Moonshadow

Chapter Four

Early in the evening, Nikolas’s mobile rang. When he checked the screen and saw Gawain’s name, he frowned. Phone calls were traceable by magical means, so they rarely talked, and when they did, they kept conversations brief.

Texts were safer. If Gawain was calling, it had to be important.

He answered. “What is it?”

Gawain said, “I caught the puck’s scent, along with a hint of the Queen’s magic.”

Like a blade being pulled for battle, Nikolas’s attention sharpened. Once a favorite of Oberon’s, the puck Robin had been missing for a very long time. No one knew if he had been caught Earth-side when the last of the crossover passageways had been blocked, or if he was still in Lyonesse—but if he was in Lyonesse, he had chosen to disappear, because no one had seen or heard from him in quite a long time. Nikolas had wondered if Robin’s talent for mischief might have turned out to be an ill thing for the knights of the Dark Court.

If Robin was Earth-side, and his allegiance had truly shifted to Isabeau, there was no telling what evil the sprite might indulge in.

He might have even been responsible for the unnatural fog that had rolled over the village park where Nikolas had been attacked. His magic was related to nature, and it fit. Nikolas didn’t want it to, but it did fit.

He said, “Tell me exactly where you caught his scent.”

“It was a few miles north of Westmarch on Old Friars Lane.” Gawain paused, and Nikolas heard the sound of a passing lorry in the background. “I’ve been combing through the town’s streets, but so far I haven’t picked up a hint of either the puck or the Queen—or the scent of any Hounds, for that matter.”

Old Friars Lane was what the road had been called centuries ago. As the years unfolded, often the ancient pathways had been renamed and modernized, but the Daoine Sidhe still kept to the old names, and Nicholas knew exactly where Gawain meant.

Old Friars Lane and the town of Westmarch bordered the site where the Dark Court had suffered one of the most bitter defeats in their history, in a battle that had lasted for five days and nights and had long since faded from the memories of most people.

The end had come when, with a surge of Power that had cracked the world, Morgan had shattered the crossover passageway that led to Lyonesse. Cut off from their homeland at that crucial access point, denied reinforcements and outnumbered, the Dark Court forces had fled.

That had been one of the first crossover passageways to Lyonesse that Morgan had either broken or blocked. Once many passageways had covered the border between England and Wales, and the people of the Dark Court had journeyed freely back and forth from their homeland.

Now those passageways that still existed were shrouded in webs of magic so dense and impenetrable Nikolas and his men could no longer find them. More disturbing, he knew from scrying with Annwyn that the people in Lyonesse couldn’t find the passageways either. The two lands were virtually cut off from each other.

What business did the puck have for being in that area, or the Queen, for that matter? What fresh mischief was Isabeau up to?

“I want to check out the stretch of road for myself,” he told Gawain. “I’m only forty minutes away, so I’ll be there shortly.”

The chance to capture the puck and possibly discover information on the Queen’s movements superseded any risk of banding together and possibly attracting a pack of Hounds. Besides, if a confrontation did occur, there was no one Nicholas trusted more to have at his back in a battle than Gawain.

The other male grunted an assent. “I found the spot about a hundred meters south of a broken-down Mini, but the car might have been towed by now. Look for a cluster of three white oaks on the west side of the road, and you’ll find it. I’ll wait for you in town.”

After disconnecting, Nicholas moved quickly through the flat he had sublet for the month, gathering weapons and his black leather go-bag. He paused only to send out a group text.

Possible lead on the puck’s whereabouts. Watch for updates, and prepare to mobilize.

Rhys was the first to respond. Where did you find him?

We haven’t yet. Gawain caught his scent on Old Friars Lane. More news when I have it. After sending the quick reply, Nikolas pocketed his phone and left.

As he sped to the area, Nikolas thought of what he had gleaned from the mobile phones of the dead Hounds. On the day he had been attacked, one of the Hounds had received a call from a public call box. Then much as Nikolas had just done, that Hound had sent out a group text to three people, and they had responded quickly.

Each mobile Nikolas had collected had the same corresponding texts on it. He had killed all the participants involved in the attack.

Like terrorists, Hounds tended to operate in cells or, more accurately, in packs. The alpha had received a phone call, mobilized his pack, and they had converged on the village where Nikolas had been.

Someone had known where Nikolas was going to be that afternoon, and they had informed a pack of Hounds. Could Robin have done such a thing? Had he been tracking the knights of the Dark Court, only to betray them one at a time? Was he the reason why their numbers had diminished so drastically over the last six months?

Nikolas hadn’t shared Oberon’s good opinion of the sprite. He’d never been overly fond of Robin, finding him capricious and unpredictable, but he also would have never believed Robin to be capable of such treachery.

Now he was no longer so sure. None of them were quite who they once were, when Oberon had been a strong, vital leader ruling over a thriving, prosperous court.

The Porsche ate the miles with a languid purr, and in the evening’s fading light, Nikolas came over a rise and looked out over the land. Patches of farmland traced a different pattern than they once had, but the dip and curve of the land itself hadn’t changed.

Ancient memories drifted through his mind. The thunder of Fae horses’ hooves pounding the ground and the clash of swords. The screams of pain, and the flares of deadly magic so bright and beautiful, warriors stopped to stare in awe as they died.

And then that final unsurpassable roar of Power, as Morgan unleashed what he had been holding in reserve.

The earth shook and cracked with a force that had thrown horses to the ground and brought everyone—the most Powerful nobles and foot soldiers of two kingdoms, the Light Court and the Dark, and the humans allied to either side, both friend and foe alike—to their knees.

As long as Nikolas lived, he would never forget that sound.

A human had done that. A human had brought some of the oldest and most Powerful of the Elder Races to their knees.

Or, at least, a creature that had once been human.

Nikolas didn’t see any sign of a Mini, but when he drew close to the cluster of white oak trees, he pulled to the side of the road, stepped out of the Porsche, and walked.

The sun’s light waned and shadows lengthened, and insects played a seesaw symphony in the underbrush. The gloaming was near, the time that was neither day nor night, when shadows left their anchors to mingle and whisper together before the moon’s pale light sent them scurrying home again.

As Nikolas strolled alongside the underbrush, the symphony fell silent, and it only began to play again when he had passed.

At first he didn’t pick up Robin’s scent, but he did sense a smear of darkness on the road that drew him. He reached the spot where a hiss of dark magic had expired and knelt on one knee to examine it. The darkness was both psychic and physical. The magic had burned into the asphalt.

Isabeau’s Power signature was quite distinct. When he passed his hand over the shadow, it bit his skin, the last toxic sting before the last of the magic dissipated completely. Glancing at his palm where a reddened welt raised, he dismissed the tiny injury and took a deep breath.

With the exception of Oberon, none of the Dark Court who had Wyr in their ancestry could change into their animal forms, but their Wyr blood did give them enhanced abilities. Gawain was the better tracker, and it must have been several hours since Robin passed this way, but once Nikolas had knelt down, he could finally scent the puck, along with the faint scent of a strange woman.

What was she? Clearly she wasn’t Isabeau herself, and she didn’t smell like Light Fae.

He laid his hand on the asphalt road and asked it to tell him what it knew of her. The oldest roads in this in-between land that bordered England and Wales, and Other lands and Earth, were more sentient than most realized.

The road woke and gave him the impression of dichotomies. Strength and fragility. Exhaustion and determination. And magic. So much magic.

And something else. There was something about her. Something distinct, perhaps even familiar. He strained to glean more information, but the road had ceased talking to him and had fallen asleep again.

“I wish to know what you are doing here,” he whispered to the unknown woman, drumming his fingers on the road. “And what you might have to do with a stray puck and an enemy Queen.”

Now that he had located Robin’s fading scent, he stood and followed it a few meters farther until it disappeared. Then there was only the woman’s scent for many meters. Unless Robin had managed to take flight somehow—and the puck could change his shape into many creatures, but he could not fly—the woman must have picked him up.

Nikolas tracked Robin’s scent backward to the place where it left the road and disappeared into a hole in the bordering hedge. Robin had cut across the land until he reached the road. Then Nikolas turned to trace the woman’s scent back along the road and came to a place where tire tracks disturbed the tall grasses on the narrow shoulder.

There had been a Mini, Gawain had said, and the woman must have been driving it. When it broke down, she walked into town.

And she had encountered a wandering puck along the way.

The rest of the tale would not be told here. He walked back to the Porsche and drove into Westmarch.

The town was younger than that ancient, cataclysmic battle but older than most. Worn cobblestone streets cut across one another in a crooked pattern. The shops had closed some time earlier, all except for a single newsagent’s, a liquor store at one end of the high street, and a large, sprawling pub nestled in the center of the town, named Dark Knight.

The pub’s wooden sign had a painting of a knight, bearing a shield with Oberon’s crest—a white lion rampant against crimson crossed swords on a black background. Some people had long memories in these places.

When Nikolas came to the pub’s parking lot, he saw Gawain’s Harley-Davidson parked between other vehicles. A Mini was tucked out of the way at the back of the lot. He pulled in and switched off the engine.

Briefly he checked his phone. Gawain had texted him fifteen minutes ago. Waiting for you in the pub. Robin’s been here. I can smell him.

So as he had suspected, the puck and the woman had indeed come into town together. That was a tale Nikolas quite wanted to hear.

And if the Mini was any indication, at least the woman was still here.

He texted Gawain, Guard the front door. I’m going to test a theory and come in the back way.

You got it, Gawain replied.

Sophie couldn’t make it until the evening.

No matter how she fought to stay awake, an inexorable black tide washed over her, and she fell into a deep pit of unconsciousness.

She dreamed she lived in a cage.

She stared between the bars at a woman who was both beautiful and terrible to look at, with long, shining golden hair and wide, cornflower blue eyes, and a lovely, young face that was a cross between a flower and a nightmare.

The woman’s gigantic face came closer, and the nightmare was the rage in the woman’s eyes.

I warned you to watch your tongue, Imp, the woman said. So. You will watch your tongue.

Then others came and put their giant, hurting hands on her. No matter how she struggled, she couldn’t break free of their grip. They had too much strength, too much magic. They forced her mouth open, took hold of her tongue in iron tongs, and ripped it out. She screamed and screamed, a wordless wail of bloody agony. As she watched, they threw the piece of her flesh into a fire.

With an appetizing smell of roasting meat, the tongue turned black as it burned.

Sophie woke with a muffled shout. Heart pounding, she stared around the shadowed, unfamiliar room. For a moment she felt completely displaced. Where were the bars of her cage?

Then a snore beside her on the bed snapped her fully back into reality.

She was in her room at the pub, lying fully clothed on top of the covers. The newly shorn and washed dog lay sleeping at her side.

When she had arrived, Arran, the owner of the pub, had sent his son, who owned a rusted Land Rover with a tow bar, to retrieve the Mini. According to the son, when he had turned the keys in the engine, the Mini had started perfectly.

Of course it had, the fucking fucker.

Arran’s son had towed it into town and parked it at the back of the pub. When she had tried to apologize for the inconvenience and pay for the tow, neither Arran nor his son would accept her money.

Arran had told her good-naturedly enough, “Not to worry. Odd things happen around here sometimes. Living here, ye get used to it.”

“Good to know,” she muttered. The Mini inspired her with hope. Maybe her cell phone wasn’t as dead as she had thought. Pulling it out of her pocket, she checked the power. Sure enough, the screen lit up.

So she had settled into her room, borrowed sewing scissors from Arran’s wife, Maggie, who had clucked sympathetically over the dog’s condition, and had cut away all the matted hair. Underneath, he looked as starved as she had suspected, with protruding ribs, a concave belly, and hip bones visible under his skin. The area around his neck was thick with deep, half-healed blisters that were half her thumb’s length in size.

Clenching down on a rage that wouldn’t ease, she had washed him gently and wrapped him in a towel, and together they had shared the snack of boiled eggs Maggie had offered to tide them over until the pub started serving supper.

At least he didn’t have fleas. Sophie had been surprised at that.

He had gulped down without chewing the pieces of egg she had fed him and growled at her when she stopped. “You quit that,” she said in a firm voice. “It’s not okay to growl at me. I don’t want you to throw up again. You can have more food soon, I promise.”

At that, he had stopped growling, almost as if he understood her, and curled into a tight ball on the old narrow bed. Intense weariness dragged her down beside him. Unable to fight off the black tide that took her, she closed her eyes.

She had only meant to rest for a few minutes, not fall asleep. Now jet lag would keep her up through the night.

The horrific dream still clung to her, like sticky black cobwebs in her face and hair, and her heart raced. Just another thing to add to her what the fuck list. Rubbing her face, she sat, turned on the bedside light, and looked down at her unexpected companion. She didn’t know how to cut a dog’s hair, and he looked pretty bad, a small bundle of ragged hair and bones. At least the mats were gone.

She washed her face and hands at the small basin in one corner of the room, then walked over to gently touch the dog’s shoulder. “Time to wake up, kiddo.”

He growled without opening his eyes.

“Hey!” she said sharply. “No growling! Do you want supper or not?”

At that, he snapped upright and looked at her alertly. Again, almost as if he understood her.

She frowned at him. What the hell, maybe the dog did understand her. She had seen a lot of strange things in her life, both inhuman creatures and events that logic alone couldn’t fully explain.

“And you need to go outside so you don’t have an accident in this nice place,” she told him, then sighed. “And tomorrow we’ll start looking for a good home for you, with someone who will love and take care of you.”

At that, the dog let out the cutest little whimper and, tail wagging, came across the bed to stand his forelegs against her hip as he nudged her hand.

Stroking his round head and thin, silken ears, she scowled against the sneaky melting in her heart and muttered, “Suck-up.”

Scooping him under one arm, she left her room, locked the door, and pocketed the key in the back of her jeans. As she headed down the narrow, steep staircase, she told him, “I’ll look after you, and I promise, I’ll make sure you’re okay. But you’ve got to understand something—I don’t live the kind of lifestyle that’s good for a dog. Do you hear me? I’m not good for you. I’m too mobile, and I’m not just an asshole magnet. I’m a weirdo magnet. Weird things happen to me all the time.”

Kind of like the dog itself. And that rope tied around his neck. That rope hadn’t just been weird. It had been evil.

As she told the dog all the reasons why she couldn’t keep him, she reached the ground floor. The pub had several public rooms, and the staircase let out into the game room toward the back, where a dwarf and a human male were smoking, drinking pints, and throwing darts.

She raised her eyebrows at the smoke, pretty sure the two were breaking the law from the articles she had read about the UK in preparation for her trip, while the two males watched her with unbridled curiosity.

Giving them a nod, she strode to the front room. She was starving again, and a classic pub supper of fish and chips or shepherd’s pie sounded heavenly. It probably wasn’t the healthiest thing to feed the dog, but any calories right now had to be good calories for him. A diet of proper dog food could start tomorrow.

As she stepped across the threshold into the front room, the dog started making noise, a cross between a growl and a high whine. Staring down at it in puzzlement, at first she didn’t take in the details of who populated the room.

Then she felt a male presence so heavy with Power it felt like a thunderclap.

Lifting her head, she found the male sitting by the large picture window near the front door. He wore biker’s leathers and was as big as she remembered, this saber-toothed tiger of a man, only now his face wasn’t obscured by the blank, featureless helmet.

She took in the sharp eyes that were at odds with his relaxed demeanor, and the strong features that carried a rough sort of handsomeness. While she was usually good at spotting and identifying those of the Elder Races, she couldn’t place his heritage. But whatever he was, he wasn’t human.

He was looking right at her or, more accurately, at the dog under her arm. He recognized the dog, and clearly, the dog recognized him.

Leisurely the male came to his feet.

A heavy dose of adrenaline dumped into her veins. Bitching under her breath for letting herself get caught unawares—like the magic fucking rope didn’t give you enough of a massive fucking clue to make sure you had your shit together, Sophie—she backed out of the doorway, turned and strode rapidly toward the back.

Her limbs shook. There was too much fight or flight going on for her system to absorb.

Just as it had been when she’d watched the gun swing toward her, and she looked down the wrong end of the barrel as the shooter had taken aim.

She’d reached for the shadows to pull them around her, but she’d been too late for that trick to work. He had already laid eyes on her… and she’d heard a flat tat-tat-tat and felt the individual blows to her body, but by then Rodrigo had dived into the room, his own gun firing.

As her body went into a slow spiral downward, she watched red dots explode across the shooter’s forehead, arm, and chest, and they both fell together….

A part of her still lived in that space, always falling. She was in no shape for a possible confrontation, either mentally or physically. It was too soon. She was still healing. And she didn’t have her Glock or any offensive spells prepared.

But she had the dog, and she’d made it a promise that she would make everything okay. She wasn’t going to give it up to more abuse, not without a fight. Sometimes confrontations came whether you were goddamn ready or not, so somehow she was going to have to suck it up and make something good come out of this.

Her mind sped like a race car hurtling down an open highway. The shadow trick wouldn’t work, not indoors. Not now that he knew she and the dog were here. The best defense she had was the other people in the pub… hopefully… and the best offensive spell she had on the fly, if it came to it, was a raw, inelegant curse she’d learned in the backwoods of Kentucky that would knock her down as much as it would flatten the other guy.

Not an optimal choice.

But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that if she could only get outside first, and under the trees, then she was confident she could pull enough shadows around them to hide them from the most intensive scrutiny, if only the damn dog would stop that high, wacky sort of growly-whiny thing it was doing.

She hissed at it. “Shush!”

Ahead of her, the door to the kitchen opened, and a bolt of lightning came toward her.

Lightning, she saw as she blinked rapidly to clear her overloaded vision, which was just barely contained in a lethal male form that moved toward her like Death shadowing a dying woman…

His face. His face.

She knew his face.

The planes and angles so sharp they appeared as if they had been cut from an immortal blade. The indomitable will in those dark, chilling eyes and the ferocity.

The killer’s grace that was purely inhuman, sleek muscles sliding underneath his skin like a python swimming underwater, and oh my gods, he carried so much Power, even more Power than the other male did. He wore all black, the uncompromising clothes outlining every lethal line of his lean body. Once, Sophie had helped the LAPD catch an infamous gang leader who had always worn black, the better to hide all the blood.

The male newcomer recognized her too. She saw the moment it happened.

His eyes narrowed, and that incredible face of his sharpened—really, she wouldn’t have thought he could have looked any sharper or harder, but he did, he did—and he reached up and behind his head, and she knew what he was doing then too.

He was pulling his sword. The one that had dripped crimson with blood in her vision.

Everything crescendoed inside, the terror and the shakes and the sense of doom connected to the realization that she was trapped, with Lightning headed straight at her and Thunder coming up behind, and all that nightmarish PTSD she had bottled up inside her, and the damn dog hadn’t shut up at all. Now it was yodeling.

And she was full up. Full up and overloaded until she shot into a completely different mind space.

Ah, well.

There really was no fixing stupid or healing crazy.

“You!” she spat. Rage blinded her. She hated things that scared her. They made her so angry. She strode toward the terrifying male and shoved him in the chest as hard as she could with her free hand. “You bastard! You attacked me for no reason! Are you nuts—what is wrong with you? Who does that?! Crazy people? Serial killers?”

He raised his hand, and the hilt appeared.

Oh dear, here comes the sword. Better get ready with that curse.

If she could put enough strength into it, they would all go down together. But it was going to take a hell of a lot of strength to bring down these two males. Chances were good she would just piss them off while she knocked herself out.

As Lightning finished drawing his sword, he grabbed her wrist. A liquid, foreign language spilled out of his cruelly beautiful mouth, and she tensed, but it didn’t seem to be a magic spell. He had turned those ferocious eyes onto the dog, and he was…

Telling it off?

The dog bared its teeth at him, and it had a surprising number of teeth. For such a small creature, those fangs looked surprisingly wicked, long and sharp.

Part of her sensed the moment Thunder stepped into the room. Even though her attention was on Lightning, she couldn’t help but know it. Between the two males, there was so much Power in the room, together they could blow out the walls of the building if they wanted to. Hell, they could probably blow out the town.

She tugged at her wrist and struggled to free herself from his hold, but Lightning’s long, bruising fingers were like a manacle.

His hard, deadly eyes lifted to hers. When their eyes met, the shock of connection almost sent her to her knees. In slightly accented English, he ordered, “Drop him.”

“Drop him?” she repeated blankly. “Drop who, the dog? While you’re standing there with your goddamn sword pulled out, so you can, what—chop him in half? Fuck you.”

Both men stared at her. She didn’t let any hint of her intention cross her face when she stepped into his body, quick and smooth, and hauled up her knee.

It was an awesome move. She had practiced it countless times and used it more than once. She was good at it, confident in using it, and she didn’t hesitate. And she was very motivated to land that blow. Maybe it would loosen his grip on her wrist.

But she had used her right knee, on her bad side, and she hadn’t started back to training and conditioning after her hospital stay. The move pulled weakened muscles in her abdomen, so that she groaned in pain as she tried to knee him.

With a swift move as balletic as a dancer’s, he shifted lean hips to avoid the hit, and her knee grazed along his lean, hard thigh. Then he leveraged her around, shoved her against the wall, and pinned her in place with his body.

“Nikolas,” Thunder said, frowning. He placed a big hand on the other man’s shoulder.

Lightning—apparently named Nikolas—shrugged angrily at Thunder’s hold. Another quick stream of the Gaelic-sounding language spilled out of his mouth.

He was breathing hard, still staring at her, and while his assault wasn’t sexual in any way, still there was something about the way he looked at her. A pivotal awareness of his maleness and her femininity. She recognized it because she carried the same awareness of him. She couldn’t stop watching his lips.

The dog snarled and snapped, biting at their attacker’s shirt. Thunder stood just at Lightning’s shoulder. Behind them, the customers in the pub had gathered, along with Arran and his white-faced wife.

All of them existed on the other side of an invisible wall, along with decency, right and wrong, social mores, and normal behavior. Inside the wall, she and Lightning stared at each other.

Male. Female.

A connection so sizzling it whited out every other consideration in her head. If she’d had a free hand, she would have reached up to trace the line of his cruel, beautiful mouth. She was dying to know what it felt like….

“Nikolas, hold.” The strength in Thunder’s voice finally broke through to both of them.

Almost imperceptibly, Nikolas eased his weight off her, although the bruising hold on her wrist never loosened.

Shaken at her own impulses, Sophie reached deep into her personal well of strength, stiffened her spine, and mentally readied herself to throw the curse. Man, this was going to suck if she had to use it.

She said between gritted teeth, “I don’t care who you are or what you are. This dog has suffered more abuse than most prisoners of war do. I’m not putting him down or giving him over to you. So if you want him, you’re going to have to come through me to get him. And for Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you? Who wants a dog this badly anyway?”

It was sheer, stupid bravado. She was outclassed and outgunned, and the only thing she had going for her at the moment was a curse that was more likely to kill her than cause them anything more than a few moments’ discomfort. They were so much stronger. Damn it. She might be stupid and crazy, but she wasn’t suicidal.

A tiny silence fell as they stared at her again.

Then Thunder said, “Lady. That’s not a dog.”

“What?” she uttered. She glanced down at the ridiculous Ewok face tucked under her arm. Huge, walleyed, filmy eyes blinked up at her. Whatever it was, it looked aged and sad. Her voice hardened. “I don’t care what it is. It’s been hurt and used badly, and I won’t stand for any more of it.”

If, that is, she had any choice about the matter. As far as strength went, they could easily wrestle it away from her.

Unpredictability shimmered in the air. She held firm in the face of it. She had dealt many times with those of the Elder Races, and despite the vastly different personalities and situations, invariably, they all respected a show of strength.

Nikolas’s attention shifted down to the creature she held. After a long moment, he lifted his sword behind his head and sheathed it. She watched him warily. In fact, she couldn’t look away.

He didn’t need to feel for the sheath with his second hand or fumble to get the sword in. He knew precisely how long his sword was and exactly where the sheath rode between his shoulder blades, like both items were extensions of his body. This was not a man to engage in a sword fight.

Then he released her wrist and took a step back. She felt, rather than heard, their witnesses let out a collective sigh. If she were honest with herself, she would admit to losing her own breath as well.

“You’re American.” His voice was clipped and cold. “I want to hear what you were doing two weeks ago when your magic accosted me. And I want to hear everything about how you and the puck met.”

The puck. The puck?

The only puck Sophie knew of was a hockey puck. And this guy might be able to carry off every ounce of his monumental arrogance, but after he’d bared his weapon and assaulted her, she was still too full of anger and adrenaline to give in to it.

She told him in an insolent, indifferent voice. “Do you? I want a million bucks and a villa in Capri. Thanks for asking, asshole.”

The lightning of his Power flared, whiting out her mental senses until all she could see was the masculine outline of his body. He looked—felt—like an avenging angel.

He snarled, “Do not push me, human.”

But when Sophie reached this level of overload, she truly had no concept of sense or limits. She lifted her face to his and hissed. “I’ll push you every bit as much as you’ve pushed me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Thunder’s fingers clench on Nikolas’s shoulder, and suddenly Arran was on his other side as well.

Arran said in a conciliatory tone, “Tempers have run very high on both sides, my lord. Perhaps if everyone could take a moment, I’m sure this unfortunate misunderstanding can be cleared up. I would be honored to offer you all a drink, on the house as it were, and you can sit down to discuss your differences all civil-like. And I can get the miss a bite of supper. I know she was looking forward to a hot meal, seeing as she just arrived in England today.”

My lord. Arran talked as if this guy was a prince of his people. Sophie tried to sneer at the thought, but actually, given his utterly atrocious behavior, she could well believe it.

On the other side, Thunder muttered, “Damn it, man, listen to him. Do it.”

The rage in Nikolas’s face eased somewhat as he listened to the others speak, but Sophie’s didn’t. She wanted to push him, and push him, and see what he might do then, because like the part of her that had needed to melt down earlier, the part of her that had no sense, had the bit between its teeth and wanted to run amok.

Then she caught another glimpse of Arran’s wife, back against the wall. Maggie wiped her face with a visibly trembling hand, and Sophie’s uncontrollable rage died. This confrontation was not just frightening for her. It was frightening other people.

Sliding away from Nikolas’s taut body, she said directly to Maggie, “I’m sorry we’ve caused such a fuss. If we have any more arguing to do, we’ll take it outside, well away from here.”

She put an extra glare in her glance at Nikolas as she said that. He looked supremely, utterly indifferent to it. In a calm voice, as if he had never lost his temper, he said to Arran, “Thank you for your offer, but there’s no need for you to bear the financial brunt of our conflict. Please see that everyone gets a drink, whatever they want, and put it on my tab. We’ll be at the corner table when you’re done.”

Relief flooded Arran’s weathered features. He nodded and smiled. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

With a long, inscrutable look at her and another one at the dog… the doglike creature… she still clutched, Nikolas turned away.

Her capacity to glare after him was disrupted as Thunder stepped in front of her, blocked her view of Nikolas’s back, and offered his hand. In a low voice, he said, “I’m Gawain. My apologies for what just happened. We’ve been too involved for too long in combat situations. Our first reaction to any kind of conflict or inexplicable event tends to be, well, less than peaceful.”

That gave her pause. She had known men like that, men who had been at war for so long their response to any kind of conflict was violent. Often they were unable to assimilate back into normal society, and they re-upped and went back into the army, or they became police officers. Occasionally they turned a gun on themselves.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied Thunder’s rough features. He appeared to be sincere enough, and the dog (doglike creature) wasn’t yapping or yodeling any longer or acting fearful.

Taking her cue from that, cautiously she took Gawain’s hand and shook it. “Sophie Ross. Maybe there’s no harm done this time, but there’s no trust won either. If one of you draws your weapon or manhandles me again, I’ll slap you with a curse so fast it will make your head spin. That’s a promise, Gawain.”

“I understand, and I respect it.” Gently his fingers squeezed hers, and then he released her. “Please, come join us at the table and tell us your story. It’s important.”

She hesitated, looking from one male to the other, but as deadly as Gawain was, she sensed no danger coming from him.

Nikolas though. She gave him a narrow look, which he returned with more than a hint of banked malice.

As far as Nikolas went, whether he was a prince of his people or not, she wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.