A Matter of Heart (12 page)

A gentle kiss is pressed
against my cheek. “Once Zthane brought in a team to extract us from where we
were trapped—”

“Are you okay?” I interrupt,
searching his face for any kind of trauma from his imprisonment. “Did they hurt
you?”

“I’m fine,” he insists, and
I can’t help but kiss him in relief. “I’d gotten the details of what went down
from Kellan and shared them with the team once we got back to Annar. We knew
pretty much where you two were, but since you hadn’t built the portal yet,
Rushfire had to do it for you.”

Huh. I can’t even get a
hello out of the ancient Faerie, let alone get him to help me with a project.
“He did that?”

“He wasn’t really given a
choice. So yes, he built it with the help of a Mover, because the nearest
portal was a hundred miles away and I wasn’t willing to travel that distance.”

“Tell me you did not
threaten Kleeshawnell Rushfire into building that portal.”

“Whether or not I did,” he
says, “it’s done now, and was completed in record time. Which was good, because
we were already handicapped by time constraints.”

“And the Elders?”

“There was a fight,” he
admits. “But we managed to chase them off. Our team was bigger than theirs.”

The image of Earle being
tossed like a doll flashes through my mind. “What about my team? Are they here,
too?”

His face is guarded. “We
can’t find any traces of them.”

I shudder as a slew of awful
scenarios flood my mind. Earle, Nividita, and Harou all missing, and on my
watch no less. I throw the covers back. “We need to go find them!”

He yanks the sheets back up.
“
You
need to stay right here and rest. There’s a team out there looking
as we speak. The Guard is committed to finding them.”

Please, for the love of
everything that’s good in all the worlds, let them be found.

Jonah tucks a blanket around
me. “It was awful when Kellan wasn’t able to talk to me anymore. I mean, I was
able to access his mind, but I couldn’t hear him. I just knew he couldn’t hear
me. We’ve never had that problem before, so it was just . . .” He wipes at his
face. “There came the point where I knew he was struggling to even remain
coherent. It was like his mind became a series of fragments—
nothing
made
sense anymore. What I saw were clearly hallucinations. I couldn’t tell if you
were still alive, or even with him. I have never been so terrified in my entire
life.”

And he’d been scared, for me
and his brother, and I’d gone and kissed Kellan. I can’t help it—guilt crashes
over me, fast and hard, a hammer smashing through the calmness Jonah gifted me
earlier. But before I can apologize or grovel at his feet or even begin to
rationalize my actions, he says, “This isn’t the time to talk about what
happened in that cave.”

He knows
.
Caleb is smart enough not to issue an
I told you so
. “Jonah—”

“Chloe,” he says, closing
his eyes, “I can only deal with so much at one time. Please. I need to make
sure that you and my brother are okay first before we have that discussion.”

It’s like someone set off a
siren in my body: PANIC. PANIC!
PANIC!!!

“I love you,” I whisper,
pushing so much adoration in those three words that he won’t have any other
choice than to believe it.

His head falls until his
forehead rests against the side of my head. “I know. I love you, too.” His next
words are clinical, all traces of vulnerability gone. “As for the Elders, they
all got away. We had the opportunity on the Gnomish plane to capture two, but
abandoned the plan so we could get to you before it was too late.”

Determination
fills me up. “We’ll get them.” We have to. I made a promise, and I intend to
keep it.

Sometime before dinner, Karl
stops by. He’s smiling, but it’s not his normal, easy-going smile, the one that
reaches his eyes. “I’m glad to see you awake. You had us all worried,
especially with that bullet-proof wall you barricaded yourself behind.” Even
his quiet laugh is off. “Took me a long time to break it open. Sort of wounded
my ego, you know?”

Jonah positions himself next
to me, so he’s slightly in front of Karl. I have to crane my neck around just
to see our friend. “Sorry about that.” I grin. “But thanks for coming to get
me.”

“I may not be your personal
guard anymore,” Karl says, the smile even fainter, “but I will always try my
best to make sure you’re okay.”

Jonah grips my hand and
gives Karl a long, pointed stare. It’s almost as if he’s daring Karl to do
something. Exactly what, I’m not so sure. And then, in a low, tense voice,
“Chloe needs her rest.”

I attempt to assure everyone
I’m fine, but Jonah cuts me off. He practically seethes, “She’s been through a
lot over the last week. A good friend would understand that.”

“You know I do.” Karl sounds
oddly resigned.

This is beyond bizarre.
“What’s happening right now?”

“Nothing is happening,”
Jonah insists, and I swear, his eyes are iced over in anger.

Karl follows up with, “I
talked to Kate downstairs. She says Kellan is coming along?”

“Kellan,” Jonah bites out,
“also needs his rest and should be left alone.”

I’ve never seen Karl so
uncomfortable before. He scuffs his steel-toed boot against the tiled floor.
“You feeling okay, Chloe?”

I tell him I am; Jonah’s
grip on my hand is close to bruising. “Tired, but less thirsty, you know?”

I expect this to be amusing,
considering the threat of dehydration and all, but neither man smiles.

“Good, good,” Karl mumbles,
shoving his hands into his pockets.

“You should go now.” Jonah
stands up, mercifully releasing my hand.

“Jonah,” Karl begins
quietly, but my fiancé shakes his head.

“No,” he tells Karl.
Practically barks. “You need to
go
.”

Karl scrubs his face. “You
think this is easy for me? I have my orders.”

Jonah surprises me by
saying, “Are you kidding me? Fuck your orders. We’ve already had this
discussion, and my answer is the same. I tried to do this the nice way, but I
will not tolerate this insubordination.”

“What. Is going. On?”
Insubordination
?
What the hell? Jonah does not throw words around like this. Jonah is the most
sane, logical person I know.

“It’s standard procedure,”
Karl offers unemotionally. Like he’s a robot. Like somebody came and stole the
Karl I know and put some voice box and wires in him and made him say stuff in a
voice that’s his but isn’t.

Jonah laughs, but there’s no
humor in the room. “Is that how they’re playing this?”

Karl’s shoulders sag and unhappiness
colors his entire person for the tiniest of seconds, even though his back is
ramrod straight. “If you look at it from the Guard’s perspec—”

Jonah cuts him off. “I
outrank every single person in the Guard. Even you. And when I say no, I mean
no
.
If he thinks he can challenge my authority, especially since he thinks I’m just
a,”—and here he flashes air quotes—“kid, then I welcome him to try. But we all
know how this is going to end. I’m going to get my way, and he’s going to get
his ass handed to him.”

I grab his arm. “Jonah, talk
to me! What’s this about?”

A muscle twitches near
Karl’s left eye. “Even though I’m a Council member, I still have to do as
ordered when the Guard brass issue a command—”

“Unless the Council revokes
that order!” Jonah says loudly, also ignoring me. “Which
I
did!”

Karl’s eyes close briefly as
he massages the spot between them. “I know, J. You think I didn’t point this
out, oh, I don’t know,
a few dozen times
?”

Jonah may be shorter than
Karl (I mean, who isn’t?), but he sure doesn’t seem like it when he takes a
step closer and says in that low voice, “Then why are you here? I told you to
stay away. I
ordered
you to stay away.”

Karl’s eyes do not leave
Jonah’s, not for a second. “For your information, I was escorted.”

Jonah laughs. It’s ugly.
“And you let them? Wow. I guess I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”

“Jonah!” I gasp. I may have
no idea what’s going on, but . . . but . . . this is one of his oldest, best
friends! “Somebody tell me what’s going on!”

Karl finally looks at me and
then back at Jonah. “Maybe you don’t.”

Jonah takes another step
closer, so there is very little space between the two men. “You tell him,” he
says in such a quiet, flat voice that I flinch back into my pillows, “that if
he dares to contradict my orders again, he will regret it. That if he thinks I
won’t destroy him, he’s deluding himself. Because you know as well as I that I
will.”

Karl nods, just once. Then,
to me—“I’m glad you’re okay, Chloe.”

When he leaves, I
practically shout,
“What the hell was that?”

“That,” Jonah says, calmer
now, “is another thing we’re not discussing tonight.”

I am utterly bewildered by
what just went down, but I know Jonah. And I know he’s been through hell the
last week, too. And if he says he’s not ready to talk about something, I need
to accept it for the time being, even though I’m dying to know. So I say, more
teasing than annoyed, “What exactly are we allowed to talk about?”

He sits back down on the bed
next to me. “You. And me. And how I’ll do anything to ensure your safety and
happiness.”

But
just what does that mean?

Dinner is Jell-o. Yay.

“Do you have a preference?”
Jonah asks, flipping through a menu dropped off earlier by an orderly. This is
so Annar—menus in a hospital. Personalized, no less. Only my menu consists
entirely of Jell-o options. “Flavor-wise, I mean?”

“I’d like chocolate
pudding,” I grumble, but he ignores me and rattles off ten different flavors
for me to choose from. “Fine,” I sigh. “Cherry will do.”

He smiles. “You always pick
red.” Then he calls down to the kitchen and makes the order.

“How are you feeling?” I ask
when he climbs back into the bed with me.

“Other than having the week
from hell, I’m fine.”

I glance towards Kellan’s
door and try to block out the memory of us kissing in the cave. “I’m sorry you
had to go through all of this.”

“It’s not like you purposely
went out and tried to get yourself killed.”

“You know what I mean.”

He sighs, rolling onto his
side. I do the same, so we’re facing one another. “I love you more than life
itself. You know that, right? You are everything to me.”

As always when he says
things like this, my entire being fills will contentment and bliss. “I feel the
same way about you.”

He’s staring directly into
my eyes, so deep down I swear he can see my soul. “But you don’t, not really.”

Whaaaat? “How can you ever
say that?” I gasp, and when I’m about to jerk up, he reaches out to hold me
down.

“That came out wrong. You
love me, yes, I absolutely believe that. But whereas I have one Connection, to
you . . . you have two.”

“You have two as well,” I
shoot back, suddenly so alarmed that I can’t even think straight.

“It’s not the same,” he
says, shaking his head softly against the pillow, all black-blue, beautiful
hair against white. “And you know it.”

“Is this . . . is this
because of what happened in the cave?” Hysteria pounds furiously against my
walls, screaming to be released. Even Caleb, suddenly aware in the back of my
mind, is stunned into silence.

Jonah closes his eyes and
rolls back onto his back. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He covers his eyes with a
hand. “I just . . . fuck. This is all so much to take in right now.”

He’s cussing. It’s a bad
sign; Jonah hardly ever cusses around me. “You . . . you said we shouldn’t talk
about this!” I’m babbling, sitting up and grappling at his free hand. “And you
know that I love you, that you’re the one—”

“I know you love me, Chloe.”
He’s tired; Caleb reminds me just how much stress he’s been under this last
week: fighting the Elders, being trapped, himself, in a dungeon, escaping and
then fighting another group of Elders, all the while dealing with his fiancée
and twin brother being trapped and dying slowly in some remote, random cave.
And then, to top it off, find out said fiancée and twin brother kissed while he
was doing everything in his power to save them.

A lesser person might have
broken under such circumstances.

I take a few deep breaths,
frantically trying to think of what I can say that will even be appropriate at
a moment like this. Like the sad, pathetic drama queen I am, I start out with,
“I am so, so sorry, Jonah . . . please, if you let me, I’ll try to explain . .
.”

He’s still not looking at
me. “You don’t have to explain. Logically, I absolutely understand why things
went down like they did. You and he share a Connection.”