Obsidian Son (The Temple Chronicles Book 1) (23 page)

She held out a hand, still looking away as I undressed. “I won’t peek.” She whispered. Dropping my boxers, I grasped her fingers, sensing the warmth under her skin, and just stood there for a minute. Her hand finally tugged at mine, so I obeyed, climbing into the steaming tub. I groaned. It was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold, and I had made sure to buy a tub that was big, wide, and comfortable enough to hold two… or more people. I plan ahead, folks…

Once safely settled underneath the foam, Indie turned back to me, snatching up a nearby pitcher. Her shirt stretched tight across her breasts. She leaned over me and scooped up some of the warm water, her hand dipping below the bubbles. The motion drew the shirt up a bit above the waist of her jeans, revealing a tanned expanse of hips and flat stomach, as well as a tiny ribbon of red panties.

She raised her hand, now coated in bubbles, and began pouring it through my hair, slowly, sensually, with her lips slightly open. She lathered some tea-tree shampoo in her palms, and then stretched her fingers through my hair like a cat pawing a soft blanket. Her manicured nails gently raked my scalp, making me shiver despite the heat as she plucked out several glass shards and tossed them into a trashcan. Huh. I had never experienced anything quite like this before.

“Keep your eyes closed, Nate.” My mind went all sorts of adolescent on me, but I listened. The pitcher brushed my inner thigh, but she continued pouring the water over my head, washing out the shampoo without comment.

“Talk to me, Nate. I know you have a lot going on right now, but I’m here for you.” She tugged on my shoulder, making me open my eyes, and sit upright. She had a washcloth in one hand, and began tenderly scrubbing my back as she waited. Macho man that I am, I managed to suppress grunts of pain when her cloth brushed any bruises.

I said the first thing that came to mind. “I got a call from the company. They discovered some video surveillance from the room where… my parents were found. It’s password protected for me, so they haven’t seen it yet.”

“If it’s password protected, do you even know the password?” she asked softly, her washcloth creeping lower down my spine.

“My parents gave me a list of potential passwords that I could use — depending on the severity of the need — in the event of a problem. I’ll go through them, starting with the worst scenario first, I guess.”

She murmured to herself as she leaned closer, one hand squeezing my shoulder for support as she reached even lower, cleaning the lowest of my back, and the top of another area entirely. I almost lost it when her breasts brushed my arm. “So strong,” she whispered, massaging my shoulder unconsciously. Or consciously. Either way was fine with me. “You have scrapes on your back. Is that from this afternoon?” I shrugged.

“Or possibly yesterday. Before I picked you up I got in a bit of a tussle, but Mallory and Gunnar helped me out of it.”

Her lips tightened, but she nodded. “What really happened today? I don’t think your condition has to do with a business meeting at Temple Industries. Or the break in.”

She climbed down from her perch on the edge of the tub, and knelt beside it to better reach my sides. I chose honesty. Somewhat. “I have to duel someone tonight. Someone strong, and I don’t know if I can win. Then I have to confront another group of…” I hesitated, not wanting to scare her. “Bad guys who want something very badly. Enough that they might have even had something to do with my parents’ deaths.” Her hands paused at that, but quickly resumed their work, pressing me back against the tub so that she could move to my chest. Like an expert, she started high, saving the lower area for last.

I realized that as much as I cared about Indie, I didn’t know if I could ever fully bring her into my life. It was just too dangerous. Even for me. But she was a regular. She was defenseless. Well, she had martial arts and firearm training, and was damn good at both, but not enough training to jump into my weight class of bad guys. Dragons were out of her league. Hell, they were out of mine too. I had to decide if I was going to keep allowing her to assume we were an item, or if I was going to shatter that potential outcome. Her washcloth came to my abs and I tensed instinctively.

She smiled at my reaction. “Well, if you were asking my advice, I would say that it’s pretty damn important that you win your… duel?” She made the word a question. I nodded. “I didn’t know people still used that word anymore. But I guess your life is not of our time, is it?” I shook my head, glad she had steered the conversation in this direction, but also hesitant to squash my feelings for her. Maybe once this fight was over I would be able to calm down. Slow down my life. Work for the company, and stop taking on such dangerous clients. Her advice was right though. I
had
to win tonight. Everyone depended on me surviving, so I could deal with the dragons after.

“You’re right, Indie. I
do
have to win tonight. I just don’t know how. Some… strange things happened today. I fought some things that I had never dealt with before, and luckily I came out on the right side. But I wasn’t ready, and it could have cost others their lives. I can’t be reckless when it comes to others. When it was just me, I didn’t mind, but now…” I looked her in the eyes, placing my fingers atop hers. She stared back, eyes defiant. “My life is too dangerous, even for me. I couldn’t bear having someone I care about hurt by something they could never defend themselves against. Like you. It’s why I’ve always kept you at arms length. As good as you are, my enemies would make a game of hurting you, just so that they could see me hurt more before they finished me off.

“I can’t allow that. You’ve been my rock through some pretty rough parts, but I run two lives. I just can’t seem to help it. I know it’s dangerous, but it’s a part of me that I can’t give up. Those are the only moments where I truly feel alive. The other life is just a balance — safety and security for the dangerous half. Sometimes they overlap,” She smirked at that, “But I must attempt to keep those I care about safe.”

She waited, and then, as if I had said nothing, continued washing my abs, her delicate fingers massaging deep into my muscles through the soapy cloth. My blood was hot, seeming to melt the weariness from the muscles underneath her expert fingers.

She finished cleaning all the appropriate places. Her hand paused for a moment, and then she spoke softly. “I think you should handle the rest, Master Temple.” She whispered with emphasis. She opened her eyes to stare at me, a feral, hungry gleam twinkling in the blue ice chips of her irises. “Alex might begin to wonder what kind of
doctoring
I am doing.” I nodded dumbly.

She climbed to her feet, bending at the waist as she plucked up a stray piece of glass on the floor. Her face was close to mine, and her warm, soapy fingers caressed my temple. “I seem to remember you saying something about danger, but the steam must have made me forget. It must not have been that important. Teach me how to protect myself better, because I am not going anywhere unless you make me. Words are not enough to impede me from taking what I want, and what I know you
also
want. Danger is something I love just as much as I care for you, and it’s why I am still around. Man up, Nate. I am.”

She smiled to ease the sting of her words, then turned on the balls of her feet, and left me. I would hurt later. Any more cleaning, and I would have had to tip her. As it stood, I would remember this bath for a very long time. First pleasantly, and then with an ache that isn’t entirely unpleasant in it’s own right. Guys are different from girls. Teasing can cause pain later if the teasing was good enough.

And yes, her teasing was glorious.

Chapter 24

I
stepped out of the bathroom in my robe, not wanting to leave the safety of my home. It wasn’t just that I was scared, because I was terrified. Battling the Minotaur was not on my bucket list. This could be a very short day for the last Temple heir. And it wasn’t just because I didn’t want to go to Temple Industries and see whatever digital feed they had told me about, even though I didn’t want to see that either. I couldn’t imagine what kind of clip I would see, but if it was password protected from even their most trusted employee, Ashley Belmont, then it was not going to be pleasant.

No, it was more than that.

I could still feel Indie’s touch on my skin. The whole process of her bathing me clung to my soul. I felt stronger, more sure of myself, and I didn’t want to leave that behind. I had experienced frequent dalliances with the fairer sex, but never before had I experienced such a strengthening as she had just shown me with a simple bath. I wanted to relish that feeling, and knew that the moment I stepped out the door, all hell would break loose, and the feeling would evaporate like the intensity of that first spray of cologne that leaves the skin somewhere during the middle of the night, when you want it on the most.

I sauntered over to my desk, the robe brushing my knees as I moved. I sat down before my desk, steepled my fingers, and glanced at my phone. I needed to make a call, a legally questionable call to an old college friend. To do that, I needed to use the scrambled sequence
she
had given me so that neither call could be traced to us. Paranoid?

Yes.

She was one of the most wanted cyber-criminals in the country. Possibly even the world. Her true identity was still a secret to the governmental agencies, but as I didn’t know how close anyone was to catching her, or even if she was still being hunted, I couldn’t use a social call to talk business with her. She would also be less than pleased if I did such a thing. I flipped open my iMac, and clicked the hidden icon on the desktop that she had sent me: an Encryption software that was years ahead of even most governmental branches. I typed in my cell number as prompted, and clicked
enter
.

The software began bouncing my cell phone number from one country to the next in five-second intervals, making triangulation impossible. I watched this all happen on a Google Maps image of the earth. Then it began switching my number at each location shift, until it revealed a temporary number for me to use, good for only the next seven-seconds. I hesitated. Did I want to do this? No.

But I had to.

Othello would probably relish the call. It had been a while since we spoke. I quickly typed in a number from memory. The system chimed, and then began tracing the number, the sequence of digits actually a code she had given me, and not necessarily a true phone number. But the system knew what to do with it. After a few seconds, her voice came to me through the speakers in Russian. I smiled at that, anxious to use the language after so long. That was, after all, where we had met in college. Taking Russian together. It was my fourth language, but I think it was her ninth. Ninth fluent language. Not counting any others she dabbled in.

“Привет, Фарос. Как дела?” I grinned.
Hello, Pharos. How are you
? Pharos was the nickname she had immediately given me upon discovering that I was a wizard. The Alexandrian Lighthouse because she said that I shed light on shadows for a living, while she created shadows in the light so that she could work in concealment for a living.

“Очень хорошо, а ты?” I answered, already missing her, but knowing we wouldn’t be able to talk personal matters over such a secure line. No breadcrumbs could be left behind for others to follow.

“Not bad. Very, very busy. As much as it pains me to shorten our conversation, keep it fewer than three minutes, if you please. What can I help such a dear flame with this morning?” I could practically see the smile on her face as she said it. I realized that wherever she was, it must be morning. Or she was simply throwing false trails in the event someone had hacked into our conversation. One never knew with Othello. We were still speaking Russian, and it took me a few seconds to phrase my questions correctly.

I heard her chuckle once I was finished. “Your Russian is growing stale, Pharos. Perhaps you need to find a new Russian bedmate to fine tune that precious tongue of yours. You are beginning to sound rudimentary at best.” That was one place we had frequented together, studying our… inflections between marathon bouts of, well, you know. She continued, conscious of our limited time frame. “Now, may I ask what Pharos finds so interesting in such an old book, and what it might have to do with the coming eclipse, or the… Minotaur?” She said the last word in English, but with a heavy accent. I felt proud, realizing that I wasn’t the only one who had trouble translating that particular word.

“You may not.” I answered, smiling.

“No fun. You will receive an encrypted email shortly with all the pertinent information. May I ask why the interest in this Tomas?” I watched the screen still bouncing our calls throughout the Google Maps image of the earth.

“Just a new face in the game I find myself playing. And I don’t like new faces when my life is on the line.”

Her voice grew clipped. “No one is allowed to hurt my Pharos. Do you want me to arrange an accident? I have new friends who specialize in such things.” She spoke very softly. Was she asking if I wanted to place a hit on the dragon hunter?