And the sheet covering the one she couldnt protect.
I need to go back to the office. She pulled her phone from her pocket as she spoke to him. Eleven new messages.
She listened to them, returned a few, sent a dozen emails and texts, and when she looked up again to take a breather, she noted he was getting off the freeway far short of Pasadena.
Why are you getting off here?
Youre about to pass out. Im taking you to my home.
I have a couch in my office.
You and your sister are very much alike. He grumbled this under his breath, but she heard it and it made her smile.
She has blue hair and an atrocious sense of fashion.
The outside doesnt matter. Your insides are the same. Stubborn. Do you think youll be more effective if you work until you literally just fall over? Who will you be helping then?
You know how long Ive been awake because youve been with me the whole time. I dont see you getting into your jammies.
Jammies?
Pajamas. The clothes people sleep in.
I dont sleep in any clothes.
Christ. As if her fascination with him wasnt bad enough, he had to put that image in her head?
But before she could really go there and imagine him, all nearly seven feet of hard muscle and ebony skin, naked and in her bed, he spoke again.
And Im four hundred years old, Helena. I am Lycian. I was bred to be up for days on end, fighting, marching, killing, all without sleep. Youre a witch, and while youre powerful and fierce, you cant survive on two hours sleep in two days.
There were twenty humans in that group tonight. That means theyre not flinching at sending their ranks to die. If I sleep, Im not following up. How many people are going to die while I take a little nap?
Failure wasnt something she liked at all. And in truth, she felt like she was drowning at least 60 percent of the time these days.
You have people working three shifts. Trust them for six hours. Just six hours. You know youll be far more alert and less inclined to make a mistake or miss something when you get some rest. Your magick will be stronger as well.
He was right. She knew he was. Shed used a lot of magick over the last few days. Her head hurt, her eyes felt like sandpaper and repeated adrenaline rushes followed by the crash afterward had left her muscles less and less responsive.
Fine, but Ill sleep on my couch at the office.
No need. He pulled down a street with a huge gate at the end. High fences surrounded the neighborhood just beyond. One of the first fortified enclaves in Southern California. Designed by Others for Others ultimate safety. Round the clock security.
He pulled up to a gate that slid open after the guard recognized him. He paused, handed over a card that was scanned and approved before it was returned.
My place is right here. You can have my bed and Ill take the guest room. Its a big bed. Itll be another forty-five minutes to get out to Pasadena. Thats forty-five minutes you could be sleeping instead. Its really all about economy, right?
He was very, very bossy. But once shed allowed herself to agree to sleep, her will to argue was gone.
He drove down the main street of the mini subdivision before taking a left. Guard towers dotted the several-square-block area. Barriers much like those that had been put into place outside public buildings in the wake of the 9/11 attacks surrounded those high fences to ward off any attempts at car bombs.
The outer walls were all warded by the most powerful Full Council witches Gennessee had. As were all the houses. Guards, nearly all of them shifters, prowled the streets day and night. A bustling new industry of witches who hired out to ward homes and businesses had sprung up.
Many in the area now lived this way and other such enclaves were being prepared or were already being moved into all across the country. It made her sad, but at least it kept them safer.
He pulled into his garage and she realized shed never even been to his house before. She trudged to the connecting door as he turned off the alarm. Wait here.
He went in first. She wanted to make a crack about how theyd just gone through eight different security checkpoints and two different alarms to get this far. But shed seen so much happen in the last months after the Magister had come and turned everything upside down. So much death and destruction.
She kept her mouth shut and waited patiently until he came back to her. Come in.
It was a surprise, how nice the place was inside. He worked so much and traveled as often as she did that she didnt have any idea when he would have had the time to get the furniture and housewares inside.
My sister.
She shook herself out of her thoughts. What?
You were wondering how this place got decorated. My sister came from Lycia and she took care of everything. Im not here that often, but when I am, its nice to have a comfortable home to return to. A safe one.
Oh. Thats nice. And it was. She wondered if he was homesick at all but didnt have the energy to engage. Shed ask him another time.
He pushed a door open and she saw the massive bed and may have sighed wistfully.
I can take the guest room, you know. Or the couch. Im just going to pass out anyway. She was sure she didnt begin to sound convincing.
He sighed and shook his head. Silly female. This is the best bed in the house. As your host, its my job to give it to you. Also, its the quietest room. Use it and make me happy.
I need a shower first. Im covered in soot.
Another door pushed open to reveal a bathroom. Ill get you something to sleep in. Towels are in that cabinet there.
And then she was alone to get rid of her filthy clothes, leaving them in a pile in the corner. Shed deal with the towel after she was clean, not wanting to get the ones in the cabinet dirty.
Hot water rained down on her skin as she made her way into the stall. She simply stood there, letting it wash over her for long minutes.
There had been far too many showers like this one. Where shed stood and hoped all the death would wash off. But it was bone deep and she wondered when, if ever, shed be able to let go of the things shed seen . . . and done . . . over the last months.
People relied on her to make good choices. And shed failed. More than once. And the price for that failure had been injury. It had been death.
She had no answers. Just Band-Aid fixes to stumble from one thing to the next and hope she didnt mess up so badly more people ended up dead.
Never in her life, not even in the time after her engagement had broken, had she felt more alone. More totally overwhelmed by everything. And there was no time for it. No space to let herself relax even a little. Because the hits just kept coming.
Never in her life had she been so afraid.
Her sobs tore from her diaphragm, rusty and sharp and full of everything she tried to shove far away from her mind all day long. Tearing that open and bringing it back made her nauseated.
She let the tears come as she scrubbed her hair. As she saw the soot and blood head down the drain. She would let herself have these minutes and then shed pull herself back together again because there wasnt any more margin for error. She didnt have any more room to wallow or worry. She had to keep on keeping on.
Because there was no one else to do the job.
She reined it all back. Made herself stop crying as she turned her face up to the water. Letting it heat her through to cut her shivers.
When she stepped out her legs were a great deal more steady. The warm air in the bathroom was welcome and she was grateful that hed turned the heat up. Lycians, like shifters, had high body temps, so quite often their homes tended to be cool.
But like his brother, Simon, her sister Larks boyfriendmate, whatever he washe seemed to thrive on taking care of people he considered his to protect. Helena knew shed become one of them.
She liked it. Even as it chafed sometimes. It was nice to have someone taking care of her when it felt like pretty much every moment of her existence now was about taking care of everyone else.
Also? He was hot and criminally sexy. When he turned all that on her it made her a little fluttery inside.
Theyd been sort of dancing around each other for months but she was way too busy to enter into anything with anyone, much less a big, bossy Lycian prince who clearly had issues with the word no.
When she wiped the steam from the mirror she noticed that hed left a huge shirt on top of a towel. She hadnt even heard him come into the room, and then hoped he hadnt heard her crying.
She had a reputation as an ice bitch. Crying ruined that image. Though hed never say a word, hed know all the same.
After a cursory towel dry of her hair, she braided it quickly, put on the T-shirt that came to her kneeswhich was good since she had no clean underpantsand shuffled into the bedroom where hed left a pitcher of water, some snacks and had even turned the blankets back.
That care nearly brought her tears back, so instead she shoved some crackers into her face, gulped down three glasses of water and lay back.
Once she did that, even as she felt herself falling toward sleep, she couldnt help recounting the last several days. One skirmish after another. Like a horror movie.
An assault by four kids at a high school in Fountain Valley. The shifter theyd attacked had handled it himself but theyd had to stop a near riot when the human parents of the bullies had shown up at the kids house, demanding blood.
Vandalism in Garden Grove. A restaurant had had its windows broken out; anti-Other graffiti had been spray painted on the walls. The interior had been totally destroyed and the food ruined.
A car set on fire in La Habra, which was where theyd been when they got the call about the community center in Whittier and had rushed over, only to have to engage in an actual, no shit, pitch battle on the street with crazy people who thought it was totally okay to kill kids and old people.
She hated this world. Hated that people wanted to kill her simply because she was different. Hated that her friend Molly had been attacked and was now in two casts because of the rising threat of the human separatist groups.
These were her former neighbors. The kids she and her sister, Lark, had gone to school with. People she used to think were her friends. The dividing lines had been drawn and the gulf between them got deeper by the day.
And now that Molly had given an ultimatum to the humans to leave the Others alone and stop trying to harm them or strip them of their rights as Americans, those lines kept getting drawn.
They were in a brief limbo period as Molly recovered, but soon theyd be on the road again and Helena would most likely again be on the security detail for those Others who were traveling all across the country addressing crowds of humans, Others and legislators of all types. Trying to educate. Trying to mediate. Trying to stop an all-out war before it broke out.
But the edges of the world were torn and frayed. Helena wasnt sure how much longer things would hold before snapping.
Chapter 3
HER ringing phone woke her up just a little more than four hours after shed finally fallen asleep. Still heavy with exhaustion, Helena managed to grab it and answer.
Jaansen.
It was Lark, Helenas little sister and the Hunter of Clan Owen. Im so sorry to wake you. I know you probably just got to sleep after all that insanity last night.
For years she and Lark had run Gennessees hunter team together, but over the last months things had changed. Lark had left, moved to Seattle to run Owens team. Shed also nearly been killed during the battle to defeat the Magister. But the best part of the last months was that she and Lark had finally gotten past the things that had been keeping them apart and were once more as close as theyd been.
Another high point was that Lark had found love in an unlikely place, Faines older brother, Simon. It made Helena feel a lot better that Lark had someone so tough at her back. But she missed her sister fiercely, especially during such dark times.
Helena sighed, managing to sit, stacking pillows at her back. Its fine. Hazard of the job. Whats up?
We need to get together. A videoconference call. Can you be at Gennessee in thirty minutes?
Helena noted it was nine in the morning. Im not at my apartment. I slept at Faines last night. I can probably do an hour, or an hour and a half depending on traffic. But it wouldnt be pretty. All her clothes and stuff were at her place, though she had some in her office, so that would work too.
Really now? I figured it would be Tosh.
Sato? You what? Never mind. Your brain works in mysterious and twisted ways. As for Faine? Dont get excited. He gave me his bed and slept in the guest room.
Bummer. You should give Lycians a try. Just sayin. Big and braw. Totally know their way around a lady. Centuries of being hot dudes serve a gal well. Though they are bossy. Especially royal ones. Thats a drawback.
I have enough people trying to manage me on a daily basis, I dont need to go adding more. Also, a little busy saving the world right now.
Lark snorted. Theres always time for nookie. Thats Simons motto, though he says it in a more smooth and genteel way than me. Ill link you into the call in two hours. Bring Faine, hes needed too. And Dad.
Helena blew out a breath. I take it the road show is about to start again?
Helena and Lark referred to the group of Others whod been traveling all around the country and addressing humans and Others about legislative and civil rights issues the Others Road Show.
Yes. Some changes. So be ready.
Changes? Lovely. All right. See you in two.
She got out of bed, realizing she had no change of clothes but her dirty ones from the night before. At least the shirt Faine had given her came to her knees.