“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 doesn’t matter. Your insides are the same. Stubborn. Do you think you’ll be more effective if you work until you literally just fall over? Who will you be helping then?”
“You know how long I’ve been awake because you’ve been with me the whole time. I don’t see you getting into your jammies.”
“Jammies?”
“Pajamas. The clothes people sleep in.”
“I don’t sleep in any clothes.”
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 I’m four hundred years old, Helena. I am Lycian. I was bred to be up for days on end, fighting, marching, killing, all without sleep. You’re a witch, and while you’re powerful and fierce, you can’t survive on two hours’ sleep in two days.”
“There were twenty humans in that group tonight. That means they’re not flinching at sending their ranks to die. If I sleep, I’m not following up. How many people are going to die while I take a little nap?”
Failure wasn’t 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 you’ll 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. She’d 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 I’ll 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 I’ll take the guest room. It’s a big bed. It’ll be another forty-five minutes to get out to Pasadena. That’s forty-five minutes you could be sleeping instead. It’s really all about economy, right?”
He was very, very bossy. But once she’d 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 she’d 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 they’d just gone through eight different security checkpoints and two different alarms to get this far. But she’d 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 didn’t 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. I’m not here that often, but when I am, it’s nice to have a comfortable home to return to. A safe one.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” And it was. She wondered if he was homesick at all but didn’t have the energy to engage. She’d 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. I’m just going to pass out anyway.” She was sure she didn’t begin to sound convincing.
He sighed and shook his head. “Silly female. This is the best bed in the house. As your host, it’s my job to give it to you. Also, it’s the quietest room. Use it and make me happy.”
“I need a shower first. I’m covered in soot.”
Another door pushed open to reveal a bathroom. “I’ll 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. She’d 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 she’d stood and hoped all the death would wash off. But it was bone deep and she wondered when, if ever, she’d be able to let go of the things she’d seen . . . and done . . . over the last months.
People relied on her to make good choices. And she’d 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 didn’t 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 she’d pull herself back together again because there wasn’t any more margin for error. She didn’t 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 he’d 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 Lark’s boyfriend—mate, whatever he was—he seemed to thrive on taking care of people he considered his to protect. Helena knew she’d 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.
