Oracle's Moon (Elder Races #4)(97)

Isalynn led the way through the house, her demeanor calm and composed. “You will have to excuse us, Malcolm,” she said to the teenager. “Judith, please bring iced tea to the sunroom. After that, you may leave for the day.”

Judith nodded, and both she and Malcolm disappeared.

They reached the back and stepped inside a sunroom that was as wide as the house. Comfortable furniture was interspersed with potted plants. A laptop, files and a cell phone were set at one end of a table. Books and magazines filled the surface of a side table by a cushioned chair and ottoman. The sunroom looked over a large backyard with several strategically placed flower and herb beds, and a tennis court half hidden by bushes.

“This is my sanctuary,” said Isalynn, as if they were simply visiting. “I work as much as I can back here when I am at home. Please sit.”

Grace tried to hide how her hands shook as she took a seat.

The separation. It was almost here, almost final.

Was it death? Her death? His?

Her mind raced frantically through options of what to do, how to avoid it. She must not have hidden it very well, for Khalil watched her sharply, his face hard, and he took a seat as near to her as he could. Ebrahim continued to stand.

The simple truth of the matter was, Grace realized, she couldn’t avoid the separation if it was something Khalil chose.

“Now then,” said one of the most Powerful legislators in the country. “What has happened?”

Grace said, “A secret coven rigged my house to explode. My sister and her husband’s murderer is being taken to the witches’ sheriff’s office. And we think you’re in danger.”

At that, despite all her best efforts, the whole affair became an inter-demesne incident after all.

Isalynn sat, still as stone, her face chiseled. “Tell me everything,” she said, and so they did. She interrupted just once, to pick up her cell phone, punch in a number and say, “Thomas, the Oracle has been attacked. Send a security detail to my house and an investigative team to Grace’s. You had better notify the Elder tribunal and the other demesnes as well. We’re on highest alert.”

The whole time, Khalil seethed. The anger that had built up, the fear he had felt when Grace had pulled so hard on their connection, all boiled underneath the surface of his skin. He seethed, fighting to hold it in, to control the urge to race after the bastards who dared to hurt Grace and the children.

Wait, she said. Justice, not revenge, she said. Because of some mysterious reason, some vision she saw that she wouldn’t tell him.

That was when he realized he was angry at her too. She made him feel things he had never felt before, a desire so keen it sliced at the heart of him and a need that bound him like chains, when he had never been bound before by anything. By anyone.

He would not be bound.

He had done as she asked. Now it was time to do as he wanted.

“I want Brandon Miller,” Khalil said to Isalynn.

“What a coincidence, so do I,” said Isalynn with a sharp smile. “I want every one of those coven members. By all means, go after him—as long as you bring him to me alive.”

He returned the witch’s smile, his own flicking out like a switchblade. Alive did not mean happy or comfortable. “As you wish,” he told her. He glared at Grace as he let his form dissipate to smoke. Nothing she could say would hold him back this time.

Grace said nothing. She sat without moving. Her face was colorless, her wide eyes filled with a dark sea as she gazed at internal vistas visible only to her.

He hesitated. “Grace.”

Her gaze snapped into focus. “I will not be the reason you are trapped. Leave.”

Ebrahim was staring at him coldly. For some reason the other Djinn was not happy with him, but he was not at all interested in that. Ebrahim had already said he would stay to protect Grace, and Isalynn’s security detail would arrive momentarily. Khalil blew out of the house and arrowed through the sky, furiously eager for the hunt and already planning what he would do.

He would burn that cursed barn and scatter the ashes and trigger every trap on the property to do the maximum damage possible. No matter how much Power Brandon Miller had or where he might turn, there was nowhere for him to hide now that Khalil was after him. By the time Miller saw justice, he would be screaming for it.

Khalil had reached south of Louisville before he pulled to a stop.

I will not be the reason you are trapped.

Why did Grace say that?

He curled around on himself in the deep gold afternoon sunlight, thinking hard. She might have been able to sense his emotions, just as he could sense hers, but she could not have known what he had been thinking. Not that he had been thinking rationally. He had been reacting to his own fear and mentally lashing out at everything, including her. He had never been so afraid, and he loathed that feeling.

But Grace had never once tried to trap him. If anything she had tried to shove him away. After that day when he had felt wrapped in invisible chains, she had told him to go. Last night at the bar, instead of trying to stop him or control what he did, she had chosen instead to simply leave.

So she hadn’t said it because of what he thought or felt.

She had said it because of what she had seen.

She was protecting him from something again.

Like she had protected him when Phaedra had come to see her. Twice. Even after she had promised him something else entirely.