David nodded to the toddler she held. “I see you’ve already made a new friend.”
“Yes. She’s beautiful.” As with Seth, there was just something about this man that screamed power. Dana actually found herself a little tongue-tied around him.
“And as happy to have you here as the rest of us are. Seth has informed me of this afternoon’s events.”
Aidan’s expression sobered. “Have they caught Gershom?”
“Not yet. They’re pursuing him now.”
Tracy and Sheldon exchanged a look.
“Seth got a lead on Gershom?” Sheldon asked, all business now.
David nodded. “Gershom posed as Seth and attacked Aidan this afternoon.”
Sheldon’s eyes widened. “Shit!”
Tracy popped him on the back of the head.
He glanced at Adira. “I mean shoot!”
David held up a hand to halt the questions that otherwise would’ve poured forth. “We’ll discuss it later. Right now Aidan needs a healing sleep.”
Sheldon nodded. “Of course.” He handed Aidan the plate of sandwiches. “Let us know if you two need anything.” Taking Tracy’s hand, he headed down the hallway.
“With all that’s happening,” Aidan said, lowering his voice, “I’m surprised you let Sheldon take Adira to the park.”
David’s lips turned up in a wry smile. “I followed and watched over them in the form of a crow.”
He could shape-shift? “That is so cool,” Dana murmured.
David’s smile broadened. “Fun, too.” He turned his gaze to Adira. “Come here, sweetheart. Uncle Aidan and Auntie Dana need to get some rest.”
“You heard that, did you?” Aidan asked.
“The Auntie Dana? Yes, I did.”
Adira smiled and let Dana transfer her to David’s arms. Reaching over his shoulder, Adira pulled one of his dreadlocks forward and began to play with it.
“I hope you will enjoy your stay in my home, Dana. I’ve had a room prepared for you both. Would you like to see it?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
Aidan nodded. “Thank you, David. I appreciate it.”
David motioned for them to accompany him down the hallway. “This way.”
Dana glanced curiously into the rooms they passed. A bathroom. A huge study/library. What appeared to be a medical facility of some sort. Perhaps an infirmary?
When David passed through a doorway and led them down a flight of stairs, disappointment threatened. They would be sleeping in the basement?
Her eyebrows rose though when they reached the foot of the stairs.
On their left, a pair of open double doors revealed a gym or training room roughly the size of a high school gymnasium with a padded floor, a wall of mirrors and a lot of exercise equipment.
That must be for the Seconds, since immortals were already superstrong.
On the right, a long, elegant hallway with at least a dozen doors stretched before them. Lovely dark wood floors. Earth-toned walls adorned with modern paintings. A high white ceiling with recessed lighting. Wingback chairs stationed in twos. Plant stands supporting plants that somehow thrived without any sun exposure.
Very nice.
Aidan nudged her shoulder, amusement dancing in his eyes. You were expecting something cold and damp and crypt-like?
She grinned. Maybe.
David led them down the hallway, stopping in front of the next-to-last door on the right. Opening it, he motioned for them to enter.
Dana stepped inside a large, sumptuous bedroom with an adjoining bathroom.
Aidan followed. “Thank you again, David.”
Smiling, he turned to Dana. “My home is your home, Dana. You are welcome to explore it as you will. Grab a snack from the kitchen. A book from my study. Whatever will make you comfortable. I only ask that you knock first before entering any of the rooms down here, save the training room, because they are bedrooms and most are occupied.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”
He clapped Aidan on the shoulder. “Get some rest.”
David turned and headed back down the hallway, Adira waving at them over his shoulder. Aidan waved to the little cutie, then closed the door.
“He’s so nice,” Dana said.
Nodding, Aidan shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the wooden back of a nearby chair. “Go ahead and ask me.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Ask you what?”
“The question you’ve been wanting to ask ever since Sheldon opened his yap upstairs. He’s bound to blurt it out eventually, so I’d just as soon get it out of the way.”
“Are you sure?” Dana saw the way his shoulders slumped with weariness. And David had said he needed a healing sleep. “It can wait.”
“I’m sure.” Sinking down in the chair, he began to tug on the laces of one boot.
She drew in a deep breath. “How old are you?”
Pulling the boot off, he set it aside. “I’ve lived just shy of three thousand years.”
She stared at him. She had heard thousand, but he must have said hundred, right? “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard that correctly.”
He went to work on his other boot. “You heard it right.”
Shock and dismay warred within her. “You’re three thousand years old?”
He winced, his expression almost apologetic. “Almost.”
A heavy silence enveloped them as he removed the second boot and set it beside the first.
“Dana?” He seemed to be waiting for a comment, but…
“I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands between them. “If it helps, I look and feel a lot younger than that. Far younger since I met you and you breathed light and life back into my world.”
“You’re three thousand years old,” she whispered, not really hearing him. He was three thousand years old. And she was thirty. “Why are you even with me?” she blurted, insecurity rising.
His features filled with dread. “What?”
“Why are you even with me?” she repeated. “I mean, all the things you must have learned and the wisdom you must have accrued in three thousand years… I just don’t know what the hell about me would even appeal to you. I must seem so young and na?ve and-and-and lacking in knowledge and experience. I must seem like an adolescent to you.”
Her words seemed to take him aback. “What? No. Not at all.”
“Oh come on, Aidan,” she retorted, unable to believe him.
“Clearly I haven’t acquired as much wisdom as you think I have, because the reason I avoided telling you my age is I thought it would repel you or—how would Sheldon put it—creep you out.” He frowned. “Wait. Is that a saying? It sounds odd.”
“It’s a saying,” she confirmed, her dismay lightening a little with amusement.
“How long have you lived in North Carolina?” he asked.
She frowned at the change in subject. “Twelve years.”
“Where did you live before that?”
“Oklahoma.”
“In all my time on earth, I’ve never been to Oklahoma,” he told her. “Does my lack of knowledge regarding that state make you think less of me?”
“No, but that isn’t the same thing.”
“If the two of us went to Oklahoma, would showing me around seem like a chore to you?”