Tara (9 page)

Breakfast finished in English, and she discovered as they filled the morning with simple conversation that he learned several of the languages from a tutor he’d had when he was growing up. Alaric was twenty-two, so young to have such old, curious eyes, and he’d been working for his company since he was twelve. Tara didn’t know much about modern schools, but she knew that these days twelve was young. She hadn’t wanted to press her luck by asking more questions, because he’d held to his promise of honesty and she wasn’t going to abuse it.

Especially not after he brought her
here
.

Tara took a deep breath of the resin and wood and polishes. Her fingertips tracing a violin that had years of experience on it and a price tag to match. Alaric was speaking to the owner of the shop, a well-educated man who had clearly spent his life dedicated to all of these instruments that brought so much beauty to the world.

“Why don’t you pick it up?” Alaric’s voice was low as he stepped up behind her. “Or did you want to just stare at it?”

She could hear the challenge in his voice, the mocking nudge to grab the instrument, and her bare wrists were a bitter reminder that in a matter of days it could be years before she laid her hands on any musical instrument. There could be more cages instead of strings, whips instead of bows, blood instead of rosin.

It doesn’t matter
.

Her fingers itched to touch it again, and as she was trying to make a decision the shop owner stepped up behind her with a bow and pressed it into her hand with a kind smile. “Please, signorina, do you play?”

Alaric leaned back against the edge of a display, so tall and clean cut in his pressed shirt, his tie, his slacks and shined shoes. His eyes were locked on her though. They followed her hands as she took the bow from the owner, before he carefully lifted the violin and handed it to her like one would lift a newborn.

Tara rested it on her shoulder and felt her breath catch. It had been six months since Gianni had smashed the violin he’d bought her, all because she’d smiled
too much
at one of his friends at a party. She had actually cried then, real tears, not a show. She had begged him not to, and he had destroyed it anyway. Then he had left her alone in the house for a week with nothing but the security team to make sure she didn’t leave the room.

The first movement of the bow across the strings mended something inside her that had broken with the violin Gianni bought her, the same thing that had been ground to a powder when he’d told her he had sold her. She chose something from Mendelssohn that she had memorized years before, and as the notes flowed out she could feel herself swaying in those treacherous heels. It didn’t matter though.

Nothing did when there was music.

When she finally stopped, dragging out the last note, she opened her eyes to see that the older man had his hands over his mouth and Alaric was staring at her intently. Tara swallowed and held out the violin for the shop owner.
That
small moment of music had done what Eltera’s power couldn’t – it had calmed the storm inside her that Gianni’s decision and the memories of Leonidas had stirred up.

The owner didn’t move to take the violin so Tara let her arm drop to hold it down at her side. “Thank you.”

“We’ll take it.” Alaric spoke clearly and the shop owner just nodded. The older man’s eyes were wet as he turned away.

Tara shook her head. “No. Don’t buy it.” She turned and set the violin back on the display, leaving her shaking hands with only the bow.

“That was –” His mouth stayed open a moment before his eyes met hers again. “– worth any amount of money. I mean, I’d seen the violin case in your room, but I didn’t know you could play like
that
.”

She felt color come to her cheeks. “Thank you, however, I won’t have it for more than a few days. I’d rather never have it, than have it and lose it.” She sat the bow down as well, then turned and walked to the door of the shop before she caved and said yes. She waited at the door even though she wanted to walk out into the noise of the street, out of this silent shop with all of its immaculate instruments capable of so much beauty.

Alaric said goodbye to the shop owner and finally stepped up behind her, touching her elbow as he pushed the door open. When they walked outside he looked down at her to speak quietly, his voice stiff, “I would let you bring it with you.”

“And if your client isn’t a fan of music?” She met his eyes, and he turned and cursed under his breath. “Don’t let it bother you. It’s fine. I don’t need anything. I never have.”

Chapter Nine

Seattle, Washington

Neala was sitting upside down on the couch, her feet on the wall above it and her head hanging down as she read. She knew without looking that Kiernan was sitting at his desk, glaring at his laptop, and it made her smile. He hated when he had to catch up on his emails, or manage the money he had accrued over the centuries, or check on her sisters with no way to help them before he reported in to Eryn, and above all, he hated when he couldn’t be next to her on their couch reading with her.

A bright burst of light went off near the ceiling with a sound like a gunshot, which had her flipping over into a crouch as a piece of paper fluttered to the floor.

“Neala!” Kiernan shouted from the desk and was by her in an instant as they both waited for something else to happen.

Silence.

Neala looked up at him to find him holding a knife and still scanning the room. Her brave warrior, her well-armed love, but it seemed he’d do better with a letter opener in this situation.

“It’s alright,
ma ghaol
, let’s see what it is.” Taking a few steps into the center of their living room she lifted the paper up. It was old and thick, none of this newly processed and manufactured stuff.

“And?” His voice rumbled and made her smile as he stepped up behind her to wrap his arms around her.

She could feel him reading over her shoulder. In an elegant script it read:

The first is Tara.

She has one chance to be safe, and you must make sure it happens. I will send you all you need.

Burned into the paper below the thick ink was the ouroboros, a serpent eating its own tail. It matched the mark on Kiernan’s chest, the same snake that now circled Gormahn’s sword. Neala dropped her head back against his shoulder and he pressed a kiss against her temple.

“Is she one of yours?” Neala asked quietly. After the first viewing in the observation glass, when she’d seen Aleine, she’d never looked again. Looking with no way to help them was torture, and she saw how badly it hurt Kiernan every time he had to check on them.

“I don’t have a Tara.” Kiernan’s voice sounded dead and she wanted to turn and hug him, but knew it wouldn’t help. It would only help if they saved her. Fortunately, this was one Faeoihn that she remembered well.

“She’s blonde, strong. Dangerous with a pair of daggers, and impossibly brave.” Neala’s memories of battles long since passed surged and then ebbed, leaving her with a single impression. “Brave may be the wrong word, she was so steady when she fought, like it centered her. I mean, in battle…”

“Yes?” Kiernan turned her in his arms.

“She was perfect.”

Chapter Ten

Milan, Italy

She was sitting next to him in the car, her long legs crossed and her hands resting in her lap. Those hands that had made the violin sound so beautiful that she’d made that shop owner cry. He knew almost nothing about her, even after their breakfast confessional. Her ability to play music like that?

That had been more of a shock than the things she had admitted to earlier.

Slave
.

The word was some archaic idea he remembered from school history books, something old and forgotten. Something over. Done.

Then he remembered the cell he’d found her in, the sedative, and the box of clothes that had arrived like a prescription:
wear these and act accordingly.

After the music store they had grabbed lunch from a street vendor and eaten as they had walked around a public fountain. He had tried to get her to talk about the music, about the violin, and all she’d said was that music had always made everything better – ‘
because it was beautiful no matter where you were, or what was happening’
.

Then they had started driving and she seemed to love the car as much as he did, every time he accelerated she would lift her head to stare out the front windshield, and her left hand would tighten on the edge of the seat. He found himself doing it more and more often, gliding the sleek car through traffic just to catch the ghost of a smile that would move over her lips when he revved the engine.

A beep went off from his messenger bag, which was tucked down by her heels.

“Can you grab that for me?” Alaric maneuvered the car into a slow turn through traffic as she leaned forward and began to dig through the bag, finally pulling out his phone.

She held it out for him.

“I’m driving, what’s it say?” He didn’t take his eyes off the road as he weaved in and out of traffic, accelerating around the drivers who were less interested in driving and more interested in sight-seeing.

“It says you have a text message from Claude.”

“Unlock the phone and read it to me. 1-4-7-2.” Alaric saw her tilt the phone back towards her in his peripheral vision. He shook his head at himself. Here he was buying expensive locks to keep Luca and the other employees of Infinity Consulting out of his room while he slept and at the same time providing the unlock code to a girl he had known less than twenty-four hours.

Such a contradiction.

“It says to meet him at his club tonight, after 10:30pm, and to bring me.” He could hear the smile in her voice, “Unless
bring the girl
is referring to someone else?”

“There’s no other girl.” He looked over at her and gave her the smile Luca always shook his head at. She just smirked at him.

Hard to impress
.

“Are we going dancing?” She leaned back against the door, letting his phone dim and then relock in her hands.

“We can if you’d like, but we’re going there to get you papers.” He looked back at the road to maneuver them towards the hotel.

“Papers?”

“ID, a passport, the things we’ll need if we have to leave the country.” Alaric spoke and then looked over at her. The light had gone out in her eyes again as she withdrew into herself.

“For when you deliver me.”

“Yes.” He gritted his teeth when he responded. This was what he’d signed up for. Losing his nerve now wasn’t going to help. “In that box of clothes was there anything that would fit in at a nightclub?”

“I wouldn’t say it fits, it’s rather tight, but there’s plenty I can wear to a nightclub.” She was looking out the passenger window now, the phone asleep in her hand. She hadn’t even attempted to look at anything else on it.

He smiled at her commentary on the box of clothes, but she wasn’t looking at him now. “So, about the violin again, you don’t have to tell me everything, but could you tell me how you learned it?”

“I had a master in the late 19
th
century who liked to throw parties in his parlor in England. It was a fad of the time to have live music played by someone, and so he had a tutor teach me the violin.” She said it all matter-of-factly, but his head hurt with the mention of the century.

“You were alive in the late 19
th
century?” Alaric remembered her saying she was immortal, but the meaning of that was hard to absorb. Especially when she looked so young.

“Yes.”

“How old -” He started but she looked over at him and answered his unfinished question.

“I’m over two thousand years old, so learning the violin is relatively new.”

“Two
thousand
?” His head pounded, it seemed impossible to process. Impossible to be true. “Wow, well, it was amazing.”  This time when he glanced at her she locked eyes with him.

“Thank you.” She leaned forward to tuck the cell phone back in the bag, but he spoke up to stop her.

“Can you message Claude back? Just tell him we will be there tonight and I’ll call him.” He glanced at her again as she unlocked it without being told the code again and rapidly texted him back.

“Why didn’t they tell you about me?” Tara leaned against the door and stared at him. Alaric hadn’t expected the question and it threw him for a loop as he started down the street that would take them to the hotel.

“My boss knows I don’t like to have unnecessary details, because it makes it harder to pull the trigger.” He gripped the wheel harder and for once he wished he were just a normal guy, with a normal job. Normal guys never had conversations like this.

They also never meet girls like this.

As usual, his head argued with him.

“I feel like knowing what I am is a very necessary detail, but maybe that’s pride talking.” She tilted her head back against the window, turning his phone over and over in her hands.

“Luca didn’t tell me about you because I have a strict no women, no kids policy in what I do. I almost didn’t take the job except -” He cut himself off.

“Except?”

“The others in the organization wouldn’t have fit with the parameters of the contract.”

“They would have touched me.” She didn’t even flinch, talking about herself like it didn’t matter what happened to her.

“Probably.” He pulled into the car park and when he stopped he didn’t want to turn and look at her.

“You’re very unusual.” She pushed a hand through those heavy waves, the golden strands catching the sunlight coming through the window, and he couldn’t resist the urge to look.

“Why do you say that?” He wanted to run his hands through it like she did, and he wondered if it was as soft as it looked. If the weight of it was what he imagined.

“It’s been a very long time since anyone turned me down, even longer since someone turned around when I undressed. And with Dreamland in your pocket?” She smirked and shook her head, sending those waves over her shoulders. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone who would have passed up the opportunity. Not in centuries.”

“I told you I won’t touch you.” He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to stop talking, “And I’m so sorry about the handcuffs. I didn’t know if you’d stay put last night, but I saw what they did to you. I’m just sorry. I won’t lock you up again.”

“Promise?”

He nodded against his hand before dropping it. “Yes.”

She leaned across the shifter and pressed a quick kiss to his lips, one of her hands cupping his cheek where he knew the faint shadow of stubble brushed against her palm. He was so shocked he just sat there when she leaned back. Her cheeks had a bright blush as she whispered, “Thank you for that.”

That clean smell of milk soap was floating in front of him like an aura she had left behind, shorting out his ability to think straight. He was pretty sure the smile on his face wasn’t his usual controlled smile though. “I won’t use the – the Dreamland either. I’ll throw it out when we get upstairs.”

“You don’t have the other ones right?” She was touching her lips and it was incredibly distracting. Would it be wrong to kiss her again?
Yes
. He answered himself and then tried to focus on her question again.

“What other ones?”

“Oblivion and Torment?” She said the words so quietly it was like she had breathed them.

“I don’t know what they are.”

“Good. Please don’t take them if they offer them to you.” She looked back down at his phone and slid it into his messenger bag.

“I promise I won’t, but will you tell me what they are? Just so I know. I’d never heard of Dreamland, but I know it’s a sedative.”

Tara took a shuddering breath and stared at her lap, her hair falling in a curtain around her face. “Yes, Dreamland is a very strong sedative, it’s meant for non-humans. It’s always blue, and always injected.” She was toying with the edge of her skirt and then she seemed to make a decision to keep talking. “Oblivion is a clear liquid, and it can be put in food and drink. It’s tasteless, and it works on humans and non-humans. Let’s just say that Oblivion guarantees the person on it won’t say no, and even if they do, it won’t be much of a fight.”

“And someone has given you Oblivion?” The rage that filled him made his hands shake.

“Many times. It’s… popular.” Tara cleared her throat. “Torment is injected as well. It looks a little like silver clouds, if that makes sense. It lives up to its name though, it’s just pure pain.”

“You’ve had that one too?” He felt sick to his stomach. If Luca had access to Dreamland, did he have those as well?

“Only a few times, I try not to make my masters angry.” Her voice was so small, and he wanted to hold her and promise it wouldn’t happen again, but he was going to hand her over in just a day or two to someone who might have all three drugs. Who might use all of them.

Alaric strongly considered being sick out the car door.

“No one deserves that,” he said, and she looked up at him.

“Does that matter?”

She asked it so plainly that he wanted to shake her. He raised his voice, his temper getting the best of him in the moment, “Of course it matters! You’re not some object they can do whatever they want with, you’re a person!”

“You actually believe that?”

“Of course I do! What kind of person doesn’t?” He asked it a little too loudly, and then realized there was no reason she would think of him differently. He was a murderer. He killed people for money. He’d kidnapped her for money. He was
exactly
the type of person who would hurt her like that. “Despite my job, I would never use anything like that on you, or on anyone.” When he finished talking he felt exhausted, but she took his breath away with the small smile she gave him.

“Your job doesn’t bother me, and while it surprises me that I do, for some reason I
do
believe you. Would you like to go inside?” She reached down and picked up his messenger bag, which went with him almost everywhere. The small laptop, his phone, one of the handguns, a garrote, a knife. Had anyone come for her while they were out, he would have killed them. Not because someone was paying him, but because he wanted her safe.

You shouldn’t have taken this contract.

Shut up, Alaric.

“Yeah, let’s go in. We can order something for dinner before we go to meet Claude.” He took the messenger bag from her and opened the door. She kept her hands in her lap and he walked around to open the door for her. “You don’t have to wait for me if you want to get out.”

“It bothered you last night, and it doesn’t bother me to wait.” She looked up at him as she got out and he shut the door. “I want you to trust me.”

And he did. That was part of the problem.