In the Beginning... (61 page)

“Together. It has a nice feel to it, doesn’t
it? Almost as nice as this soft, soft skin right here...”

His hand burned a trail of fire across her
chest. Mallory shivered. He laughed. She shivered again. “Cold,
kitten? I can always stop?”

“No. Don’t you dare!”

He obliged, despite them
being visible from every balcony on the north side of the hotel, if
anyone cared enough to look. Or if anyone happened to stroll by.
Yes, he’d pulled her to the ground behind a large plant, with
leaves nearly as long as Mallory’s arm, affording them a bit of
privacy. But none of that mattered to her. Not anymore. What
mattered was that she’d found someone who loved her and whom she
trusted. And found someone
she
could love like she’d feared she never would. What
did it matter if someone saw them kissing in the
moonlight?

It didn’t matter at all.

Their loving was hurried,
but all the more powerful because of the new trust between them.
When they had finally regained their breath, Mallory hastily
fastened her
vestis
and straightened her
pardus.
Aodhan’s laugh was smug and arrogant and echoed
through the garden. She wiped the taste of him off of her lips
delicately. She had not been able to resist tasting his blood once
again.

He pulled her to her feet and lifted her,
tossing her over his shoulder like he had that night when they’d
first met. Mallory laughed. “Put me down!”

“Never. You’re mine
now
…
”

“Never thought I’d live to see you sneaking
around a garden with the enemy of our people, Adrastos.”

Mallory suppressed a scream
at the harsh male voice that came out of the darkened garden. She
hadn’t felt his presence at all. A large man
nearly as large as Aodhan
stepped out
of the foliage and onto the path near them. Mallory slipped off
Aodhan’s shoulder, and immediately tensed into a defensive
position.

Aodhan had tensed, as well,
but she felt him force his body to relax. “She is not the enemy.
She is my
Rajni
.
Nalik, I had wondered where you were.”

“Is that why you sent men
to
fetch
me like I
was an errant lad?”

“I thought it best to have you brought here
where we could discuss things safely.” Aodhan didn’t pull her
behind him, but his hand did wrap around her arm. Mallory knew it
was to keep her silent while he spoke with the other male. “No one
knew where you were. Why was that?”

“Why? I need a nurse, still?
I have been coming and going on this world a hundred years longer
than you, fifty longer than Rydere. Remember you not?” Cold
derision was the only way Mallory could even hope to describe the
man named Nalik’s tone. “Are you finished frolicking with your
female, now? I’m sure we have much we need to discuss. Like the
fact that I’ve been
confined
to my family’s House or these damned
gardens.”

“Not on my doing. But what
else were supposed to think? Someone has set a bounty upon
our
Rajnis’
heads.
That cannot be ignored.”

“And your minds immediately jumped in my
direction? I’m...flattered.”

“Not immediately. But you do have the means,
knowledge, and...the motivation. What would you have done in my
place?”

“I would have simply
asked,
cousin.
”

“All right, then. Are you
the one who has put the hit out on the Taniss family? And should I
be worried for my
Rajni
’
s
safety?”

Mallory held her breath,
knowing that the man’s answer would set the stage for what
Aodhan
—
and
she—
would do
next.

“No. I am not. As for her safety, no threat
to her comes from me.”

Aodhan was silent for the
longest time, and Mallory knew he was considering whether to
believe his cousin or not. She didn’t know if she did, or not, so
how could he? They’d been friends, once, he and this Nalik. How
hard was it for Aodhan to consider his friend and apparently
cousin
may be the traitor?
That kind of betrayal would seriously cut deep. “Thank you, for
that. I’ve spoken with your mother. Have you?”

“Mmm. Not the highlight of my visit, but
duty has been met by her.” The man stepped into the light slipping
from the main garden entryway.

He was beautiful. By far one of the most
beautiful men Mallory had ever seen. His hair was dark black, and
she had no difficulty seeing that in the low light. Fitting, since
his name was Black. But what held her attention was the evil
looking scar. It started just beneath his mouth and ran up his
cheek, past his eye, and disappeared into his hairline.

He was the first Dardaptoan she’d seen to
have any type of physical deformity, and at once she knew how he’d
gotten it. She’d seen his face in the photographs of her
grandfather’s acts.

This man had been tortured
by her grandfather and had lived to tell of it. No wonder he so
obviously hated her. How could she blame him? “Welcome home,
Equan
Black...”

He stared at her for the longest time, and
she knew what he was seeing. She favored her grandfather. The eyes,
hair-color, shape of her face. She favored him probably more so
than any of her cousins or siblings, except for Rand. That had to
be hard for someone like this man to see. “Is it? My home? Funny
you should call it that, girl. How old are you?”

“I’m not a girl, I’m a woman. And I’m
twenty-nine. I’ll be thirty in February. How old are you?” Mallory
refused to look away from him or be intimidated by him. And that
was what he was wanting to do. A defensive mechanism, or just a
natural hatred for all named Taniss? Either one would be
understandable.

“Seven hundred and three. There, I have you
beat.”

“Can’t deny it. Aodhan, we need to get
inside. I need to see my sister. Make sure she’s ok.”

The scarred man snorted. “See she’s already
pulling your strings, Aodhan. Pity. You used to be a man worth
respecting.”

“Watch it, Nalik. We may have been friends
once, but there are lines to never cross, and you know them.”

“Mmmm. I suppose. I guess
you have to
care
for those lines to even be noticed. But you’d best get your
female inside. Hate to see her catch her death...from a
chill.”

Aodhan tensed at the obvious innuendo in the
other man’s voice. Mallory put a hand on his arm. It wasn’t a
battle worth fighting right then. She shook her head, knowing
Aodhan could still see the movement though the night around them
was getting darker.

“Nalik...we will speak more on the
morrow.”

“Of course. You know where to find me; my
prison is of my family’s own making. Good night. I’m sure you will
enjoy the rest of it.”

Mallory didn’t know what
made her say it, but she had to.
To show
him that he did not frighten her? Maybe. “Good night, Mr. Black, it
was a...pleasure to have met you.”

“Mmmm. Did you know, girl? You have a
sibling or cousin just over there, near the koi grotto, digging in
the flowers, humming? Best collect her before she catches a chill.
Or the eye of a monster...she looks rather...tempting. One might
eat her just to stop the damned humming, as well.”

Mallory stepped in the direction of the area
where Josey had been attacked such a short time ago. In the light
from the hundred rooms surrounding the garden that was reflected
off the pond’s water, she could see the shape of a woman. A girl,
really. “Cassandra? What are you doing?”

“Mallory? Is that you? I can’t really see
you.”

“What are you doing out here? Don’t you know
it’s late? Weren’t you listening to Emily at dinner? Someone has
threatened us all. You shouldn’t be out here alone!” Emily’s little
sister was different then all the rest of the family. More
trusting, naïve. She far preferred to spend her time in the gardens
on the various properties. She was the one who had nothing to do
with TI, had no interest in the company whatsoever. She was also
the youngest of the female cousins, and Mallory always felt
protective of her. More so than even with Becca. Cass was only six
months younger than her sister, but a world of difference existed
between the two.

“I was helping the flowers.
They were hurting for some reason. I could actually
feel
them crying out.
Strange, huh? And I wasn’t alone, was I? You were out here. And so
was
he
.”

“He?”

“That man. I could feel him watching me for
the longest time. I knew I was safe, despite the other...”

“The
other?
”

“The other person. They were watching me,
too. Planning something...” Aodhan wrapped a hand around Mallory’s
arm and pulled her closer. He guided Cassandra to walk in between
them. He led them inside where Mallory was able to send Cassandra
upstairs to the room she was occupying between the one Barlaam
shared with Jade and the one Emily with Rydere.

Aodhan watched her cousin
disappear inside her suite, then turned to Mallory with a
contemplative and serious expression on his face.
“Kitten...when you get a chance, I want you to
have your doctor cousin study all the files of your grandfather’s
experiments.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a strange
feeling that Jocelyn wasn’t the only one your grandfather may have
experimented on...young Cassandra is
different
and not in an
entirely
human
way.
She’s almost
Druidic
in nature.”

“How long do you think they
were watching her? Do you think Nalik is planning something? Do you
believe him? What about the
other
Cass mentioned? What? Do you think she’s in
danger?”

“Slow down. There are only so many questions
we can consider at a time.” Aodhan pulled her close again. “I do
know one thing...”

“What is that?” She tried to suppress the
urge to grab Cass and drag her back to Aodhan’s suite where she
could keep the younger girl safely under her watch.

“If Nalik had wanted to harm your cousin he
would have done so. He is not the kind to wait patiently for
anything. Even revenge.”

“Is he the kind who would take out his
revenge on an innocent twenty-year-old girl? I hope not, but you
would know him better than I.”

“No. No, Nalik
wouldn’t...but this
other.
I wouldn’t expect anything else. She said they
were planning something. We just have to find and stop them
first...”

Mallory looked at her
Rajni
and saw the
determination on his face. The same determination she
felt.

They’d find the answers they’d sought, and
they’d do it together.

************

Curious About Nalik and Cass?

Check out Book Eleven in
the
Dardanos, Co.
Series…

Out of Darkness

Chapter One

You buried your dead. You moved on. You tried to
pretend there was more in this life than your miserable existence.
Damned hard to do when you were close to immortal.

As he plunged the sword he’d carried for more
decades than he could remember into the dirt at his feet, he
wondered yet again when that miserable fact would end.

He’d tried a time or two in his weakest moments to
do it himself, but had failed.

There were only a handful of ways a Dardaptoan could
die. Beheading was one—beheading killed damn-near all Kinds—and
blood loss. Blood infection. Flames. Those were the main ways. And
starvation. Starvation was the worst way to die, your cells crying
out for the blood they so desperately needed. He’d experienced that
agony firsthand. And that had been one way he’d not been willing to
try at all.

Only by the curse of the goddess had he lived. If
he’d been luckier, he’d have been the one to die instead of his
brother. Or his sister.

They’d been collateral damage in a war his people
hadn’t known they were fighting.

Would that it had been him; without his brother and
sister he had nothing.

These boys surrounding him understood that. He had
nothing to give and nothing to lose.

Only a bare sense of loyalty to his name, to the
ones who’d come before him, even had him in this damned mountain
town still.

That and the fact that the men he’d once considered
friends had decreed that he kept himself confined in the walls of
the hotel, the gardens. He was no longer free.

His own people had robbed him of that.

Did they even understand what that meant to him?

Had it not been for her, he would have shown them.
But for her, he would be long gone of this place.

He looked at the boy before him. Less than thirty
years, a single percentage of a Dardaptoan lifespan. Yet the
arrogance was there, the belief the young male had that he mattered
more than the head of the House of Black.

The original outcast.

The boy was probably right about that.

Nalik’s house numbers were dwindling—death and
despair eating away at his family the way maggots did a piece of
meat.