Nightbred(9)
“You’re right, I’m human, and blades are not our friends.” She bent to pick up one of the swords, and carefully placed it on the counter. Only then did she give him a wink. “But it worked.”
Chris hurried back to the elevator, apologizing to Aldan when he tried to stop her. “I’m needed in reception, guys, TTYL.”
As she pressed the button for the third floor, Chris heard Aldan ask, “Tee-tee-why . . . what?”
“’Tis a modern spoken code,” Glenveagh drawled. “It means she will converse with you anon—”
Once the doors closed, Chris used her mobile to text Sam about the new arrival in reception—Burke always personally notified Lucan—and then walked around in a circle as she shook her hands. For the most part she’d outgrown the really horrible panic attacks of her teenage years, but every now and then anxiety would start trying to creep back into her head, a silent rat that wanted only to gnaw at her confidence and composure until her brain turned to Swiss cheese.
Once she’d made enough money, Chris had gone to a therapist and paid three hundred bucks to have herself tested. The shrink had wanted to know why, but she’d lied and said it was for her job. A week later she’d gone in to get the results.
“You’re a little depressed,” the shrink had told her as she handed over the typed report. “Of course I can work with you on that.”
“Of course.” As long as she forked over more hundreds, which she didn’t have, so that was a nonissue. “But I’m not psychotic, schizophrenic, bipolar, paranoid, or in any way a danger to myself or others.”
The older woman smiled. “No, you’re not.”
“That should make my boss happy.” Chris skimmed the first page. “What’s this part about anxiety?”
“You’re a very confident, polished young woman . . . on the surface.” The shrink’s eyes dipped to the cross-shaped bulge under her T-shirt. “We all wear masks, Miss Lang, in order to project what we want the world to see about us. Most of the time it’s an idealized version of our true selves. In your case, however, I have gotten a very strong impression of a completely artificial persona. One you’ve been constructing and perfecting for some time now. And it’s not a mask; it’s a full-body costume. One I believe you wear to cover the fears that threaten your ability to function.”
Chris got to her feet and held up the report. “Can I take this?”
The shrink nodded. “You paid for it. Miss Lang—”
“Not interested,” Chris told her before she walked out.
She had gone to the library, however, and borrowed every book she could find on anxiety and how to deal with it. Which was why she now imagined herself as the center of a lotus flower, drifting delicately on a pool of still water. As she tried to float, she remembered the mantra of affirmations she was supposed to say out loud along with the visualization.
“My thoughts are quiet; my mind is clear. I am in control of my emotions, my decisions, and my life. I am filled with confidence. I am blessed with friends. I am rich with hope. I am starting to sound like a bad Hallmark card. Or someone who has taken too many happy pills.” So much for the mantra. She really needed to get a new meditation book from the library on her next day off.
Once the doors opened, she stepped out and walked toward the reception room, but stopped in her tracks as soon as she saw the teenage boy standing with Burke in the hall.
The Kyn lord standing beside Burke, Chris absently corrected herself. Jamys Durand hadn’t been a teenager since the Dark Ages.
She had written at least two hundred private posts on her LiveJournal with a thousand minute details about Jamys, so she noticed the changes first. His black hair, which she’d envied and adored, was no longer in that devastatingly edgy who-gives-a-shag; he’d let it grow out so long he now wore it tied back in a ponytail. Under the time-burnished brown leather of his jacket his shoulders and upper arms showcased some serious new muscle, as did the white tee he wore under it. As he handed a scroll to Burke, the front of his jacket opened a few inches more, flashing his now beautifully sculpted abs. His hands looked rougher, harder than she remembered, and he’d left off wearing the gorgeous old ring with his family’s crest in silver. Her gaze drifted down the long legs, which the fitted cut of his plain black trousers showed to be more powerful than lean now. No, now he looked like he could run a couple of New York City marathons before breakfast.
She saved his face for last, not that she needed to ogle it. The young, handsome features were just as she had kept them in her memory: the black slashes of his eyebrows, the angular symmetry of his cheekbones and jaw, the imperial nose, the full, almost passionate mouth that rarely smiled but always made her think of kissing. When other mortals looked at Jamys, they saw a boy, because he had been a teenager when he’d made the transition from human to Darkyn, and like his body his face would be forever young. But Chris saw more; she saw the shadow of the man he would have been, lurking just beneath the surface. A big, dangerous, definitely scary man, exactly like his father.