Jaded (31 page)

The front door opened and footsteps sounded in the foyer and corridor. He knew who it was because he recognized the cadence. Byron opened his eyes as Alek entered the room. He knew his expression looked stormy—it matched the way he felt. “She was sorry you weren’t there to see her off. In fact, I believe she was quite hurt. Where did you go?” He couldn’t keep the hostility from his voice.

“I couldn’t say good-bye to her.” Alek looked down into his hand. A ring box lay in his palm. “I
won’t
say good-bye to her. I had to go get this. It was my mother’s.”

Byron stared at the box for a moment, then snarled. “You’re a fool.”

“I think you’re just worried she’ll agree to marry me and you’ll lose her forever. You love her as much as I do. It doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t need to be shut out.”

“What do you mean, share her?”

Alek closed his hand, his arm dropping to his side. “We both love her and I believe she loves us in return.”

“You’re crazy.” Byron stalked to the fireplace and turned his back to him, his hands on the mantel. “She’s got a whole drawer full of little boxes just like that. You’re going to be rejected and come back here brokenhearted.”

“I know that’s what you’re afraid of. You don’t want to be like all those other men she’s turned down. Is your pride really that strong, Byron? You’ll let the one woman you love go just because you’re afraid she’ll tell you she doesn’t feel the same way?”

His hand tightened on the wood. That would kill him. Destroy him. He couldn’t bear to hear words like that coming out of Lilya’s mouth. “
Yes
,” he hissed.

“What if she says she loves you back, Byron? What then?”

“She won’t.”

“You don’t know that. Come with me.”

Byron whirled to face him. “You go and get your heart broken if you want to do that. If you’re so certain you’re somehow better than the other fifty men who have asked her to marry them, you go on ahead. I don’t have any wish to hear the rejection you’ll undoubtedly receive for your trouble.”

Alek’s face hardened. “I never pegged you for a coward, Byron.”

Byron stared at him for a long moment, the silence of the house suddenly pressing down on him so hard he couldn’t breathe. He tore past him, catching up his coat as he went. “I can’t stay here anymore,” he growled. “Good luck, Alek.”

He turned as Byron barreled through the doorway and into the foyer. “Where are you going?”

“Away.” His hand found the doorknob and he threw the door open. Cold winter air blasted him in the face. “For a long time,” he finished, looking out at the drifts of snow. Then it was his turn to slam the door as he left.

 

 

Ivan slipped in through the back door with minimum effort. Byron Andropov had fortified his defenses since his last visit, but it still didn’t take much for him to break in. He was the King of Crime in Milzyr; a few expensive locks meant nothing to him. He hadn’t even had to break the lovely expensive glass.

Once in the kitchen, he felt immediately that something was wrong. He knew that Lilya had left for the city earlier that day; he’d seen her terse final exchange with Byron in front of the steam transport and noted with contentment that Alek had not even bothered to show up to say good-bye to her. But he hadn’t known that the men had also left.

The house felt empty to him and all the hearths were cold. Hell, even his breath showed white in the air of the kitchen. It seemed like no one had been in the house for a long time, though he knew that Byron and Alek had returned to it earlier that day.

Just to make sure, he made his way up the stairs and checked all the bedrooms, first Alek’s and then Byron’s.

“Fuck!” he bellowed into the quiet air as he stood next to Byron’s empty bed. He took his dagger out of his pocket and slammed it into the pillow again and again, sending clouds of feathers into the air.

Then he turned, grabbed a vase from a nearby table, and hurled it against the door. He stalked around the room, destroying everything he could, ripping the pictures from the wall and smashing the end tables against the floor.

Breathing hard, but feeling a little better, he came to a stop in the middle of the shattered room and ran a hand through his hair. He’d been counting on the men being here tonight so he could slit their throats in their sleep. Now, with no sign they’d be returning anytime soon, that would have to wait.

He needed to get back to Milzyr and make sure Lilya was once again where she belonged.

S
he wasn’t at the Temple of Dreams.

Ivan turned the corner of the block where the building was located, only barely able to contain his rage. He’d even gone there himself. He’d never once personally set foot in that place until today. The woman who answered the door had recognized him right off and had paled. She’d paled even more when he’d asked after Lilya.

Clearly Lilya hadn’t kept her history a secret from everyone.

But Lilya wasn’t there. Hadn’t even so much as stopped there when she’d returned from Milzyr and had sent word she would never return. She hadn’t even sent for her things, according to the woman who’d answered the door, instead she’d donated everything to some of the other women who needed them.

How . . . fucking . . .
sweet
.

No, Lilya hadn’t left a forwarding address, said the woman when he’d asked. That was fine. He knew where she’d be. She still owned property across town. Byron’s old place.

And that’s when the rage had set in.

Nothing he’d seen in Ulstrat had been what he’d presumed. He stood on a street corner, watching carriages drive past, a boy hawking newspapers on the corner, smoke curling from the chimney of a nearby cook shop. The snow in the streets looked grimy from the passing of carriages and the muck from the smokestacks.

Everything he’d watched between Lilya and the men replayed in his mind. The scene at the crossball stadium hadn’t been Lilya being cold and removed from the men because she disliked them—it had probably been because she’d cared for them and it frightened her. The way she’d embraced Byron at the transport station and immediately turned to get onto the train hadn’t been because she’d been ready to leave—it had been because she’d been ready
to cry
. And Alek Chaikoveii not being present? In his mind it suddenly became not a lack of caring,
but far too much caring
.

His hands fisted at his sides, fingernails digging into his palms so hard he nearly drew his own blood. Lilya wasn’t going back to the Temple of Dreams because something had changed significantly in Ulstrat, something that made it impossible for her to take up her old life again.

And that made Ivan very unhappy.

Because of the way she’d left Byron at the station, Ivan presumed there was no happily ever after in the offing for them. Perhaps Lilya’s broken heart prevented her from returning to the temple. Of course, add in Byron’s absence at his home in Ulstrat and perhaps a happy ending
was
plausible. Maybe Byron needed to go off on some sort of business, making her sad he’d be away from her, and she’d returned to the city to get their love nest ready for his return.

Either way, Ivan wasn’t getting what he wanted and he
always
got what he wanted . . . eventually, anyway.

This changed nothing for the men. They both needed to die as soon as he could locate them.

But . . . Lilya.

Well, this changed things for Lilya significantly.

It seemed he could no longer take the hands-off approach with her. No, it was definitely time to lay
hands on
.

 

 

“She’s beautiful,” Lilya breathed, moving the blanket away from the baby’s face and gazing on the pout of her lips. “Both of them.” She met Gregorio’s gaze, the proud father who held the other little girl snug in his arms.

“Thank you.” Evangeline sat on the couch in Lilya’s living room, gently rocking the sleeping girl. “So, you were right.
Twins.
”

Lilya sat down next to Anatol, who was wrangling their two-year-old son, Nicoli. Anatol looked at her. “Yes, gods help us,” he groaned, catching the tot around the waist before he could bolt into the hallway.

Lilya laughed. “Don’t give me that. You love it.”

“It’s just lucky there are three of us,” said Gregorio in a low voice from across the room.

“I wonder if they’ll be magicked.” Lilya caught the scampering boy, who was chasing the stray cat Lilya had adopted only that morning, and gave him a quick kiss on the head.

“Time will tell on that score.” Evangeline gazed down into her three-week-old daughter’s face, smiling gently.

The glow of motherhood sat well on her. It was something that Lilya never would have been able to imagine for her when they’d first met. Evangeline and Anatol had been homeless and penniless J’Edaeii who’d been running from the mob of the revolution. As an added obstacle, Evangeline had suffered a terrible backlash from her magick, making her emotionless all her life. But the stress of her situation during the initial days of the revolution had broken all the walls she’d built to dam her emotion and uncontrollable raucous, raw feeling had poured through her. It had complicated an already bad situation.

Lilya was happy for Evangeline, but watching her with that babe in her arms, surrounded by the men who loved her, made her wistful too. It would take her a while to get over having Byron and Alek for those three weeks and then losing them. Eventually, she would be all right. She just needed to hang on until time taught her to deal with her loss.

She looked up to find Anatol looking at her in that way he had. Anatol’s magick was shaping light into illusion, but there was a backlash to his magick too. While he could create lies for the eye, he could also see the truth of people.

“You’re hurting really badly right now, aren’t you, Lilya?” he asked.

She gave him a small smile. “I’d say no, but you’d know I was lying.”

“I would. I can see what it is you need.”

She laughed. “I’ll never get what I need, Anatol.” The words didn’t sound bitter; they sounded truthful.

Just then someone knocked at her door. “I’m not expecting anyone.” Frowning, she got up to answer it. Her heart skipped when she opened the door and found Alek on her doorstep.

“Hello, Lilya.”

She gripped the door so hard her fingers turned white. “How did you know where to find me?”

“When you weren’t at the Temple of Dreams, it wasn’t hard to guess where you’d gone.”

“What are you doing here?”

He smiled, peering into the house. “Can I come in?”

“Oh.” She backed away from the door. “I’m sorry. Of course.”

He entered the house just as Anatol was rounding his family up to leave. He leveled a meaningful look at her. “It’s time we were going.”

“You just got here! You don’t have to leave.”

Anatol shook Alek’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Anatol, a friend of Lilya’s. That’s Evangeline and Gregorio.” He motioned to Gregorio and Evangeline who were getting the babies ready. Nicoli ran over and took his hand, beaming up at Alek, making Alek laugh. “And this is our son, Nicoli.”

“Gregorio Vikhin?” Alek asked.

Gregorio waved a hand clutched around a baby bottle. “I am.”

Alek nodded. “Then all of you know my friend, Byron Andropov.”

Anatol looked at Lilya, his eyebrows rising. She hadn’t said a word to any of them about Alek or Byron, but Anatol was getting the shape of things from his magick. “Yes, we all know him very well.”

Gregorio walked over with his infant daughter tucked against his brawny chest, the picture of fatherly protection. “Byron has been very active and generous in getting a magickal education program started both in the government and at the university. He’s told us about you, Alek.”

“You have healing magick,” Evangeline said, approaching them with the other sleeping infant. “That’s very strong and rare. Byron wants you to come into the education program and train it.”

Alek’s lips twisted. “I’m aware.” He paused, looking at Lilya. “And I intend to do just that. Someone very special has convinced me that I need to stop being so selfish and share my ability with the world.”

Lilya smiled at him, warmth blossoming in her chest. “I’m very glad to hear that.”

A smile broke out across Evangeline’s mouth. “That’s wonderful news! We’ll expect you at the university, then.”

Alek nodded at her. “I’ll be there.”

They all said their good-byes and with a flurry of baby blankets, bottles, and a few toddler toys, they were gone. Alek watched them climb into their carriage outside. “They seem like a happy and loving family.”

Lilya came to stand next to him. “They are.”

“I want what they have.” Alek turned to her and pulled a ring box from his pocket and opened it up to reveal a sparkling sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring. “With you, Lilya.”