Chapter Twenty-Two
As Kate checked that the computer and other hardware had made the journey unscathed, Adrian looked through the trailer window out into the hangar at large.
“There’s another trailer out there,” he said. “Who… Oh.” He turned and sat on the edge of the sideboard. “You asked Garrett to stay in the hangar?”
“As opposed to running up hotel bills?”
“He’s a multi-billionaire. He can afford it.”
“I wanted him on site.”
“And handy.”
Kate just looked at him.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly. “Sorry,” he said. “Latent macho-ism. Of all the men in the world you could have used for this, you chose Garrett. Garrett threatens me. Deal with it.”
“Why does he threaten you?”
“Because he doesn’t do lust, Kate. He does love.”
The word hung between them, pulsing and turning.
She swallowed. “Is that a warning?” she asked.
He crossed his arms. “I suppose it should be.”
She closed her computer. “I’ll be careful.”
“Where did you get that?” he asked, pointing.
She picked up the slip of paper that had been lying underneath the lid of the laptop. There was a circle within a circle drawn on it. “It was stuck in the door when I came back to the trailer after dinner. Why?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never seen it before.” He stood up. “I’m going to get some air. Is there a rooftop or a high balcony around here, Kate? Somewhere private and high up, where I can get away from it all?”
“Sure. There’s a sundeck on the top of the hangar. We installed it when we moved in. Stairs are outside, at the end of the hangar. But it’s a hell of a climb so most people don’t bother. Key to the security door for the stairs is hanging just inside the exit.”
* * * * *
Garrett got to his feet when Roman finally appeared and leaned against the five foot high safety railing that ran all around the sixteen foot square sundeck. There were some deck chairs and a faded umbrella, but not much else up here. It all looked forgotten and sun-parched.
“I didn’t think you’d show,” Garrett told him.
“A summons to a meeting can’t be ignored, although I can’t think of a single thing we have to talk about.” Roman threw himself onto one of the deck chairs.
“Kate.” Garrett shrugged.
Roman launched himself to his feet again. Garret grabbed a fistful of his jacket. “You know we must. These are extraordinary times, Roman. Kate can’t get hurt, so we have to talk.”
“Using a summons is over the top, asshole,” Garrett ground out. “You could have handled this the human way.”
“Getting drunk in a bar?”
“A fight in a dark alley to settle our differences. I would have gone for that.” There was a glint in Roman’s eye that said he was still willing to.
Garrett let go of his jacket and stepped back, reducing the threat. “I hadn’t realized just how personal this was for you, until this morning with Donnelly.”
“I suppose I should thank you for that.”
“For calling you?” Garrett shrugged again. “Truth, Roman? It was instinctive.”
“Was following Kate instinctive?”
“Mary-Anne tipped me off. And I had already seen Kate’s face lose all its colour so I knew something bad was going down. Kate doesn’t scare easily. So I called you and followed her. You arrived just as I did, just in time to see her take one in the stomach.”
Roman turned to lean on the railing. He pummelled the edge. “So. She’s not going to let you go. She thinks you’re a lucky charm.”
“I know.”
Roman shook his head. “Nope, I can’t discuss this like a civilized man. It churns my gut. I can keep it inside when I’m around her, but you I just want to kill. I know how your mind works, Calum. I know you. I know you’re not in this for the fun.” He turned to face him. “Tell me you’re not falling in love with her and I’ll call you a liar.”
Garrett took in Roman’s clenched fists and the tendons straining in his neck. “I’m as much of a liar as you.”
Roman drew in a shuddering breath.
“Have you told her yet?” Garrett asked.
Roman let out a shaky laugh. “I think she knows. I keep making a fucking idiot of myself. Especially about you.”
Garrett shook his head. “I’m not talking about telling her you love her. Does she know what you are? Have you told her who you really are?”
Roman’s laugh this time was firmer. “Have you?”
“It’s not my place. Not yet.” Garrett caught at Roman’s shoulder. “Listen to me. Roman. Listen.”
Roman turned his gaze to meet Garrett’s.
“Soon, all need for this grand lie we live will be gone. Kate and every other human will know what and who we are and we will be free to walk among them as ourselves. The time is coming when that truth will emerge and burst upon humans as news. You don’t want to be with Kate and have to reveal yourself after that happens.” He shook Roman a little. “Think. Think about how she would feel, knowing you lied to her all along. This time it’s different. For the first time in your long life, you don’t get to parade as a human anymore. You have to be yourself.”
“That’s what Nathanial’s liberators are doing, isn’t it?” Roman said. “That’s why the Pro Libertatis are so frothed up about him.”
“You didn’t know?”
“I knew they were gunning for him. That why they…” He stopped and refocused on Garrett. “They tried to recruit me.”
“Tried and failed? Or succeeded?”
“Jury is out on that. I sent them away with a flea in their ear. Assholes.” He frowned. “I don’t know if I can tell Kate. It’s been a long time since I did this.”
“Did what? You’ve been married three times that I know about since we last met, so don’t give me that bullshit,” Garrett shot back.
“But you were the last one I fell in love with.”
Garrett actually took a step back. It felt like he had been kicked in the chest by a horse. It was as well he didn’t really need to breathe, because he couldn’t unlock his lungs.
Roman looked uncomfortable. “Don’t look so fucking shocked. You knew that.”
“No,” Garrett wheezed. “How could I know that? You kicked me out of your life, had a breakdown and went off to join a monastery or whatever the hell it was you did—”
“The Templar Knights,” Roman amended. “In Malta.”
“Same difference!” Garrett clenched the railing, for stability and sanity. “I mourned you, you…recalcitrant prick! And you couldn’t even pick up the goddam phone!”
“Didn’t have ‘em then.”
“You stayed away for two hundred fucking years and now you tell me you love me? You’ve got the nerve of a rabid hyena, Roman.”
Roman grinned. “I always love it when you get pissed enough to start using the thesaurus. It just slays me.”
Garrett kissed him. It was the only mildly sane response he could think of. Every other reaction involved blood and violence. In truth, part of him had been longing to do this since Roman had stepped onto the sundeck. No – since they had silently and effectively worked together to deal with the odious Billy Donnelly that morning. It had been like sliding back into an old memory, slightly dusty, but welcome, warm and very familiar. They had worked as a team like that in countless battles and bar-room brawls. This morning Garrett hadn’t stopped to think or even check what Roman had intended to do. They had just slid into position and acted. It had been a homecoming.
His body had tingled afterwards with bubbling aliveness. And it still was.
So this kiss was an extension of that moment, a venting that had patiently waited all day.
He grabbed Roman’s head and held it steady as he slid his tongue deep inside. That, too, was achingly familiar.
Roman wasn’t fighting him. He wasn’t resisting. That drove Garrett’s sudden need higher. He was almost afraid to draw Roman nearer, waiting for him to pull away. But he reached out anyway, sliding his arm around Roman’s waist and bringing them hip to hip.
The kiss lengthened. Roman’s tongue thrust back and that was its own delight. His cock was a hard rod mashed between them, as rigidly erect as Garrett’s. It gave Garrett the courage to break the kiss and look Roman in the eye. As he looked, he unbuckled Roman’s belt and unfastened the jeans and pushed them a few inches down his hips. His cock jutted out, unfettered.
Roman gripped the railing as Garrett stroked his cock. He was breathing hard.
“I’d give an even million to be able to fuck you properly right now,” Garrett breathed.
Roman closed his eyes. “Perhaps it’s just as well.”
Garrett dropped to his knees and plunged Roman’s cock into his mouth quickly, and heard Roman’s groan. His hand thrust into his hair, but didn’t quite clench. He was riding the impulse, controlling it.
So Garrett slid his lips up and down the shaft, bringing to bear all his skill to bring Roman to an explosive climax as fast as possible. Roman’s hands both squeezed and compulsively fisted themselves against his head and his pelvis jerked in hard spasms as he came with a choked, smothered cry.
For a long moment they stayed locked together, recovering. Garrett released Roman’s cock.
Then Roman pulled away, zipping himself up. He walked away silently, leaving Garrett alone on the sundeck in the dark, with a pounding heart and a throbbing, unfulfilled body.
* * * * *
Iona slid onto the bench beside Winter. “Good morning.”
Winter nodded. “Did you have any trouble getting past the security detail at the front?”
“We usually do not. Perhaps that should be our lesson today.”
“I have my own ways for sliding past, when I need them. But Iona, you can’t go round screwing with people’s brains for your own convenience anymore. You have to operate within human laws in the future.”
“Why?”
Winter cast about for an answer. “If you want to be accepted as yourself, you must abide by the rules of the society you live in. This is a human society. You must live by human rules. If you are not seen as law-abiding, you create fear and that doesn’t bring about acceptance.”
“But if they do not remember I have not followed their rules, why will they not accept me?” Iona asked reasonably.
“You can’t brainwash a whole planet, can you? Sooner or later, they’ll catch up with you.”
“No one has yet.” Her expression was just a little smug.
Winter sighed. “Listen, Iona…you’re going to have a hard enough time being accepted as it is, once people get even a small grasp of what it is you … we … can do, and get away with it. It creates fear in them. If they think for a second you won’t willingly comply with their rules, then they will use whatever force they think necessary to bring you into line…or make you go away. Don’t you get it? You’ll be seen as a threat to them.”
Iona gazed at Winter, her brows coming together. “But we have been among humans for millennium and we have not been a threat. Why would we become one now?”
Winter sighed again and brought her tablet in front of Iona. “Just think through what I’ve said. We’ll talk about it again next time. Here’s one reason why you’ll be thought a threat. The media will tell everyone you are. Look at this.”
She tapped the item she had been reading, expanding it. It was a Hollywood gossip column piece, speculating on Kathrine Lindenstream’s current boyfriend status. The writer was puzzled about whom, exactly, Kate was hooked up with. The paparazzi details had captured her with two potentials, it seemed. The mysterious Adrian Xerus, a Hollywood businessman, and the very well-known Calum Garrett, billionaire financial genius and current sponsor of her latest movie.
Both men had been instrumental in removing her criminal ex-husband from the set in southern California last week. There there were photos of them dealing with the man, plus more photos of Kate speaking with each man individually. The photos had been selected carefully to make it look like she was intimately chatting with both of them.
Iona scanned the column. “The reporter was there?”
“No,” Winter replied. “But he will speculate and draw conclusions anyway. Reporters do that. They’ll ask someone who was there, or speak to someone there.”
Iona studied the column. “This Kathrine. It is the director of this movie you are working on, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“The report seems to imply that she is in a relationship with two men at the same time.”
“Yes, that is what it is implying.” Winter sighed.
Iona looked at her. “Is it true?”
Winter closed the tablet down. “It doesn’t matter. Millions of people will read this article and will make up their own minds. For the readers, what they decide will be the truth, so it doesn’t matter if Kate is sleeping with two men or ten.”
Iona stared down at the blank face of the tablet. “The media will tell them what to think,” she said.
“Now you understand,” Winter said.
Iona looked up. “I could make him forget her. That would resolve the dilemma, would it not?”
Winter swivelled to look behind her. Roman was crossing from the security bay, heading for Kate’s trailer, a take-out bag in his hand. Winter turned back to face Iona. “No, that’s not a solution at all!”
Iona was smiling.
Winter took a breath. “You were joking?”
“I was,” Iona agreed.
“I didn’t think you even knew how,” Winter muttered.
Iona picked up Winter’s hand and spread her fingers against her own. “Then the lesson today should be about relaxation.”
“Is that your way of saying ‘taking a pill’?”
“After we are done, you will not need one.”
* * * * *
Kate stretched, feeling every tendon and muscle grow taut and strained. She felt used and depleted in a very good way.
Then Garrett’s long fingers slid from her hip to her breast and she snapped out of the stretch with a hiss, as he closed his hand around her breast. “No fair,” she murmured.
“Of course it isn’t,” he agreed. He pulled her across the bed and tucked her back against him, his hand still on her breast. He brushed her hair out of the way and kissed her neck in a series of little kisses that trailed from her ear to her nape and made her shiver.
“Micheil…” she murmured in protest.
“Micheil?” he repeated, leaning over her to look at her eyes.
She turned her head to look at him properly. In the dim light of his bedroom, his eyes were a dark blue and hard to read. “We’re beyond Garrett, now, aren’t we? And you’re not a dove. And what you did last week, with Billy.” She hesitated. “You were an angel for me.”
He pushed a hand through his tousled, thick red locks.
“Do you…mind?” she asked.
His mouth turned up in a smile. “No.” He kissed her. “It surprised me. But I like it, coming from you.” He picked up his watch from the side table. “You should go. It’s late.”
“How late?”
“Nearly nine.”
She slid to the side of the bed. “Damn, that is late. Adrian will be wondering—” She bit the rest off. “Sorry,” she told Garrett.
He lay back on the bed, all long limbs and fine flesh. He shook his head. “It’s fine.”
“But I do need to go. I have to check the dailies.”
“And you should eat.”
“Adrian said he would get…” Kate halted again, her arm halfway inside her tee-shirt.
Garrett’s arm came around her waist and his lips pressed against her shoulder. “It’s really okay, Kate. I’m not going to wither up and die, because you talk about the other man in your life. Adrian’s holding your life together and keeping you sane while you make a movie. I know that. I also know I’m part of keeping you sane.”
She let out her breath. “You’re a bigger person than me, then, Micheil. I’d be outraged and eaten up with jealousy.”
“I’ll take you on whatever terms you come. That’s enough for now.”
She slid her tee-shirt on and he tugged it down behind her. “See, that’s what makes you bigger than me,” she told him. “I’m such a selfish bitch. I’d be stomping my foot, demanding more…I am demanding more than I deserve already.”
“But you don’t see you the way I do.”
“You don’t see me the way you should.” She pushed her legs into her jeans and stood up, turning to face him as she fastened them.
“You’d make a lousy salesman. Haven’t your PR people taught you anything yet about spin?” Garrett moved to the edge of the bed and placed a knee on either side of hers. He cupped the back of her thighs. “Just enjoy this. Don’t question it. Things will change soon enough.”
She frowned. “You make it sound like there’s some sort of plot going on.”
He laughed up at her. “I’ve watched too many strategies and plots to unseat me hatch and die in the boardroom. One thing I know from a lifetime of business politics — things always change.”
She took a deep breath. “Yeah, they do, don’t they?”
He reached up and drew her head down to kiss her. “Now go and eat dinner.”
“Yes, Micheil.”
He grinned. “I really do like that. Especially with the subservient ‘yes’ tacked on the front of it.”
She snorted and turned to leave. “Last time I’m saying it,” she warned him as she shut the trailer door behind her.
* * * * *
The tap on the door didn’t wake Patrick, who was asleep in the bedroom. Nial moved soundlessly across the well-appointed trailer and opened the door a few inches. A light shone briefly in his face.
“Sir, there’s someone in reception demanding to speak to you.” The voice was young. He recognized it as one of the night watchmen that guarded the hangar after midnight.
“Patrick? At this time of night?”
“Not Mr. Sauvage, sir. You.”
Nial pushed the trailer door open, stepped out and shut it gently, making no noise. The man was holding the torch down by his side to avoid blinding either of them. It lit the yellow band on his uniform trousers and the shining boots.
“How did they ask for me, exactly?” Nial pressed, cautiously.
The man held out a sheet of paper. “With this.”
Nial looked at it. The guard held the torch up to light it, although Nial could see it perfectly well anyway. It was a computer printout of a news site’s report on the Billy Donnelly thing. There was a very clear shot of him, Sebastian and Patrick marching Billy off to the van in which they’d driven him into San Francisco, to the nearest lock-up where they’d convinced a sheriff, who had recognized Patrick, to process and hold Williams until Garrett’s lawyer arrived to get the real charges laid.
Nial’s head in the photo was circled in black marker.
“Who’s doing the asking?” Nial said, looking at the guard.
“Big guy,” the man said. “But I think he’s asking on someone else’s behalf.”
“Why?”
The guard hesitated. “No car keys,” he said. “And he’s not the limousine type.”
“Not at this time of night, anyway.” Nial agreed with the assessment. “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute. You go keep him company. Tell him I’m coming.”
The guard nodded and hurried away.
Nial pulled out his cellphone and thumbed out the same text message to two different numbers and sent it.
Sebastian’s answer was almost immediate.
On my way.
Garrett’s took a few seconds longer.
Feeding. Sorry.
Blood hunger couldn’t be ignored. Nial might need him, but he had to feed. Sebastian would be enough. At least he wasn’t going into this unknown factor alone.