Protector (14 page)

Walking beside me, he answered. “The steel room is simply to ensure Carlisio cannot track you on Davio’s behalf. I will not risk any endangerment coming to you while you’re with me.”

My brow lifted. “Uh-huh.” We’d see about the endangerment–the jury was still out on that one. “Would you explain why a steel room would stop a forewarner’s tracking? There’s very little I know.”

“Simply put, our cells cannot pass through the solidity of steel. They also can’t pass through the energy field which protects Dralion. That being the case, this steel room exists for the same reason as the dome. You arrived in the room next to one which holds a large amount of metal. This effectively scatters the initial image of your arrival, and it also allows for a defendable position if one’s ’porting airstream is followed.”

We continued down a wide hallway where silver threads in the white carpet shimmered. Again, the walls were gray–so stark.

“Although now, it is quite safe for us to move about the rooms of this apartment. There is no chance Carlisio can gain an accurate visual, not with the natural use of steel contained within the building’s construction.”

“I see, and I can teleport from any one of these other rooms?”

“The amounts of steel aid in disseminating images, but not in preventing any form of teleportation, only a solid wall can do that.”

“So I can leave at any time?” Which I would in an instant, if necessary.

“Yes.” He grasped my shoulder. “I see your thoughts, and I understand your confliction. Yet you are my daughter and tied to me by blood, a bond which our Magioling DNA accepts to a deeper degree than an Earthling’s. As your new relationship with Loveria stands strong, so too does a blood-bond. The two are no different in strength, except he holds your soul.”

“My bond with him grows fast.”

A rush of air passed between his lips. “So I’ve seen.” Leaving the hallway, we entered a living room. Ahead of me, one scalloped wall faced a dark, full-length glass slider, and in the adjoining room, a tidy kitchen and breakfast bar.

I moved toward the one and only piece of furniture, a two-seater gray leather couch.

“Where are we? Exactly.” I heard the crash of the surf–it was close.

“At the Mount.”

Which meant we were only a thirty-minute drive from my home base of
Te Pukē.

“Which building?” Sitting, I ran my hands over the silvery leather, feeling the chill in the fabric.

“The top floor of the exclusive towers. This is the penthouse suite.”

My brow wrinkled. “Um, so you just moved in?”

Flinging out the back-tails of his leather coat he sat, his weight pressing into the couch beside me. “No. I purchased this apartment after the towers were built–eighteen years ago. I needed a base close to your mother and you.”

Again, I checked out the room in case I’d missed something that said eighteen years of occupation. “Ah, you didn’t care to decorate? Some color would be nice.” There was just the couch and a couple of fixed bar stools.

“This apartment is here for one reason alone, and as I’ve said, I can’t be followed. I come here only to check up on you and your mother, when I can do so without your grandfather becoming aware of my departure from Dralion.”

I rubbed my nose. “I have a grandfather?”

Did that mean I had other family as well?

“Yes.” He angled his head to one side, eyes trained on me. “To both questions.”

My feet tapped away on the ground. Him reading my thoughts was going to take some time to get used. “How often do you check up on us?”

“I spend a few short minutes visiting your street, two or three times a week. It is the most I can manage.”

“How come I’ve never seen you before?”

His violet eyes darkened. “I am forced to keep my distance. Your grandfather rules Dralion with a firm hand, an iron grip that doesn’t allow me to acknowledge my weakness, my one all-consuming love.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “Which is for you and your mother.”

I looked at him, trying to find a breath as everything swayed before my eyes.

“Breathe.” He slapped my back.

I inhaled, vitally important air shuddering back into my lungs. “I-I.” I didn’t know what to think first, so I blurted it all out at once. “My mother? You love us? And did you say my grandfather rules Dralion?”

He took my frozen hands into his. “We have much to discuss, and you have much to learn.” As he rubbed to instill some warmth, he continued, “You are a Wincrest and my name is Prince Alexo.”

As I looked him straight in the face, I saw his words were the truth.

“Oh hell. Hell. Hell. Hell.” I breathed unevenly. This couldn’t be happening.

This meant my so-called grandfather was the hated Donaldo who Davio would gladly kill. “You’re Alexo?” I said out loud, with almost no feeling left in my lips.

A small cough as he cleared his throat. “I do not care for you calling me by my given name. I am your father, and I have waited a lifetime for my daughter to name me as such.”

“Right,
Dad
,” I exaggerated. “You can’t think it’s okay to dump this kind of information on me, or at least not this fast after eighteen years of nothing.”

Rising to his feet, his jacket flapped out behind him and he paced across the room, pulling the glass slider open. With the door open, the scent of the ocean floated in on the night breeze. “Enough with the sarcasm.” He turned on his booted feet.

“I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

“I understand you’re hurting because of this news, but the truth is still the truth no matter which way I present it.”

That I understood, was even grateful for considering the kind of week I’d just suffered. “Sure, you’re right about that. So tell me why you’ve steered clear of my mother and me.”

“Because of your mixed heritage. Donaldo would only ever see Kate as an Earthling and my weakest link, disposing of her as quickly as possible.”

“So why become involved now? With me, that is.”

“It is not I who became involved, but the protectors. Your mate is making my life difficult in his claim of you, and that is why we now meet.”

“Hold on. Give me a minute to think this through. I’m still coming to grips with the fact I’m standing in the same room as my father. Who, I might add, has been silently watching over me, since my birth.”

He rubbed his forehead and moved toward me. “You are safe with me. We are one and the same. Our blood-bond is cemented at birth and that connection is unbreakable. This is why I’ve never risked coming into contact with you, for the physical effect of being in each other’s presence is the same as you being in Loveria’s. I would want you with me in Dralion and you would want the same, but I do not have the heart to take you from your mother. She loves you. I cannot expose her whereabouts to Donaldo, not when I’ve seen he would harm her. He wants full-blooded heirs, not Halflings, so you’ve both remained.”

I clutched my head, pressing all ten fingers over my skull. My mind was stretched to capacity, almost ready to explode.

“Take a deep breath,” Alexo instructed. “We will get through this.”

Oh, I knew I’d get through it, only where would I be at the end. Dropping my hands to my knees, I met his gaze. “Okay, so there’s no risk to me because of Donaldo Wincrest.”

“No, he would never harm a child of mine. The risk is to your mother alone. Her death would be a certainty, allowing him to see me married to another to give him full-blooded heirs. But I’ve never cared that your mother is from Earth as he has.”

“How does he even know my mother exists?”

“Because I will not take another and I wasn’t careful enough eighteen years ago. I mentioned Kate and shouldn’t have. From that moment on he’s searched for her.”

“You’ve never given us up?”

“No.” He took a second, his chest rising and falling as he inhaled. “I see both Donaldo’s strengths and weaknesses. He does not hold forethought as you and I do, as it can skip generations, but he is a great leader. Although by the strength of our familial blood-bond, you too would find yourself called to serve him.”

He sat at my side. “I’ve always wished for you to have choices in your life, for those not to be taken from you as your mother was taken from me. Yet now, Carlisio involves his grandson, and Davio pursues you. This means it won’t be long before our spies in Peacio report back to Donaldo that you exist. Although there is no danger, you, like me, would have to leave your mother. Her safety must be ensured. It is why I’ve come.”

I shuddered. “Donaldo has never met me. How will his spies connect me to you?”

“You hold the coveted forethought strength skill. Your eyes are the rare Wincrest violet. Your features are so similar to one of the other females in our family’s line. I could go on, but those things alone isolate you directly as mine. No Dralion spy worth his weight in gold will ever withhold that kind of information from Donaldo if he saw you.”

“I’m not in Peacio, nor do I ever plan to travel there. I live here in New Zealand, Dad–” Whoa. Had I just called him Dad? That was freaky.

“You called me father?” His eyebrows soared, and he clasped his hand over mine. “Nothing could please me more.”

Damn it. He’d said the blood-bond was seriously strong, and I surely couldn’t deny that. “I hope you realize I’m not enjoying this whole mated relationship or blood-bond thing that’s going on. Someone, who shall remain nameless, tried to convince me it was all going to be a fabulous thing.” I stirred my hands in the air. “In fact, she told me I needed to consider the full circle behind the mated concept. She didn’t mention the emotions one would feel for their blood-bonded parent.”

“Let me guess–the empath convinced you. You have to watch them. They’re pesky people. All they work on is feelings, and at times feelings cannot become involved.”

“Well, they are now. Davio is my mate, and I have accepted him. I can’t walk away from him any more than he’d ever allow it of me.”

A snort. “You make him mad.”

“I happen to do that to people, and he’s no exception.”

He dragged in a stiff pull of air. “I used to make your mother mad too. I miss that.”

“You did? She never speaks of you.”

“I’m not surprised considering the way I left.” He clenched his teeth. “Your mother is unaware. Of everything. Of whom I am. Of where I come from. Of why I left her the day of your birth.” Harsh words, yet true.

“How can the mated relationship cross planets? First my mother and now me?”

“That question is one that’s always confused me. I’m not aware of Earthlings being mated to our own, but I don’t see why it can’t happen. It certainly has between your mother and me, and I accepted that before your birth.”

I sucked in my bottom lip, nibbling on it. “My mother’s very intuitive. Perhaps she has some inkling? Perhaps you let something slip back then?”

“No. Kate has believed me gone, and that ending gives her the least pain which certainly eases my own.”

My legs tingled, and I stood, pacing out the prickling. “I have no idea what my mother believed became of you. She said you left us, but I’ve never asked her for the details. There was never a time that seemed right.”

Having not heard his approach, I jumped as Alexo settled an arm over my shoulders. “It’s difficult to watch your distress when we do not have long together. There is still much we need to speak of.”

I groaned. “Lay it on me. I might as well have it all.”

“I need to explain your boiling blood in the presence of your mate.”

“How do you know about that?” Then I realized–forethought.

“The aggression you experience around the direct bloodline of Loveria is a part of our genetic makeup. We’ve detested our enemy for centuries, as they have done with us.”

My mouth opened. “Carry on.” Then shut.

“A thousand years ago our family separated from Peacio, taking the lesser opposing land of Dralion. There was tremendously bad blood between the Wincrests and the Loverias at the time, and that came about because our families alone held the highest skill of forethought. A war was waged and they won.”

I clamped my hands together. “You can’t let bygones be bygones? It’s been millennia.”

“No, for ours is an age-old war, and one that will never end. Over the centuries, information has been passed down within our line, that the Loverias won the battle unfairly. Having seen the written evidence, I agree with my father. The Loverias should have left and not us. This means the only way to gain back our stronghold is to eliminate, in full, the Loveria line.”

“You wish to destroy all three.” I pulled in a ragged breath, knowing I simply couldn’t become a part of such a thing.

“And I’m not asking you to.” He was so proficient in reading my thoughts. “I’m simply explaining why our two lines have so opposed each other. Even though Davio has not yet thought of it, that state of tension is yet another which will prove you are descended from me.” He crossed his arms. “You must understand our history has decreed our future, and our blood will always war with theirs.”

My lips pressed together. “Well, isn’t that incredibly helpful.”

Sighing, he tilted his head. “I’m sorry. Perhaps you can explain one thing to me.”