“Oh, yeah.” She linked her arms around his neck. “Now take me home, my man, and I’ll show you how much.”

Chapter 5

“So Richard offers rule of Ireland in exchange for some lost baubles. If I’d known that was the sole requirement, I’d never have crossed the pond.” Lucan rolled up the summons Jamys Durand had given him and passed it to Burke. “I thank you for delivering it. Shall I have young Chris drive you back to the airport?”

Jamys hesitated. To remain in South Florida long enough to search for the Emeralds of Eternity, he would have to request permission for an extended visit. Lucan would want to know why, and if he told him the truth, it would probably result in a call to Thierry Durand. The moment Jamys’s father discovered his son had joined the quest for the lost gems, he would order him back to North Carolina.

A warm hand touched the back of his. “With your permission, Suzerain, Lord Durand would like to stay for a few days,” Christian Lang said. “He’s been looking forward to spending some time with you and your lady and his friends among the household.”

“Has he?” Lucan eyed the girl.

Jamys hid his surprise and inclined his head in agreement.

“Still having trouble getting the words out?” A glimmer of sympathy warmed the suzerain’s silvery eyes. “Well, we’ve plenty of mortals around the place to help you with that. Chris, since you’re already acquainted with Jamys, you can look after him while he’s here.” He rose from his chair. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go collect my sygkenis before she spends the whole of the night filling out police forms in triplicate.”

“My lord, perhaps you should text her first,” Burke said as he followed Lucan out of the room.

At last Jamys was alone with Chris, and he turned his hand to catch hers as he projected his thoughts. What have they done to you?

“Done? Nothing.” She lowered her voice before she added, “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have jumped in like that, but I got the feeling you didn’t want to play twenty questions.”

I don’t mean that. He looked at her dark brown hair, which she wore in a sleek twist, and then all over her face, which had been made up with sheer, neutral cosmetics but no longer sported any piercings. The only jewelry she wore, in fact, was two blue pearl studs in her ears and a short, matching strand around her throat. Why do you look like this?

She glanced down at the front of her tailored navy blue suit. “This is what I wear to work.” Her lips curved in an impersonal smile as she extracted her hand from his. “Would you like a tour of the stronghold? The suzerain has made quite a few changes since your last visit.”

Jamys had no interest in going anywhere until Chris gave him some answers. Somehow during the three years they had been apart, Lucan and his sygkenis had turned the rebellious, fiercely loyal girl he had known into this polite, cool stranger. If he had not imprinted her features so deeply in his memory, he might not even have recognized her.

“If you’d rather have someone else assigned to you, I can ask Mr. Burke who’s available,” Chris was saying, this time without the smile. “You just have to let me know what sort of girl you’d like. There’s a very pretty woman who runs our property management office downtown. She’s a blonde. We also have a redhead who manages the restaurant Lucan just bought over on Las Olas—”

“No.” He held up his hand to stop her. “You. I want you.”

He had practiced using his voice during his journey from his father’s stronghold to Alenfar, so it had improved, but now his emotions made the words sound too rough, like the growl of an animal. He wanted to touch Chris again, and this time channel his thoughts into hers, to make her understand that he had come back in order to win her. Given the force of his emotions, however, doing so would also trigger his talent, which allowed him to enter the mind of any mortals in his presence, and compel them to think, do, or say anything Jamys wished while believing it to be their own desire.

He wanted Chris in every way he could have her, and under the influence of his talent, she would give herself to him completely. For as long as they were together, she would even believe it was her idea.

Nothing had ever tempted him more than the prospect of using his talent to command Chris’s passion. Back at his father’s stronghold he had often thought on it, and in the dark corners of his heart he knew himself capable of it. He wanted her that much. But to turn this bright and beautiful girl into his personal puppet would be a horrendous transgression, one that would render meaningless everything he felt for her.

If Chris came to him, it had to be without his coercion. He wouldn’t have her any other way but willingly.

“You sound tired.” Chris reached out to him, but when he stepped aside to prevent the physical contact, she snatched her hand back. “I’m sorry, I . . . I should show you to your rooms now.”

Jamys maintained the space between them as he followed her to the elevator. If he had hurt her, she concealed it well; her expression had shifted back to the calm, impersonal mask she wore in front of Lucan and the other Kyn. He wanted to tell her why he had come—to explain to her everything he had planned—but he knew it had to wait until he felt more certain of her feelings and his own self-control.

On the fifth floor Christian led him through a hall interspersed with starkly designed stainless steel block columns to a zebrawood door set between two massive white and gray marble monoliths.

“This is the Winterheart Suite,” Chris murmured as she took out a plastic card and swiped it through the electronic locking mechanism. The door slowly retreated inward without a sound on its own. “No one else is staying on this floor, so you’ll have plenty of privacy.”

Accustomed as Jamys was to the medieval grandeur of Baucent, he preferred the simplicity of open space and clean lines. The design of the suite might have been plucked from his own dreams, effortlessly bringing inside the space, stillness, and stark colors of a moonlit night sky.

He admired the wide swaths of inclusions, in every color of gray, that flowed like smoke across the silver white marble walls. Low-profiled, white-upholstered black lacquer furnishings provided comfort without clutter, while narrow opaque panels shed lustrous blue light to outline the doorways to other spaces.

“I had the contractor install voice-activated lighting controls. Just say what room and the percentage of light that you want, like this: ‘living room, one hundred percent.’” As she spoke, lighting panels under the furniture and set inside the ebony wood floor began to glow, as did a frozen glacial shower of small glass spheres suspended on wires from the center of the ceiling.

Jamys appreciated the impressive technology, but he wanted to talk to her, not the room.

“You can whisper if you need to,” she told him. “The suite is soundproofed, and the controls are very sensitive.” She moved across the room. “This is a gas fireplace. I chose this model because it’s cleaner and more efficient than one that burns wood.” She demonstrated the device that fed and regulated the flames in the hearth, which occupied a glossy cube of black granite encased in a broad column of brushed steel.

From there Chris led him into a small kitchen. “I thought a refrigerator would be a waste of space, so stores of wine and blood are kept under the counters here.” She pulled out a drawer to reveal the refrigerated interior filled with a variety of bottles. “Unless you hang the Do Not Disturb sign on your door, our household staff will come in just before sunset daily to clean and restock. Also, if you’re planning to entertain someone who isn’t Kyn, just dial nine on the house phone and let our chef know what you’d like prepared for your guest.”

She had offered him his pick of females to replace her, and now presumed he would be bringing mortals to his suite, all with such bland indifference he might have been a complete stranger to her. Jamys couldn’t understand it. When last they had been together, she had been warm and giving, and—for a time—his only real friend in this place. She had given him her blood and offered him her body. She had more than liked him, he’d been convinced of it.

How could she have stopped caring for him? Was it possible that she had regretted their time together? Had she given him no thought at all in the three years since?

“Is there anything else you need, my lord?” Chris asked politely.

She truly wanted to leave him. He could hear the strain in her voice; he could see the tension in her hands and shoulders. She wouldn’t even look at him directly.

A dull anger rose inside him. He would not let her run out of here, no matter how much she wished to escape him. Not until he knew what had changed her feelings for him.

As if she could hear his thoughts, Chris looked up at him, her eyes guarded. “If you don’t care for the suite, we have other, more traditional accommodations available.”

Suddenly what she had been saying to him took on new meaning. I had the contractor install . . . I chose this model . . . I thought . . .

“This is yours.” He encompassed the room with a sweep of his hand. “You made this.”

“I designed and furnished it, but I don’t live here. When Sam moved in with Lucan, she gave me her old apartment.” She hugged her waist with her arms and looked away. “Sometimes, when I’m too tired to drive home, I sleep up here.”

“Alone?” he couldn’t help asking.

Her eyes glittered. “No, I usually invite the entire garrison up to cuddle with me. Unless the guys want to play Strip Scrabble or Naked Twister. Then we go to the rec room down the hall.” She stalked out of the kitchen.

She wasn’t indifferent to him, Jamys thought; she was furious. Dismay and exhilaration sent him after her, but when he emerged from the kitchen, he found her turned around and walking back to him.

Chris folded her hands in front of her and looked past his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way, my lord,” she said in a voice devoid of emotion. “I apologize. It’s been a very long night.”