Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters) (14 page)

I laughed out loud.

“You may think that’s funny, but I don’t think you understand how difficult this has made it for me to protect you and our relationship.
 
Where is your self-control?”

I couldn’t seem to stop laughing, but it wasn’t happy laughter.
 
It was more the hysterical kind.
 
I finally got ahold of myself, wiping my eyes.
 
“You really think that’s what happened with Siobhan?
 
She said something to piss me off, and, in a jealous fit, I couldn’t stop myself from throwing her out a window?”
 

For the first time since he’d entered the apartment, I looked at him.
 
He met my wild eyes with his own.
 
His were beautiful, and mismatched.
 
One was a jewel-toned blue so perfect it was almost violet, catching the highlights in his raven hair.
 
The other was golden, and otherworldly.
 
A wolf’s eye.
 
They were the legacy of his mothers side of the family, a mark of druid pride carried on only in his powerful bloodline.
 
And he was the last to carry them.
 
They were the most beautiful eyes in the world to me.
 
I could lose myself in those eyes.
 
I had, many times.
 
And right now, they were as angry, and as cold, as I’d ever seen them.
 
“I think Siobhan has a vicious tongue, and I have no doubt that she provoked you deliberately.”

“And that’s it?
 
She insulted me and I threw her out of a window?
 
Does that really add up to you?”

His eyes narrowed.
 
“Why don’t you speak plainly?
 
If that isn’t what happened, tell me what did.
 
I’m all ears.”

I was a breath away from telling him the whole story when I stopped myself.
 
If this was last time I would see him, what was the point in alienating him from one of his staunchest allies?
 
And wasting our last precious hours talking about
that bitch
.
 
That thought made the decision simple.
 
I remained silent, and shrugged.
 
“It doesn’t matter.”
 

He raised a brow at me.
 
“That’s all you have to say for yourself?
 
It doesn’t matter?
 
How about your hostility toward my Arch?
 
I left you alone for
two minutes
at a social function, and you slapped him across the face in a room full of druids.
 
Everyone there says he never laid a finger on you.”

“And did any of these witnesses happen to overhear what he was saying to me?”

His nostrils flared, as though sensing a threat.
 
“No.
 
Enlighten me, please.
 
You keep telling me he’s a danger to me, but you never elaborate.
 
What has he been saying to you that would elicit such a reaction?“

I debated what to tell him.
 
It all seemed so pointless, with only a few hours left between us.
 
I tried one last time.
 
“You need to challenge him.
 
You can beat him in a fair fight.
 
But if you leave it to him to try to assassinate you-”

He made a slashing motion with his hand.
 
“We’ve been over this too many times to count.
 
I don’t believe in killing my way to the top.
 
I’m not afraid of him.
 
If he wants to kill me, let him try his best-”

“He won’t be challenging you to a fair fight!
 
This won’t be a test of your strength or his!
 
He’s feeling out all of the people close to you, looking for a weak link.
 
It would only take one to get you a knife in the back!”
 
I hadn’t meant to, but I was almost yelling at the end.

He raised his brows in a question.
 
“And this is what he’s been saying to you?
 
He’s trying to solicit your help to kill me?”

I inclined my head.
 
“He wants your head on a platter, and he has no scruples about how he gets it.
 
You can’t fight someone who’s fully armed, with your hands tied behind your back.
 
You think because your’e stronger than him, that you can take him lightly, but he didn’t get that position by being a pushover.
 
What he lacks in power, he makes up for with deception and cunning.
 
He’s pulling strings that you aren’t even aware of.
 
You need to wake up and realize that the world is not going to follow your set of rules for decency.
 
It’s pure ignorance to believe that Declan will!”

He ran a hand through his dark hair, his face showing his obvious weariness for a subject we had beaten to death.
 
“It’s becoming clear that we aren’t going to settle any of this in the short time I have before I need to leave.
 
And I don’t want to spend our last hours together arguing.
 
Can you just promise me that you will at least try to stay clear of Declan and Siobhan while I’m gone?
 
You don’t need any more bad press with my people, especially if I’m not here for damage control.”

I nodded, my jaw clenching.
 
I wanted to argue with almost everything he’d just said, but I knew none of it would matter soon.
 

I stood, walking to the kitchen and placing my teacup in the sink.
 
My head fell forward as I leaned heavily against the sink, feeling impossibly tired.

  
He pressed his full length in behind me, as
 
I’d longed for him to do.
 
His arms folded around me.
 
He buried his face in my neck, breathing in deeply.
 
Strands of our long hair mingled together in my line of vision.
 
Just the sight of of it, his blue-black, and mine pale gold, touched something deep within me.
 
There wasn’t a thing about him that I wouldn’t miss all the way to my core.
 
“I’ll miss you,” he said into my skin, his voice thick.
 

I arched back against him, feeling the fever take me.
 
“Now,” I said hoarsely, and as always, he obliged.
 

Later, we lay entwined, lingering together until the last possible moment.
 
He cupped my face in his hands, looking intently into my eyes.
 
“I know things have been bad lately, but I need you to trust me.
 
And I want you to swear to me that you won’t run.”
 
He knew me so well, knew that would be my first and strongest instinct.
 
Years ago, when we’d reconnected after decades apart, I’d sworn him a blood-oath that I would never run again.
 
Those things were a bitch to break.

It was because he knew me too well that I made sure to respond quickly and convincingly, looking straight into those beloved eyes.
 
“I swear it.”

He stroked my cheek.
 
“You know you’re the world to me, don’t you?
 
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
 
His voice held a tenderness that was rare for him, a softness in his character that only I had ever been witness to, because it was a softness for
me
.

I never looked away from his beautiful eyes as I responded.
 
“I feel the same.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Sun's Orbit

BACK TO PRESENT DAY

“Hey there, Darlin’,” I said into the phone.
 
It just kind of slipped out.
 

“Hand Amy the phone,” he bit out.
 
I felt the geas that had bound me slip from my wrist.
 
It turned to dust as it hit the floor.
 
Apparently, speaking to him had been enough to break it.
 
The realization started a debate in my head.
 
Perhaps I could just slip away.
 
I was a pro at running.
 
I quickly decided against it.
 
In for a penny, in for a pound.
 
And he was so close.
 
He was the sun, and I was in his orbit now.

I handed Amy the phone and she listened for a minute before saying, “Yes, sir,” and hanging up.
 
She turned and spoke to the nearest guard.
 
“Rufus, Dom has asked that you escort Jillian to his office immediately.”
 

The guard didn’t say a word to me as the elevator sailed it’s way to the top floor of the hotel.
 
Vaguely, I felt his power and hostility at my back, but it was an abstract sort of observation.
 
I didn’t even get a clear look at his face.
 
I couldn’t have picked him out of a lineup.
 
Usually I tried to take in details, but I was too distracted just then to care.
 

It was one of those elevators that faced a spectacular view of the city.
 
I tried to enjoy the beautiful skyline on the long ride to the top, grasping at anything so as not to let my nerves get the best of me.

I was led to his office right away.
 
I was more than a little surprised that he hadn’t made me wait.

My first sight of him in seven years nearly stopped me in my tracks.
 
He was so familiar, yet so changed.
 
His raven hair was cropped much shorter than before, shaved very close to his head, as though he cut it often.
 
The last time I’d seen him, it had been a black waterfall down his back.
 
It broke my heart a little to see that he had cut it.
   

The first time we’d been together, I’d run reverent fingers through it.
 
It had hung longish then, just past his jaw.
 
“I love your hair,” I’d told him at the time, “I can’t get enough of it.
 
If you love me, you’ll never cut it again.”
 
I’d been joking at the time, but he’d taken me very seriously, only trimming the ends of it for the decade that we were together.
 
I’d grown my own hair down to my knees, because he’d loved it so much.
 
It only reached my mid-back now.
 
I’d cut it very short in a temper, after we had ended.

His pale, mismatched eyes had changed, gotten colder and harder, but they were still just as beautiful.
 
They seemed to be lit with some inner fire that the years hadn’t dimmed.
 
He had always been an intense and dangerous man, but there was a harder edge to him now.
 
I could read clearly a bitterness, and perhaps even a touch of cruelty, that the last years had given him.
 
Or maybe it had been me.

His handsome, aristocratic face seemed harder as well, looking like it could have been carved from stone.
 

His jaw was clenched, a pulse beating below his right eye.
 
The yellow one.
 
The wolf eye.
 
This was nothing new.
 
I’d seen him angry plenty of times, and I knew the signs well.

I offered him a tentative smile as I walked into his office.
 
He didn’t rise, just watched me as I entered.
 
The door clicked shut behind me.

He’d removed his dark gray suit jacket and tie, his crisp white shirt unbuttoned enough to show his
 
tan throat clearly.
 
I could see the pulse beating there.
 
His hands were clenched tightly together on top of his black desk.

“Mind if I have a seat?” I asked him, gesturing at the chair directly in front of his desk.

His nostrils flared and his eyes studied every inch of me.
 
He didn’t answer me, so I sat.
 
We studied each other for long moments before he broke the silence.
 
“Is that a wig?” he asked.

I glanced around his office, asking.
 
“Any cameras in here?”

“No.”

“Yeah, it’s a wig.
 
You like it?”

He had been reaching for the glass of water on his desk.
 
When I spoke, he crushed it in his hand, glass and blood flying.
 
He shook his hand, brushing the glass away without so much as blinking.
 
He leaned towards me, baring his teeth. “You should know better than to bait an enraged bear, Jillian.”

Even with him bitter and looking at me like he hated me, it felt too good just to look at him.
 
I drank in the sight of him, despite my better judgement.
 
Gods, he was beautiful.
 
His astonishing eyes held me captive, as they always had.
   

He was studying the diamond collar at my throat, gimlet eyed.
 
He had given it to me on our two year anniversary.
 
Probably not my wisest move to wear it here.
 
I fingered it, and his angry eyes flew to my face.
 
“What are you doing here, Jillian?” he asked me through clenched teeth.

I gave him a sad smile.
 
He was not even a little bit happy to see me.
 
I should not have been so hurt by that realization.
 
“Actually, I came to ask you a favor.”

I had handed him the upper hand on a silver platter.
 
He seemed to relax a little, sitting back in his chair and stapling his already healed hands.
 
“Really?” he asked, plenty of rage still in his voice.
 
Okay, maybe he hadn’t relaxed much.