city of dragons 03 - fire magic (17 page)

He supported me, kissing the top of my head, my forehead, my eyebrows. “I’m an idiot,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, clutching him. “You are.” But maybe I was too. Maybe he was right when he said I ran from things. Maybe that flight had been literal proof of that.

“I thought…” He cupped my face with both hands, looking into my eyes. “I thought that I needed to stop trying to protect you, because I was bad at protecting things. But I realized I can’t stop. Even if I am bad at it, I want you safe, and I’ll do anything I can do, anything you’ll let me do.”

I gazed at him. “I’m sorry I ran away. It doesn’t work. It only makes me tired to keep running.”

“You run all you want,” he said. “I’ll be here when you come back. I’ll chase you if you go too far. I’m terrified of all of this. I’m scared as hell I’ll lose you. I’m scared as hell we’ll lose the baby, and I’m scared as hell of how scared I am, because the feelings I have about that little tiny being inside you are already so big—too big—”

“Lachlan,” I murmured. I kissed him.

He kissed back. And then he kissed my jaw. And my earlobe. “I’m scared, but I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

I clutched him. “Me either. No more running. Whatever happens, I’m facing it.”

He stroked the back of my head. “We’ll face it together.”

“Together,” I repeated, pressing close to him.

He nuzzled my neck.

Little thrills went through me.

He groaned softly. “I want…”

I felt the scrape of his fangs against my skin.

His breath was labored. “I want to taste you.”

“Yes,” I gasped.

And his teeth pierced me.

And then we were all wrapped in a rainbow of swirling light and love—me, Lachlan, and the baby, who was reaching out for both of us, tiny and perfect and eager.

* * *

Lachlan and I were both naked, tangled up on my bed. I lay on his shoulder, my leg thrown over his body.

We were out of breath.

“It’s maybe weird doing that with the baby?” Lachlan panted.

“Not weird,” I said, raising my head to look at him. “I don’t think it’s weird at all. I think it’s natural and good.”

“Yeah,” he shut his eyes. His voice dropped to a gravelly drawl. “
Very
good.”

I couldn’t help but giggle.

Then there was a knock on my door.

I groaned. “Go tell whoever it is to go away.”

“You want me to get up?” said Lachlan.

“Yes,” I said. “This is your protector job, as the man. You get up and get rid of that person.”

He laughed softly. “You got it.” He kissed me on the nose and started to extricate himself from me.

I held onto him. “Oh, no, I don’t want you to go.”

He laughed again. “You can’t have it both ways.”

“Why not?” I pouted.

The knock again. “Penny?” called a voice. It was Connor.

I rolled my eyes. “Go tell Connor I’m indisposed.”

Lachlan eased off the bed, chuckling and looking for his pants. He sat down on the bed to pull them on.

“Penny, I need to talk to you!” Another knock.

I sighed. “Damn it.” I got up and pulled on my robe and went up the hallway to answer the door. “What’s up, Connor?” I said.

He pushed past me, into the apartment. “Brian left.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Did he go back to Darrell?”

Connor nodded. “Yes, he did, and I told him it was crazy, but he says he misses him, and this is all after we—” He broke off, looking over my shoulder.

I turned to see that Lachlan was in the hallway, chest bare, feet bare. His hair was a little mussed, and he looked soft and male and wonderful. I smiled at him, feeling my heart leap. I felt… settled in a way that I hadn’t before. Something between us had changed.

“Well,” said Connor. “Hello, detective.”

Lachlan winked at him.

Connor’s jaw dropped open. “You can’t do
that
.”

Lachlan laughed, leaning against the wall. “You and the gargoyle keep telling me I can’t do things, and yet—”

“Yes, yes, you’re horrible,” I told him, but I was still smiling. I turned back to Connor. “You going to keep ogling my boyfriend or what?”

“Sorry.” Connor looked at his feet. “He’s practically naked, though. I mean, why the hell is he running around unclothed like—
oh
.” He eyed my robe. “I’m interrupting something, aren’t I?”

“If you were interrupting, I wouldn’t have answered the door,” I said, pointing to the couch. “Sit down, tell me what’s up.”

Connor sat down. He studied his palms. “What’s up is what I said. Brian left.”

I sat down next to him. “I hate to be that person, but I did tell you this might happen.”

“But we got rid of Darrell. We scared him off that night, and I thought Brian was free of him, and Brian and I…”

“Brian and you what?” I said. “Didn’t I tell you not to get romantically entangled with him?”

“It wasn’t exactly romance,” said Connor. “It was just… you know, mutual attraction and physical comfort.”

I sighed. “You slept with him?”

Connor shrugged. “Kind of.”

Lachlan sat down on the easy chair opposite us. “Who’s Brian? He the boyfriend of the guy who broke all the lights out by the pool?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well,” said Lachlan, “maybe it’s better that he’s gone. I don’t know if I want some violent guy coming around here and giving you trouble.”

“But now he’s going to give Brian trouble,” said Connor. “And the last time he was here, his face was all messed up, and he was so hurt, and I just…” He clenched his hands into fists. “Why would he go back?”

I sat back on the couch, letting out a whoosh of air.

“You never went back to Alastair,” said Connor.

“No,” I said, “not after the time that I
really
left.”

“What do you mean?” said Connor.

“I had a friend try to convince me to leave him once,” I said. “I went along with it for a night or two. I even thought maybe I’d actually leave. But then Alastair came by, and I felt the mating bond, and I couldn’t resist him, so I went back home with him. Alastair made me cut that friend out of my life after that.”

“Okay,” said Connor. “You had the mating bond, but Brian doesn’t have that.”

“True,” I said.

“There’s still a bond there,” spoke up Lachlan. “I don’t know either Brian or this Darrell guy, but I know that in a relationship, even a bad one, there’s a bond. It’s not easy to walk away from someone, no matter how much it hurts you to be with them.”

“Okay, fine,” said Connor. “But he acted like he wanted to walk away. And if I hadn’t thought for sure that things were over between him and his boyfriend, I never would have slept with him.” He considered. “Well, okay, that’s not necessarily true, because I would sleep with a guy in a relationship if they had an open-door policy about it, and it was all okay. But not if the guy was crashing on my couch. I mean, Brian was practically living with me.”

“That’s why I told you not to get involved with him,” I said.

Connor laughed. “You make that sound so easy.”

“But it’s not,” said Lachlan.

Connor looked at him. “No.”

“Sometimes, despite all your best intentions to keep your hands to yourself, things happen anyway,” said Lachlan, but now he was looking at me.

I smiled at him. Then I turned back to Connor. “I’m really sorry he left. Do you want a hug?”

He eyed me, wrinkling up his nose. “What were you doing before I came in here?”

I laughed. “Okay, no hug.”

“I guess we can’t go steal Brian back from Darrell?” said Connor.

“Wouldn’t work,” said Lachlan.

“But they do that to deprogram people from cults sometimes,” said Connor. “This could kind of be the same thing.”

“Kidnapping is kidnapping,” said Lachlan. “You do something like that, you not only wouldn’t help Brian, you’d be running from an arrest.”

Connor sighed.

Running from an arrest…
I furrowed my brow. “Elizabeth said something about Alastair having to go to another country. He said that to me, but how did she know that he was planning to do that?”

“He must have told her,” said Lachlan.

“When?” I said. “What if she’s lying about talking to Alastair later? What if she did talk to him after he disappeared?”

“Ooh,” said Connor. “I was just figuring how to look up cell phone records, so that I could see if Brian had been calling Darrell the whole time he was with me.” He shot a glance at Lachlan. “Is that illegal to do that?”

Lachlan laughed. “Uh, I’m suspended from the police force, so…”

“Right,” said Connor. He turned back to me. “Anyway, I could maybe hack into Elizabeth’s phone records if you want. I’ve got nothing to do right now, and I need something to take my mind off of Brian, and if Lachlan doesn’t care how legal it is…”

“Go nuts,” said Lachlan.

“Thanks,” I said. “We’d appreciate anything you find out.”

“But,” said Lachlan, “the reason that she knew about it is probably because of that phone call she had with Alastair that night, the one that supposedly sent her to her car to drive down to Sea City.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “How could I have forgotten that? She did talk to Alastair.” I looked up at Connor. “Never mind.”

“No,” said Lachlan. “If you can access the records, do it anyway. Alastair trusted his sister. They were close. If he didn’t die that night, and he called someone, it would have been her.”

* * *

I woke up the next morning to Lachlan nuzzling my ear. But I felt like I was going to vomit, so I had to push him away and go to the refrigerator for my Greek yogurt.

He stumbled out to find me leaning against the refrigerator shoveling it into my mouth. “I need protein in the morning,” I said.

“You nauseous?” he said.

I nodded.

“Sorry,” he said. He yawned and scratched under his chin, which was showing a little bit of stubble growing in. “Next time, just shove me and tell me to go get the yogurt.” He gestured to his wrists. “Debra had these bracelet things. Sea-bands or something? She swore by them.”

“Debra’s your, um, ex-wife?” I said.

“Wow, I never told you her name, huh?” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “Is it weird if I talk about her?”

“No,” I said. “But you usually don’t.”

“Yeah, usually, it just makes me feel crazy. But…” He crossed the distance between us, and wound an arm around my waist. He kissed my temple. “I don’t know. Things feel…”

“Different,” I said, looking up at him.

“Yeah.” He smiled.

I ate yogurt. “Uh, what happened to her, anyway?”

“To Debra?” said Lachlan, letting go of me.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

He wandered away from me, becoming very interested in the sink. “She, uh, was a wreck after Hailey, and then she started fucking my partner—whose name is Steve, incidentally—and then she got pregnant—with twins, I heard—and they got married, I think, and…” He looked up at me. “I don’t really know. I kind of cut her off.”

I nodded slowly. “Did she… What was his name? Timmy, you said?”

Lachlan’s jaw twitched. “She doesn’t talk to him. He’s locked up. I think his dad keeps in touch, but she cut him off.”

“Yeah.” I ate more yogurt. “You would have to. I mean…”

“She might have changed her mind after some time.” He ran his finger over the faucet. “You would, I think. He’s her kid, after all.”

I nodded again.

It was quiet. Awkward quiet, but somehow a good quiet too. I had always felt these sort of topics were off-limits before, that they might set Lachlan off. But talking about it was… good somehow.

“I mean, if it had been the other way around…” His voice was choked. “If it had been Hailey, and she had done something like…”

“But that didn’t happen.” I went to him, put a hand on his bicep.

He looked into my eyes. “No, it didn’t.” He put his hand over mine, and then let it trail over my skin to settle on my belly. “But I just don’t want you to think that there’s any kind of circumstance that would make me abandon our kid.”

I licked my lips. So, now it was ours, hmm? Good. I wanted it that way, no matter what the stupid paternity test said.

“I feel like I should say that, because I was being such an ass yesterday,” he said.

“It’s good that you said it.” I ate the last bite of yogurt. I set down the container on the counter. I pressed close to him. “I like that you said it,” I breathed.

“Not feeling nauseous anymore?” he said in a low voice.

“Mmm… it’s getting better,” I said, kissing him.

He wound an arm around my waist and crushed me close.

We kissed for a while.

When we stopped, I kept one hand linked with his. “So, I would like to just do that all morning, but…”

“You’re starving,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, I could use some blood.” He pointed at my refrigerator. “Maybe it would be cool if I kept some here.”

“I would probably drink it all,” I said. “But yes. There should be blood.”

“Just nuke it,” he said. “Like the doctor said.”

“Yes, yes, I’m doing that,” I said.

“And there’s a list of things you’re not supposed to be eating, like lunch meat and soft cheeses and sushi and—”

“I
have
been pregnant before, Lachlan.”

“Right,” he said. “We should get dressed and go to the Flamingo, shouldn’t we?”

“Yes,” I said.

And then we kissed some more.

Downstairs in the lobby, there was a stack of printouts waiting for us from Connor. He’d put a note on the top saying that he’d circled the calls to Alastair.

Lachlan took it from me before I had a chance to look at it. He flipped through. “She definitely talked to him after he disappeared. Look, right here.” He pointed. “And here.”

“Wow,” I peered at the piece of paper. “So, our timeline on this murder is all wrong.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Are you allowed to access my cell phone records without my permission?” said Elizabeth. She was sitting on the same couch, glaring at both of us.