Smoke and Fire: (7 page)

Henry faced Con. “No. It’s time I talk to her.”

Chapter Nineteen

Kinsey watched Henry’s face become as stoic as she’d seen Con’s. It was eerie how they could appear so indifferent with a flip of a switch.

Where the hell was her switch? Because she was still heated from Ryder’s touch earlier. Damn her traitorous body.

“Where is Esther?” Con asked Ryder.

While Ryder looked over the data that logged in every visitor, Kinsey studied the four monitors that had six camera feeds on each screen.

Ryder let out a sound as he typed something. “She didna log in under the same name as before, but I picked up her fingerprints.”

Kinsey was impressed. Fingerprint scan as well? When had Ryder done that? And how?

Her need to continue to learn and grow her skills made her itch to have him teach her. In their year together, Ryder had taught her so much, which helped to make her one of the best in the business.

At one time Kinsey actually thought she was catching up with him. She nearly snorted aloud at the thought. Ryder far surpassed everyone. If she were an immortal dragon, then she would probably be just as good.

Henry said, “Is she alone?”

It took but a moment for Ryder to answer, “Aye. She’s walking around the store inspecting the outside.”

“I’ll go to her.”

Con put out a hand to halt Henry. “She’s your sister, so I agree you should talk to her. However, if you want her brought—quietly—then you better let one of us do it.”

“Agreed,” Henry responded immediately.

Con’s black gaze swung to Ryder. “Let’s go.”

Kinsey released a breath when Con and Henry walked from the computer room. She needed some time alone to compose herself after she’d nearly given in to the urge to kiss Ryder.

What was wrong with her? What happened to that talk she gave herself earlier where she would stand like an oak against Ryder’s pull?

“I was a freaking twig,” she murmured.

“I’m sorry?”

Kinsey wondered what she had to do for karma to side with her instead of against her. She turned her head to Ryder and said, “Just talking to myself.”

Ryder pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “You coming?”

“Uh…” What did she say? She was curious, but this had nothing to do with her. “I think the less people standing around Esther the better.”

“Kins. Come on.”

It was pointless to argue with Ryder when he had that stern look in his eye. She jumped up and hurried to catch him. They were several steps behind Henry and Con.

“Why?” Kinsey asked. “Is it because you think I’ll find something on your computers?”

“No.”

Well. That stung. She was certainly good enough to hack through any firewall or protection Ryder put in place.

“The only one who can allow you access is me,” he said.

He didn’t trust her then. Not that she blamed him after how she came to be at Dreagan. She wouldn’t trust her either. “Then you want to see if Esther recognizes me.”

“No.”

Now Kinsey was out of ideas.

“Ulrik is smart enough to make sure that none of his people know each other so they can no’ compromise him or his objective,” Ryder explained.

Kinsey gave him a quick look out of the corner of her eyes. “You sound like you admire him.”

“I appreciate the time it took to put this plan in place. I also value his thinking in setting it all up. I respect his skills in battle.”

“Battle?” she repeated. “We’re not in battle yet.”

Ryder looked at her as they reached the bottom of the stairs and turned right. “We’ve been in battle with Ulrik since the moment he was banished from Dreagan. It’s taken some of the other Kings longer to realize that.”

“Did you no’ tell them?” she asked, her curiosity growing in spite of her inner voice warning her not to dig too deep. She was in a perilous situation with only an ex-boyfriend who promised to keep her safe.

Ryder shot her a half-smile. “I did.”

In other words, no one believed him. Or rather, Con hadn’t believed him. Kinsey stared at the back of Con’s blond head. He might be almost as gorgeous as Ryder, but there was a coldheartedness about him that made her want to keep her distance.

At all times.

As if he knew she was thinking about him, Con paused at the door and looked directly at her. Kinsey raised a brow. With someone like Con, she couldn’t show a hint of fear. Otherwise, he would pounce.

While she shuddered a bit inside, outwardly, she exuded calm and arrogance. Something a man like Con would recognize and most likely respect.

One side of his mouth lifted in a quick if-you-blink-you-miss-it smile. But those chilling black eyes of his said something altogether different. There was a warning there.

When Ryder put his hand on her lower back, Kinsey didn’t step away. Whether Ryder knew it or not, he gave her the courage to continue following Con and Henry when all she wanted to do was run back to the computers where she felt safe.

“Ignore him,” Ryder whispered near her ear. “Con likes to make people uncomfortable.”

Kinsey turned her head slightly to Ryder and lowered her voice. “He does a bloody brilliant job.”

That’s when she made the mistake of looking in Ryder’s hazel eyes. Gold, blue, and green mixed together so it looked like one color bled into the other and then another. They were mesmerizing, compelling.

Hypnotic.

Kinsey should’ve known better than to be that close to Ryder after their near-kiss. She shivered when their fingers grazed, and she wished their fingers were entwined.

“Watch,” Ryder began as his gaze darted over her shoulder.

Kinsey realized what happened a heartbeat too late. Because she was so engrossed in Ryder, she didn’t pay attention to where she was walking and tripped over the raised threshold of the door.

She felt herself falling as everything slowed to a crawl. Henry turned and started back toward her while Con simply stood and watched her.

But it was powerful, familiar arms that wrapped around her, yanking her up before she could hit the ground.

Kinsey’s heart was beating double time. She lifted her face to thank Ryder, but words deserted her. His mouth was mere breaths from hers.

Her hands were splayed on his chest where she could feel his heart beneath her right palm. Without meaning to, she swayed against him.

One large hand was pressed against her back, right above her butt. The other held the back of her head. His wide lips were parted, and his gaze refused to release her.

She knew what it felt like to be kissed by Ryder. How with just a touch he could make the world fade away, how he could fill her mind with just one thought—him.

No one had kissed her like him since he’d left. And she had looked for such a man.

Just one more kiss. What could that hurt?

“Are you all right?” Henry asked as he reached them.

Kinsey hastily stepped out of Ryder’s arms. She felt him hesitate, as if he wanted to keep her there, but he released her.

Damn that was close. She was really going to have to watch herself, because to give in just a little to Ryder’s magnetism was to give him all of her again.

“Yes, thank you,” she told Henry before she turned and walked out the door.

Behind her, she heard Henry ask Ryder, “Did I interrupt something?”

She wasn’t able to hear Ryder’s response. A pity. She would’ve liked to know what he was thinking. Not that it mattered. She was over him.

Keep telling yourself that, honey. It might be true when you’re dead.

Kinsey felt like screaming. That hole in her chest that threatened to swallow her was back, as if she hadn’t spent the last three years doing her damnedest to fill it in.

The tragic and appalling part was that she really thought she had.

It only took being next to him again to remind Kinsey that she’d allowed herself to believe she was moving on when she hadn’t been.

Suddenly she was engulfed by depression and misery. She wasn’t the strong individual she’d thought. She was weak and exposed. And so tired of pretending.

Why did it take coming face-to-face with the man who’d torn her world apart to reveal the truth? She’d told the lie of being fine so many times that even she believed it.

But she wasn’t okay. She was torn, bloodied, and still bleeding. The wound was a trickle now, but it had yet to heal. Kinsey feared it never would.

Then to be tempted by what she couldn’t have was the worst sort anguish. What had she done to deserve such torment?

The biting wind cut through her sweater, but Kinsey barely felt it. She was too caught up in her own misery and the bleak outlook for her future to care.

Something heavy and warm was placed over her shoulders. She instinctively reached up and felt the flannel inside the coat. Henry gave her a nod after he settled the coat on her shoulders and walked beside her.

“You look like the rug just got yanked from underneath you.”

She didn’t want to talk, but she couldn’t be rude either. “It did.”

“I’m an arse, Kinsey. I apologize for interrupting what was clearly something intimate,” he said.

With a shake of her head she said, “I’m glad you did. What we had is over.”

“Are you sure? Because it didn’t look that way to me. In fact, it looked quite the opposite.”

Kinsey followed Ryder with her eyes as he joined Con ahead of her. “It is. He made sure of it when he left.”

“Perhaps he left for a reason.”

“He already explained his side,” she said. “It still doesn’t make up for the three years he let pass. At any time he could’ve returned or called. Hell, even a text would’ve been nice.”

Henry looked at her with sad smile. “Did you ever stop to think that perhaps Ryder assumed you’d moved on and wanted to give you a nice life?”

“No. With how easily he finds and tracks people, he knows I didn’t have anyone serious in my life.”

“Right,” Henry said, searching for something else to say.

Kinsey stopped and touched his arm. “I know about Rhi.”

“Don’t,” he stated in a voice laced with anger. “I don’t want to hear you tell me to walk away like the others have.”

“I won’t. I know how it feels to love someone I can’t have.”

Henry’s face relaxed as he blew out a breath. “I think you could have Ryder. If you wanted him.”

“That look you wear? The one that says you’re on the brink of shattering, the one that tries to hide the agony within you? I know it all too well. I’ve lived it for years. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. It serves only to keep the wound festering. A constant reminder of what we’ll never have. It doesn’t allow us to move on or forget.

“It teases us with the hope that we might get past such suffering, but in an ironic twist of fate, we’re reminded by inconsequential, mundane things that the pain is as much a part of us as the organs that keep us alive.”

Kinsey turned her head to look at Ryder. His short blond hair was ruffled in the wind as snow flurries hung seemingly in midair. He stood as unaffected by the weather as he did the passage of time.

She huddled deeper into the coat. “Ryder and I are worlds apart, and it’s never been more clear than at this moment. That bitterness that takes up more and more space where our hearts used to be is going to smother everything else. I’m living proof of that.”

Chapter Twenty

Austin, Texas

Rhi cruised the hills of Austin. The sun was shining bright and the temperature was only in the mid-forties. She adjusted her sunglasses before she glanced at the seat beside her.

Her watcher was there. It made her smile when she teleported to the storage unit where she kept the Lamborghini parked.

She almost asked if he wanted to go for a ride with her, then decided against it at the last minute. If he wasn’t going to respond to her, then she wouldn’t talk to him.

It wasn’t until after she got into the sports car and started it up, the engine rumbling deeply, that she felt his presence beside her. How else was he supposed to keep up with her unless he rode beside her?

Rhi bit back a laugh when she tried to imagine what he would do if someone else had been with her. Would her watcher cling to the top of the car? Or run alongside her?

Driving was one of the few human experiences that she truly enjoyed—besides shopping and getting her nails done. Though she could teleport anywhere she wanted, as well as use the Fae doorways to go to other realms, there was something calming about driving around.

But her awesome car definitely had something to do with it.

She pressed the accelerator, revving the engine as she zoomed through the traffic, weaving in and out of the cars. The Lamborghini responded lightning quick. It was the epitome of a sports car, and she truly loved being behind the wheel of such a machine.

Rhi laughed out loud when she zoomed around a bright red Ferrari. The man in his late fifties watched her as she hauled ass past him.

“Tell me that wasn’t fun, sweet cheeks?” she asked her watcher. Then she rolled her eyes as she recalled she wasn’t supposed to talk to him.

But she could almost feel his smile. Whoever he was, he was having fun.

“Doesn’t it get old not talking? I know it does for me,” Rhi said. “I told myself I wasn’t going to talk to you, because I hate that I get silence in return.”

She looked his way, trying to imagine his face. He would have black hair for sure, but was there silver in it? She didn’t get the vibe that he was a Dark Fae. So no silver, but was his hair long or short?

Long. Definitely long.

“And more silence,” she stated grumpily. “One day I’m going to discover who you are and why you’ve been following me. For your sake, I really hope it isn’t on Usaeil’s orders.”

The queen of the Light wasn’t thrilled about Rhi walking out on her duties as Queen’s Guard, but it was something Rhi had had to do.

“Usaeil has forgotten what it means to lead our people. And with the rumors of the arrival of the Reapers, she’s needed more than ever.”

Rhi could feel her watcher’s gaze on her.

“Why are the Reapers back now?” she asked. “It might have something to do with that missing bit of text that Balladyn couldn’t find. The Reapers have the entire race of Fae on pins and needles.”