Updrift (32 page)

“I’ve also arranged for you to interview for a guard position,” she continued. “Give me two days to set up your back story with papers and references. I’ll send a courier with everything you’ll need. I don’t need to warn you to be extraordinarily careful?”

“You do not,” Gabe promised, and his understanding of the potential repercussions of his assignment—she felt him out carefully on this front—assuaged her concern, if only a little.

Still, she reinforced her command with a quelling stare. “I want you to verify what I saw before we take further action, Gabe. The palace employs the most intuitive sirens on earth, and some of them can sense when another is cloaking. You’ll have to be very, very good, and very, very, very careful.”

“I’ll await your courier.”

She left through the back door to escape her former admirers. She all but flew to the water and sped to her office to put her plans with Gabe in motion.

* * * *

Apparently, Kate was to participate in a mock wedding to Peter Loughlin. Yet one more bizarre decision in a long line of them lately proposed to her, even though it made no sense. Gabe’s explanation had sounded reasonable; this final action would protect them forever by associating her with Peter, and no one would take interest in her past once she appeared to have married him. But in her heart, she could not, no matter how hard she tried, make this particular lie feel right. And how would marrying not just any siren, but
the
siren, dissociate her from that world?

“Gabe,” she tried, her mind lethargic and confused as usual, frustrating her better attempts at argument. “You can’t mean to do this.”

“Do what?” Gabe responded sharply. “Try to protect us?”

“No. You can’t mean to put us even more at the mercy of Peter Loughlin.”

Gabe reddened with anger, something she had never seen before. “Peter Loughlin,” he began, his voice escalating, “has sheltered us, hidden us, and done nothing but help us.” He was shouting by the end of his sentence, and Kate turned away in disgust. What had happened to him? She rubbed her temples with her fingertips, knowing she was fighting a losing battle, but she decided to petition him one more time.

“Yes but we’re giving Peter a claim on me, on our child. Even if it’s a sham wedding, we’ll have to maintain the appearance of a marriage. I’ll be going to dinners with him and state functions, and he’ll have family photos taken of him with me and
our
son or daughter.” She could not bear to see his response when she whispered, “Doesn’t our bond mean anything to you anymore?”

A formidable anger pervaded the room and his silence felt menacing. “Our bond is
everything
to me,” he grated. She lost all sense of him and had to check to make sure he was still there. He was. His face was composed, and his sweet, loving gaze nearly made her weep, because it was perfectly reminiscent of the Gabe she’d married, and because she knew it was a front, not real. She shut her eyes, sure he did not intend to listen to her. And she felt actual loathing for him; for once, she did not care if she was wrong to feel it.

He approached her as if she was an unreasonable child then. “Kate. Is it such a big thing to do? Peter will owe us as much as we owe him.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible.” She sidled to the other side of the room, hoping a little distance from him would help her think.

“We’re giving him a comfortable alibi,” he cajoled, and Kate felt the disingenuous change to his argument. “He’s constantly offered marriage proposals from power-hungry families, and this will make his public life much, much easier.”

“I will do this if you really think we should. But I want you to know I don’t like it. It’s not good for us.”

She was startled to hear his response from millimeters away. “This is going to be spectacular for us.” His tone was laced with triumph, although his next words sounded like a threat. “This
is
us now, Kate.” He placed his hands on her face and stared hungrily in her eyes. She lost her sense of time and place as a heavy veil of calm pervaded her, and her misgivings dissipated. He bent to her, brushed his lips against hers. “I’ll even prove it to you.” He kissed her. She was so hypnotized she wasn’t sure of the words he murmured against her mouth, but they might have been, “We’ll make love the night of the wedding.”

He kissed her again, severing her self-possession and focusing her entirely on their embrace, on him alone. She released herself to him, her limbs and body mellowing, melting as he pressed her close, whispering incoherent encouragements in her ear. She was enjoying him although her thoughts and feelings were oddly disengaged. She wondered if this was what it felt like to dissolve in the water, because she felt like she was dissolving, with Gabe absorbing all the microscopic pieces of her.

“If we were doing this in the water, you’d drown,” he teased. She felt him drinking her in, and his odd exultation.

“We’re so close to being just right, Kate,” he told her softly. “Your response to me now, your compliance…it’s so delicious.” And he kissed her again.

*

With regret, he set her away from him, anticipating a more complete fulfillment after she’d pledged herself in a bonding ceremony. He’d no longer be stealing another man’s wife at that point, because she would be his wife. “After the wedding,” he promised, and she nodded listlessly.

Almost there
, he thought feverishly. Next Saturday, as she thought she was play-acting, they would gaze in each other’s eyes and vow their devotion. She would feel it, he would make sure, and the rite would deal a final blow to her old understanding of what her life was supposed to be. After that, Gabe would be no more than a burden to her. He could have an unfortunate accident, and the last thread would be cut.

“Won’t that be fun,” she murmured. She stared out the window. “I won’t need your help falling asleep tonight. Didn’t you want to sneak in another couple of hours at the office? Just be quiet when you come back, okay?”

The dismissal, which Peter found rude, exhilarated him further. Here, at last, was his Kate, disenchanted with
Gabe
and wanting him gone. Perfect. “Of course, darling.” He grinned and sauntered out.

* * * *

Several fortuitous events conspired to help Gabe attain a guard position at the palace. For one, he was able to perfect his identity, having explored and expanded and practiced his cloaking abilities to their fullest extent. He experimented first with the people in the town where he’d taken up residence, with mixed, sometimes comical results; and then dozens of times with Soley, who could not be fooled but let him fail without repercussion. Xanthe helped by sending a few stray sirens his way, instructing them to check up on the “newcomer” and welcome him to the area. These guests proved to be his most difficult tests but finally, he convinced anyone who didn’t know him of his new persona, Charles Gavin from San Diego.

Xanthe’s papers provided him with a history, background check, and impeccable credentials; and her personal introduction made his success nearly a foregone conclusion. The final obstacle, the interview itself, would offer the greatest risk, because he would be required to maintain his cloak in front of the most perceptive sirens in existence.

Good luck was with him that day. He was led into a waiting room by a distracted royal assistant rushing him along so she could run errands for Peter’s human guest, Elizabeth. This guest was apparently troubled, and Peter had them constantly devising new distractions and entertainments to keep her occupied.

She was also helping plan Peter’s wedding.

The news brought Gabe a dark sense of satisfaction. He knew Kate would never agree to a real marriage with Peter, so something desperate was underway. From the assistant’s harried complaints, he also guessed at his wife’s captivity, how she’d likely been restricted, and he knew she would be restless and miserable with her circumstances by now.

In the week between Xanthe’s visit confirming Kate was alive and the time he was to interview at the palace, he’d deduced a few pieces of information he hoped would help his effort. Specifically, he believed Peter was cloaking to appear as him, Gabe, in front of Kate. He recalled his conversation with his father the night they’d chased their spy, who Gabe was now certain was Peter, into the ocean. The visit his parents remembered earlier that night had surely been from Peter cloaking as Gabe, a test he conducted to see if he could pull it off.

And he’d succeeded, which meant he was very, very good, indeed. This was an important clue; the siren community wouldn’t suspect a crime of this magnitude because no one had ever attempted—or was, indeed, even capable of attempting—the level of sophistication needed to make such a ploy work. Gabe would have to expose Peter’s effort, but if he could, he believed justice would be on his side.

He didn’t know what story Peter had told Kate to take her from him, but it had to have been something distressing, perhaps as distressing as Peter’s lie to him had been. Kate had not attempted to contact her parents or friends, or his family, which meant she’d been told something sinister. He seethed at the thought, which he could not afford to do before his upcoming meeting. He disciplined himself to focus only on his cloak as Charles Gavin, forcing scenes from San Diego and other details related to his sham identity to the forefront of his mind.

Mercifully, his interviewer was not one of the Loughlins. As hard as he’d worked on projecting his character, he knew Peter would have suspected foul play and, more likely, seen straight through his cloak had he been the one to evaluate him. He attributed this bit of luck again to Xanthe, as someone coming in without her support would have been put through a more rigorous review.

The man Gabe spoke with was from Great Britain, had not heard of the Blakes—a rarity—and he had never been to San Diego. This was unbelievably lucky. Not only did the interviewer have no reason to question him should his real name cross his mind, he also lacked subtle cultural knowledge which would have drawn suspicion.

Thus, without much difficulty, he was approved for work as a palace guard. He was to start in four days.

* * * *

The private supper with Kenna and Peter occurred in the same dream-like sequence Kate experienced during her first visit to the palace with Carmen and Michael. Kenna, always vague in her attention to those around her, added to the evening’s eerie progression with her distracted presence and oddly delayed responses. She seemed as if she was constantly on the phone, half listening to another conversation while trying to keep up with the one at the table.

Peter had met her outside her suite to escort her to his mother, his gentle smile and warmth immediately putting her at ease. Gabe had been nowhere in sight to see her off, something she chose not to think about. In Kenna’s chambers over salad, she smiled at Peter without guile, was even grateful for his company. He was charming and solicitous, taking every care to make her comfortable.

Kenna’s welcome was distant, her attempt at warmth strange to Kate. “We’re so happy you could join us this evening, Elizabeth. You must tell me how you and Peter became acquainted.”

Kate maintained only the dimmest sense of herself thereafter, the majority of her consciousness committed to the idea she was Elizabeth Hughes, engaged to Peter Loughlin, pregnant with their child. She couldn’t have answered Kenna if she’d wanted to due to the happy fog hanging over her senses. Peter begged his mother’s forgiveness for Elizabeth’s tiredness; the baby was taxing her, he explained. He covered her hand on the table with his own as he wove a story for her of how they’d met. His eyes never left hers, although his address was to his mother.

Such a pretty story, Kate thought. She’d fallen off a boat full of other humans on a snorkeling tour, and he’d found her swimming aimlessly, lost and nearly exhausted. He smiled at her adoringly while he told Kenna he’d fallen in love at first sight.

She was an only child and her parents were no longer living. There was no one in her family for Kenna or anyone else to meet. They hoped to be married immediately.

Say something, darling
, Peter urged her silently, and her consciousness hitched on the endearment for a second, which flowed from him with odd familiarity. As if in slow motion, she smiled at Kenna, surfacing enough to muster the requested comment.

“This must seem so sudden to you, Your Majesty.” She felt as if she apologized, and like her voice was small, as if she spoke from the far end of a long hallway.

Kenna seemed pleased with the presentation she and Peter made. “You have my blessing, both of you,” she confirmed, and then to Elizabeth, “Please, call me Mother.” Her attempt at affection made Kate violently miss her own mother for a few thorny seconds. She quickly shut off these thoughts, knowing no good would come from thinking of Cara now. Peter readily gave her cover.

The rest of the meal passed in pleasant conversation Kate could in no way remember. She played her part effortlessly, thanks to Peter, so anyone watching them would have seen their comfortable intimacy and believed they were in love. They took coffee by the fireplace, where Peter rested his arm casually behind her back, and she, just as casually, nestled into his side. He played with the fingers of her left hand. Her warm smiles came more easily than she would have thought possible.

The wedding would be a relatively small affair, just a few dozen friends and members of the court, Kenna announced. They could hold it in one of the gardens but the weather was so unreliable this time of year, they’d be better off indoors. Would a week from this Saturday work for them? She’d have the staff arrange everything.

Eventually, even Peter couldn’t hold off her exhaustion. She tugged on his sleeve. “Peter, honey…” She felt him thrill to her words. “I’m so tired.”

“Of course, darling,” He rose and offered her his hand. They thanked Kenna for the pleasant evening and left her suite.

Kate let fatigue overtake her, and feeling a sense of familiarity she could not explain, she continued their subterfuge as they went. She leaned willingly into him, and Peter put his arm around her, just as comfortable in their act as she was. He kissed the top of her head.