Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3) (36 page)

“It’s going to be all right,” I repeated. “I promise, okay? I’ll be right back, and then I’ll tell both of you everything.”

The two burly seers supporting Black were already walking away. I glanced over when Uncle Charles turned to follow. Watching them take Black down the main staircase at the front of
Winged Victory
, I barely hesitated before I did the same.

I could tell my words didn’t reassure either of my friends.

They especially didn’t reassure Nick.

When I caught up to Uncle Charles at the bottom of the first landing, I murmured, “Please tell me I didn’t just lie to my friends. Especially since they risked their lives to come out here to help me.”

“You didn’t lie to them,” Uncle Charles assured me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me against his side as we walked to the second set of stairs. “I promise you, my dear, I plan to return you to them without a scratch.”

I let out a grunt, glancing ahead of us at Black.

“Guess you can’t say the same for him,” I muttered. I gave my uncle a harder stare. “But I
am
bringing him back with me. Tonight. With no
more
scratches. Right?”

Uncle Charles glanced up at where Black limped ahead of us.

“I gathered that, yes.” He gave me a wan smile, winking, but his eyes remained serious. “Despite brother Quentin’s fears, I never intended to conscript you into my seer army
tonight,
little Miri...
 
and never unwillingly, regardless of time and place. There are far too many things you must learn about your people first.” He gave a delicate shrug. “I admit, I would very much like to be the one to educate you on some of those things. Particularly what it is we really do and believe here. But only when the time is right. And only when you are ready.”

He gave me another warm squeeze.

“...There are enough days in all the world for all that,
ilya.
For now I wish merely to let you know a few things that affect you currently, so you can might more educated decisions.” Another frown touched his lips. “I admit, the situation in Bangkok scared me badly, Miri. It also made me realize just how vulnerable you are. Particularly given
what
you are...”

His words trailed.

In that silence, a harder pulse of grief left him. He looked at me again. I was staring up at his face when tears returned to his eyes.

“I am so very very sorry, my dear,” he said, his voice thick. “...For Solonik.”

I stared up at him, fighting confusion.

I’d briefly forgotten his role in all of that. Some part of me still couldn’t fully comprehend that this was the same Lucky I’d been hearing about since then. The Lucky who gave orders to human traffickers and threatened Solonik with retribution if I was harmed.

I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it.

“...I will never forgive myself for letting that
animal
touch you...” He trailed again, once more overcome by emotion. “...Or what happened with Ian Stone.” He looked towards Black, his expression darkening. “Although, I confess, I do hold your current paramour somewhat responsible for that mess. Ian was not wrong when he said that the poaching of mates is a very serious crime in our world.”

He firmed his lips, once more meeting my gaze.

“But Solonik is entirely on me. He worked for me. He was my responsibility...
 
and for that, I can never forgive myself,
ilya.”

I glanced up, focusing on Black when I felt some part of him react.

That pull from him felt almost compulsive. I felt worry on him too, along with unease around my conversation with Uncle Charles. Black could feel how much seeing him affected me. He felt my memories of the past tugging at me, my confusion, my hyper-emotionality. He was worried about my uncle manipulating me.

It amplified my own worry about him briefly.

It also cleared my head, reminding me why I was here.

“You’re not going to harm him.” My voice grew colder as I looked back at my uncle. “I’m really fucking serious about this, Uncle Charles. Black...
 
you’re not going to harm him for that poaching thing. Or for anything else.” I narrowed my gaze. “I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to forgive you for what you’ve done to him already...
 
but it needs to stop. Now.”

My uncle startled me by breaking out in a wide grin.

When I glared back, clenching my jaw, he held up a hand.

“I know you are threatening me, my dear...
 
and I am taking it very seriously, I promise you.” Even as he said it, he smiled wider, squeezing me against his side. “I admit, it is incredibly endearing to see my little Miri make such a brazenly seer statement. You are so very much one of us...
 
do you know this? If I did not think so already from the work-ups Black’s people did, I would know it by you snarling at me just now about my damaging your new companion.”

He shook his head, once, still smiling. I couldn’t help noticing it was same strange shake of the head I’d seen Black do on more than one occasion.

“He still hasn’t told you much about us, has he?” my uncle said. “Black. He hasn’t told you very much about seers? What we’re really like?”

I followed his hand gesture towards Black himself. I must have reached for him in other ways too; I felt another pulse of pain on him, enough to stumble my steps. Fighting it back, I shook my head, unconsciously imitating both of them.

“No,” I said simply.

When I glanced up that time, Uncle Charles’ green eyes sharpened.

I saw him looking between me and Black. That time, I felt irritation on him again, stronger than the affection he’d just been showering on me.

“He didn’t waste any time with you, did he... ?” he muttered.

“He hasn’t done
anything,
Uncle Charles,” I warned. “...Not like that’s your business. We haven’t done much at all, and for the record, that was
his
decision, not mine. So please stop acting like I’m his rape victim, or Black is brainwashing me...”

Clicking softly under his breath, Uncle Charles dismissed my words with a wave.

“I know that,” he said. “I’m quite aware of your boyfriend’s restraint...
 
as well as where it’s failed him.” His lip curled, right before he glanced at me. “I suppose you’re right. As every seer knows, some things are not for the mind to decide. Still, I confess I am annoyed that I had so little say in who you were exposed to from our world prior to meeting him.”

“Planning to pick out my boyfriends for me, too, Uncle Charles?” I said drily.

“Was I planning to offer you options for companionship from those among our people with integrity and principle? With a sense of responsibility towards their race and the continuation of our blood and shared history?” He gave me a scathing look, not a trace of apology in his voice. “...Of course I was. Who could blame me for that?”

Shrugging at my unimpressed look, he gave me a wry smile. “Although you never did like doing what you were told, Miri. I should have remembered that. I might have done better if I’d ordered you to become involved with Black at the outset...”

“Is that what Ian was?” I said, my voice unamused. “One among our race with ‘integrity and principle’? Because I think I’ll pass, Uncle Charles.”

“Ian was...” Uncle Charles clicked his tongue with regret. “...A miscalculation.” At my incredulous snort, he gave me a sharper look. “For the record, niece, I never
once
told him to become romantically involved with you. He was there to act as your bodyguard, nothing more. I placed Ian with Tanaka to give him an excuse to look out for you. He developed a fixation on you all by himself...
 
again, the unpredictability of seer affections being at issue.”

He gave me a more apologetic look, shrugging with one hand.

“Seers, I’m afraid, can be quite difficult to manage when it comes to their sexual inclinations. You may have discovered that for yourself by now, Miri.”

I bit my lip, not answering him.

Looking up as we descended a short flight of stairs, I realized we were back in the cavernous room with all of the marble pillars and statues.

Given where we were, I assumed we’d be leaving Denon the same way we came in. But the two seers trailing behind us walked directly to the wall facing the courtyard instead. Only then did I notice three doors lived there, in that long wall––two smaller rectangular ones on either side of a much larger, arched doorway in the center.

I watched a seer use keys to open the smaller door to our right.

Once he had it open, he used more keys to open a series of iron barred gates on the other side. When he’d gotten through them all, the two burly seers carried Black through the open doorway and Uncle Charles and I followed.

We descended the steps on the other side and then we were outside the structure completely, back in the wide courtyard with the three glass pyramids and the dormant fountains.

Uncle Charles didn’t wait for the two seers to finish closing and locking the doors behind us, but began walking with me across the courtyard towards Richelieu.

The two seers holding up Black were already heading in that direction.

I could hear Black panting now. When I got closer to him with my mind, I got hit with a blast of physical pain. Fighting not to react, or maybe not to yell at him again, I forced my eyes off his back and looked at the illuminated glass pyramid instead.

I was still looking there when the lights inside the wing behind us went out.

“What will they do with Ian?” I said.

Uncle Charles shrugged with the hand he didn’t have wrapped around my shoulder.

“Ian Stone will be...
 
dealt with.”

I felt Black react to his words.

“So you’re leaving him alive?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I could tell Black hated the idea. “...After everything he’s done, all the people he’s killed. He just...
 
walks? How is that safe for either me or Black?”

I felt a plume of warmth off Black.

“He’ll be dealt with,” Uncle Charles repeated, giving Black an annoyed glance. “Don’t worry about that, Miri. I know I’ve given you no reason to trust me on this point, but I give you my solemn vow...
 
Ian won’t get anywhere near you or yours again. Certainly not the way he is now.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that meant.

Either way, his words didn’t reassure me––at all.

Biting my lip, I looked around the deserted courtyard while I collected my thoughts. The light was brighter than it had been when we arrived. A new sheen of water darkened the stone, turning the surface into a mirror and reflecting the glow from the orange lamps.

It must have rained.

“You and I will have to visit here again sometime, Miri,” Uncle Charles remarked, glancing up at the dramatic face of the Richelieu building. “Humans really can be such curiously artistic creatures. They make unquestionably beautiful things when they put their minds to it––it is an interesting paradox of the species, given the small-mindedness of so many, and their propensity for destruction in all its forms.”

I fought not to roll my eyes. “I guess you toned down that aspect of your personality when I was a kid,” I muttered.

“Which aspect is that, my love?”

“The racist asshole part,” I said, giving him a harder look.

I felt another plume of heat off Black, even as he let out an involuntary laugh.

I felt Uncle Charles notice both.

He shot another annoyed look in Black’s direction.

“Kindly ask your...” Again he seemed to stumble over the word. “...
boyfriend
... to keep his light to himself. You are still my niece, and I admit, his presumed proprietorship over you is...
 
rankling.”

I felt Black hear him.

I felt him dim something about his presence with me too, but it did nothing to disguise the darker whisper of anger he exuded. Turning his head, he growled something at Uncle Charles in that other language. Charles rolled his eyes in an exaggerated fashion, then said something in response that definitely sounded like a threat.

Whatever it was, Black didn’t answer.