“He’s had a hard time of it. He’s still recovering from being tortured by a demon lord,” Alec said with a little smile at Cora as he sat next to her on the couch. She ate three ginger cookies rapidly.
Alec pushed the plate of cake closer to Cora, who murmured something to Pia before taking two slices.
“Oh, Kristoff told me why Sebastian’s such a big pain in the butt, but that doesn’t make him any easier to take. Cora, if you like the pound cake, you have to try the cream cheese pinwheels. I get them from a little bakery in town, and they are to die for. I’ve always said that if you’re going to eat for two, you might as well eat what you like. And by ‘eat for two’ I don’t mean I’m having a baby, so you can just put your eyeballs back in, Alec. I meant being responsible for feeding a vamp gives you a bit more license to indulge.”
“My eyeballs were in no danger of popping out, thank you,” he said drily, leaning back, one arm draped over Cora’s shoulders as she and Pia consumed just about every last bit of food. “Where is Eleanor?”
“Still pouting in her bedroom. She had some not very nice things to say about you, which I’m afraid I encouraged.”
Cora looked surprised. “Why did you encourage that? ”
Pia smiled at them both. “Because she didn’t know that Alec wasn’t down here, so she was more than happy to stay upstairs and nurse her grudge in private. Which meant she didn’t see the messenger.”
“What did Julian say?” Alec asked, needing to know the worst. He had to protect Cora from whatever penalty the council would mete out on him.
“The council knows you’re out, of course,” Kristoff answered, sitting next to Pia on the love seat. “They assume you’ll come here. I told them I would tell them if I saw you.”
Alec’s eyebrows rose. “You lied?”
“Of course. But that’s not going to fool them for long, Alec. Julian didn’t outright accuse me of having you hidden away, but he did notice your car, and he’s not stupid. He’ll be back. And when he does . . .” Kristoff’s gaze shifted to Cora.
“Why do I have a feeling that what you’re not saying is something I’m really going to dislike? ” she asked him.
Alec tangled his fingers in her hair, idly stroking her neck as he mulled over the possibilities. “I will have to leave.”
“Yes, but that’s not the answer,” Kristoff said, meeting his gaze with one that spoke volumes. “They’ll simply follow you.”
“Do they have some sort of special vampire tracking ability?” Cora asked, worry uppermost in her mind. “Will they be able to find you quickly, I mean?”
“Not if I don’t wish to be found, no. But Kristoff is correct that they won’t give up—they’ll continue to track me until they find me and return me to the Akasha.”
“Well, don’t let them,” she said, sounding indignant at the thought. “I went to a lot of trouble to have that Guardian pull you out of there. Maybe if you talked to them—”
Pia and Kristoff were shaking their heads right along with him. “We tried that,” Pia said, wiping her fingers on a linen napkin before sitting back. “We talked ourselves blue in the face, but they absolutely would not listen. They maintain that Alec’s actions have indirectly caused the deaths of Dark Ones, and that he should pay for that. That’s why we resurrected Eleanor.”
Cora’s shoulders dropped as she leaned into him, delighting his senses with her warm, feminine feel and scent. “Maybe you could hide, then, somewhere that they won’t find you.”
“It’s possible,” he said, wondering if she’d consent to shut herself away with him.
“Possible, but not reasonable,” Kristoff said, frowning. “They’ll find you, Alec.”
“There is one solution,” Pia said, her hand on Kristoff’s leg. She glanced at him before continuing.
“What’s that?” Cora asked, and in a flash she knew what Pia would say.
Pia took a deep breath and pinned Cora back with an intense look. “Someone has to Join with Alec. I know you said you didn’t want to, but there’s really no other way to save him from the Akasha. I’m afraid you’re going to have to make a decision, Cora; it’s either you or Eleanor. One of you is Alec’s only salvation.”
Chapter Eleven
What, I ask you, do you say to a statement that you are someone’s only means of salvation?
Oh, yes, I completely disregarded the part about Eleanor also filling that role, because Alec obviously didn’t want her. That thought kept me smugly content for about thirty seconds, until I realized that if I didn’t do the job, Alec wouldn’t have the choice—he’d have to Join with Eleanor just to save himself.
An image rose in my mind of him feeding from her, bound to her for the rest of his life. It was not a good image.
On the other hand, that whole “for the rest of his life” part had me a bit skittish. “You’re kidding, right? Because I did the saving thing, already. Twice, if you count having Alec yanked out of the Akasha.”
“Third time’s the charm,” Pia said with a smile, but judging by the look she slid the vampire next to her, she didn’t really believe what she was saying.
“Yes, you did already save me, twice, as you point out,” Alec said smoothly, his fingers withdrawing from where they’d slipped down between my back and the couch. “And for that, I will be eternally grateful. It is enough. This problem with the council is not yours, Cora. I will find a solution.”
Alec’s words disturbed me almost as much as the fact that his friends clearly agreed with him. It rankled that no one there believed that I would exert myself to save Alec. Oh, I was no fool—I knew I’d brought this on myself with my reticence to become involved with anything vampirish, but dammit, I
My inner devil rejoiced, and made plans for what dress she’d wear to the Joining party. I told her to go jump in a lake.
I didn’t answer him, too busy fuming over my growing sense of injustice to bother pointing out the obvious.
It took a half hour, but we explained the happenings of the last two days to a rapt Pia and Kristoff. By the end of it, Eleanor had evidently worked out the worst of her temper tantrum, and rejoined us, sullen and prone to shooting me nasty looks, but she appeared to have accepted the fact that she wasn’t going to end up with Alec as her boy toy.
Unless, of course, I didn’t want him . . .
“So your friend is still there?” Pia asked when Alec finished by detailing our arrival at their house. “In the Akasha, I mean?”
“Yes. And even though Alec says time operates differently there, I can’t help but think that at some point Diamond is going to get tired of all those managerial meetings and want to leave. Not to mention what my ex is going to think about her disappearance. I left a voice message for the office when I picked up my passport, saying that I was going to take a little time off, and Diamond was going to fly out to Hawaii to join Dermott at his real estate conference, but it’s been two days now. If anyone from the office calls Dermott, he’ll be bound to notice that his wife isn’t there with him.”
“Hmm,” Pia said, looking thoughtful. “As I see it, we have two problems to tackle: saving Alec and rescuing Diamond. Well, the latter, at least, should be easy enough. You simply contact that Guardian who got you out.”
“Alec has offered to finance that, yes,” I said with a grateful glance at him. He was looking particularly gorgeous, his hair slightly mussed from our sojourn in the mouse-infested room, a rich brown manly stubble on his chin and cheeks that left me feeling shivery inside, as if he were rubbing his cheeks along my skin. His leg was
