The Silent: Irin Chronicles Book Five(21)

“You have questions,” Kyra said. “I have answers, but I need to confer with Niran first. Allow me to talk with him in private.”

She wanted to leave him and go off with the Grigori? Leo’s lip curled.

“Or we can take her now and you’ll never find her,” Niran said. “What will it be, scribe?”

Kyra’s chin lifted. “No one takes me against my will. You don’t speak for me.”

“I speak for your brother,” he said. “I promised no harm would come to you in my territory.”

Leo said, “I’ve got her brother’s number on speed dial. Shall we call him now?”

“No!” Kyra shouted. “Leo, don’t you dare.”

What the hell was going on here? Kyra looked panicked. Niran was hard to read, but Leo would swear there was some confusion in his eyes.

“Fine,” Leo said. He drew a hotel card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Kyra. “I’m here when you’re finished talking to him.”

Kyra relaxed. “After we talk, I’ll find you.”

“I want your phone number before you go.” Leo didn’t take his eyes off Niran.

Kyra was reluctant, but she nodded and put a hand out. “Your phone?”

Leo unlocked his phone and handed it to her.

Kyra quickly entered a number and hit Send, then she held up her own phone for him to see the number flashing. “Satisfied?”

His eyes raked down her body. “Far from it.”

She turned bright red. “I’ll call you later.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

She walked toward Niran, and everything in Leo screamed at him to grab her and run.

He didn’t. She wasn’t his to steal. Plus he had a few questions for Alyah before he and Kyra talked.

“Kyra,” he called to her back.

She turned.

“If you don’t come to me, I’ll find you.”

The smile she gave him was sad. Amused. Skeptical. Far too complicated for a single emotion.

“You could try.”



Leo opened the heavy gate to the hotel garden on the other side of the river. He’d ignored the hails of the tuk-tuk drivers and walked the distance from the night bazaar, needing time to gather his thoughts. The hotel where Alyah had brought them was close to the old city and the bazaar, just on the other side of the river and downstream. High walls protected it from prying eyes, and lush gardens greeted him when he entered the compound. His suite faced a narrow pool where lilies floated and fish swam. Across a small bridge, Alyah had taken her own room, but all her lights were off.

The garden was silent. The staff was gone. But Leo’s thoughts were in a riot.

Their kiss.

The sheer pleasure of it kept leaping to his mind, scattering every other conscious thought.

He unlocked his room and walked inside, tossing his keys on the small table by the door and falling back on the bed to stare at the ceiling.

“I like kissing you.” He closed his eyes at the memory of her lips. “So much.” Her hands gripping his hair. “Did you like it too?” Her breasts. Heaven above…

Leo had dreamed of kissing Kyra for no less than two years. From the time he’d met her, he’d been aware of the desire, but Kyra had been a tentative bird in the beginning. She could barely manage to walk down a street without cringing from the rampant human thoughts that invaded her mind. The last thing Leo wanted was for her to feel that a large, clumsy giant of a scribe was preying on her vulnerabilities.

But then he’d seen her in Rěkaves, standing up to the scribes and singers of Mikael’s line, holding her own with Sari, one of the most dominant and warlike singers Leo had ever known. She’d grown. She’d come into her power.

Then…

Then he’d wanted her. He’d craved her. He’d sought her company but always felt a wall hanging between them. He longed for her. Wondered where she had gone when she left with her brother. Sari had tried to convince Kyra to stay at Rěkaves with her, but Kyra had refused. Leo suspected her brother had been the reason why.

Then Kyra had reacted with panic when he’d offered to call Kostas tonight.

What was going on?

Had she been cast out? Impossible. Was she hiding? Niran’s words indicated otherwise.

How long did she want to talk to Niran? Would she come tonight? He glanced at his phone and noticed it was after midnight. Then he tapped the number she’d entered earlier, adding it to his contacts along with a picture he’d snapped of her in Rěkaves. She’d been laughing with one of the children Damien and Sari had rescued, holding the little boy as he tried to squirm away.

Happy. She’d been so happy.

“What about your own family?”

“I don’t know if that is possible for me.”

Though the kareshta were daughters of the Fallen, they were still angelic. They could have children. There were several kareshta who were pregnant from Irin scribes. Some they’d identified even had children with human mates, though it was unusual. What was the sorrow that shadowed her eyes?

A tapping came at the door.

Leo sprang up and rushed toward it, flinging it open only to see Alyah on the other side.

“Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Clearly not who you were hoping for.”