Devil's Gate (Elder Races #4.6)(6)

Most of all what drew him to her was her intelligence and her gentle nature. She was a medical doctor, a pathologist and an academician. Her snakes were poisonous, which did give her beauty a certain edge, but many creatures, like himself, were immune to their poison.

And in any case, she would have to be caught in a situation extreme enough that her snakes felt threatened to bite. Even the most quickly acting poisons took at least a few moments to act. In a physical struggle, those few moments could easily mean the difference between life or death.

She could be deadly, but she was also very vulnerable.

Unable to resist, he reached out to take her hand, and she let him. He relished the sense of her slender warm fingers resting in his grip. She kept her neat, oval fingernails trimmed close, a practical choice for a medical examiner turned researcher. “You can’t go to Devil’s Gate all by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”

She did not protest nor did she appear to be angry at his presumptuous language. Instead, she stared at their hands as she pointed out, “My niece is there all by herself.”

“Which, we can both agree, is not acceptable,” he said.

The smile in her eyes dimmed, her expression tightened and she looked at the floor. “Well, there isn’t any other option,” she told him. “I spent half the night and much of this morning trying to figure out the best thing to do.”

“There has to be some other way,” he said.

“There isn’t,” she said, her voice turning flat again. “There’s no legal recourse. The state can’t even keep the area adequately policed. They certainly don’t have the resources to send anyone in to find one person who I can guarantee doesn’t want to be found. And frankly, I don’t want to bully my sister into going with me. She’d only wring her hands, fall apart and be useless. Trust me, that would be much more trouble than it’s worth.”

“I understand,” he said. He raised her hand and pressed his lips against her fingers. She froze, her startled gaze flashing back up to his. “But nevertheless I still can’t let you go to Devil’s Gate by yourself.”

This time she did pick up on his language. “You can’t let me,” she repeated with a careful lack of emphasis.

He knew exactly what it sounded like, and he was entirely unrepentant for it. He stressed, “Not by yourself, Seremela.”

Her shoulders drooped and she tried to pull her hand out of his. “While I understand that you mean well, I don’t have time to argue with you,” she said. “My taxi’s coming in less than a half an hour, and I’m not finished packing yet.”

“Cancel it,” he told her, his fingers tightening on hers.

“Duncan—”

He pulled her closer until they stood toe to toe, and he looked deeply into her strange, beautiful eyes. “Cancel it,” he repeated. “And take your time as you finish packing. I will sort out the quickest flight to Reno then come back to pick you up.”

He could see from her puzzled expression that she still didn’t quite get it. “I’m not sure what to say.”

In light of the number of clues he had dropped, her confusion seemed remarkably innocent and was entirely adorable. He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “Or better yet, figure it out while you finish packing. You can tell me whatever it is on the flight, since I’m coming with you.”

A delicious warm rose color washed intoxicatingly underneath her creamy light green skin. “You are?”

“I am. Now, don’t argue with me,” he said as she took in a quick breath. He began to wonder just how far she would let him push her. In wondering where her boundaries might be, and what she might do should he cross them, he began to enjoy her even more than he had before. “Just do as I say.”

She shut her mouth with an audible click. “Can’t. Won’t. Don’t. You’ve used a lot of archaic-sounding prohibitives in the last fifteen minutes.”

He could tell she wasn’t really angry. She was, ever so gently, warning him not to go too far. It pleased him so much he ran the tip of a finger very lightly down her cheek. “You might have noticed, my dear,” he murmured. “I happen to be a nineteenth century kind of a guy.”

He left her sputtering and rosier than ever, and he spent a pleasant ride in the elevator to the basement garage wondering what she would say to him when he picked her up. A few minutes later, he called Carling and Rune’s house. Rune picked up.

Carling was a Vampyre, but Rune wasn’t. Rune was Wyr, and just under a year ago he had been First sentinel for Dragos Cuelebre, Lord of the Wyr in New York, until he had mated with Carling. Rune and Carling had relocated to Miami, and for several months they had been gathering underutilized talent from across several different demesnes.

Now Rune and Carling were setting up an international consulting agency so that they could put to use the talent they had gathered around them. Some parts of the agency, such as consultations with the Oracle, would be operated on a sliding scale fee, and other parts would be profit-based only. Carling must have told Rune about Seremela’s email, or perhaps Rune had read it for himself.

“Seremela and I need to fly to Reno,” Duncan told Carling’s mate.

“Yo-okay,” said Rune. “Duncan, you dog.”