Rejar Part 22

A black cat with two different colored eyes.

Her cat.

Lilac fainted dead away.

Her eyelids fluttered opened slowly.

Nickolai was leaning over her, concern and a half-smile on his face.

"It seems I am forever shocking you, souk-souk."

It all came back to her-the strange, flas.h.i.+ng lights, Nickolai no longer there. The cat.

Terrified, she scrambled back toward the headboard in a vain attempt to put distance between them. "Stay away from me!" She put her arm out to ward him off.

"You are being foolish. Let me explain-" he reached out to her.

"Don't touch me!"

He ignored her words and clasped her shoulders.

"Stop this. I want to tell you-"

Caught within his embrace. Lilac panicked and began screaming at the top of her lungs. "Help! Help! I'm in here with a beast!"

"Help! Help! He is a beast! A beast!"

Downstairs Emmy gave one look to Jackie, grinned, and continued with her dusting. Jackie's eyes rolled, but his gaze went speculatively to the ceiling.

"You are letting your fears and superst.i.tions overwhelm you!" Rejar shook her slightly in an effort to bring some sense back to her. It did not work. At a loss, he shut her up the best way he knew how-with his mouth.

"Mmgf!" She pounded against his back to no avail. When she finally realized he wasn't going to release her until she quieted down, she went limp in his arms.

He lifted his lips from hers.

Lilac immediately wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. At the insult, his blue/gold eyes narrowed. Her eyes flashed back at him. "What are you?"

"I am a Familiar. I come from a race-"

My G.o.d, a familiar! She had secretly read all about them in one of the books Auntie thought no one knew about-the books she kept hidden behind the davenport. "I will not hear this!" she covered her ears. He was a witch!

He pulled her arms down. "You will hear this."

"I-I don't believe-I'm a woman of good sense! There is no such thing as witches!"

Rejar sighed. This was not going as he had thought. "I have no idea whether there is or there is not. In either case, it has nothing to do with me."

"You-you're not a witch?"

He shook his head in disbelief. Laughing, he replied, "No. I am a-"

"Then you must be a sorcerer! I-I saw you-I saw what you did! Why, you cast some kind of a spell on me! That's why I behaved as I did! You made me wanton and-and-breathless!"

He revealed a lazy half-grin. "Did I?" his deep voice rolled in his throat.

She bit her lip and nodded.

Rejar exhaled. She was being serious. "Lilac, I am not a sorcerer!" He paused a minute. "At least I do not believe I am."

"What do you mean?"

Distracted, Rejar unconsciously sent her his thought. {Yaniff thinks ... never mind, it is not important. I am only confusing you further.} He spoke in her mind! She gasped. He had unearthly powers! Just like in her dreams! Only, they weren't really dreams. Somehow he had come to her in the night. Come to her and-and played with her! Wove some kind of enchantment about her.

Why did he have to pick on me? Well, what did one expect from someone coming from such an outlandish place as Russia? It wasn't at all civilized like England.

Lilac was petrified. What should she do? They were married. My G.o.d, she had consorted with him! It was too late. She must talk some sense into him before the situation came down around them! Frantically, she clutched his arms.

"Do you know what they could do to you? To all of us if they find out? You must give this up, Nickolai!" she beseeched him. "Renounce these black arts! It was not so long ago that-why, we could all be burned at the stake!"

Rejar snorted, exasperated. "Do not be ridiculous. Your superst.i.tions are overwhelming you."

"No, Nickolai! You must never, ever do this again!" Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Lilac." Rejar took her in his arms. He had not realized she would react like this. Women always loved Familiars. Who could have predicted this reaction? It was not his intention to upset her so. She was nearly hysterical. "Shh. It will be all right." He soothed her.

"Pr-promise me, Nickolai! Promise me you won't!" she cried into his chest.

He kissed her forehead. He could not make such a promise. "We will not speak of it now, souk-souk."

"You-you won't ch-change again, will you?" she sniffed.

Not unless I want to. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly she could go from woman to child. For all her bravado, she really was very young, he realized. And very inexperienced.

He shook his head at a loss. What was he to do but temporarily appease her? "Not now," he answered ambiguously.

The vagueness of his reply pa.s.sed by her. She accepted his words at face value. "Good." Her tear-streaked face gazed up at him. "It shall be our secret then. No one need ever know of it."

He brushed the tears from her cheek with the indulgent hand of a husband. "You are right; no one need know of it." He sighed to himself. How was he going to overcome this unforeseen barrier? He could not. For the time being. However, there was one thing he could make clear to her.

He met her pleading look with a commanding one of his own. "You are my wife. Do you understand me?"

Lilac swallowed, then looked away. "Yes."

He caught her chin with the crook of his finger, turning her back to him. "Then I accept your challenge."

Krue's second son lightly pressed his mouth to hers, sealing the exchange.

Emmy walked through the foyer, took two steps into the parlor, and remembered she had left her dust rag in the dining room. She immediately turned to retrace her steps. And walked into something very solid. There was a tall man standing in the foyer. Emmy gave a startled jump and backed up a few steps. "Beggin' yer pardon, sir! I didn't see you standing there."

Cool green eyes a.s.sessed her. "Think nothing of it."

Cor, but he was a looker! And that hair! Tied back in a queue and down to his waist, it was. Must be a heathen Scotsman. Emmy straightened her ap.r.o.n. "I didn't hear you come in."

"No."

What did the bloke mean by that? "Can I help ya then, sir?"

"I am looking for Rejar. Do you know his whereabouts?"

"Her ladys.h.i.+p's cat? What would ya want wit' him?"

Not one iota of expression crossed the man's handsome features. "Perhaps you can tell me who lives here."

This was decidedly queer, she thought. But then, nabobs were always peculiar in their way. "Why, there's Lady Whumples, her niece, Li-"

"Males?" He interrupted her.

"Well, if you mean the new master, that would be his Highness."

That brought forth a small expression. The man quirked a mocking eyebrow. "His Highness?"

"Yes, Prince Azov."

"Does this prince you speak of have two different colored eyes?"

"How'd ya know that?"

The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly in the semblance of a smile. "No one else would have the kani," he murmured to himself. "Tell 'his Highness' Traed is here to see him."

Emmy did not even think to question an order given in such an authoritative tone. "Very good, sir."

Rejar blankly stared at the bookcase in front of him. His mind was not on the tomes before him. In view of the fact that he could not read in this language, his stance was a measure of his distraction. He linked his hands behind his back, pondering the best route to take with his recalcitrant mate. A brief knock at the study door interrupted his thoughts.

He looked up. "Yes?"

Emmy stuck her head in the door. "Beggin' yer pardon, yer Highness, but there's a Mister Trey Ed to see you. Shall I show him in?"

Traed? Here? By Aiyah, as if he did not have enough problems! So who shows up on his doorstep but Traed! His dour brother-of-the-line. The man Adeeann affectionately refers to as "Mr. Levity." He sighed. What was he doing here? "Send him in, Emmy."

"Yes, sir." Emmy hesitated.

"Is there something else?" Do not let there be something else.

"No, yer Highness, it's just that-well, I didn't hear him come in, sir."

Rejar smiled faintly. "No, you would not."

"Sir?"

"He moves quietly, Emmy. Show him in."

"Yes, yer Highness."

Emmy returned a few minutes later. "Mister Trey Ed, your Highness!" she loudly announced to the room, causing Rejar to start. It was not very often she got to announce a visitor. Do it up nice and right, she did. She closed the door softly behind her after the remarkable gentleman had entered the room.

Traed watched her leave, then turned to face his capricious brother-of-the-line. "Your Highness," he said dryly.

"It suits me, does it not?" Rejar preened, comically throwing back his head with a regal, feline finesse.

Traed exhaled in a great gust of air as if to convey the measure of his unerring patience at having to put up with these antics.

Rejar broke into a genuine smile. Strange, but he actually was glad to see Traed. Sort of. "So, tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

Traed's pastel eyes gleamed in what could only be called gratification. His brother-of-the-line was not completely successful in hiding his discomfit over his sudden appearance. "Yaniff has sent me here to visit with you for a while. I think I am getting on his nerves."

No doubt. "I did not know Yaniff had nerves."

In a rare show of whimsy, Traed replied, "Perhaps I conjured them up for him. You think he would thank me?"

Rejar grinned. "That would be a sight worth seeing."

"Indeed."

Rejar tried not to sound too dispirited when he inquired, "So ... you will be staying a while?"

Traed strolled over to the window that Rejar was standing in front of. With two fingers, he carefully moved the curtain aside and surrept.i.tiously glanced to the street below. Satisfied no one was lurking about, he said, "Yes."

The pupils of Rejar's dual-colored eyes momentarily kindled. How was this not going to complicate his problems with Lilac? Mated one day and a brother-of-the-line shows up the next! To stay. I will kill Yaniff.

"Good." His voice did not hold much conviction. He cleared his throat and tried again. "That is ... good."

"Mmm." Traed sauntered over to the French doors in the corner, swiftly yanking them open. His steely green gaze scrutinized the garden area beyond before reclosing the doors.

"Traed, what are you doing?"

"Doing?"

"Yes, you are behaving most strangely." Even for you.