“My father’s not a bad male, he really isn’t.”
“God, of course not. He’s just a traditional one, who’s worried about his daughter in a troubling world. It’s not an issue of good and bad. What it is about is your right to live a life even though you’re a female in a rigid social role.”
Elise exhaled. “How did you get into the training program at all? I mean, I’ve heard that they’ll allow females, but …”
As she continued to speak, some kind of split-personality thing happened—half of her plugged into the conversation with Paradise, the other part of her right with that male, sensing his body, his presence, his power.
The effect he had on her was nothing like Troy, she thought. With the human in that library, she’d felt as though she was in front of a banked fire, where you kind of thought, Huh, maybe I’ll sit here and put my palms out and feel the warmth. Or maybe I’ll just stay where I am and admire the view of the flames. Or … what the hell, let me pick up a book and read for a while.
A lot of pleasant, non-threatening, but certainly interested, reflection.
That male in shadows over there? It was more like she was frozen to the bone and starving because she had wandered off a trail in a December snowstorm, and seventeen days later she was still tripping through the drifts, on the verge of collapse, her lungs stinging from a lack of oxygen, her head spinning, her whole body aching … and there, there on the horizon, was an acres-wide bonfire set by a lightning strike in the forest, the flames eating up the landscape, the blaze overwhelming and terrifying, deadly …
But nonetheless the only source of heat with which to warm her tortured, half-dead, frostbitten body.
Oh, and actually, add a buffet of her favorite foods right in front of the giant hot mess.
With, like, four hundred pounds of Lindt chocolate on it.
And pasta. And champagne.
Yeah, that male was not any kind of pleasant reflection. Not even a choice, really. He was a compulsion to get to the beacon he was sending out.
And to hell with the consequences.
“… talk to your father.”
Elise kicked her own butt and replugged into Paradise. “I’m sorry?”
“Your father,” the female said. “My father would absolutely speak with him.”
“Speak to whom? My sire?”
“What better way to try and change his mind? My father worries about me, and he’s from that old-school way of doing things, but he’s evolved his thinking. If anyone can talk your father off the cliff? It’s him.”
“Oh, my God … that would be amazing.” Tears made her eyes water. “But why would you—”
Paradise took Elise’s hand. “Because I know how hard it is.”
The unexpected empathy was a breathtaker, and Elise got jammed up on the kindness. It was so hard to battle alone the glymera and its restrictions on females, so impossible to argue with standards that she hadn’t volunteered for and didn’t believe in, but that were, nonetheless, running her life. And it wasn’t until this moment that Elise realized she had given up before she had even started fighting because there had been no hope, short of running away, of altering her father’s legal and social authority over her.
“But he’s going to get me declared as sehcluded,” Elise said. “If he does that, I’m finished. It’s over before it starts.”
“When is he making the petition?”
“Right now, I think. He’s gone to the Audience House right now—that’s the only reason I could leave to come here.”
Paradise got her phone out and stood up. “Gimme a minute.”
As the female went in search of a quieter place to make a call, Elise wiped her eyes. And when she took a deep inhale and shifted in her chair, she looked across—
The male was still staring at her, that massive body of his eased back in his seat, his knees spread wide, his drink in one long hand, the other up to his chin, his fingers on his mouth.
Like maybe he was kissing her in his mind.
Elise’s body flashed with heat, the blast emanating through her veins in reply to those eyes of his, that erotic way he was lounging, that all-consuming intent he was spotlighting her with. But it was funny. As direct as his stare was and as unmistakable as the erotic tension was? He didn’t make a move to come over and talk to her.
Even though she was very sure he was imagining them making love—
“This is all going to work out,” Peyton said as he hopped into Paradise’s vacant seat. “It’s all gonna be fine.”
Switching gears—badly—Elise met her cousin’s eyes. “Ah … I hope so. And thank you for helping. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“I told you. Anytime, anywhere, I’m here.”
Peyton puffed on his cigar, releasing clouds of gray smoke that drifted over his head. As he motioned with his hand to a waiter, and then circled the empty glasses on the low table, she had the distinct impression he came here often. Then again, maybe he was just sublimely comfortable and confident in the world.
Something to aspire to.
As he joked with the male Paradise had been holding hands with, and then laughed at something the guy said, Elise couldn’t help measuring her cousin’s face. Peyton was handsome as could be, the kind of guy everyone looked at and wanted to know … but he’d never been happy—at least not that she’d been able to see. And he certainly wasn’t now. Underneath the snark and the sexy affect, she sensed he wasn’t tracking, an essential detachment separating him from the world.
He was suffering in silence. Mourning alone. Rattled but pretending everything was normal.
What had his ties to Allishon been? Of all the people who could have announced her death to the family, why had it been him?
Had he found her or something?
“How are you?” she asked quietly. “You know, after Allishon’s—”
“I’m awesome, are you kidding me?” He shifted forward and tapped the ash off the fat, glowing end of his cigar. “I’m spectacular.”
His eyes were empty as he smiled at her, and abruptly, she felt like crying all over again. But if he could be strong, so could she.
And then Paradise was back and sitting down in the lap of the trainee she’d been holding hands with. “My father’s going to talk to him right now.”
Elise closed her eyes in relief. “Oh, thank you, thank you so much … I really hope he can help.”
“My father has a way about him that really calms people down.” Paradise looked at her male with love in her eyes and smiled. “And as traditional as he can be, he knows that that isn’t everything.”
No, Axe told his libido. No, absolutely not. You are not going to have that female.
Forget it. Drop it. Walk away.