“No, of course not,” Merrick agreed quickly, ignoring the spurt of guilt that came with the lie. He told himself it was only one or two of the books that he’d read, so that really barely counted at all.
“Women,” Ciaran snorted. “They eat that drivel up because they don’t know any better.”
Merrick frowned. He didn’t like the implication that Tempest consumed drivel any more than he appreciated the slur against Christian’s books. They might not be great literature, but they weren’t that bad, and certainly Tempest appeared to have enjoyed them.
“I like Christian as well as anyone, but I have never understood why he went out of his way to write those books.”
“Well, we are interesting,” Merrick said, feeling somewhat defensive. “Tempest—that’s the woman who saved me—”
“Fed you,” Ciaran interrupted. “In Christian’s books, it would have been some woman who ‘saved you from your dark self.’ All this woman did was give you blood. We need to keep the line between fiction and reality clear.”
Merrick’s frown grew. “What Tempest did was more than just a feeding. She pulled me back from the brink of oblivion. I was ready to give up until she saved me.”
Ciaran snorted again. “You really must have had some damage to that brain of yours if you think that. No, no, I can see by the way you’re scowling that you’re going to be all protective of this woman just because she fed you when you were desperate. We’ll move past that, even if the woman can’t. I just hope you haven’t given her any encouragement.”
Merrick cleared his throat and studied the wallpaper. “I had to ensure she was safe. I owed her that.”
“Put her on a plane to somewhere remote, and forget about it.”
“I’m not sure it’s going to be that easy. She’s ... she’s fairly insistent that we’ve completed a few of the steps of Joining.”
“Aren’t they all convinced of that!” Ciaran said with a short bark of laughter. “If I’ve heard ‘Oh, Ciaran, bite me and make me your eternal love’ once, I’ve heard it a hundred times. I’d give anything to find just one woman who was intelligent enough to see through Christian’s dreck.”
“Tempest is a very smart woman,” Merrick said firmly, a flash of fire giving his voice an edge that he struggled to smooth. “She is discerning, and there’s nothing wrong with women reading books. Hell, a few centuries ago, women could have been burned at the stake for reading, and now you want to damn the lot of them for having the interest to learn more about us? You don’t deserve a woman like Tempest.”
“Good. I don’t want her.” Ciaran narrowed his eyes. “She sounds insipid and pushy.”
“She is not anything of the sort,” Merrick snarled. “She’s a goddamned goddess, and I’m done with this conversation.” He slammed the lid of his laptop shut, the sounds of Ciaran’s laughter echoing in his ears.
How dare Ciaran judge Tempest’s character? He had no idea what she was really like, none whatsoever. He didn’t see the warm glow that she seemed to exude, or the way her eyes got misty with passion, and the teasing note in her voice when she was saying something outrageous just to get a rise from him.
He spent the rest of the night grappling with a desire to check on Tempest while he dealt with a report that a Dark One in the south of Italy had gone missing. By the time he’d taken a portal to Rome, driven to Pisa—where the Dark One was last seen—and returned to Rome, only to portal back to Nice, it was midday.
That’s when the texts started.
From: Tempest
Hey, you awake? It’s noon, so I don’t know if you are sleeping or not.
To: Tempest
Yes, I am awake. Are you having an emergency?
From: Tempest
Not so much. Well, kind of. We’re wondering what you’re doing?
To: Tempest
Do I need to define the word “emergency” to you?
From: Tempest
Smart-ass. What are you doing? Are you in Nice?
To: Tempest
Yes.
