Her shout broke Kaya’s heart. She backed up a couple of paces, edging toward the door as the clomp of heavy boots vibrated in the floorboards. Her sister turned away as Kaya reached the tavern door.
The last thing she saw of Leah was her stiffened spine before Kaya pivoted and bolted out to the street to make her escape.
CHAPTER 16
Aric dropped an image file into a growing folder of possibles for Kaya to review, then moved on to the next hundred photos that waited on his tablet. It was painstaking work, visually scanning every image from the wedding for a glimpse of a dark head on a portly man who might turn out to be the one she saw leaving the reception. As tedious as the search was, without her having read Mercier’s thoughts, the Order wouldn’t even have this small advantage in their pursuit of Opus’s members.
He let out a heavy sigh, frowning when he considered the way Kaya had acted around him this morning.
They had shared an incredible night together. Hell, sunrise hadn’t been half-bad either. He might have been tempted to call it pretty damned close to perfect--if not for the dreadful news that had greeted them not long after they’d come back inside the command center.
The shocking daytime attack on a Darkhaven had put everyone in a grave mood.
In particular, Kaya.
For what wasn’t the first time, Aric checked the clock and wondered if he should have insisted on accompanying her for her run. It wasn’t that he worried for her safety necessarily. She had been trained to handle herself by some of the most capable members of the Order. She was strong-willed and physically fierce, but she was also shaken to her core by what they had witnessed today. He’d seen that in her eyes after they had returned from the crime scene, even though she had insisted she was fine.
When footsteps approached in the corridor, Aric glanced up, hoping it would be her. But the gait was all wrong, too heavy to be her graceful stride.
He exhaled a curse, leaning back in his seat as Rafe strode into the war room.
His comrade cocked his blond head in question. “Something wrong?”
“I thought you might be Kaya. I’m making some good progress on the photos and I need her help to put this task to bed.”
Rafe grunted, then pulled out the chair next to Aric and plopped into it uninvited. “You sure that’s the only thing you want to put to bed? You two seemed awfully friendly last night. I’ve seen you seduce your way around other females often enough to realize there’s something unusual going on with this one.”
“You’re one to talk,” Aric volleyed back. He wasn’t ready to think about how he really felt about Kaya, much less discuss it with Rafe. Instead, he opted for deflection. “Just how serious are you about this Siobhan O’Shea?”
“Shit,” Rafe said, going quiet for a long moment. “It’s serious. I’ve never met anyone like her, man. She’s beautiful and sweet and so damned innocent. I swear, there are times I wonder how someone as pure and lovely as her can be real. And the way she looks at me . . . like I’m her personal hero or something. It’s heady stuff.”
Aric smirked, reaching out to cuff his friend’s shoulder. “My condolences, brother. Sounds like you’ve got it bad.”
“Yeah. I guess I do.” He blew out a laugh, but his gaze was as solemn as Aric had ever seen it. “You want to hear something crazy? If I had to construct the perfect woman for myself, Siobhan is it to a T. I don’t know why fate decided to put her in my life, but now I can’t imagine letting her go.”
Aric chuckled. “Coming from you, that does sound crazy.”
In all the times they’d caroused together in Boston and more recently in D.C., Rafe had hardly given a second look to any of the countless women who’d tried to catch his eye. His blond mane and aquamarine eyes that turned heads everywhere he went had come from his beautiful mother, Tess. His magnetism with the fairer sex had been a gift passed down from his father, Dante, one of the Order’s most dangerous and revered commanders. With his fallen angel appeal and the dark charm and swagger of the devil himself, Rafe could have any woman he desired.
That the golden warrior was smitten with a timid little waif like Siobhan O’Shea made little sense to Aric, but who was he to question his friend’s heart?
“Gotta say, never thought I’d see the day you let a woman get under your skin like this,” he told him. “Be careful, brother, or you might end up falling in love.”
The fact that he didn’t deny it or at least come back with a smartass reply told Aric just how captivated he was with the Irish Breedmate.
“I just want to keep her safe,” Rafe murmured. “After the hell she’s been through, she deserves some happiness. I want her to know she can trust me to protect her.”
Aric nodded. He was getting a taste of that feeling himself when it came to Kaya. Except her trust seemed hard to win--maybe even impossible. And while she had definitely survived an awful past, she was far from in need of anyone’s rescue. It was a fact that made him respect her even more than if she had been a delicate innocent in search of a hero to save her.
In fact, if he had been pressed to describe his ideal mate she would be a lot like Kaya. Smart, driven, independent. Someone strong and resilient like his own mother, Tavia, or Renata, women who were indomitable despite their scars.
And it didn’t hurt that Kaya was a stunning brunette beauty with a killer body and legs that went on for days.
But he wasn’t looking for a mate. Unlike his friend Rafe, he wasn’t about to let himself careen head over heels just because he was having a good time with a woman any male would be damned lucky to have in his bed.
Or as his blood-bonded Breedmate.
Why the thought of Kaya with anyone else should set his teeth and fangs on edge, Aric didn’t know--and didn’t care to examine, either.
