“Oh,” I said faintly, almost incandescent with anticipation.
Slowly, deliberately, Reyn put his arm over my shoulders against the back of the seat. He brushed a quick kiss against my lips, almost absently, and right as I was gearing up to glom on to him like a piranha, he reached down behind the car seat and pulled out… a long sword. From behind the car seat. I swear to God. An effing sword.
I was wordless, my mouth gaping, as Reyn tested the edge of the blade against his thumb. He hadn’t been joking in the restaurant. He really had a literal sword in the truck. A sword. He looked at me calmly as he fit his hand around the grip, testing the weight of the pommel.
I just could not believe this. After everything, after all I thought might be happening between us, how much I wanted to trust him, he’d gotten me to the middle of dark nowhere and pulled out a motherlovin’ sword.
I slammed my open palm down on the dashboard. “Fine, goddamnit! Kill me! I don’t care! I’m sick of learning all that crap anyway!”
Reyn looked at me calmly, now balancing the flat of the blade on one finger.
“Go on,” I dared him. “Do it! Get it over with. Go ahead and kill me!”
Reyn sighed and rolled his eyes. “Before I even get in your pants? I don’t think so.” He popped the door and swung to the ground as I blinked, trying to regroup. “But I’m pretty sure your sword skills suck. I bet you couldn’t have cut off Incy’s head if you tried. Come on, get out.”
I felt like I was going to throw up my actual heart, and took several small, wheezing breaths. “You silver-tongued devil, you,” I said finally, but every bit of punch was gone. My sword skills? I had a horribly clear memory of Incy slicing off Katy’s head with a powerful downward stroke. Actually, you know, sword skills might not be a bad thing. I got out of the truck.
An hour later my nose was running from the cold, my arms felt like overcooked fusilli, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I’d never been good with a sword, though I’d held one before. You know, centuries ago. This one was too long and too heavy for me, but too small for Reyn. He’d no doubt used weighty, two-handed great swords, back in the day. The bad days.
“Okay, clearly you need to practice,” he said, leaning against the truck.
“It has been four hundred years. Or so.”
His sudden grin disarmed me, so to speak, and I let the sword dangle to the ground.
“You have a ruthless bloodthirstiness about you, so that helps,” he offered.
“Oh, good.”
He opened the passenger-side door and gestured me in, taking the sword from me and tucking it behind the seat again. I hoped he got stopped by a cop and got searched, I really did. I climbed wearily up onto the seat, but Reyn pulled me around to face him.
“Now what?” I asked. “Jumping jacks?”
“This,” he said, standing against my knees. He put one hand on the back of my neck and kept his eyes open as we slowly, finally, met in a kiss.
Oh, yes, yes, at last, I thought, putting my arms around him. He leaned into me, pushing my knees apart, one hand holding my face gently. I heard a muffled moan and hoped it wasn’t me but couldn’t be sure. I do know it was me who pulled him into the truck, sliding backward on the bench seat. He climbed in and managed to shut the door, and then we were awkwardly tangled together on our sides. I’d been wanting to kiss him, really kiss him, for days.
He stroked my hair away from my face, being slow and thoughtful when I was trying to keep myself from ripping off his clothes. He seemed, in general, to be holding himself back. Which I was not into. So I wiggled even closer and tilted my face up so I could reach his mouth.
He kissed me but was clearly using restraint.
I drew away, not knowing what to think. “So… are we not doing the ravishing thing, then?” That’s me: cool and disinterested.
“No, we are,” he said, sounding unsure. “We definitely are.” Okay, that sounded certain.
“Front seat of a cold truck not working for you?”
He looked down at me, and suddenly I saw a deep amber glint in his eyes, a glittering intent that made me shiver. “It will work for a bit,” he said. “Not for everything.”
How easily he took my breath away as my fevered brain instantly came up with several scenarios, none of them in a truck.
“It’s just—this feels so different.” His voice was quiet and rough in the stillness.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged lopsidedly, since one shoulder was pinned to the seat. “I’m old. We’re old. We’ve been with lots of people. Way too many to remember.”
Great.
“This isn’t what I expected,” he went on, frowning at me as if it was my fault. “At first I thought it was just physical, that it had been too long since I—was with anyone, and so I focused on you. But it isn’t.” He sounded mystified.
“I know what you mean,” I said, feeling his chest rising and falling under my hand. “I didn’t think I’d ever want to be with anyone again. And I was fine with that.” I let out a breath as messy breakups and slinking escapes formed choppy images in my head. “And, really, you. Who woulda thunk, you know?”
One side of his mouth rose. “Yeah. But… I want to know why.”
“Because I am freaking adorable, that’s why.”
“Nope. That’s not it.” Leaning closer, he kissed me, his mouth strong and sure on mine. I pressed myself against him, loving his warmth, curling one leg over his hips and holding him in place. Minutes passed, our kisses growing harder, our breaths quicker. I felt his hands all over me, holding me to him, smoothing over my hips, my legs, my arm. Then I was pulling his shirt out from his jeans, and he was sliding his hand under my sweater. My fingers found the scar on his chest easily, and I traced it as our mouths grew rougher and more insistent.
His hand on my breast was shocking, and I gasped and pulled back for a second. He didn’t stop but kept his eyes on mine, tracing the slope as if he were memorizing it.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Beautiful.” We kissed again, losing ourselves in frustrating sensations, swearing and laughing when his head hit the door handle or I jammed my funny bone on the stick shift.
Quite a bit later, when we returned to River’s Edge, we snuck inside like teenagers because the windows were dark and everyone was asleep. We crept up the stairs in our stocking feet, holding our shoes, and kissed one last time, very, very quietly, in front of my door.
I closed the door behind me, amazed, breathless, and exhilarated, and a little scared, and unable to wait to see what happened next.
It was only when I was tucked into my narrow little bed, reliving the whole evening, still all aglow, that I remembered I’d had this excellent first date, had made out once again, had made myself vulnerable to… Eileif, son of Erik the Bloodletter, murderer of my family.
That truth caught in my throat like a chicken bone, leaving me bereft and even more confused than I’d been before all the hot, breathless making out in the truck.
I curled into a little ball. My past would never let me go.
CHAPTER 6
Being on breakfast duty was better than milking or gathering eggs. Especially since I got to decide what to make. So this morning ground flaxseed was nowhere in sight as I stood at the big stove, pouring pancakes onto a griddle. Not buckwheat; not whole wheat with extra wheat germ. Plain old pancakes.
Anne was cutting up oranges. Solis, the third member of our team, was manning the eggs and bacon. I hadn’t forgotten that he had seemed to agree with Ottavio about the danger I presented, so I was a little stiff with him this morning. Okay, actually I was refusing to acknowledge his existence. There are so many forgiving and mature people here that I have to provide some kind of balance.
Anne put the sliced oranges into a bowl, glanced at the clock, then perched on a stool and took out a fuzzy little something she was knitting.
“Is that a hat?” I asked,
pouring eight rounds of batter onto the griddle.
She grinned at me. “A sweater.” She held it up—it was triangular, made of speckled brown and white mohair.
“For… a Muppet?” I asked.
“For the naked chicken,” she said, and snickered.
I flipped the eight rounds and gave her a look, and she started chuckling outright. Yes, word had gotten around about my amusing little defeathering trick. Apparently we couldn’t just eat the poor thing and be done with it. Apparently we had to knit cunning lil’ sweaters for it so it could squawk around the yard, feeling fancy.
“Nastasya?” Solis was right next to me at the stove, so it was extra work to ignore him, but I managed.
“Nastasya, you know I care about you,” he went on. I quickly flipped the done pancakes onto a platter and covered them with a clean dish towel. As Solis waited, I poured eight more rounds of batter, then gave him a bland look.
“Did you say something?”
“Nastasya.” He looked at me patiently, which is something many people around me have to learn to do. “I care about you, and I find your power, the possibilities you represent, to be very exciting. But you’re not just another immortal with a hard past.”
Anne was watching us, her face now solemn.
“You’re the sole heir of one of the eight houses. That will make you a target for the rest of—forever.”
“How do other people handle it?” I asked, piling more onto the platter. I decided to get artistic and made the next ones in the shapes of crescent moons and amoebic blobs that were supposed to be stars.
“They have a lot of power. They’ve created safe networks around themselves. They know how to work powerful spells of protection.”
I drizzled batter, giving myself time to think. I made a bunny head and a tulip shape and a bunch of squiggles, but I felt myself getting angrier.
“I can’t help who I am,” I pointed out. “I mean, do you think I should just hide?” I tapped one finger against my chin. “Gee, if only there was some place, some safe place, like in the middle of freaking nowhere, where I could surround myself with strong immortals and maybe learn how to protect myself and… oh, wait!” I looked at Solis, my eyes wide with excitement. “Oh my God—that sounds like here! It sounds like I’m already actually doing exactly what you think I should be doing! Awesome!”
A muscle in Solis’s jaw twitched as he regarded me, embarrassment and anger on his face. Obviously I was totally right. It was a relative rarity, so I savored it. Solis dumped the scrambled eggs into a serving bowl, grabbed the platter of bacon, and headed into the dining room. River and Ottavio came in on the next door swing, and I gritted my teeth. It was barely seven in the morning, and already my stomach was in knots. Thank God I had the hot memories of being with Reyn last night, or this morning would be sucking.
“Hey,” I said.
“Morning, sweetie,” River said easily, opening the fridge and taking out bottles of juice and milk.
I poured more batter and glanced at Ottavio to see him looking at me with narrowed eyes, like he was trying to read me. River’s back was to me, so I stuck out my tongue at him. His dark eyes flared in outrage and he immediately hissed something at River in Italian. I won’t bore you with what he said, but let’s just all agree he’s a butthead, okay?
River straightened and looked at him.
“Se seduto qui,” I said irritably. “Pick a language I don’t know.”
Ottavio’s jaw tightened—a handsome, angry killjoy, fulfilling his mission of going around, sucking the fun out of everything.
Shrugging, he said openly, “She’s dangerous. You don’t know her. She could be here as a spy.”
A look passed between them, and I thought I saw warning on River’s face.
“A spy!” I said, interested. “That is just fascinating.” I raised my eyebrows at Anne, who sighed and applied herself to the chicken sweater. “A spy,” I repeated, pleased. “That sounds kind of chic and exciting, you know? My name is Crowe—Nastasya Crowe. Jeez.” I poured the last few dollops of pancake batter. “Unfortunately it’s not true,” I said regretfully. It occurred to me that I knew some pretty unsavory things about ol’ Ott here—things I had learned when River shared her memories with me. Things she had told me about when she and her brothers had been very, very dark and power hungry. But did you see me throwing them in his face? No. For one thing, River had shared that stuff in private. She trusted me, rightly or wrongly. But I sure wished I could toss out one or two snide comments about fratricide. See who’s all high-and-mighty then.
I turned off the griddle and shoved the heavy platter at Ottavio. “Carry these in for me, willya, Ott? And the ones on top are for you.”
I swept past him into the dining room, where almost everyone had gathered. As the swinging door opened again, I heard River laughing and smirked to myself. The pancakes on top had been shaped like a certain part of the male anatomy that seemed synonymous with Ottavio, to my way of thinking.
I grabbed a plate and got in line. Ottavio pushed the platter onto the sideboard, anger wafting off him like heat.
“Whoa!” said Brynne. “These are my kind of pancakes!”
“Oh, Nas,” said Lorenz, smiling as he helped himself.
“And you must be the notorious Nastasya.”
Daniel was behind me, and he did indeed seem younger and less forbidding than Ottavio. His brown hair was not yet streaked with gray, or maybe he dyed it. It was perfectly cut and every strand in place. In comparison, I thought of Reyn’s usual disheveled appearance. Now, he was heart-melting.
I looked back into Daniel’s coffee-colored eyes, a bit warmer than Ottavio’s. His face was attractive, slightly more rounded and not harsh, but there was something about him that gave me pause. Maybe it was his too-groomed, country-club air.
I nodded and filled my plate.
“I hear you’re evil,” he said conversationally.
My head whipped around. “Am not.”
“I hear there was a girl here, and you made her go crazy and had her shipped off.”
My mouth opened. “Oh my God! I didn’t have anything to do with Nell.” Peering around his shoulder, I looked for River. She rolled her eyes and mouthed, I’m sorry. I faced Daniel again, my jaw tight, but then I heard River murmur to Ottavio, “Weeniecake?” and I almost snorted.
“And then you killed some of your friends.” Daniel’s quiet words made my stomach drop. Shocked, I stared at him, my breath seeming like a hard piece of ice in my lungs.
“Did not.” The words were thin. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. Appalled, I felt the heat of tears forming behind my eyes and turned away, moving numbly to sit between Rachel and Daisuke. Uncharacteristically, Daisuke reached out and patted my back.
After that I couldn’t eat but had to pretend to so Daniel and Ottavio wouldn’t know how upset I was. Daniel sat down opposite me, and I faced him stonily. He looked thoughtful, not hateful, but I was glad when River smacked the back of his head as she walked by.
“Don’t be such a putz,” she said.
Reyn came in and sat down. I felt his eyes on me but didn’t trust myself to look at him when I was still hovering at the corner of Tears and Humiliation. And of course Daniel’s words reminded me of the thoughts I’d had last night when I was trying to fall asleep, how I couldn’t escape my past. This was only more proof of it.
I had managed to gag down part of a pancake and a piece of bacon when Anne stood and said, “Nastasya, let’s go to work. Does anyone want to join us for a meditation session this morning?”
Perfect. Meditation on top of everything else. I pushed my plate away.
“Let me change first,” I muttered, and went upstairs.
Upstairs, I dawdled as long as I could, hoping everyone would have cleared out of the dining room before I resurfaced. I hadn’t even had a chance to undress Reyn with my eyes. I hadn’t come to terms with our situation and how I could integrate my past and my future, but I was com
fortable with objectifying him while I worked things out.
Finally I dragged myself downstairs. As I grabbed my coat off the peg, Daniel appeared.
I gave him a sour look.
“My brother is right about you,” Daniel said quietly. “You’re dangerous, and you’re causing River to be in danger.”
I kept a tight grip on my anger. “It’s been pointed out to me that I’m not the only one here who might possibly attract bad things.”
Daniel’s eyes were intent. “You’re the only one here with as big a bait. If someone killed you, they could inherit the power of the Iceland house.”
An involuntary shiver went down my spine. “Good thing you’re here to protect me, prince of the Genoa house.” I tried to push past him, but he took my arm.
“I’m not here to protect you. I’m here to protect my sister, from you if necessary. And I can make it worth your while to leave here.”
Now, this was interesting. “How?” Like, could he arrange for me to meet the guy who played Wolverine? ’Cause that might be worth my while.
Daniel shrugged. “I can offer you money. So much money that you could go anywhere in the world for years and years without having to work.”
Well, that was a disappointment. I mean, jeez. Did he think I’d gotten to be 459 without managing to sock away a few coins for a rainy day? “Daniel. Come on. Money? Really?”
He looked affronted. “A significant amount of money.”
“A hundred million dollars?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then I guess we don’t have a deal.” I yanked my arm from his grasp and stomped through the dining room and kitchen and out the back door. God, River’s brothers were such fatheads.
There was a small, person-size door in the wall of the big barn, and I pushed through to find Jess, Charles, and Solis talking together in the hallway. They stopped when I came in, and it couldn’t have been more obvious that moi was the subject of their conversation. My cheeks heated, but I ignored them and went past them to Anne’s classroom.