Startled, mismatched eyes lifted to hers. The glow in them appeared brighter, turning the amber to gold and the gray to silver. She smiled. “Yeah, I’m okay, just dealing with some er, stuff. And really excited about the wedding.”
Stuff?
“Did you get someone to officiate yet?” Echo asked, distracting her. Darci sighed and pushed back her curly hair. “No, not yet. We have two days left—”
A sharp knock echoed. “Darci?”
Blaéz?She quickly opened the door and smiled at her man. “I said we’d be fine. See? This place is empty. No lurking danger about. Just us girls.”
He glanced down the corridor again. “Yes, but I have a bad feeling. We need to leave.”
“Is it your brother?”
“When is it not?” His expression turned grim as he ushered her out.
“Where’s Aethan?”
“Checking a disturbance out front. He called me to take over.”
“One sec.” Darci wheeled back, poked her head into the restroom. “I’m leaving,” she told her friends. “Blaéz thinks his brother is around. I’ll see you back at the castle.”
“Okay, be careful.” Echo’s mismatched eyes shifted to Blaéz in concern as they walked out.
“Please, do.” Kira hooked her arm through Echo’s, appearing equally worried. Then they hurried toward the dining room.
“They’re safe. Let’s go.” He rushed her outside, using the side entrance. In the shadows of the building, he dematerialized them. Several minutes later, they took form near a large house surrounded by a thicket of trees. The gurgling sounds of a flowing river drifted to her. “I thought we were going back to the castle?”
“After he attacked us there, I’m not taking any chances.” He led her into the building and shut the door behind him. The lights came on.
In the spacious, elegant living room, plush, brown leather settees were set around a huge flatscreen TV. The fireplace adjacent to it was unlit. And undrawn drapes revealed the glass sliding doors. Blaéz walked past her, tunneling his fingers through his clipped hair. Darci dropped her purse onto the couch and watched him anxiously. “Whose house is this?”
“It belongs to one of the warriors.”
Oh, right. They had houses all over the world. “Where are we?”
He merely shook his head and stopped to stare out through the night-dark glass doors. She made her way to him, but at his hard expression and tight mouth, her stomach knotted. “Blaéz, tell me what’s wrong?”
His cobalt blue eyes shifted to hers briefly before he crossed to a small bar. “Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine.” He poured a glass of merlot and held it out. “Here.”
She normally didn’t drink wine, it made her tipsy too fast. But with what was underfoot right now, he’d probably forgotten, too, and she needed something to steady her fraying nerves.
Darci took the goblet and sipped some of the tart liquid. “Do you think he followed us?”
His tone colder than the Arctic, he said, “Oh, you can be sure he’ll follow soon, like the dog he is.”
