Nightbred(76)

It’s better that he knows. At least she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore that the years between her mother’s suicide and the day she met Sam didn’t exist. She had to put this behind her and go on as if nothing had happened, something she was becoming an expert at doing.

To give her hands something to do besides twist her fingers into knots, Chris took out her mobile. “I’m going to try to call Sam. If she can meet us somewhere, away from the stronghold, then we can keep Lucan from finding out that you didn’t go home.”

“I have no home,” Jamys said. “I cannot return to my father’s stronghold, and even if he would permit it, I have no desire to serve another Kyn lord.” He gave her a sideways glance. “Once the high lord learns of my situation, he will have me declared a rogue.”

Chris knew a little about rogues, the loner immortals who were considered outcasts among the Kyn. If they did anything to hurt humans or piss off Tremayne, he had them killed. Sometimes he had them killed simply for turning rogue. Sam had told her how often Lucan had been sent to execute them before Cyprien had made him a suzerain.

“Then you go back to North Carolina,” she told him. “You make up with your dad and take an oath to him or whatever you have to do, but you don’t go rogue. You don’t ever go rogue.”

“By leaving my father’s stronghold without permission, and disobeying Lucan’s orders by remaining in his territory, I have already.” He parked the car in the marina’s lot and shut off the engine. “Finding the emeralds is my only hope of redemption now.”

“Oh. So you’ve decided to give them to the high lord.” Although she understood his motives, her heart sank a little. “Okay. Maybe he won’t use them to decimate the mortal world.”

“He would not use them for that specific purpose.” He got out of the car and came around to open her door. “But I believe he cannot be trusted with them, so no, I would not give them to Richard.”

“Immortality might tempt someone on the council to act like an idiot, too.” She climbed out and walked with him toward the slip. “If we can’t give them to either side, then why are we still looking for these rocks?”

“In the summons, Richard said that the guardian of the emeralds is dead.” He stopped and looked down at her. “I think you and I were fated to become the new guardians.”

“Us?” She frowned. “I could see you doing that, but I’m human. I’m only going to be around for maybe another fifty, sixty years, and that’s not . . .” She realized what he meant. “No, Jamys.”

“Think about it.” He cradled her face between his hands. “If you were made immortal, Christian, we could be together forever. I could take you as my sygkenis, and neither of us would ever have to be alone again.”

“You’d make me your life companion.” She tried to wrap her head around that. “What are you talking about?”

“I am in love with you.” He drew his knuckles down along the side of her cheek. “I have been these three years.”

She walked away from him and went to the boat, where she turned on the navcom and pulled up the course that would take them back to Fort Lauderdale. She felt him the moment he stepped onto the boat, but kept her back to him.

“Why are you so angry with me?”

“Three years.” She hammered the coordinates into the keypad. “The last three years, do you know how I spent them? Training.”

“I know—”

“You’re Kyn. You don’t know.” She saw the faint reflection of her face on the navcom’s small monitor, and her features were so drawn they resembled a too-tight mask. “Every single day for the last three years, I’ve been training. I learned how to fight with my fists, my feet, my elbows and knees. I practiced how to use knives, clubs, swords, Tasers, and anything else Burke handed me. I spent fourteen months going to the firing range every day to master every pistol, every rifle, every assault weapon in the stronghold armory, until Turner qualified me as expert on all of them. I can outshoot a SWAT team, Jamys, and I don’t even like guns.”

She switched the computer screen to the maritime report, but she couldn’t focus on the readout.

“What has this to do with us?” he asked at last.

“It has nothing to do with us. See, there was no us. There was just me, and what I had to do. I’ve never been book smart, so the French lessons almost made me quit.” She sounded bitter, and realized she didn’t care. “Your language has too many damn irregular verbs in it, and why can’t you pronounce the ends of words? What’s wrong with the ends of words? We say them in English.”