
against my ear. “Seems you may have a knack for the language after all.” He was
still holding me scant inches from his face, his mouth so very close to me.

Speaking so faintly, being so intimately
close was making my heart race a bit. Release. I didn’t want him to. I wanted
to stay like this.

 “Do it,” he said.

My pulse-accelerated muddied-brain, for
just a fraction of a second, thought to kiss him. The way he’d said it made me
want to more than anything…kiss him...not do the cull.

He let go of me and gently pushed me
back to my side of the booth. I kind of hoped Amber had seen the exchange. “Go
do it now.”

I blinked at him. Nodded. Glanced behind
me to table six. Sighed. “And you promise I don’t have to see how he dies?” I
asked quietly, forlornly.

“No. Collect his mhésen. See him to the
Ingress. We’ll finish breakfast and then we’ll go.”

“Finish Breakfast?” What? I was
flabbergasted. I didn’t have an appetite now; I couldn’t imagine it improving
any afterward.

“Yes.”

I shook my head in disbelief. This was
so easy for him. I couldn’t stop wondering how long he’d been at it.

“Okay.” I collected myself, ramped
myself up. I could do this.
Do it or die
…I thought wryly. But I couldn’t
move. My brain was well aware I had to do this, but my body refused to budge,
to move forward with my task.

“You have to do this,” he growled,
nearly imperceptibly, but it was there.

“I know.”

“Do I have to walk you over there? Hold your
hand to him? Force the word from you?”

“No,” I whispered.

“Then do it. Now.” Spoken firmly. Cold.

“Fine.” I pushed up from the table
roughly, jostling and spilling some of my coffee, sending a glare his way. I
couldn’t believe I’d just been wishing he’d kiss me.