Pia murmured something about getting some refreshments before they got caught up on all the news, taking Kristoff with her as she left the room. Alec barely noticed them leave, so caught was he in the beauty of Cora’s eyes.
“Alec, we need to talk. Eleanor—”
“We will talk to her. I do not want her hurt any more than you do, but she must come to the realization that you are my Beloved, not her.”
“I don’t know. It seems so heartless, somehow.”
“Is your hesitation due to the situation with Eleanor, or that which is between us?” he asked, suddenly worried again. Was he misreading her emotions? She felt guilt with regard to him—that he knew—but whether it was about hiding the fact that she was his Beloved, or for the fact that Eleanor had been upset, was beyond his understanding.
“It’s . . . it might be both. I feel like I stole you from Eleanor somehow, even though I know I really didn’t. She’s me, for heaven’s sake. Or a past version of me. So I couldn’t steal from myself, could I? And yet it feels like I did, and, Alec, I’ve never been the ‘steal someone else’s man’ sort of person.”
“You didn’t steal me, love,” he said, amused despite the fact that she was obviously distressed. He wanted to kiss the worry right out of her mind, but knew she had to work things out for herself, or she would never be content to bind herself to him. “We were meant to be together. There’s no other explanation for the fact that you saved me in the Akasha.”
“You were
“There were others you could have approached for help. That you didn’t abandon me after you knew who and what I was tells me that deep down you know we are meant to be, as well.”
She sighed, and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Do you have any idea how annoying it is to have your inner devil saying, ‘I told you so’? It’s almost more than I can bear.”
“Inner devil?”
She smiled into his neck. “It’s what I call my conscience. She seems more of a little troublemaker than an angelic bit of righteousness meant to keep me on the straight and narrow. She liked you from the start, for one.”
He laughed, delighted with the sudden quirky turn of her mind. “Then she has my full approval. Do not distress yourself, Cora. I won’t ask anything more from you than what you want to give me.”
Her gaze dropped. “What if I don’t want to give you anything?”
“Then I will continue on as I have.” Only he wouldn’t. Thinking over the past few days, he realized they were one short step away from Joining. Although it was physically possible for him to still feed from others, he knew he wouldn’t. Somehow, without his being aware of it, this woman had found her way into his heart and bound him to her. But he wouldn’t let Cora know that; despite her protests and rather odd ideas about Dark Ones, she had a large heart, and he knew with absolute conviction that she would allow guilt to sway her into Joining rather than a true desire to do so.
“I . . . do I have to make a decision right now?” She wrung her hands.
He smiled, and gave her a quick kiss just because he couldn’t resist that delectable mouth, and then gave her a second one because there was no way one was going to be enough. “No. We have all the time in the—”
The door opened. Pia stuck her head in, her face tight with concern. “We have company, and they’re looking for you. Kristoff has them in the sitting room, but we need to hide you. Can you find your way to the cellar? There’s a hidden door behind some casks of wine. I have to run upstairs and warn Eleanor to keep mum about you, so I don’t have time to show you where it is.”
Alec nodded. “I know where the hidden room is. I helped Kris clean it out.”
“Good. We’ll give you the all clear when Julian and his buddy are gone.”
“Julian? The messenger?”
“Yes.” She said nothing more, leaving them silently.
“Who’s the messenger?” Cora asked, prodding him when he opened the door enough to peer out of it.
“He’s part of the Moravian Council. Which means they know I’m out, and either know or suspect I’ve come to Kris for help. Quickly, they’ve gone into the other room, but I doubt if they’ll stay there for long.”
He hustled her through the sunlight, ignoring the pain as they headed through the kitchen to a small door, down a rickety flight of stairs, and through a series of musty, dark, close rooms that smelled greatly of the earth. He pulled out a small penlight, flicking it around the rooms to avoid the stacks of old furniture, barrels of wine the previous owner had left, and the usual detritus found in a house a few centuries old.
Cora said nothing as he counted down a line of oak wine casks, handing her the penlight as he gripped a cask with both hands, throwing all his weight against it, willing it to move. It shuddered and groaned for a few seconds before giving way, sliding to the side, revealing a cobwebbed entrance cut low into the stone wall.
“In,” he said, kicking the remains of a wooden crate out to cover the marks on the ground where the cask had moved.
“Are there mice? I have a thing about mice,” Cora said, her fear palpable.
“If there are, I won’t let them near you,” he promised.
She gave him a long look. “Do I have to go in there with you? Would the Julian guy know who I am? With regards to you, that is?”
Pain laced him at her words, although he understood her reticence. If it weren’t for her, he’d say to hell with the council and face down the messenger. But he no longer had only his own future to consider. “No, he wouldn’t. You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to. Pia will claim you as a visiting friend, I’m sure.”
She looked at him for the count of five before she nodded and ducked down to enter the room.
He smiled at her ass. He couldn’t help himself—she was just so contrary at times, it was all he could do to keep from pouncing on her and claiming her right then and there.
The hidden room was more a hole scraped out of the side of the mountain than anything else, the smell in it particularly earthy when he pulled the door closed behind them. Cora scooted to his side, clutching the back of his shirt and peering around suspiciously as he shone the narrow light around the tiny room. There was no sign of rodent life, but his nose told him otherwise.
“Do you see anything?” Cora asked, pressing herself into him.
“You’re kidding, right? Because if there is anything more frightening than little mousy feet and tails and those twitching noses, I don’t know what it is. Well, OK, rats are icky, too, but I count them in the mouse category.”
“I see nothing,” he lied, meeting the beady-eyed, but mildly curious, gaze of a large brown rat that scampered onto a broken chair across the small room.
“OK, but if you do, I’m out of here. It’s no reflection on HOLY JESUS!”
Cora screamed and pointed in a direction forty-five degrees from the rat, and proceeded to climb him like he was a ladder.
“You know,” he said conversationally, her heaving breasts pressed against his face as she struggled to climb even higher up his body, her heels digging into his hips, “that mouse is probably far more terrified of great big you than you are of it, mousy feet and twitching nose aside.”
“Don’t let it get near me!” she shrieked.
She pulled back slightly, just enough for him to get some air into his lungs. “Sorry,” she repeated softly. “Can you see the mouse?”
He glanced over to the rat. It was cleaning its face, one eye on them. “No, I don’t see a mouse. It probably
