Updrift (23 page)

She paid attention to Peter then and was jolted by the force of his penetrating stare, the same one that had unnerved her at the wedding when she was seventeen. Gabe, who was still holding her hand, stiffened. Kate was peripherally aware of Kenna greeting Carmen and Michael.

In the brief moment Peter’s gaze locked on hers, she saw him glance at her hand in Gabe’s, felt Gabe’s hostility, and she intuited from Peter a staggering emotional hunger, a loneliness big enough to devour her and everything in the room. Almost as soon as she had this impression, it disappeared as Peter pivoted to address his mother. All further sense of him vanished.

“Mother, why don’t I take Gabriel and Catherine on a tour and leave you to talk privately with Michael and Carmen.” Kenna inclined her head, giving her son a vague smile as she exited through the double doors. Michael and Carmen trailed behind her.

Peter once again targeted Kate with the full force of his attention, giving her a smile that did not reach his eyes while he tucked her hand into his arm. He walked forward then, effectively removing her from Gabe’s grasp, while he commented on how good it was to see her again.

“You’ve grown into a beautiful woman, Catherine.” His influence made her foggy, although even the sensation of being sedated was not enough to alleviate all her distrust.

“Kate,” she corrected him automatically, feeling as if she addressed him from behind a wall of gelatin. Gabe bristled at Peter’s compliment and she felt his urge to retrieve her. Peter stopped, recaptured Kate’s gaze in his, and placed a hand on Gabe’s shoulder. Kate briefly registered the diffusion of Gabe’s concern and felt a dull lethargy descend over both of them.

The rest of her time with Peter passed like she was dreaming it. She had an insubstantial memory of an attendant taking charge of Gabe and squiring him off, leaving her alone with Peter. He talked hypnotically about different items they passed, all the while examining her face, holding his hand over hers to keep it in the crook of his arm. She knew he used his siren influence on her and she did not understand why. She did not feel afraid. She could discern none of his thoughts or feelings.

He interspersed historical information on various items of consequence in the palace with incongruent comments and questions she should have found out of place in their mostly one-sided conversation.

“Sixteenth century tapestries made by the monks at…and how long have you been bonded with Gabriel Blake?” She didn’t know if she answered him out loud or if he intuited her responses but he carried on as if he had the answers he sought.

“…chalice was given to my great grandfather by the Duke of…so sorry to hear you lost your father at such an early age, and how did you and Gabe meet?…palace was first built in thirteen twenty-two…do tell me more about your courtship…charcoal sketches made of my mother when she was six…Ah, yes, I see your feelings for each other were confusingly intense for you…winter home in Spain…my own arranged marriage once…a baby, won’t that be wonderful…never could find the right situation…survived more hurricanes than anyone remembers, so we keep it even if it is hideous…ability for love and intimacy in the aristocracy is a joke, I don’t mind telling you…ridiculous crowns are actually still worn on occasion…can’t help but want my own, real family…a rose, especially developed to commemorate the first century of reign…tell me more about your mother…”

She felt relaxed and mostly drugged during their exchange, although she maintained a small sense of herself. This pleased her as it was something she had been unable to do when she’d encountered Peter at the wedding. She answered his questions patiently, feeling a tiny, indomitable vitality despite the stupor threatening to completely suppress her. She thought of Gabe most of the time, and her happiness for their newly declared commitment kept her calm and confident even if she wasn’t altogether aware.

Finally, they arrived back at the doors where they’d left Michael and Carmen with Kenna. The weight of Peter’s hypnotic efforts lifted as she saw Gabe approach from down the hallway with another attendant. At a nod from Peter, the attendant offered the Loughlins’ official congratulations and hoped Gabriel would accept their wedding gift, which he’d been instructed to present at this time. While Gabe’s attention was engaged in accepting a small, flat, rectangular box, Peter bowed to place a kiss on the back of Kate’s hand. He lingered longer than custom required.

“It was a true pleasure to see you again, Kate.”

By the time Gabe faced them again, Peter stood erect and at a respectful distance from her. Gabe gave him a curt nod Kate thought was barely civil. “Gabriel.” Peter nodded back, and he left. The double doors opened and Carmen and Michael emerged.

“I’ll lead you out,” the attendant told them, indicating they should follow.

* * * *

Peter fled to the ocean to hide. As he raced through the tunnels to attain his release from the castle, he felt every cell in his body explode with longing and regret, longing for the fantasies flooding his mind unbidden, unstoppable, for a life with Catherine Blake. Regret, because there was no going back now. His heart, tenuously balanced between his royal commitments and his emotionally lost mother, shattered in his chest, never to be put back to how it was.

He was stunned from the moment he saw her this time, his intuition reaching into her of its own volition to apprehend every part of her beautiful mind and heart. In an instant, he knew her, clever, loyal, kind, and emotionally capable and whole. He had never been gifted with prescience but he saw too clearly the life he would have had with her if only she’d bonded with him instead of Gabriel. He observed her condition, how she was newly attached, her guileless joy and devotion, and thought he might dissolve with grief.

Before, when he’d seen her at the wedding, he’d toyed fleetingly with the idea of taking her, guessing at the woman she would become, although the urge to seize her seemed an errant compulsion, one he’d dismissed as fatigue-induced nonsense. He thought of her occasionally thereafter but generally did not, foolishly rejecting her as someone inconsequential to him.

He was devoured with longing for her.

He thought of her home life with Gabriel Blake, practically tasting the nurturing warmth she would create, knowing, without a doubt, the restorative sanctuary her husband would enjoy every day. She would be a wonderful wife and mother, the kind every man dreamt of. He could not bear to think of it, and yet he could think of nothing else.

He burst from the castle tunnel with blinding speed, disappearing into himself to become invisible to anyone and anything around him. He swam as fast and as far as he could and tried, unsuccessfully, to outrun what had been unleashed inside him.

* * * *

Gabe waited until they were safely away from the castle to relate the story of their exchange with Peter to his parents. “I’ve never experienced anything like it,” he finished. “I thought we couldn’t influence each other like that, just land people.”

Michael’s expression was grave. “I’ve heard stories about Peter but I’ve never seen him in action. He’s famous at Coral—his athletic records from a hundred years ago still haven’t been broken. I was told he has the most acute intuition of any siren ever born, and that’s how he finds his opponents’ weaknesses, how he knows to dominate them.”

“He’s a cloaker,” Carmen announced.

Michael’s eyes widened. “Of course. I remember now.”

Kate spoke up. “What’s Coral, and what’s a cloaker?”

“Coral Academy is the boys’ school all our young men go to, our high school for male sirens,” Carmen explained.

“What a pretty name for a school,” Kate commented. “Is that the one you went to, Gabe? It sounds kind of sweet.”

“Yes. So did John and my dad and all the cousins you met at the house. And they make you study ‘til you fall over, and they beat you with rocks on the sports field, so don’t let the name fool you. In fact, students have their own, very non-sweet titles for the place—”

“And you can save that information for the locker room, Gabe,” his mother interjected. She addressed Kate. “A cloaker is someone who cannot be read, someone who can hide his or her thoughts and feelings and go about undetected. They broadcast nothing, only intuit what others think and feel.”

“They’re pretty hard to beat in a sporting competition,” Michael added, “especially someone like Peter Loughlin, because he can read everyone around him really well and almost simultaneously but no one can get a sense of what he’s thinking, or how he’ll act. And really good cloakers can basically disappear, I’ve heard. You can’t get any sense of them or find them in the water at all.”

“They’re pretty much unstoppable in sports,” Gabe agreed. “You always hope, if there’s a cloaker on the field he’s on your team.”

“Are there a lot of them?” Kate inquired.

“No. They’re rare,” Carmen responded. “And someone who can completely cloak him or herself, that’s almost unheard of.”

“I knew one at school,” Gabe chimed in. “He wasn’t especially good at it but he could still mess with you.”

“I’ve met three in my lifetime,” Michael told them.

“But what would he want with Kate?” Gabe wondered. “He separated us—again, I’ve never felt anything like it—and then basically hypnotized her to get her life’s story from her. Why would he do that?”

“I don’t like it,” his dad agreed. “That’s not something we do, incapacitate another siren. I didn’t even know it was possible.” He nudged Gabe with his shoulder. “At least now you know what it feels like.”

Carmen’s next words were at odds with her expression. “We shouldn’t have to worry. It’s against our laws to separate a husband and wife, and you and Gabe are bonded. So he’ll have to be happy with whatever he got from you at the palace. Unless you have any ideas, Kate. What do you think he wanted?”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. At the very beginning, I got the tiniest, briefest sense he was pretty curious about me. And he seemed—and again, we’re talking a fraction of a second here—like he’s lonely. As in claw-your-own-heart-out lonely. But I can’t be sure. And he wasn’t threatening. He was basically gracious and charming. I just don’t understand why he influenced us the way he did. That’s what makes me uneasy.”

“Me too,” Carmen agreed. “It shouldn’t be a problem, though,” she concluded, her expression hopeful. “There’s no reason for you two to see him much, if ever.”

Gabe approved. “I like that approach. The guy’s got problems, and I don’t want him alone with my wife.”

Or our baby
, Kate thought. Gabe scowled.

Back at the cottage, Kate wanted to see the wedding present Peter had given them, and Gabe retrieved it for her from the table where he’d left it. “Go ahead and open it.”

She lifted the cover to find a multi-colored gemstone bracelet set in silver. Smooth stones of various sizes studded a wide chain of silver forming the base. Gabe snorted. “That’s a gift for you, not us.”

“Do you not want me to wear it?” She tried unsuccessfully to hide her admiration of the piece.

Gabe softened and smiled at her indulgently. “No, go ahead. It’s perfect for you.”

She hesitated. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

He reached for the piece and put it on her, kissing the underside of her wrist. “I don’t mind, I promise. But I’m curious. Didn’t you think he was nuts?”

Her answer was confident. “I didn’t get that sense, which is not to say you’re wrong. The only thing I got, like I said, was he’s lonesome.”

“Let’s forget about him. How’d you like to go for a swim? We need to build your stamina.”

Kate flashed him a smile and nodded. “Okay. Let’s go play.” She went to get her swimsuit.

* * * *

Convincing Will and Dana to go back to Griffins Bay proved a harder sell than bringing them to Shaddox had been. They didn’t want to leave. Carmen and Michael, along with other sirens who had convened to divert them initially discovered they’d done too good a job; they had to work a lot harder to remind them of the responsibilities they’d trivialized on the front end of their visit.

They succumbed after Carmen, Michael, and John worked on them together for an hour, which Kate found humorous to watch. She contacted the couple’s employers, who knew to expect them in two days’ time and was pleased they hadn’t hired replacements, since she wanted her aunt and uncle to leave on their own terms.

John was feeling the pressure of tasks undone too, Kate knew. Four days away from his practice meant he was almost constantly on the phone at this point. And while she was now happy over everyone’s impromptu visit to them, part of her was ready to be left alone again with Gabe. She listened while her siren family planned their trip back to the mainland with humans in tow, and she tried not to encourage them to leave earlier.

The afternoon before everyone’s departure, the family, minus Will and Dana, gathered at the Blake cottage. Kate and Cara’s offer to cook dinner met with enthusiastic support, which made Kate proud. But she questioned the timing of their mass exodus.

“Why at night, after dinner? Don’t you worry about predators? Like sharks?”

“This is so cool, Kate!” Cara responded excitedly. “Get this
: sharks don’t like sirens
.”

“You mean, they chew them up and spit them out?”

“No,” Carmen replied. “We smell bad to them. They won’t even try to hunt us or anyone swimming with us either.”

“Even if you’re bleeding?” Kate pressed.

“Especially then,” Gabe told her. “Our blood is the problem. Sharks swim away screaming.”

“That’s terrific!” she exclaimed. “I mean, I’ve always had this fear of swimming in the ocean because I’m afraid of sharks.” She cast Gabe an adoring look. “My hero! I’ll never be freaked out again!”

“The only thing we fear in the ocean is human beings,” John cut in harshly, and her smile faded. “They’re all that can hurt us, with their nets and commercial fishing.”

Carmen regarded Kate kindly. “We don’t have a huge problem but sometimes we get caught in fishing nets and get crushed or drown. Especially our little ones. But it doesn’t happen often.”