“Goldie,” he said tentatively.
He was asking permission to use the nickname he’d given me the night we had met five years ago.
“Yes?”
His shoulders relaxed and a slight smile came to his lips.
“Apologizing will not reverse my actions, but I can offer you my word that I will never again deceive you. Can you accept that?”
There are only a select few that I totally trust, and Ian is one of them. But… he had tricked me, and for that I was still a little pissed. So, I remained silent for a few minutes, letting him stew in his unease. He kept fidgeting, and I started to feel guilty.
“Yes, I can.”
He eyed me suspiciously.
“Despite tonight’s events, I still trust you. You won’t make a promise you don’t intend to keep. Besides, if you ever do set me up again, I’ll kick your ass.”
We laughed, lifting the tension. He rose from the chair and took my hands in his, examining my wrists for any signs of faeritonium burns. They’d already healed, but he didn’t release my hands, instead he asked, “How are you feeling?”
Too aware of his touch, I swallowed hard and cleared my throat as I looked up into his eyes. “Fine. Just tired. Bryce’s tea helps.”
He grimaced. “Yes, it does. I will let you rest. Goodnight, Goldie.”
“Goodnight, Ian.”
When he still didn’t release my hands, I looked at them. Mine were so small in his but felt so right that without thinking I linked our fingers together. Ian squeezed before letting go.
“I will see you in the morning”
I fell into a fitful sleep because of a vivid and surreal dream. The dream had me in a familiar forest clearing. One that I recognized from childhood dreams. This time it felt too real. The bark of the log I sat on was rough against my legs. The heat from the fire in front of me was warm on my face. I realized I wasn’t alone. There was a woman with me. I could hear her singing, but I couldn’t see her face through the flames. I stood to get a better view, but the fire rose violently, creating a wall preventing me from seeing the other side. When I tried maneuvering around it, my legs felt as though they each weighed a ton. I was stuck.
I heard a melodic laugh just before being startled awake by shouting outside of my room. It was Seth’s voice yelling to someone to hurry.
I leaped out of bed and ran to the door. I stepped into the hall to see Seth headed to the stairs.
“Seth, what’s going on?”
“Get back in bed, Kadi. Do not leave this house. You hear me? Not for anything.”
“What the hell?”
“Be mad all you want, just keep your ass in the house.”
I considered staying as Seth had told me to do, or grabbing my knives and following them.
“Knives. Definitely knives.” I grabbed my knife belt and ran down the stairs into the kitchen.
“Oh no you don’t, missy. You’re staying here with me.” Bryce stopped me before I could reach the back door. “I’ve placed a concealment ward over the house, as well as a boundary ward. You set one toe out of the barrier and you’ll be thrown back into it. You won’t enjoy that. Not one bit.”
“Bryce they could be in trouble. I can help them.”
“Qadira, you’re the one they want. You escaped their attempt at abducting you and they lost one of their own. They will no doubt ramp up their efforts to take you to Gabriel. They sense you are near, but, thanks to my wards, they have yet to locate the house. If you go out there, they’ll not only know where you are, but you’ll put the rest of us in greater danger.” He raised his eyebrows in a look that bordered on smug. He was probably proud of himself for making his point without veering off onto another topic. It is such a rare occurrence; I have to say, I was a little proud of him myself.
“Fine. I will wait… for now. Do you have any idea what happened?”
“Ian went for a walk after your talk. He ran into some of Gabriel’s minions. They swarmed him. Seth was returning from feeding and heard the commotion, but by the time he got there Ian was in the midst of the brawl. Seth just came for reinforcements.”
“They attacked Ian? What happened to him? Is he okay? Oh, I have to go after him, what if he’s hurt?”
Bryce wrapped his arms around me and as he did when I was growing up, stroked my hair and murmured, “It is what it is, and will be as it shall.”
“That will not help this time. This time ‘it’ could mean Ian being hurt… or worse.”
“Listen my pip, Ian has been around a long time, he has been through worse. Trust me, he will be fine.”
The door opened, I spun out of my uncle’s grip to see who entered.
“Ian!” I flung my arms around him.
“No! Wait.” Ian pushed me from him.
Shocked by how forcefully he’d shoved me, I stepped further away. I was uncomfortable with my display of affection toward him. Seth entering the house with blood on his white t-shirt drew my attention from my unease with the Ian situation.
“Seth, you’re bleeding! What happened? Where are you hurt?” I moved him to a stool and made him sit.
“Does it hurt?” I pulled his shirt over his head searching for his wound. I found nothing. “What the…”
“It’s not my blood, Kadi.”
I threw his bloodied shirt into the sink. “You just let me think you were bleeding to death and you laugh?”
He cleared his throat and tried to look apologetic, but his smile ruined it. “I’m sorry, I would have stopped you, but you started taking my shirt off…”
“Jerk. Where’d Ian go?”
“I assume to shower. It was a rough tussle, Kadi. You might want to change your clothes.”
“What? Why?” I looked and saw blood staining my shirt. “Ugh! What the hell?”
There was not enough blood on Seth’s shirt to have transferred that much to me, which meant the stains on my clothes had come from Ian.
I ran up the stairs to Ian’s room, entering without knocking. I heard the shower running in his en suite bathroom and moved to the doorway.
“Ian?”
“Goldie?”
“Yes. Are you okay?”
“I am fine. What are you doing in here?”
“I noticed that my shirt had blood on it after hugging you and I wanted to make sure you aren’t hurt. I mean I know you’re banshee and you heal quickly, but what if they had used faeritonium? Well, of course they used faeritonium, why wouldn’t they use it? So your wounds will take longer to heal and… And I am rambling. I just… Well, are you okay or not?” Ah, I was Bryce’s kin, for sure. We Quinn’s could babble on with the best of them.
I heard him chuckle just before the water stopped. “Give me a moment and I will come talk with you.”
Realizing that I was still in the bloodstained clothes, I ran to my room and changed as fast as I could. I threw out the stained clothes. There was no use trying to clean them. Even with Bryce’s magical laundry skills, I would never wear them again.
After a cursory knock on Ian’s door, I entered to find him on the sofa he had placed in front of the more-for-decoration-than-heat fireplace. I sat beside him and he draped one arm over the back of the sofa. It surprised me when he mindlessly began to toy with my hair, twirling it around his fingers.