CHAPTER 22
I MADE MY WAY UPSTAIRS AND WASHED OFF ALL OF my grime. Doolittle said he’d need at least twenty-four hours to review my blood and Erra’s. Normally by now Voron would be screaming warnings at me from the depths of my memory, but he kept quiet. Perhaps it was because I trusted Doolittle, or maybe because Voron’s ghost no longer had an iron grip on me.
I stood under the hot water, letting it run over my skin. Julie would have to wait, and not just for Doolittle. First, we had to find the Keepers, because if they managed to activate the device within the range of the Keep, nothing would matter. Curran had already warned the guards to notify us the moment any important news came or the magic wave hit. I didn’t know how much time we had, but whatever it was I wanted to spend it well. For all we knew, we’d all kick the bucket tomorrow.
When I slid the shower door open, the smell of seared meat curled around me. A garment bag hung on the towel hook. With my luck, it would contain a French maid outfit.
I toweled off my hair and unzipped the bag. A silvery fabric caught the light and shimmered with a gentle light, as if someone had captured a crystal-clear mountain stream and somehow bound it into the creamy white silk. I ran my fingers over it, feeling the slickness. So beautiful. I’d seen this dress in the window shortly after Christmas. The strapless gown actually made me stop. There was something magic about the dress, something ethereal and otherworldly. No matter how much I looked at it in that store window, I couldn’t picture myself in it. Curran told me I should get it. I told him that I had no place to wear it and besides, where would I put my sword?
He’d remembered.
A tiny voice nagged me that we should be out there, searching for the threat, but then the entire magic population of Atlanta was already searching for it. Andrea and Jim had joined forces, trying to pin down Shane’s hiding place. The Order was under constant surveillance. A domineering werelion and a loud-mouthed merc wouldn’t make that much of a difference. I found the blow-dryer. A dress like that deserved dry hair. If I had been by myself, I would’ve turned in by now to conserve energy before the fight. But then things could go really wrong tomorrow. I had to make the most of tonight.
Twenty minutes later, hair brushed, eye shadow on, and mascara on my eyelashes, I slipped the dress on. It hugged my body, curving over my breasts, clasped between them with a small crystal flower, and slid over the curve of my hips all the way down. A long slit went from the floor to my upper thigh.
I opened the door. A pair of transparent shoes sat on the floor. I slid my feet into them. Perfect fit.
I stepped out into the kitchen. Curran stood at the table. He wore gray tailored pants and a white button-down shirt. The shirt was semitransparent, and it molded to his muscled torso like a glove. He’d shaved, and the light from the candles on the table played on his face, throwing faint highlights over his masculine jaw. He looked almost unbearably handsome.
I stopped.
He was looking at me with a kind of need that somehow managed to be raw and tender at the same time. He took my breath away.
We looked at each other, a little awkward.
Finally I raised my hand. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said. “I made dinner. At least I made the steaks. The rest came from the kitchen . . . Would you like to sit down?”
“Yes, I would.”
He held out my chair and I sat. He sat across from me. There was some kind of food on the table and a bottle of something, probably wine.
“You’re wearing a formal shirt,” I said. “I had no idea you owned one.” The way he looked at me short-circuited the link between my mouth and my brain. Formal shirt? What the hell was I going on about?
“I figured I’d match the dress,” he said. He seemed slightly shocked.
“Do you like it?”
“It looks great. You look great. Beautiful.”
We looked at each other.
“We should eat,” I said.
“Yeah.” He was looking at me.
Silence hung between us. I had to know why he was with me. I thought it didn’t matter, but it did.
I met his gaze. “My mother had a power that made men do whatever she wanted. She brainwashed Voron. She cooked him like a steak, until he left Roland for her. She needed him to take care of me.
Except she overdid it. Voron was so hurt by her death, he never cared for me. He just wanted to watch me and Roland go at it. He said that if he watched my father kill me, it would be enough for him.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“The witch,” I told him. “Evdokia. She and I are very distantly related. She’s telling the truth.”
Curran’s expression turned guarded. “That’s fucked up.”
“Before you and I mated, did you and Jim have a conversation about what it would mean for the Pack?” It would be something Jim would do. He’d suspected what I was, if he hadn’t figured it out already.
“Yes,” Curran said. His face was still flat.
“What did Jim say?”
“He advised against it. He had bullet points of why this was not a good idea.”
My heart skipped a bit.
“He also said that since I was going to do it anyway, despite whatever he said, I should get on with it, because it took too much manpower to track me all over the city. He always sent guards to shadow me, and I usually dumped them before getting to your apartment. He said his life would be a lot easier if I just moved you into the Keep.”
“Is that why you wanted me here?”
Curran leaned forward. The mask that was his face vanished. “I wanted you here because I wanted to be with you. For better or worse, Kate. You didn’t brainwash me the way your mother did. You don’t have her powers. You have the complete opposite, if anything.”
All or nothing. “Did you know that Roland was my father before I told you?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly I was ice cold.
“How?”
“Breaking Roland’s sword was a big clue,” he said. “Jim obtained some pictures of Roland. You resemble him. And there is a story floating around about a child Roland supposedly killed. I put two and two together.”
I had agonized about telling him who I was. It took every shred of will to admit it, and he had it all figured out already. “And you let me sit there and tell you all about it, when you already knew?”
“It was important,” Curran said. “You had to do it, so I listened.”
“Did you take who I was into consideration before you offered me the mating?”
Curran leaned forward. A faint glow touched his eyes and vanished. “Of course I did.”
And here it was. At least he hadn’t lied. Deep down I had known it. Curran was too used to calculating the odds. Like Evdokia said, it wasn’t his first time at the love rodeo. It’s not like he would have fallen head over heels into it, the way I did.