Exaltation (Insight #11)(73)

Jamison strolled into their living room, slamming the front door with a thought.

“Call me a concerned parent.”

Couldn’t be. Dagen and Rydell glanced at one another then to the man.

“My daughter seems to be quite taken with you,” Jamison said as his eyes met Rydell’s. A second later he appeared just before him. “Enough so that the shield I had her under was shattered, twice.”

Rydell and Dagen both stayed silent.

“She’s a smart girl. I trust her instincts,” Jamison continued.

“She’s brilliant,” Rydell managed to say.

Jamison clenched his jaw when he heard devotion in Rydell’s tone.

“It didn’t take me long to figure out who you were, what you wanted. I was prepared to take care of you myself before it became too serious.”

“Past tense,” Rydell said, pulling his shoulders back, not trusting he wouldn’t be struck at any moment.

Jamison’s eyes flipped to Dagen and then to Rydell.

“Up until the point where I saw your men attack a foe, and defend her as if their lives depended on it.”

Jamison backed away then. He started to slowly circle them. Every second he was reminding Rydell more and more of Revelin, but that made no sense to him. Rydell witnessed every Escort they brought into their line. That was the job of the First. He was not one of theirs, Rydell was sure of it. Jamison was far too aged and powerful to have been created after Rydell left Revelin’s side.

“That’s the point where I let my thoughts ponder your motives. You see, if you were defending your line it would not matter who destroyed the soul that was born to bring you down. Now would it?” he said as he stood before Rydell again.

Rydell didn’t bother to answer.

“So what do we have here? A change of heart?”

Rydell didn’t answer. Didn’t really know how.

Right then Dagen was seized. He never made a noise but Rydell saw his body tense.

Jamison was suffocating him from within, with only a thought.

“My men did as they were ordered. I was uncertain if I would return. Dagen would have conspired to help you protect her.”

Dagen was released at that moment.

“Explain the change of heart.”

“I can’t.”

Rydell stood before Dagen, letting Jamison silently know that he would not stand for him striking Dagen again. Call him optimistic. He had to at least act like the leader of the faction he’d created. Even though Britain’s warning that he was only a notch above mortal was echoing in his mind.

“Why can’t you?” Jamison nodded behind him. “I recognize your scent. Your boy’s scent. You have come after her for her entire life. Then all of the sudden the leader arrives and instead of trying to kill her you defend her?”

“I told you I can’t explain it. I don’t understand why natural born enemies have found the pull we have. Or why we are even pitted against one another in the first place.”

Jamison knew it—his first instinct never really let him down. Rydell thought he had a fever.

“You feel like the pull is mutual?”

“I cannot speak for her.” Rydell looked deep in his eyes, wondering how much Jamison really knew about his kind. “I have a fever so powerful it is only a pulse away from a rush. It has come on the heels of only speaking to her a few times.”

The glint in his eyes, the way he clenched his jaw told Rydell he knew exactly what he meant. Rydell couldn’t tell if that put him in Jamison’s favor or just gave Jamison another reason to destroy him. More than likely the latter.

“My daughter and I have an open relationship. I know you did more than speak.”

“It was profoundly innocent, I assure you.”

“Which is why you’re still alive.” Jamison breathed in. “I was under the impression the alliance between the line of obsession and exaltation had ceased.”

Was he one of us? Did that make Raven one of us? What was going on here? Rydell’s head was spinning.

“It has.”

Jamison raised his brow, encouraging him to elaborate.

“I don’t know where you came from, why your scent is familiar. Why one moment you seem all too mortal and the next, I would swear you are a high ranking Escort who has somehow escaped my attention, so I have no way of knowing how you may or may not take my next confession.” Rydell raised his chin. “I am a First. I left my king because I didn’t agree with him. I began my own faction, but before today he had never proclaimed that I was no longer his. My status is in play. Meaning, I am a kill your daughter must make in order to overthrow him. When my men were sent by me to defeat your daughter they were sent to defend our lives.”

Rydell looked deep in his eyes. “I regret the orders I gave, for I gave them without seeing her as a living soul, but as an assassin.”

Jamison lifted his chin slightly. “I’m going to be crystal f*cking clear with you. You don’t have a fever or a rush for my daughter. Your energy is attracted to hers because of her creation and nothing more.”

Dagen barely held back the smirk on his lips.

“However,” Jamison said, “you’re here now. Your recent actions have been honorable.” Jamison tilted his head slightly. “I see honor in your eyes, the honor of a warrior. A glint of who you must have been before this life.”