“What of this detective, Pria? What did you tell him?” Miri asked.
“Nothing,” Pria answered.
“I told him that Pria owns the Maidenheart Bakery,” Keirc said. “He would’ve ended up knowing that anyway, if he doesn’t already. He’s very bright, Pria, and very strong willed. It was tough to glamour him, while you were leaving the hospital.”
“He offered his life for mine,” Pria said. “I know we may be facing problems but he deserves respect for that.”
“Problems? Ya’ think?” Keirc said sarcastically. “We do all we can to avoid anything that would reveal who and what we are to humans, Pria, and when something like this goes down, it’s a headache. Still, it was a very righteous kill. You should be proud of that at least.”
“Thanks Keirc. I’m so glad you’re proud of me,” Pria replied, her voice oozing sarcasm to equal his.
“Keirc complains about your choices but he loves you Pria. He’ll do what needs to be done once we reach home,” Miri said. Her voice was firm but soft, an order for Keirc in disguise. “You should stay at our home until you are healed, of course.”
Pria agreed wearily and closed her eyes against the fading warmth of the afternoon landscape moving past the car windows. The sound of Miri’s cell broke her light doze briefly, but she only listened to Miri’s voice relating the details of her ordeal to her stepfather, Andrieu, for a moment before letting her thoughts coast. She knew Andrieu would be waiting when they arrived at the Sanctum.
“Don’t worry about anything Pria. I’ll take care of things at the bakery, Keirc will do what he does and you’ll get better,” Monroe said.
A werewolf of few words, her business partner and best friend, his advice warmed her heart. “Thanks Monroe,” Pria said smiling. As the conversation died, she put her head back against the leather seat and thought about what Joe’s hair would feel like against her fingertips. His dark, soft curls had brushed his collar but his eyes had really drawn her. He might be human, but walking into the damned bank had taken balls, she thought. His arms felt so strong as she’d collapsed against him. The thought drifted as she fell into a light sleep.
Joe was finally headed home, a place where he relaxed and left the cacophony of his world behind. He was looking forward to a long shower when he pulled his car into the garage, but as he hit his bedroom, his cell rang again. Grabbing at it like it was something to be crushed, he eyed the screen. The caller was Cy Kent. Sitting on his bed’s edge, he answered it, tugging a show off.
“Yeah, her family took her home,” Joe explained. “To their home, actually…it was her stepbrother…guy named Keircnan... No, I don’t know how to spell it. He said he didn’t think she was interested in talking to the media or suing the shit out of us or whatever.” Joe kicked the other shoe free and tossed it to the end of his bed. “His concern seemed to be her privacy,” he continued. “Yep, I thought it was weird too, but that’s the word the guy used. They said that if I wanted to talk to her…well, if anyone wanted to talk to her, they should leave a message at the Maidenheart Bakery. Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Supposed to be pretty popular, but it’s kind of isolated... It’s north on Route 60. Apparently she owns the place….Yeah, I know…handle with kid gloves.”
Joe tossed his cell on the floor and fell backward on the bed. His head still hurt and his stomach hadn’t seen food for a few hours, but he couldn’t shake the image of Pria curled up in the hospital bed. She’d looked angelic, with her hair spread out over the pillow. Her skin, almost translucent, with long dark lashes against her cheeks. So, how come a stepbrother showed up to take her home and not a boyfriend or a husband, he wondered. A woman like that had a man somewhere. She’d shown a lot of courage under pressure and he’d seen plenty of situations where people snapped and made things worse without meaning to. Now, it was all about damage control because she’d been wounded by a cop. Yet, the stepbrother had said everything was cool. “Cool, my ass,” he muttered, not really going for it. And, now, he was the guy assigned to smooth things with her and prevent a bunch of shit from going down in the local papers. Or a stampede of lawyers. “Great,” he muttered, unbuttoning his shirt. Still, he couldn’t help but look forward to seeing her again. He wanted answers to a lot of questions, but he really wanted to see her again. Maybe she wasn’t really as hot as he’d remembered. Or maybe she was.
As Joe stuffed his clothes into a hamper, Pria was being ushered to a bedroom in the home Miri shared with Andrieu, her stepfather, a fallen angel and healer. Although she maintained a home of her own in the Sanctum, Miri had insisted she stay with them. When they’d arrived, Andrieu had taken her into his arms, kissed her hair and led her straight downstairs from their receiving room to a small bedroom, already prepared for her.
Pria had changed into a dark purple, silk robe and sat on the bed to wait for Andrieu. Peeking around the door at her, he smiled before entering the bedroom. Miri was right behind him with a small burner and several tiny blue cones of incense. She quickly lit one and a spiral of smoke filled the air with a light scent, not unlike lily-of-the-valley.
“May I take the bandages off now, my daughter?” Andrieu asked. Ever polite and soft spoken, Andrieu sat beside her, to gently cut the white sheaves of bandage around each wrist and her bicep. “No other wounds then?”
Pria confirmed that only her wrists and bicep needed his attention. “If I could heal myself, these would already be gone,” she said, inhaling the incense, watching her stepfather’s tapered fingers move lightly over the incision-like wounds made by the wire Whitwater had used to bind her wrists. She watched as he closed his gray eyes and dropped his head. “You cut your hair,” she observed.
Although still past his shoulders and held back by a thin piece of leather, Andrieu’s dark auburn hair made him look more like a rock star than an angel or a healer. Miri was equally beautiful, but then the fallen always were.
“Just a trim,” he confirmed, blowing softly against her wrists, which he now held in his hands. As he did so, the edges of the wounds drew together, started to dry and became pinker. Eventually they would disappear completely. Pria closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. The incense was doing its job, making her sleepy, decreasing the pain from the wounds.
“Hungry?” Miri asked. “You haven’t eaten since morning.”
“Later, maybe,” Pria answered, as her stepfather turned his attention to her bicep.
“Ugly,” he stated, raising the loose sleeve of the robe. “It would be even uglier if you were human.” Andrieu’s fingertips roamed over the wound, weaving the healing grace so the wound would close and dry quickly. “You killed today.”
Pria nodded. “Not what I wished, but I did.”
“No choice,” Andrieu said in a flat voice. He moved his fingers to her chin and lifted her face. “There was no choice. It was meant, Pria. Not a random, senseless thing. You also saved a life, did you not?”
“Yeah, I did,” she affirmed.
“The life of a man who offered his own for yours.”
“Yes.”
“This was meant to be so rest easily with it. Your arm will be healed by morning but you must rest and Miri will bring you food when you wake,” Andrieu said rising.
As Andrieu left the bedroom, Miri helped Pria under the light quilt. “You want to see this detective again.” she said. “I can tell.”
“He is beautiful,” Pria said lazily, remembering the feel of Joe’s arms wrapped around her. “His eyes are the deepest brown I think I have ever seen.”
“He has the warrior heart,” Miri said in that matter-of-fact way of hers.
“I know. Are you going to remind me that I have not been with anyone for a long time?”
“No,