Chapter Three
Warmund
Penny stared at him with such fear in her eyes that he almost felt his fires flaring. How dare Thonis storm in here and act like he was a threat to Penny and her kids. Warmund rolled to his toes. He had the information he needed, but now that Thonis was here and saw him make this sort of contact, it was going to be even harder to come back during a portal opening.
The guard—if he was still a guard, a lot could have happened for him to have gotten a promotion since Warmund had last been in the palace—stepped forward and lowered his voice. “Warmund, you’ve been gone long enough. You know that your father wants you back.”
“Right,” Warmund drawled. “I know you people keep saying that he wants me back. I’ve seen no real proof, though.”
“Only because you’re too blind to—"
Warmund saw his opening. He leapt forward, striking out with both fists. Thonis blocked the first one but was too slow for the second. Warmund’s punch landed in his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Thonis stumbled back, wheezing. He didn’t bend as much as Warmund would have liked, though, and straightened quickly. He blocked Warmund’s next attack, a knee toward his face and seized Warmund around the shoulders. Warmund allowed Thonis to pull him off-balance but then used that same motion to roll himself over Thonis’ back.
He broke free from Thonis’ grip and used the continued momentum to ram his knee into Thonis’ back and elbowed into the back of his neck. There was a crunch, not enough to cause permanent damage but enough to make him fall.
Warmund turned, ready to end his enemy, the way he’d learned to in the Exiled Lands. Even as he seized Thonis’ arm and set a foot to his neck, though, there was a soft gasp followed by the short cry of a baby. His head jerked up, and his eyes met Penny’s, wide as she stared over the porch railing.
What was he doing? This wasn’t the Exiled Lands anymore. Thonis had not been hunting him.
As Thonis made a pained noise, Warmund released him. He raced for his car, heart thumping against his chest. By the time he’d turned on the engine and started away, Thonis was already on his feet. Smoke billowed from his mouth as he chased after Warmund’s car. It rankled, having to run, but what else was he meant to do?
Thonis gave up the chase after three blocks. Warmund glowered at the rearview mirror for a moment before he turned his attention back to the road. His heart soon came back under control. His emotions, though, did not.
The fight was only part of it.
Wildref looked nothing like Warmund had thought she would. He thought she would look like her mother. Tall, thin, with sharp eyes and a hard air about her. She hadn’t been like that, though. There was nothing hard about her. She’d been relaxed, soft. Dark eyes that sparkled more like their father’s had when Warmund was young and Indulf would throw him in the air. Wildref looked so much like Indulf, really. Eyes, ears, even mouth.
Warmund pulled into traffic on the main roads, letting his body take over and drive him back to his apartment. Part of him wanted to push aside those thoughts and concentrate instead on the information that he had got from his device. That was far from his mind, though. Not when his long-lost sister had been right there.
He hadn’t said anything. Now he told himself it was because he knew if he started telling her about her heritage, it meant that he’d be caught in the middle of that drama, rather than being able to fulfill his mission to go back and fix things.
But he knew the truth.
It wasn’t because telling her the truth would cause complications in his plan to go back and prevent all this from happening. It was because merely talking to her would. He’d barely interacted with her at all, and yet he could see how happy she was. How well-adjusted. If he spent any time with her at all, it would weaken his determination.
He was doing this for her, even if she didn’t understand.
Warmund tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he pulled into the parking garage. Yes, she had looked happy and healthy, but what could you tell from a few seconds? He’d also seen her clothes were worn and ill-fitting. Bargain clothing bought at discount prices. Her short hair had been artificially straightened, and there was a tiredness in the way she held her shoulders. That much he was certain of.
Wildref should be draped in silk and jewels. Not second-hand clothing—Warmund was certain that her clothes had been ratty at the hems. She should have servants to tend to her needs, not have those tired eyes. Yeah, she looked happy, but she’d be much happier if she had grown up in Byrelmore, with her position as princess.
He’d lived here for a year. What he had found out most of all was that it was hollow. Sure, there were nice things for those who had the ability to work hard and had the luck to land themselves a good job. Most of the riches were hoarded, though, not like in Byrelmore. Sure, Indulf was wealthier than the average citizen, but all healers and mages were duty-bound to help those in need. The thought of someone with nothing having to choose between debt or living with what might be a fatal condition? Especially if that condition meant that the individual couldn’t work and therefore had little to no money to begin with? That alone was enough for Warmund to know that this world wasn’t the right one for Wildref.
And that wasn’t even taking into account that she had never shifted, not even once, due to the lack of magic here.
Then there was Indulf. Why was he letting her live like this?
Warmund slammed his car door shut and stalked toward the stairs, glad that Mrs. Peabody, the widowed woman who lived above him and liked to flirt with him, wasn’t around. Normally it was fun to banter with her, but today he was in no mood. He jogged up the stairs, trying to burn off excess energy but was still fuming by the time he got to his apartment.
What was Indulf thinking? Not only keeping Wildref’s heritage from her but keeping everything she ought to have. There was plenty of gold in Byrelmore that translated to money here. He should be buying her everything she wanted. If he was so determined to keep the truth from her, he could do the same for the rest of the girls at that house. So why was Wildref wearing faded jeans and an oversized shirt, rather than something tailored for her?
He huffed angrily as he put the device he’d built on the table. He pressed a few buttons on it, then plugged it into the high-tech computer he’d bought for this purpose. Its readings flashed over the screen, but Warmund paid no attention to it.
It didn’t matter why Indulf wasn’t taking action. All that mattered was that Warmund would. He was going to undo all this, make sure that Wildref grew up as the princess she was. And then, none of this would matter. He wouldn’t have rebelled against his father, wouldn’t have been exiled and there wouldn’t be this ball of hurt and anger always clogging up his lungs.
Another ball of anger rose up in him when he thought of how frightened Penny had been, staring at him as Thonis came to confront him. If he’d just kept his nose out of other people’s business, everything would have been fine! It wasn’t as though he was hurting anybody by talking to her. If anything, Thonis was the one to put them in danger when he was being rough and hostile.
He needed sex. Just go out for the night and get his mind off this. Come back when his computer had finished processing the information being plugged into it, when he was in a calmer state of mind. Then he could just ignore this anger.
The image of Penny’s eyes came back to him and a twinge went through his heart. He’d have liked to have held her in his arms, at least for a little while. There was something about her that made him want to tell her everything. Something gentle, the likes of which he hadn’t known for a long time. He knew those were dangerous thoughts; if he started to get attached to the idea of a woman at this point…
“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” he murmured to himself. All his greatest love affairs had been in times of emotional distress. After Wildref was kidnapped, just before he rebelled against his father, when assassins were coming after him in the Exiled Lands. This was just that again. He wanted company, he didn’t want to be alone, and Penny was a beautiful woman. The type any dragon would lust over.
That’s all it was, lust. But there was some part of his brain that wanted it to be more than that. Wanted someone to mourn him when he was gone. This despite the fact that when he was gone, she wouldn’t even remember he existed.
Still, was that such a bad thing to desire? He lusted for her, that was true. Was it so bad that he wanted someone to understand him as well as allow him inside their body?
Warmund sighed as he reached for his phone. He hadn’t gotten her number, true, but he’d managed to get a lot of contacts in this world who found information that was usually hidden. Any of them could find her number for him while he went and showered and shaved. His face was starting to itch with the stubble coming out of his skin.
Penny probably wouldn’t want to listen to him. Who knew what sort of things Thonis had told her by this time. Chances were she’d think that he had been about to murder her, or whatever it was Thonis may have told her. Warmund knew that the palace guards took his betrayal hard since he’d trained with most of them…
But no matter. He wanted to have the chance to explain, at least. The chance for someone in this cold, uncaring universe to listen. To understand and maybe even to see him not as a traitor but for the person he was—a man who just wanted his little sister back.