Byzantine Heartbreak (30 page)

Nia glanced at Cáel and he gave her a reassuring smile that she tried to give back.

Then Ryan sighed and lifted his head to look at them once more. “We’re blaming the wrong people. Neither of us wants to blame Salathiel for this because he was the victim. But he created his own tragedy because he insisted on living life as a human long after his human life was gone. He refused to acknowledge he’d moved outside human concerns. That’s why he didn’t understand why we couldn’t help with the cart that day. He never understood, ever. And that was his weakness.”

Fresh tears rolled down Nia’s cheeks, but this time, Ryan wiped them away and followed up with a kiss.

Long afterwards, when Nia’s scalding hot tears had dried on his chest, Cáel stayed where he was. He wouldn’t move — not even if his whole body was cramping. For Nia’s head was pillowed on his shoulder while she slept and Ryan’s long form was wrapped around his other flank, his arm thrown across Cáel’s waist.

He fought off the need to sleep. He could sleep when he was dead.

Besides, Ryan’s quiet words had built imagery and scenes in Cáel’s mind that provoked far too many questions and ideas. Troubled, he lay between his favourite two vampires in the world and thought.

Hard.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Agency satellite station. 2263 A.D.

When they returned from Spain, Ryan picked a time barely three minutes into the future from when they had left and they used his office as their arrival chamber. He had set it for his arrival back, as he had left from there.

So even though Nia and Cáel had been gone for nearly three weeks and Ryan for nearly two, only three minutes had passed on their personal timelines.

Despite the tiny lapse of time, as soon as they returned, the demands of real life hit them from all sides. Nayara’s implant immediately showered her with messages, reminders and live communications, snapping her attention back to the station. She headed for the door to her office and almost slammed into it when it didn’t open.

Of course. Ryan had barred the door against them, just before they had jumped back into time after him.

Ryan inserted himself between her and the door. “Turn it off,” he said softly. “Just for a moment more.”

Cáel pressed up against her from behind. His arms came around her and his lips slid along her neck, making her shiver and her body tighten. Nia turned the implant off.

Ryan caught her face in his hands. “Know that I love you,
i
s breá
de mo shaol
.” he murmured and kissed her. “And you, too, Cáel.” He reached over Nia’s shoulder to draw Cáel’s face forward and kiss him, too.

Cáel growled, deep in the back of his throat. “I don’t get an Irish endearment?” he complained. “I’ve been cheated.”

“You’re lucky to get a kiss,” Ryan told him, smiling. “You’re a manipulative, lying politician, a master strategist and exactly the sort of man I swore I would never get involved with.” He shrugged.

“You left ‘human’ off your list of insults,” Cáel replied. His arms tightened about Nia and his lips brushed her cheek.

“They were compliments,” she told him.

Cáel kissed her cheek properly. “I know. But trying to tease Ryan is like trying to stir treacle that has been sitting too long in the Arctic. He’d a stodgy old bastard who’s forgotten how to have fun. Have you noticed?”

Ryan cuffed Cáel lightly across the shoulder. He pulled them both into his arms and Nia was drawn into a tight, warm circle of arms, enclosed by two broad chests and both hearts were beating.

It was heaven.

And with a jolt, she realized that Ryan, Salathiel and she had never held each other this way. They had never simply hugged.

Such a human expression and it had been utterly missing from Salathiel’s repertoire.

The realization made Nia feel a little sick. She leaned her forehead against Ryan’s shoulder. “Ryan, we never did this with Lathe,” she whispered.

Ryan’s arms tightened. “No...” He swallowed. She could hear him do it. “
Críost
,”
he whispered.

Cáel drew in a slow breath. “You never held each other? You never hugged?”

Ryan sighed. “No. And we only have now noticed the lack.” He grimaced. “I have no idea what that means, Cáel, but it seems to fit with what Salathiel became, later.” He looked at Nia, then at Cáel. “I hadn’t realized how good this could feel.” He smiled a little. “Stupid, hmm?”

Cáel gave a laugh that vibrated against Nia’s back. “Not stupid at all. One day, I am going to introduce you two to my endless and varied family. Then you will get a real lesson in the art of hugging. Greeks do it all day long, every time they meet, in every social situation and if it’s family, you’re utterly doomed...they’ll hug you twice over and hard enough to stop your breath. You two, my family are going to adore.”

Nia turned her head up to look at Cáel, puzzled. “We’re vampires. Why on earth would they adore us?”

“Are you kidding?” Cáel asked. He kissed her, lightly. “My family traces its roots back generation after generation. It rolls in its own history. You two, with your long memories...they’ll be besides themselves.”

“You mean, more talking?” Ryan asked, sounding mildly stressed.

 
“Hell, no! Cáel laughed again. “You’re a walking royal flush, as far as my family is concerned, only they don’t know that. Next time my great uncle starts spouting about how his great-great-something-grandfather was at the fall of Constantinople...” Cáel’s expression grew dreamy. “God, I can see it now. He’s such an arrogant son of a bitch. Three ouzos and he’s ready to fight every war since Thermopylae. He will boast about how his ancestor, Remedios, fought at the fall of Constantinople and that’s when you two can supply the kicker. That you were actually there.”

Ryan caught Cáel’s face in his hand. “Your uncle. You don’t care for him much?”

“Not particularly. Why?”

“You don’t mind if you alienate him, then?”

Cáel frowned. “My general policy is not to make enemies unnecessarily. Why?”

Ryan grinned. “Because if it’s the same Remedios, then he didn’t fight at the fall of Constantinople, Cáel. He was one of our household servants and he begged to be released a week before the wall fell. He and five others took one of my boats. They planned to sail to Panormos to pick up fresh supplies, then on to Alexandroupli in Greece.”

Cáel looked startled, then he began to smile. Then he laughed. “Alexandroupli,” he repeated. “That’s where my uncle’s family came from.” He laughed louder.

It was infectious. Nia found herself laughing, too.

Even Ryan was grinning.

Cáel kissed them both, hard and quick. “To work,” he declared. “I’m sure the world is screaming for us by now.”

Ryan reached for the manual door controls, stepping away from them. “Thank you for coming after me,” he said. “I’m glad that you did.” He was looking at her directly.

The door opened. Nia switched her implant back on.

The world clamoured for them.

* * * * *

Brenden was still investigating how Gabriel had paid off Philos, so as soon as he caught up with Cáel, Cáel was forced to head off for Spetsopoula, to follow up on staffing issues.

As the station was still technically on lock-down, the only way Brenden would let him off the station was with Brenden himself as an escort and a full complement of Keiren’s men surrounding him.

Brenden flatly forbade Ryan or Nia from going with them.

The lock-down created logistics headaches that Nia was kept busy resolving. The humans still on the station needed food, clothing and supplies and longer-term quarters than they had been furnished with so far. But the station was not a planetary-sized body and space was at a premium. Finding instant living space, especially for humans who had more biological demands than vampires, was challenging.

It was Justin who came up with the idea of “storing” just-visiting humans in the past, a quick jump away for the vampires, but safely out of the reach of the psi.

Nayara conferred with the group of senior vampires and humans she had begun to think of as her war council. Cáel immediately returned a short answer. “Yes, but keep the humans out of the loop on this one, Nia. I don’t want to know anything more about it.” And he had abruptly cut communications.

Ryan raised his brow, for he stood on the other side of her desk. “He’s right. No human should know where they’re going. It’s risky having too many agency members in the know. Let’s keep this one on a need-to-know basis.”

So the project had become Nia’s own, with Justin’s help. They had jumped back to the turn of the twenty-first century, just before the psi-filers had been developed and acquired a small, very modern hotel with the most automated features possible.

Then they blocked out an entire two floors for personal use and began shuttling staff and humans back as necessary.

As she was stepping out of the arrival chamber on the station after one of the last of the shuttle trips, Nia saw Christian in the arrival lounge and hugged him hard. He smiled, but she saw the faint trace of puzzlement in his eyes.

“I’m trying to do it more often,” she told him. “I’ve discovered I like it.”

“You can hug me and Rob as often as you want,” Christian said, his smile warming. “As long as Ryan doesn’t object?”

Nia felt laughter bubbling to her lips. “Not in the slightest,” she assured him.

Christian’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I see. Then...what about Assemblyman Stelios? I won’t find myself facing him over a brace of pistols some foggy morning if he catches me with my arms around you?”

Nia struggled to keep her smile in place, then simply to keep her face neutral. Then she gave up. “I’m going to have to work on my poker face,” she said and sighed. “Did you just stab in the dark, Christian, or do you know something?”

“You’re glowing, Nayara.” He gave her another small smile. “I stabbed. There’s nothing wrong with your poker face, or Stelios’. Or Ryan’s either. But Stelios is human and his heart speeds up whenever you’re near him. And now, suddenly, you’re glowing.” He shrugged. “So I thought I would probe a little.”

Nayara pursed her lips. “I wonder how many others have noticed. Cáel can’t turn down the volume on his heartbeat.”

Christian shrugged again. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Nayara. Those that may notice are all counted as friends by you. And that’s not the reason I was loitering around the arrival lounge waiting for your return, anyway.”

“You were waiting for me?”

“Brenden mentioned you’ve been doing a lot of timed jumps lately,” Christian replied. “I thought I’d stop by and see for myself how you were holding up.”

“You’re checking up on me?” Nayara asked, astonished.

“Yes, ma’am.” And he really was studying her, she realized. His gaze was taking in every little detail. He touched her forehead, just between her brows. “There’s been a furrow there since you walked out of the room. Do you have a headache?”

“I...er...sort of.” It was impossible for vampires to get headaches.

“Thick, like there’s too much stuffing in your head,” Christian said.

“Yes,” she agreed.

Christian nodded. “It’s not stasis poisoning, but it’s a good sign you’re pushing your symbiot too much. You’re grounded, ma’am. For at least a week.”

Nayara caught her breath. “Impossible. I have—”

Christian held up a long finger. “Remember Ezra,” he said softly.

Nayara swallowed the rest of her protest. Ezra had died from stasis poisoning, because he had insisted on pushing himself far beyond the limits his symbiot could manage. Ryan had watched him die.

Nayara nodded. “A week,” she said meekly.

Christian gave her another hug. “Tell them both they’re luckier men than they realize.” He laughed as he walked away. “That’ll ensure you stay grounded!”

She stared after him, wondering what on earth was funny.

Nia?

It was Cáel’s voice, whispering through her implant and she suppressed the spurt of pure happiness that rushed through her unless it showed on her face and gave her away to everyone who was passing through the lounge just then.

She remembered what Christian had just said. “
You’re glowing, Nia
.” Apparently she was giving herself away just by showing her face.

Nayara hurried through the long central corridor back to her office where Cáel would be waiting. She reached for her list of tasks stored on the implant and came to both a mental and physical halt.

The implant was turned off. She hadn’t switched it on since she had arrived back from the past. Christian had distracted her.

Nayara forced herself to keep walking slowly forward, so that she wouldn’t draw too much attention to herself, as she puzzled it out.

She had heard Cáel in her mind. So had she reached out and heard him? Or had he reached out and spoken to her? She was the acknowledged mind-reader, but it was a closely held secret and she had only attempted it once or twice under the most severe circumstances.

This had not been a critical situation. His voice had been like the touch of a soft summer breeze. A mental caress.

Familiar. Dear.

Nia rushed through the slowly opening door of her office, too impatient for it to fully slide aside.

Cáel and Ryan stood by the table, their heads close together, talking.

“I heard you,” Nia said.

Cáel looked up. His expression shifted and changed, from the hard, calculating politician she had first met to the man she had come to know, the one who had spent months dreaming of a kiss and planning around it. The man who made her and Ryan so happy.

His mouth lifted in a smile. “There you are.”

Nia moved across the room and threw her arms around him. She knew he could stand the impact. He had proved it more than once.

Cáel wrapped his arms around her and held her as tightly as she wanted right then. His heart
was
beating harder.

“I love you,” Nia told him, her lips brushing the corner of his jaw. Her eyes squeezed shut as the truth of that simple sentence overwhelmed her. “I love you so much, Cáel, I thought I might melt when I saw you just then.” She shifted her head on his shoulder to look at him. “I love you as much as I love Ryan.”