Protector of the Flame (42 page)

Touché. “What constitutes an extraordinarily good reason?”

“Perhaps if you were to beg, I might reconsider.”

Beg! Then understanding flickered through him. He’d made her beg after getting her wet one night not too long ago. Turnabout was only fair play. He glanced at the packed lounge. With all of the record-keepers recalled, the communal social area stayed full after dinner until late in the night. A comforting thought if she was going to be down here.

“Come up to our room and I’ll beg.”

“No deal.”

“I beg of you—” he pressed his palms together, “—please come up to our room.”

“You lack sincerity and conviction. No sale.”

His gaze shifted from her to the others just a couple of feet away. She picked up a pencil and began making an outline on the canvas.

Cyrus got down on his knees. He put his hands on her hips and gazed up at her. Heads turned in their direction.

“I beg you to have mercy on me.” He didn’t lower his voice, but it was only loud enough for those closest to hear him. “I beg you to come to our room so I can show you how much I missed you last night. I beg you to forgive me for my foolish ways. I beg you to grace me with your touch, to unite your soul with mine so that we can transcend the shell of our bodies and know the beauty of heaven on earth.”

Her face lit up. “Sold.”

He stood and scooped her in his arms. “You drive a hard bargain, woman.”

Chapter Forty

The first two nights Serenity painted in the lounge until sunrise, hoping Adriel would appear, grateful he didn’t.

With the complex full of recalled record-keepers, the first level stayed active well past midnight. It was in the last five hours before dawn, when nothing stirred besides the wind or a passing sentinel that her thoughts wandered to him.

About an hour before daybreak on the third evening, he crept up behind her, silent as a cat. “When will you paint me?” he whispered, moving from her right side to her left.

Glancing from her unfinished painting of Cyrus, a nude of him lying on his stomach asleep, to Adriel, she couldn’t ignore the question lingering in his eyes.

“I’ll never paint you,” she said, seated in chair, her tone more biting than she’d intended.

“Why not? I think you see my soul clearly.”

“That’s the problem. I see you all too well.”

He gazed at her from behind the easel. His expression was soft and he didn’t seem to take offense. In fact, he looked pleased as if he knew she wouldn’t be able to maintain any pretense in his portrait, each line and every stroke would reveal the tenderness in her heart for him.

He picked up two cushions from the sofa and motioned for her to stand. He placed one in the seat of her bamboo chair and the other against the back.

The plush change highlighted her previous discomfort, making her buttocks and lower back ache with gratitude.

He flopped down on a sofa, kicked his feet up and proceeded to read a comic book. He hadn’t come to distract or be the focus of her attention. He’d only come to keep her from being lonely. His mere presence made a difference, along with the sound of him yawning and the rustling of the pages turning.

Over the next five weeks, he came down earlier every night until he stayed with her for at least four hours before sun up. Sometimes he found a way to make her laugh, sometimes he dozed off, napping for a bit, sometimes they played a game of chess or practiced Latin, but mostly he simply read.

As the hall lightened, sunrise still a good hour away, she yawned.

Two tall women and a portly man, the roundest Kindred she’d seen, wearing cloaks, jeans and boots, entered the far right of the lounge. They glanced in her direction, and then their eyes shifted to Adriel. They crossed the main hall and went up the walkway.

Adriel sat up. “That’s Tosia’s team. They’re the last of the record-keepers to come home.”

“When will Neith send everyone back out on reassignment?”

He shrugged.

She finished her fifth painting of Cyrus and rinsed her brushes in a clay jar with a mixture of water and turpentine.

“You did it again,” he said from a chair, his comic lowered to his lap. “That was the third time you yawned.”

She remembered yawning once earlier.

“You haven’t yawned once in weeks.” He rose and went to her. “Are you tired?”

Yawning again, she covered her mouth. “I guess a little.”

Adriel picked up the finished painting and grabbed his comic. He walked her up to the dormitory level and as they turned down her sector he extended his forearm for her to hold on to. The dizziness and nausea that swept over her as she connected with Cyrus had worsened to where she’d almost fainted last week, but Adriel had been there to steady her.

She took his forearm and they continued down the hall. They crossed the usual threshold and he stared at her when she proceeded without a sign of any ailment. Sensing Cyrus, her energy stream stirred in anticipation of their connection, but not a quiver of the desperate thirst that had recently plagued her.

Their streams melded, the feel of it comforting her like a cozy blanket on a cold night.

He stopped in front of her door. “How do you feel?”

“I could probably use a nap.”

The door swung open. Cyrus roped an arm around her waist and kissed her. “Adriel,” he said flatly.

“Cyrus.” Adriel handed him the painting.

A cocky smile spread on Cyrus’s face at yet another portrait of him naked.

Adriel rolled his eyes and turned to Serenity. “Are you sure you feel all right?”

“What’s wrong?” Cyrus asked, setting the painting inside the room.

“She yawned five times and the sickness she feels when she connects to you seems to have stopped.”

Cyrus stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Are you tired? You should rest.”

“I can bring you breakfast,” Adriel offered too quickly.

Cyrus pulled her into the room. “I’ll get her breakfast.”

“Thank you, Adr—” Cyrus slammed the door in his face, cutting her off. “You don’t have to be so rude to him.”

“Does he stay down there with you all night?” His tone was more irritated than angry.

“Just for a couple of hours before sunrise. He usually reads off to the side.”

He ushered her to the bed as if she were an invalid. “Get in.” He pulled back the covers and tucked her in. “I’ll go get you something to eat and I’ll be right back.”

“I can go down with you and take a nap after I eat.”

He gave her a stern look.

“Or I can stay here.” She pulled the covers up and watched him leave.

Rolling onto her side, she touched her breasts. They’d grown tender and were beginning to swell. She hadn’t complained during their nightly lovemaking before she retreated to the lounge to paint, but she wanted to scream when he fondled her lately.

She stretched and curled up into a ball. With one last yawn, she shut her eyes and sleep drifted over her.

When she woke, Cyrus was nestled around her, rubbing her stomach.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Three, maybe four hours. You had a nightmare and talked in your sleep. I thought about waking you, but this is the first time you’ve slept in weeks.” He pressed his cheek against hers. “Do you remember what you dreamt?”

A fog clouded her mind. “What did I say?”

“Something about fire and that you were afraid of water. You sounded terrified, and then you called out to me. Anything coming back to you?”

There was nothing. A blank slate. “I don’t remember dreaming.”

None of her dreams were pleasant or boded happy things. She’d dreamt of her mother leaving and her father dying, then it happened. Twenty-five years later, she’d dreamt of a blue angel guiding her through darkness and death nearly taking her. That also happened.

Now she dreamed and couldn’t even remember the warning.

Her stomach growled. “I guess that means it’s time to eat.”

They sat up and he handed her a bowl of Yaki. It was cold with the same soupy consistency. She ate it without thinking about it. “How did you get out of your work detail?”

“I told Neith you weren’t well and needed me. They won’t miss me down at the quarry.” He tugged her shirt up and kissed her stomach. “You’re starting to show.”

She gazed down at her softly rounded tummy.

“I like it,” he said.

A flutter rippled through her stomach, but it wasn’t through her energy stream. It was through the wall of her abdomen. She set her bowl down. A series of disturbing pops rattled in her belly. An acute pain tightened in her abdomen, making her touch it with fright. First a nightmare, now this.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

He leapt out of bed. “We’re going to see Carin, right now.”

Without arguing, she put on her sneakers, and they rushed to the silkworm hut.

Ximena came out carrying a basket of spooled silk. When she spotted them, unease tightened across her face.

Serenity suddenly wanted to leave. Staring at Ximena, squirrel monkey on her shoulder clawing at their approach, she had an inkling of what she might feel due to the link with Adriel and didn’t want to upset her.

Setting the basket on the ground, Ximena met their gazes. Less than twelve inches separated them and she glanced at Serenity, eyes sharp with jealousy and hatred.

The monkey stopped clawing the air in their direction and a confused expression took over its face as it scratched its head. Squealing, the monkey jumped to the ground and ran to a tree past the tiger.

“Where’s Carin?” Cyrus asked.

Ximena stared at the monkey with a bemused look, watching it scurry up a tree. “Inside.”

Cyrus went to the hut and called Carin out.

The monkey screamed and threw nuts at Ximena. The bald woman made kissing sounds, trying to encourage him to come down, but the monkey screeched while clinging to a branch.

“Cyrus said something is wrong with the baby.” Carin hurried to her.

“I felt a weird popping, but it’s stopped. I have a strange pain and my energy stream has gone back to normal.”

Carin touched Serenity’s stomach and closed her eyes.

Bracing for a diagnosis of some odd affliction, Serenity pushed emotion aside.

A strained look crossed Carin’s face, then she staggered back, covering her mouth with a shaking hand.

“What is it?” Cyrus asked.

Eyes filled with terror and tears, Carin just stared at Serenity, slowly retreating.

Cyrus stepped toward her. “What did you feel?”

“I didn’t…didn’t feel
anything
.” Carin shook her head. “It’s like she’s dead.”

“What are you saying?” Cyrus grabbed her by the shoulders. “Try again,” he demanded.

“No!” Carin pulled away horrified.

Refusing to succumb to panic with hysterics, Serenity turned on her heels and headed for the library to Adriel. She could hear Cyrus pleading with Carin, commanding her to take another look, but her response was the same.

Quickening her pace, she took off jogging toward the main building. By the time the gleaming, octagonal structure was in her sights, Cyrus was at her side.

“I want to see Adriel.”

“I know.”

Chapter Forty-One

When they reached the dormitory level of the walkway, they slowed at the sight of a line leading up to the library. She recognized the various team leaders of the record-keepers. Near the front of the line, which led to the ancient archives were Atlas and Tosia.

Sothis leaned against a wall, dressed in a cream outfit, arms folded, watching as the record-keeper team leaders took their turn one at a time inside the archive.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you training the others?” Serenity asked.

“I have the others working with the rest of the warriors. I came to speak to Neith about Cyrus.” She looked at him. “It’s time I worked with you one-on-one. You need to prepare. And Serenity—” she handed her a wide leather cuff, “—I want you to wear this from now on.”

She took the rigid cuff from her mother. “Why?”

“It has a concealed blade. A flick up with your wrist releases it. If you have trouble using a knife, I’ll teach you.”

One record-keeper left the ancient archive, carrying three weighty books and two scrolls.

“What’s going on?” Serenity asked.

“Neith is dismantling the library and giving them each a piece of it,” Sothis said.

Dread trickled through her in a slow burn. Serenity watched the next one go into the archive. Mira greeted him in the doorway and pointed to Neith seated at a table inside the room. “But why? Unless she thinks we’ll fail.”

Her mother met her gaze but didn’t respond.

“We can worry about that later.” Cyrus took her hand and led her to the computer terminals.