That thought, more than any concern for her own safety, chilled her to her bones. “So, what does this mean, then?”
“You can’t go back to Rome now, Phaedra. It won’t be safe for you. It especially won’t be safe for the Order. Lucan has already made the decision. He feels, and I agree, the best place you can be is here, under the Order’s protection. Under my personal protection as well.”
She couldn’t argue with the logic, but she had responsibilities waiting for her back home. She had people in dangerous situations of their own who relied on her to keep them safe from harm. “What about the shelter? The women and children—”
Brynne nodded. “We’ve already informed Lazaro of the change in plans. Sia and Trygg will be relocating to your house to manage things until it’s safe for you to return.”
“When might that be?”
The fact that neither Brynne nor Zael had that answer for her only reinforced the seriousness of what the Order was facing. And now she had added to those troubles.
She could hardly stand the idea that by trying to protect Micah and the other warriors, instead she had potentially endangered them all.
“I don’t think I can eat right now,” she murmured, rising from the table on shaky legs. “Will you all excuse me, please?”
CHAPTER 16
It had only been a few hours since he’d been inside Phaedra and he already wanted her again.
Or, rather, still.
After seeing her to her guest room, he’d spent the remainder of the time before dawn bagging the remains of the target dummy in the weapons room, then trying to drown his hunger for Phaedra under an ice-cold shower for nearly an hour.
It hadn’t worked.
The only hope he had left was the four thousand miles that would be placed between them once she was delivered back to her home in Rome.
He had done his damnedest to steer clear of her, keeping busy down in the command center with Jax and Darion, and avoiding stepping foot in the mansion’s residence. The pair of nines he wore on his weapons belt had never been cleaner. The handcrafted titanium blade he’d dropped in a nomad’s village after dragging himself across miles of Siberian wilderness—the blade his father had returned to him—had been sharpened to the finest edge it had ever seen.
He glanced up from polishing the blade for the hundredth time and found Darion staring at him, a look of wry amusement on his face.
“Why don’t you just go talk to her?”
Micah went back to cleaning a nonexistent smudge from the blade. “Talk to who?”
“The female who’s got your dick in a knot.”
“She’ll be leaving soon for Rome with Zael and Brynne.” He looked at his friend and shrugged. “It’s for the best.”
Darion arched a dark brow. “The fact that you’re not even trying to deny there’s something going on between you and Phaedra says it all.”
He set the dagger down on the table harder than intended. “You got a point to make here, Dare?”
“Holy hell. You care about her.”
“Of course, he does,” Jax said, pausing his hira-shuriken target practice to weigh in. The fury that had cloaked them all after Eli’s killing had galvanized into a cold purpose for the slain warrior’s patrol partner. Despite his grief, Jax slid a smirk in Micah’s direction. “You can’t fight destiny, brother.”
Was that all it was?
Could this magnetic pull he felt toward Phaedra be explained away so easily?
Was his desire for her simply a product of the Dreamscape and some predetermined assertion that they were meant to be? Or did his feelings for her run deeper than some illusionary edict neither of them had any control over?
Nothing about last night felt that simple to dismiss.
The way her presence called to him now felt too real to be discounted as just some cosmic matchmaking gone awry.
And that made it all the more critical for him to keep his distance.
