Silently, Lily cursed herself for having such a readable face, though she did take some consolation in the fact that he hadn’t been poking into her thoughts, even though he’d tried.
“Why don’t you think I could manage it?” Lily asked. “You saw what I can do. You don’t know me at all. Maybe I like killing.”
His faint, mocking smirk let her know that her statement sounded as ridiculous to him as it did to her.
“You’re also a terrible liar. Anyway, even if you managed to get rid of me, which you can’t, they’d just send another after you. Though with me gone, the Shades would get you first anyway. They’ll be wanting their money. And shaking them off once is only going to make it uglier for you the next time.” He paused. “Very ugly, knowing Damien. Someone’s gone and paid for the best if he’s involved.”
She stared up at him, full of impotent rage. Even now,
with her house in shambles and her deepest-buried secret completely exposed, she couldn’t ignore her simmering attraction to him. Having him this close, braced above her, completely focused, Lily saw that he felt it, too; she could see it in the way his breathing changed ever so slightly, the way his eyes, already intense, went to hot silver. So much of her wanted to stretch beneath him, to arch and invite him to put his hands on her, to melt under a touch she knew instinctively would be even hotter than his gaze.
Lily had to look away again. This was insane, and she needed to get a handle on it.
Now
.
“I’m going to sit up now,” she said firmly. She might be a quiet girl, but she’d been taking care of herself for a long time. Growing a spine hadn’t been an option, and she was glad to find hers intact in spite of everything. “You’re going to need to back off.”
Thankfully, he didn’t ask why or argue with her about it. She tried to be glad of it as Tynan shifted and moved back from her with the liquid grace of a cat.
A cat… he had been a cat….
Lily struggled up to a sitting position, still feeling like little more than a hollow vessel from which all the contents had just been emptied. She glanced at Tynan, now crouching only a few feet away and watching her with guarded interest.
“I thought vampires were supposed to turn into bats, not big black cats,” she muttered resentfully, lifting her hands to examine them for any cuts from the flying glass. Satisfied that there were none, she got her feet beneath her and began the arduous process of standing up without letting Tynan know how much it was costing her to manage it.
“Not all of us can turn into something else. It depends on the bloodline,” he said, frowning as he watched her. And damned if he didn’t get to his own feet and start to move toward her again, as though he wanted to help her up. Lily shot him a withering glare, and it must have conveyed what she wanted it to, because Ty quickly shifted back and stuck his hands in the pockets of his long black coat.
“Cats. Smoke. Bit of this and that. There are even a few who can turn into lions and jungle cats and things, though they’ve about gone extinct. And yes, bats. But turning into animals is usually sort of… frowned upon.”
“Because?”
“Too much like werewolves. And vampires hate werewolves.”
“I… oh.” Lily tried to digest that, then just decided to pretend she hadn’t heard it. The existence of vampires was enough for tonight.
“And that man who was here to kill me? Damien, I think you called him?” Lily asked, wrapping her arms protectively around herself as she made sure she was steady, then surveyed the damage she’d done. “Can he turn into anything else that I should be looking for?”
Tynan shook his head. “Another cat, I’m sorry to say, though you’ll have to believe me that he’s gone, at least for the moment. It’s a shame that he’s a Cait Sith,” he said, pronouncing it
cat-SHEE
, a word that sounded Gaelic and mysterious as it rolled off his tongue. “He’s a slippery enough bastard in his human form. All the Shades are, but he’s special, even for them. The services of the House of Shadows are astronomically expensive for a reason. Theft, espionage, extortion—assassination. The Shades
offer it all. And they’re very, very good.” He paused. “But Damien is in a class by himself. Easy to admire, when he’s not being paid to kill you.”
The sheer awfulness of what he’d just described to her was too much to take in, so Lily turned away from it, ignored the whole, and concentrated on the superficial.
“He mentioned you. I don’t think the feeling is mutual.”
“No, it wouldn’t be.”
Tynan didn’t elaborate, so Lily looked at her bare walls, one of which had a massive crack running the length of it now. Her pictures, framed photos of places she’d been and people she’d enjoyed, lay scattered on the floor. Glass was strewn everywhere in the hall, and a quick look behind her told her that the kitchen was worse. The force of her energy leaving her had managed to fling open some of the cupboards, and it seemed she might not have any glasses left. Or plates.
She didn’t want to look at any more destruction.
So she looked at Tynan, because he was the only thing here that didn’t make her feel like her heart was being ripped out of her body. He stood, tall and dark and calm, in the middle of the debris, and once again Lily felt an inexorable pull toward him, toward his strength and steadiness as she felt her own façade threatening to crumble. But Lily knew, without a doubt, that she’d have to be a complete fool to give in.
He hadn’t saved her, Lily told herself. He’d shown up while she was saving herself. And none of this would be happening if he hadn’t been following her to begin with. Remembering that brought a welcome rush of anger to temper the confusing mix of emotions she was contending with. She pushed the memory of the look in Damien’s
eyes when he’d seen her tattoo into the background, where she could ponder and worry over it later. Though Tynan’s voice still whispered that unthinkable word on a loop in her mind, over and over and over…
Assassination.
“So these Shades are trying to kill me. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why.”
“Because whoever hired them would rather see you dead than have you help the dynasty they’re trying to destroy,” Tynan said. “Damien won’t scare off so easily—he wants his money. My queen offers her protection in return for your help identifying her enemies.”
He extended his hand, but she stayed where she was. She wanted so badly to just give in, to shift the burden of her safety onto someone else for a change. But she’d learned the hard way that the only one she could rely on for protection was herself.
She kept her hands where they were.
“Your queen, whoever she is, can go to hell.”
Tynan pressed his lips together into a line of disapproval. “Don’t be a fool, Lily. You’re dead if you stay here. Let me help you,” he said.
“Help me? You
caused
this! You said yourself you were careless. I would have been fine if you hadn’t shown up!” Lily cried, outraged that Tynan thought she was so naive, so easily mollified.
He sighed, his shoulders sagging just a little, and Lily knew she wasn’t imagining the weariness that flashed in his strange silver eyes. It made her feel for him, when she should have felt no sympathy at all. But the depth of the exhaustion she’d glimpsed was so great, and so much more ancient than what any human could muster, that
it touched her unexpectedly. For just a moment, he had worn the look of a man who has struggled for so long that he has accepted it as a permanent state of being.
To a certain degree, it was a state she was intimately familiar with. Still she chafed at identifying with him.
“If you want to shout at me, Lily, go ahead,” Tynan said gruffly. “But there’s no changing what’s past. What matters is now. And the choice is either myself and the protection of the most powerful dynasty of vampires in the world, or Damien and his creative methods of putting people out of their misery.”
His sharp features now revealed nothing but determination. And any traces of vulnerability were gone… if she hadn’t just imagined them to begin with.
“I want you gone. I want to be left alone. Tell your queen to find somebody else.”
“There is no one else,” Tynan replied. “Your gift is rarer now than it ever was. It took me months to find one Seer: you. And if it hadn’t been me, Lily, another would have sought you out eventually.”
Lily looked at him, feeling hopelessness threatening to consume her. “A
Seer
? Is that what you think I am? What exactly am I supposed to be able to see, huh? The future? Can’t do that. The hearts and minds of other people? You’ve struck out there too. I’m not a mind reader or a visionary. And I think you’ve made a really big mistake.” Her words tasted as bitter on her tongue as they sounded. But Tynan didn’t seem the least bit put off. When he spoke again, his voice was soft but insistent.
“Maybe you don’t think so, Lily, but you’ve got the outward signs—more, in fact, than I was aware existed—of the sort of human who can see creatures caught between
the living and the dead. It’s not about prophecy but vision, and you should be capable of that too. You may not know how yet, but you can be guided.”
She swallowed hard, hearing the dry click in her throat. “So you’re saying I should be able to see ghosts?”
“Ghosts, and other things. Vampires can do some incredible things, but we can’t see beyond the here and now. Walking with death the way we do seems to rob us of our ability to look beyond it.” His voice hardened slightly. “Just be glad I was sent by someone who cares what condition you arrive in.”
His words made her break out in gooseflesh. She’d never seen a ghost—not that she was aware of anyway. Her nightmare, though, was something else, something more real than just a recurring wisp of an ugly dream. She’d always known it, just as she knew there was something strange about the tattoo that throbbed and burned upon waking. But the nightmare, vision, whatever it was had never done her any good—it was just there, an unfortunate part of her. That her life now seemed to hang in the balance because of it seemed hideously unfair.
“I can’t see anything that would help anyone,” she insisted, pushing back against the beginnings of despair. “And this”—she swept her arm around the ruins of her hallway—“is this anything your queen is going to want from me? What does this have to do with vision?” She gestured to the tattoo she’d tried so long to hide, now exposed as half of her thin sweater hung in tatters. “You wanted to know how I got this, what it means. I don’t know that either!”
Tynan’s expression clouded as he looked at her mark. “Yes. We’ll need to sort that out first, I suppose. The mark is… unusual. As are your abilities.” He didn’t sound
happy, and his honesty surprised her, but it was obvious that her objections had done nothing to deter him.
“Maybe I don’t care,” she said, though it cost her to even speak the lie. “Maybe I don’t want to know what it means.”
But within her, the energy she’d awakened so brutally still twisted and roiled, impossible to ignore. She didn’t know how to use it, how to control it. She never had. And now that it had been unlocked, it would begin to look for a way out again.
“Damien doesn’t scare easily,” Tynan said softly. “But I saw fear on his face. Fear is only going to make him more dangerous to you, because what he fears, he’ll work even harder to destroy. You need protection, Lily. Whether you like it or not.”
“What if I flat-out refuse you?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
He arched his eyebrow, and his gaze went to pure steel. “There is no refusal. I’d think you would have figured that out by now. If you continue not to see reason, then I take my chances that you’re nothing more, or less, than a human Seer with a strange mark that looks oddly like something a vampire would have. I’ll take you to Arsinöe by force, and you can see how far spitting in the face of a pharaoh gets you. Then you can find out what the Queen of the Ptolemy and her court think of your little symbol there without ever knowing yourself. And if you fail at what you’ve been brought for…” He trailed off, his voice dangerously silken.
She was glad he chose not to finish the sentence.
Lily glared at him helplessly. “But what if I’m nothing, Tynan? What if I can’t have visions, or whatever it
is you think I should be able to do, and I’m just some other variety of human freak show? Do you plan on letting this Damien know he can quit trying to kill me if that happens?”
Tynan shook his head slowly. “No. He’ll consider tonight a personal affront. I’m afraid that regardless, you’ll have to stay hidden until he can be taken care of. It may take a bit of time, depending on how much sense his masters are willing to listen to. But my queen promises you a return to your life, your home, no matter what happens. So long as you cooperate, this is an impermanent arrangement.”
He had gone quite still, and his voice had a queer, flat quality to it, as though he were simply reciting something he’d rehearsed many times before. Up until now, Lily had found him an unsettling presence but strangely genuine. His honesty about who and what he was prevented her, oddly enough, from fearing him the way she had Damien. Until now, that was. His promise rang hollow and false. Lily stared back at him without flinching, her gaze direct. He shifted, but his gaze never wavered from hers. Still, she was sure he was lying. Maybe about a little… maybe about everything.
The hell of it was, it didn’t much matter. The outcome would be the same.