Quinn walked to the balcony of the midtown condominium in Atlanta that he’d arranged for Reese and Phoedra, his thirteen-year-old daughter.
That wasn’t exactly true.
Reese had refused to move the two of them to the luxury unit, which he’d pulled markers to have ready for occupancy in less than a day. She declared she would not aid him in pushing Phoedra to move. He was on his own to explain to his child why they were being forced to make the change.
That’s when he’d taken a breath and a step back.
Yes, he’d been angry. Hurt more than anything, but this father business meant not storming in to have his way. He was learning and determined to excel at the most important job of his life.
Once he accepted that Reese would be one of the more difficult opponents he’d ever negotiated with, he’d bowed to her terms. He supplied her and Phoedra with a real estate agent who would chauffer them around to review what was available.
In hindsight, he admitted to himself he had been overbearing. What could he say? His heart had wanted Phoedra with him and overruled his good sense.
He was not happy about his daughter living with Reese instead of him, but she had known his daughter for the past two years. Quinn had just recently met Phoedra for the first time. The girl had been born in secret and watched over by a guardian whose identity neither Reese nor Phoedra would share.
Since Phoedra’s mother, Kizira, had been a Medb priestess who had hidden their child from her coven, Quinn had no doubt said guardian was a preternatural.
Phoedra trusted Reese, who had proven she would put her life between his daughter and danger.
Damn, that didn’t make him any happier. He didn’t want either to be harmed. Once again, Quinn reminded himself he had to be patient and earn his place in Phoedra’s life. She’d only recently learned the truth about him and her mother.
He had fallen for Kizira when they were both very young, before he found out Kizira belonged to the Beladors’ greatest enemy.
Talk about a clusterfuck relationship between a powerful Belador and a Medb priestess. Failure had been in the stars from the beginning.
Quinn might never have known he had a daughter, had Kizira not died in his arms with her last request being that he find the girl. It pained him that he’d missed his daughter’s childhood. He could not change the past, only do his best to provide a stable and loving future. It also troubled him that Reese was more a parent to his daughter than he was at this point. Understandable since Phoedra had known Reese when they both lived on the West Coast, and loved Reese. Phoedra barely knew him.
In fact, he’d known Reese longer than he’d known Phoedra. His feelings ran deep for Reese, but they had a complicated relationship, too.
Two screwed up relationships with nonhuman women.
What was the common denominator? Him.
Reese padded out to the balcony and turned to lean her back against the railing. “What’s so important you had to bribe Phoedra with a new Xbox game to get her out of the room?”
He took in the city of Atlanta, which stretched beyond this thirty-eighth floor residence like an urban landscape painted with a vibrant mix of green splashes. “I did not bribe my daughter. I want to make her feel like any other thirteen-year-old girl, even though most others have never been through all that she has.”
“She’s tough and resilient. She’s adapting well,” Reese said in a consoling voice.
She had a way of making him feel like he was doing right by Phoedra even though he hadn’t reached a close bond yet.
As if reading his mind, Reese said, “It takes time, Quinn.”
“Seems that’s the one commodity I haven’t been able to gain and develop.”
She gave him an odd look. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I might as well get to the point. Evalle has been captured.”
Reese stood away from the rail. “The Medb grabbed her?”
“Possibly, but they’re not the only ones at the top of our list.” He explained what he’d learned about the incredible wreck and the planning it had taken to disarm Evalle. “We believe she was teleported away.”
“What are we waiting for?” Reese asked, incredulous.
There was the warrior woman who had taken hold of his heart, but that was before he found out she’d been withholding information on Phoedra. They’d had words and were managing a peaceful truce now so Quinn could see his child, but he itched to hold Reese as well.
Pulling his attention from the dazzling blue of her eyes, he said, “Daegan is pulling together a team. We leave very soon.”
She walked past him, nibbling on her fingernail.
Quinn turned to follow Reese with his gaze as she moved around. The woman could not be still, but he found the constant motion pleasant to observe.
Angling around, she said, “What do you need? You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need something.”
Talk about insulting. “That’s not true.”
She held up a hand to stop him. “Wait. That sounded better in my head, but it was shorthand thinking. I don’t mean for Phoedra or me, I mean aren’t you here to find out how I can help you with Evalle?”
Explanation accepted, Quinn said, “I would not ask if it were not very important.”
“I know that.” She gave him a testy look. “What’s the plan?”
“I want you to know that I will not think less of you if you refuse my request.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m a big girl, Quinn. Tell me what you need and I’ll make up my mind.”
Reese was no girl, but a woman. Not the place to let his mind wander at the moment. He said, “As I mentioned, we’re forming a small tactical team. I’d like you to visit the crash site. You’ve told me your gift of remote viewing doesn’t work when someone travels to another world, but if you came with us you might be of aid at a different location along the way. We have no idea where this trip will take us, but if at any moment I feel you are in danger, I would have you teleported home immediately.”
Her hands slid down to hang loose. She appeared to be studying hard on his words. “Okay, I’m in, but what about Phoedra?”
His chest eased with her acceptance. “I have a plan for Phoedra.”
“Now wait a minute. This isn’t some screwed-up way of moving her to your place, is it?”
Don’t shout at Reese. Quinn took a moment and spoke slowly to keep from yelling at her. “No. I have not behaved in any underhanded way this entire time.”
She looked properly chastised. “I wasn’t accusing you—”
“Yes, you were. You’re just waiting for me to do something to force Phoedra to live with me. I’d love to have my daughter in my home, but only if she chooses to make that move. Until then, I’m playing by everyone else’s rules.”
Blowing out a hard breath, she said, “Okay, fine. I admit, I was worried you were going to do that. But you tried to move us out of our first apartment without asking first.”
“You two chose this place.”
“Only after you forced the issue.”
This woman could irritate him if he was in a coma. Straining not to snap at her, he reminded her, “I agreed to this arrangement of Phoedra living with you, but I was not able to sleep at night when I felt my daughter was staying somewhere I considered unsafe and without the level of security I require for myself. You got your way and I am at ease now. The security here is five times greater than where you had her.”
“Hold it, bud. I didn’t choose that first place.”
No, and she refused to tell him who had been pulling strings for Phoedra over the years, which included placing Phoedra and Reese in a substandard location.
To be fair, their first apartment hadn’t been the ghetto, but he could not live in finer accommodations while his child did not. With a quick glance, Quinn gave Reese credit for furnishing the new unit in a comfortably casual way, and she’d failed to spend a third of the money he’d made available for their needs.
He told her, “Since you didn’t choose that other apartment either, you should be glad for the change. For one thing, you are safer here. I have a contingent of Beladors to protect both of you.”
Her eyes fired up. “Hey, I’m not complaining about this place. I was only stating that you have a habit of demanding your way. Phoedra and I have existed for years in situations that were not of our choosing. We both want the chance to choose.”
That sounded perfectly fair, but by constantly questioning everything he said or did, Reese had pissed him off after he’d bent to meet her halfway more times than not recently. He said, “You may make any choice you wish, but Phoedra is my child. Until she’s capable of protecting herself, I will provide for and protect her in the best way I know how.”
“Fine.”
That evil female word. It was not fine, but Reese appeared ready to throw in the proverbial towel on this one.
Running a hand through his hair, he said, “I don’t want to fight with you, Reese.”
“Me neither. So, what’s your plan for Phoedra while we’re gone?”
He explained how Storm had his building warded for a preternatural apocalypse and that Kit would be staying there. Storm had called to share that new development just before Quinn knocked on Reese’s door.
She asked, “Who’s Kit?”
“Can I explain that on the way over to Storm’s building?”
“Oh. I get it. We need to get rolling.” Just like that, Reese went from arguing to action.
Those were the times he took a moment to enjoy the whirlwind of energy known as Reese.
The sound of a microwave running in the kitchen had Quinn turning. He walked over to see what Phoedra was up to and inhaled a deep breath of popcorn.
Had his daughter heard that entire exchange? With her odds at having preternatural hearing, she most likely had.
Reese had taken steps to the right as if to grab something off the sofa, but spun around and raced past him down the hallway.
“Reese?” he called out.
“Packing,” she shouted without turning around, and slammed a door.
Phoedra appeared in the entrance to the kitchen with a worried look on her face.
“Something smells good, sweetheart,” Quinn started in a happy tone he would always have ready for her. “Do you like your—”
“Oh, uh, sorry, be right back.”
He leaned over to watch her run down the same hall to Reese’s room. “What’s going on, you two?”
Phoedra paused at the door with guilt splashed all over her face. “Helping her pack.”
Quinn didn’t require Storm’s gift of ferreting out a lie to know his daughter had not told the truth.