Well, he hadn’t seen that one coming. He let his head sag back against the seat rest as he muttered, “Fuck.”
Hey, Olivia said. She leaned forward, looking earnest. Give her a chance. I know she’s not very likeable, and she certainly isn’t housebroken. But Grace and Khalil have invested a lot in her rehabilitation, and Carling would never have agreed to the bargain if she thought Phaedra wouldn’t hold up her end of things. Plus, she backed down when you confronted her. She’s here on the plane, isn’t she? That’s because she made a promise to her father, and keeping her word matters to her. She’s not a pariah. She’ll do her job.
He regarded her steadily, unconvinced. He was more than halfway inclined to boot Phaedra off the team and insist that Carling bargain for another Djinn to guard the passageway while they worked.
Then, suddenly curious, he asked, Why does this matter so much to you? You certainly don’t sound as if you like her much, yourself.
She ran her fingers through her hair, clearly at a loss as to what to say. As he waited without prompting her, his gaze traveled down the angle of her neck, along the graceful arch of her collarbones, and farther down to the hint of cleavage at the scooped neckline of her shirt.
Something about her moved him. He could not figure out what it was. He’d always enjoyed women, and he had lost count of how many lovers he had taken by the time he was forty. Now he was over two hundred years old, and his species of Wyr did not live much past two hundred and fifty.
She was just another woman, like countless others. He knew without having ever seen them that her breasts would be charming, with either pink nipples or brown, and the indentation of her waist would fit perfectly underneath his hands. The skin at the back of her knees would taste delicate against his tongue, and her private flesh would be sumptuous, delightful.
None of that was surprising, and certainly none of it was original.
Perhaps what moved him was the composition of her curvaceous body against the straight architecture of the seat, or the contrast of how her pale skin looked dappled in shadow and the slanted sunlight from the nearby window. Or perhaps it was something different altogether, a secret of the spirit encased in her flesh. Or even her struggle to provide a thoughtful reply to his question. Perhaps it was simply her intelligence.
Then she dropped her hands from her hair and folded them on the table. Something coalesced in her, a decision or an understanding. She looked in the direction of his eyes, hidden behind his sunglasses. With her expression quiet and composed, she said, Because she loves a couple of vulnerable human children. And because if I were deemed a lost cause, as she has been, I would want someone to fight for me.
That was it, he thought. Whatever that was, encapsulated in the moment of decision and framed by her words.
That was what caught at him and held his interest, that intangible, ineffable thing.
During their telepathic conversation, the plane had finished its climb in altitude. The delicious smell of cooked food wafted from the galley. Sebastian unbuckled his seat belt and stood briefly to get everyone’s attention.
He said, “We’re going to eat lunch now, and after everybody has finished their meal, we’ll have our meeting. We’ll be busy when we hit the tarmac at SFO, so think of what questions you would like to ask now.”
Olivia peered around the corner of her seat at the others while he spoke. She did not see much friendliness in the expressions of those that glanced at her. Between arriving in the midst of a very Djinn-like flourish, mouthing off more than once and now sitting with the expedition leader, it appeared that she had managed to alienate herself from just about everybody in the group.
Dendera spoke up. She had a light, sandy voice. “I want to meet with the other symbologists too.”
Sebastian nodded. “We’ll have time for that.”
As Sebastian slid back into his seat, the flight attendant wheeled out a cart laden with their lunches. Olivia had chosen the Dover sole, while Sebastian had chosen both the sole and the filet. Apparently he was finished with their conversation, for he turned on his laptop and worked in silence while he ate.
She didn’t mind. A little of his forceful presence went a long way. Even with the mental distance he set up between them, she was excruciatingly aware of every move he made, from his quick, decisive bites of food to the rapid typing on his keyboard. Once he shifted in his seat, and his jeans-clad calf brushed against hers. She felt as if he had stroked her naked leg with the palm of his hand. She shivered in reaction, and he seemed to pause what he was doing.