Undying Hope (8 page)

He reached over her head to pull a box of them down.

“Thank you.” She poured the water into the tank of the machine. “Where are they, the wolves I mean?”

“Probably outside.” He stretched, touching the ceiling with the flat of his hands and giving her an awesome visual of how all those muscles worked in unison.

Focusing on the task was best if she was going to behave herself. He was adorable as he stood there waiting for her to give him more instructions, but he hogged all the space around her. “Where are the mugs?”

He frowned at her as he crossed the kitchen to get them out of a cabinet that was ridiculous to keep glasses and mugs. She was going to have to rearrange this kitchen for the efficiency of normal-sized people. “How did the wolves get out there?”

“They know the code for the elevator,” Donovan said as he brought two mugs over and set them down on the counter.

She nodded. Of course they would know how to do that. Then she playfully pushed him back a few steps. “I need a little bit of space to work.” She still had time before Bastian would wake. That boy slept like a stone. “Once it’s running, then we can get all snuggly again.”

She could feel his eyes on her as she put the filter into the proper place before adding the right amount of coffee grounds. She set everything and switched on the button. As coffee machines went, this was an easy one. She turned around and leaned against the counter. “So the mighty Quinn can’t cook anything because his wolves won’t let him?”

“Pretty much,” Quinn said with a chuckle, though he did rub nervously at the back of his neck.

He had to be doing that on purpose. That chest was to die for, and, thankfully, it was also all hers. Forever wasn’t long enough to explore the vastness of his muscles. She cleared her throat. “When was the last time you tried?”

“Thirty years ago,” he said. “I keep telling Nikon I need to practice, but he refuses to believe me.”

“I see,” she said. She thought for a moment on how she could help him. She figured the Undying probably had some special way to educate their children. Bastian couldn’t be the only one, and she needed to switch Bastian’s school anyway. That would be the perfect time to teach Quinn to cook. “So then while Bastian is in Undying school, you’ll be attending cooking classes.”

His eyes went wide with worry. “You’re kidding, right? Do you have any idea the damage I could do in a cooking school? I could blow up the whole place.”

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. She padded over to him and petted her hand down his chest just because he was there and she could touch him. “How about private lessons?”

“Who’s the instructor?”

She did her best flirty girl pose and batted her eyes at him. “Me.”

A grin spread out over his face. “Sold. When do we start?”

“After I’ve had two cups.” She rested the side of her face against his chest. “Dare I stop to think about what is happening to us?”

* * * *

Donovan wrapped an arm around her and then dropped his chin on top of her head. His whole being felt a little lighter to have that one person who realized he was more than his power and his title. “That depends?”

She tilted her head back to look at him. “On what?”

“If we need to think about magic arranged marriages.” He bent down and brushed his mouth over hers. Her lips were soft like silk. His desire to take this mating further was strong and egged on by the
treòir
, but he held his power in check. Spooking her or demanding things that would come in time was pointless and counterproductive, even if having her breasts mashed up against his chest was driving him to distraction.

She rested her head against his solid muscle for a moment before she pulled away and retreated to the coffee maker. “What if I had married Mason?”

The
treòir
twitched. Donovan gritted his teeth as he struggled with its spike of anger. The
treòir
had less understanding of human interactions and didn’t always know why he couldn’t react in violence toward something that upset him. He leaned back against the L-shaped counter top and studied her for a long moment. “Mason would have been killed, and you’d have been freed to do whatever you want.”

She blanched. “That’s a bit drastic, don’t you think?” She turned and poured coffee into the mugs.

“Being tagged as a meirlock is a death mark. There is no escaping the sentence.” He crossed his arms over his chest. This was where the difficult parts of bonding started. Human women didn’t find understanding Undying law easy. Mason was an Earth Warrior. No prison in any realm would be able to hold him, and once the
treòir
inside turned down darker paths, there was no bringing it back.

She sucked in a breath. “Bastian!”

Donovan leaned over her and firmly put the mug back on the counter before turning her around to face him. “Bastian is a child. Has he killed anyone in cold blood?”

Her lower lip trembled. “No. He gets into fights sometimes at school. He just got expelled again yesterday because he was trying to protect one of the girls from something stupid one of the other boys said.”

Donovan stooped down until he was right at eye level with her. “He only needs a better way to control his
treòir
and some guidance on how to handle those situations.”

“You’re sure?” she demanded.

“I am.”

“Coming in, my lord.”

Donovan shook his head when he heard the voice of his Storm Warrior in his head. He refocused on Haven. “I am sure Bastian will be fine. He’s only in need of a little fatherly guidance, and we’re about to have company.”

Her brow furrowed, and then the walls shook as Donovan went to the door that appeared to be nothing more than a closet. When he opened the door, Memphis walked out. “I hate to bother you this early, my lord, but—” Memphis took a step toward Haven and leaned forward as he stared at her for a moment and then took in Donovan’s lack of dress and then back to Haven. “She’s wearing your shirt.”

“Aye,” Donovan said, letting out a long sigh. “It’s not as it appears, and even if it was—”

“Really?” Memphis grabbed Donovan by both of his shoulders and looked into his face. “She’s you’re lifebond?”

“I am,” Haven said.

Memphis let out a whoop and hugged Donovan tight before stepping back and clearing his throat. “Forgive me,” he said more formally to Haven. “I am Memphis Walker. The Cadeyrn’s Storm Warrior.”

“I will explain later,” Donovan said. “Memphis, why are you here?”

“I’ll go bother Sloan. I didn’t realize you were indisposed.” Memphis turned to go back into the wind portal room.

“It’s not public yet,” Donovan said. Memphis was a man on the list to tell right after he talked to his other brother, Wolf. “You wouldn’t be here if the problem wasn’t important.”

“Aye,” Memphis said with a polite bow of his head. “A Caden in Denmark suspects his Cadfael may have done something that requires your judgment. Haldur contacted me.”

“That is serious,” Donovan said. “Haldur’s take?” Memphis didn’t have to say anything. The answer was on his face. “All right. Give me two minutes. Make friends with Haven.”

* * * *

Haven furrowed her brow at the word Cadeyrn, but she didn’t say anything as she watched him leave the room and then turned to give Memphis as friendly a smile as she was capable. The man was huge, not as huge as Quinn, but still huge. Bastian might be on the short side of the Undying height scale, but then, he was only a teenager. She shied back a step. She could feel the power in the man. His was more like Quinn’s, but it was better to be wary of things she didn’t know. “Where is he going?”

“Denmark,” Memphis said, his eyes going to the mugs of steaming coffee on the counter. “He shouldn’t be more than half an hour.”

“Right, because a trip to Scandinavia is like a hop next door.” She turned back to the counter to see if there was sugar anywhere.

“It is when you travel by wind portal.”

She stilled and turned back to him. “That wind thing that opened for Kyros… You do it, too?”

Something akin to rage flashed across Memphis’s face. “You’re not afraid of me, so it wasn’t Lazarus you saw last night. What did you see?”

“I saw a vortex of wind with black and red lightning,” Haven said with a shudder. “The only meirlock I saw was Kyros.”

“And that would have been one of my brother’s portals.” He shook his head, and then his body relaxed before he grinned at her. “I could show you any part of the world you wish while we wait for Cadeyrn to return.”

She didn’t know what Cadeyrn meant. There was that word again, but the meaning for the Undying could be vastly different from what it meant for the Black Rose. “Bastian should be waking up soon and I should be here.”

“Ah, the boy,” Memphis said. “The one who should be here when he wakes would be Maverick.”

“Maverick?”

“Aye. Ean Maverick. He is the resident Earth Caden. He will want a look at the boy and, depending on his age, begin training as soon as possible.”

“Earth Caden?”

Quinn came back into the room. He stopped by Haven and kissed the top of her head before downing an entire cup of hot coffee. “Excellent.”

These men wanted to see if they could make her brain twitch. The man was fully dressed and carried a sword in a scabbard at his hip. A sword! “What are you going to do?”

“Make a judgment for a Caden in Denmark.” Quinn’s head cocked as his gaze locked onto hers. “If the Cadfael in that region has turned.”

“Oh,” she said, as she realized he might be going to put down a meirlock Cadfael. “All right. I’ll um, start breakfast, I guess.”

“Haven.”

“No. You can explain everything to me when you get back.” She forced a smile. “You need to do whatever it is that you do.”

“I can get Sloan,” Memphis said. “Though Darius would be better. I believe he has more dealings with those in Denmark.”

All these names were flying around, and Haven resigned herself to the fact she’d need to learn all of them. Quinn shook his head. “I need to speak with Wolf before there is a formal announcement. If one of the other Cadfaels show, I’d have to announce that I am bonding. I want to be the one to tell Wolf before giving the Cadfaels an official statement.”

“Very well, my lord.” Memphis bowed his head before opening the closet door.

Both men walked inside. Quinn stopped and winked at her. “I will be back as soon as I can.”

The door closed. The apartment rattled as if a violent wind gust kicked up outside. A second later, Memphis exited the closet.

Haven connected the dots. Memphis opened the portals and not Quinn. She had another question. “Why do you open the portal in there?”

Memphis chuckled. “A strong wind can do a lot of damage to inanimate objects.”

“Right,” she said. Why hadn’t she thought of that? “And he didn’t take you with him?”

“Kyros,” Memphis said as if the name answered everything.

Maybe it did. “I didn’t hear either of you talking about anything.” The elevator door opened. When the wolves came in with wet fur from playing in the snow, she understood how Quinn and Memphis had exchanged information. “Never mind. How long have you known Quinn?”

“If you don’t mind,”
Nikon said as he padded up to her and rubbed against the side of her leg. “
Can you get our breakfast? Look on the bottom shelf in the cold box.”

“I’ll get it,” Memphis said as he went to the refrigerator. “Roughly two thousand years.”

“Oh.” She needed something to do. “They eat their food raw?”

“It’s better for them,” Memphis said as he pulled out two packages of wrapped meat. “What do you know about us?”

“Nothing,” she admitted after a moment. “Do you want me to help?”

“Do you need to help?” Memphis asked with an edge of humor in his tone.

“I do,” she said and moved to the counter space he was using to unwrap the wolves’ breakfast. It appeared to be beef chopped up into large, bite-sized chunks. “You wouldn’t happen to know where their dishes are, would you?”

Memphis stilled from getting tomorrow’s wolf meal out of the freezer and stared at her.

“Just get some plates,”
Medea said. “
Eating off ceramic won’t hurt us.”

“Oh,” Haven said. She still felt silly talking to a wolf and knowing she would get an answer. “Would you prefer just having the paper?”

“Cadeyrn is very efficient and doesn’t like to wash dishes.”
Medea rubbed the side of her head against Haven’s thigh. “
Eating from a dish would be wonderful.”

Memphis reached over her head, pulled down two plain black plates, and set them on the counter. Haven served the wolves the meat on the floor.

She waited until they started eating before she went back to talking with Memphis. “Why is everything at giant height in this kitchen?”

Memphis chuckled. “Because a giant lives here alone?”

“Good answer,” she said. “All right. This is making me nuts. Start pulling things down. I have got to get this kitchen functioning for standard-sized people if I am the only one the wolves are going to let cook.”

To her utter surprise, Memphis did exactly as she asked. There weren’t many things that needed reorganized, and that had her hunting down a notepad and pen to start making a list. They had enough food to last Bastian one, maybe two meals. She was just putting the last cup into the cabinet next to the sink when the apartment rattled. A moment later, Quinn stepped out. His shirt was torn and the look on his face was heartrending.

Memphis paused.

Haven rushed over to Quinn. Her hand dipped into the hole in his shirt and came out red. “You’re bleeding. Memphis call—”

Quinn grabbed her wrist as he handed his sword off to Memphis. “I’ll heal.”

She studied his face. Part of her knew what he’d done. “He was…”

“Aye,” Quinn said. His glacier eyes bore into her. “It had to be done. Like when a werewolf turns. They don’t turn back.”

That was something she understood from her grandfather. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m going to get cleaned up. Stay with Memphis.”

Her shoulders slumped as he walked out of the room. “How am I supposed to help him if he won’t let me?”