“Then Curran came and pulled me out of that cell, because you asked him to.” Saiman wouldn’t look at me, his gaze fixed on something distant. “I still have nightmares. There are nights when I keep a light on, as if I were a child. I.”
I pictured him inside his ultramodern apartment, with his lab, his art, and the trappings of his wealth, on the top floor of an enchanted tower, flicking the lamp on. Oh, Saiman.
Saiman glanced at me and there was sharp green ice in his eyes. He didn’t look human. He looked like a creature who had risen from a place where ancient ice never melted.
“I can’t leave the city. If I do, your father will find me. This will never end unless you stop him, so I will do whatever I can to help you.”
Curran stuffed the body into Saiman’s van.
“I’ll let you know what I find out,” Saiman said.
We watched him pull away.
“What do you think that was all about?” Curran asked.
“I think he’s scared of my father. He wants revenge.”
“Think he’ll sell us out?”
“No. Besides, if you can’t trust an ice giant driving a creeper van with a dead body inside, who can you trust?”
Curran chuckled.
“He knows this whole street houses shapeshifters and none of them are his fans. He drove into the mouth of the beast in the middle of the night. Odd. I’m surprised he didn’t call ahead.”
“He couldn’t,” Curran said. “I broke the phone.”
“How?”
“I crushed it.”
I turned and looked at him. Curran prided himself on his control, especially now that he was a father. He didn’t punch walls, break furniture, or scream. Even his roar was usually calculated. As much as I pushed and annoyed him, I had only seen him lose control beyond all reason once. Watching him hurl giant boulders off a mountain was a memorable experience. But he had never broken anything of ours before.
“Why did you smash the phone?”
“I was trying to put Conlan to bed and it kept ringing.”
“That is not okay.”
“I know. It was an impulse.”
“You don’t give in to impulses. What’s going on with you?”
“Who knows.”
“Curran?”
“Your dad is getting ready to attack us, that damn fae assassin is running around in Atlanta, people are being boiled, some ass is sending you boxes with flowers and knives and delegations of screwed-up monsters, our son was crying, and that idiot from Sunshine Realty called again asking if we wanted to sell our house. So, I squeezed the phone and it broke. I’ll buy us a new one.”
“I changed my mind,” I said. “Instead of sparring, let’s go and take a nice long bath while the kid is asleep.”
“Mmm.” His expression took on a speculative tint.
“Although with our luck, he’ll wake up as we go up the stairs.”
“I’ll carry you,” he told me. “It will be quieter.”
“No, it won’t.”
“You stomp like a rhino.”
“I glide like a silent killer.”
His eyes shone. “A cute rhino.”
“Cute?”
“Mm-hm.”
“See, now you’ve sealed your fate. I’ll have to kill you . . .”
He kissed me. It started tender and warm, like wandering through a dark, cold night and finding a warm fire. I sank into it, seduced by the promise of love and warmth, and suddenly it deepened, growing hot, hotter, scorching. His hand slipped into my hair. I leaned against him, eager for the heat . . .
“Get a room!” George called from across the street.
Damn it. We broke apart. Out of the corner of my eye I saw George drop a trash bag into the can. She was grinning.
Golden sparks shone in Curran’s eyes, so bright his eyes glowed. Well, how about that?
“We are going upstairs and taking that bath,” he said. “I’m not too proud to beg.”
Neither was I, and if he kissed me again, he would find that out. “What if our son wakes up and starts banging on the bathroom door while we’re busy in the tub?”
“I’ll threaten to wash him, and he’ll go right back to sleep.”
He took my hand, kissed my fingers, and we went upstairs.
CHAPTER
8
THE PROBLEM WITH having a son who’d discovered he was a shapeshifter was twofold. First, Conlan was a hyperactive toddler. Second, lions are cats, and cats like pouncing. They especially like pouncing on their happily sleeping parents and then bouncing up and down on the bed, flexing their claws.
“It’s six . . .” bounce “in the morning.” Bounce. “I thought . . .” bounce “you hunted . . . in the evening.”
“We’re . . .” bounce “adaptable.” Bounce. “Lions . . . are . . . crepuscular . . . active in . . . twilight.”
“Can we . . . make him . . . less active?”
Curran grabbed Conlan and pinned him down. “Stop annoying your mother.”
“Rawrarawara!”
“Why is he shifting all the time? Shouldn’t he shift once or twice every twenty-four hours and then pass out?”
“He’s special,” Curran said, holding Conlan down with one hand.
I groaned and put a pillow on my face. We’d had a late night and it was so worth it. But I could’ve really used another hour of sleep. Or five.
“I can take him to the backyard,” Curran offered.
“No, I’m up.” I crawled out of bed. “He must’ve been too tired from all the shape-changing to wake up last night. Now we’re paying for it.”
“See? There are some benefits to shifting.”
“Sure . . .” I dragged myself into the bathroom. I would need a big cup of coffee and at least two aspirins to make it through the morning.
When I came downstairs, Derek and Julie were in our kitchen. The box was still on the table, together with several symbol encyclopedias. I gave Derek a bleary-eyed look of doom. “Why are you up?”
“Curran wants me to come to the Guild.”
I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down next to Julie. “Anything?”
“It might be a symbol for intellect in Islamic mysticism. If you break the symbol into blaze symbols, it spells out Very Good—Doubtful—Very Good. It may or may not be a part of Illuminati cipher. I’m reasonably sure it’s not a hobo sign.”
I sighed. We had people being murdered and ancient abominations running through the streets, but yay, at least the hobos weren’t about to invade.
I looked through the stack of Julie’s notes. The symbol looked like something. I just couldn’t recall where I’d seen it.
Curran walked into the kitchen, carrying Conlan in human-baby form. The kid changed shapes faster than I could count.
“Roland is preparing for an invasion,” Curran said. “We found out yesterday.”
Both Julie and Derek paused.
“So, what does that mean?” Julie asked. “War? When?”
“We don’t know,” I said. “It depends on how he goes about it. He hasn’t brought Hugh back from his exile, or we would’ve heard about it, so at least we’re winning there.”
“D’Ambray might still prove a problem,” Curran said.
“I doubt it. It’s been years since he gave any signs of life,” I murmured, flipping through the pages. One of Julie’s drawings showed a wavy line inside the circles with two dots in the center. I’d definitely seen that before, but where?
“Maybe he’s married and living happily in some castle somewhere,” Julie said.
I barked a short laugh. “Hugh?”
She didn’t answer, so I looked up. Julie had a stubborn look on her face, the line of her jaw firm. Right. Me and my big mouth. Hugh had been bound to my father in the same way Julie was bound to me. He was her only example of what the future held for someone who was bound by our blood. I kept forgetting that every time Hugh was brought up, I needed to take care with what I said.
“I know you want him to find redemption, but that’s not who Hugh is. He is a wrecking ball. He destroys. If he hasn’t come back to kill me or any of us by now, he’s probably dead. Marriage and settling down isn’t for him. It doesn’t mean it’s not for you, but it’s not for him.”
“Sometimes you can be really closed-minded,” she said.
“Sometimes you hero-worship the wrong person, and when they fail you, it hurts.”
She gulped the rest of her tea and got up. “I’ve got to go to the Warren. Somebody is drawing these signs on the walls. I put out some feelers yesterday, so I have to go see if they pay off.”