Warrior (Relentless #4)(180)
Her voice grew sad as she spoke about her troll friend. There was nothing I could do to fix the rift between her and the trolls, but I could be there for her.
“We can go back again when it’s safe. And trolls live a very long time. I’m sure you’ll see him again.”
Her eyes grew misty, but she looked happier as she resumed eating.
“Other than Maine, where would you like to go?”
She’d been furious when I said I was taking her away. I suspected she’d only said she didn’t want to travel out of anger. Sara was too curious about the world to spend her life on one continent. And there were so many places I wanted to show her.
“Everywhere.”
I gave her a questioning look, and she laughed.
“Okay not everywhere, but there are so many places I’d like to see. Europe, South America, Africa. Sahir told me so much about Africa that I won’t be happy until I see one of those sunsets he described.”
“I think you’ll like Africa. It has more wild animals than even you can tame. And I think we can find you plenty of pretty sunsets.”
I pictured her face when she saw Kenya. The Masai Mara National Reserve had some of the best sunsets in the world, not to mention an abundance of wildlife. It was one of a hundred places I couldn’t wait to show to her.
She sipped her water thoughtfully. “You’ve been all over the world. Do you have a favorite place?”
“I was usually too focused on my missions to enjoy a lot of the places I visited.” Until I met her, I never realized how much my life revolved around my work. I still loved being a warrior, but she was my life now.
“Maybe we can go back and visit some of them. You can show me Russia.”
The thought of showing her my homeland and introducing her to my parents filled me with pleasure. “I’d like that.”
She smiled happily. “Tell me about a few of the places you do remember.”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin and sat back in my chair. “Let me see. I remember hunting down three sati in the Hunan province in China. They went into the Tianzi Mountain, and we had a devil of a time finding them in there.”
“Sati?”
“Think of a gray, hairless chimpanzee with six-inch claws and fangs, and a taste for anything warm-blooded.”
“Ugh. I hope you got them.”
“We did, but it wasn’t easy. It rained, and there was a dense fog over the place the whole time we were there. The sati were able to blend in perfectly. There were four of us, and it took us three days to locate and kill them.”
“Sounds like fun,” she said dryly.
I shook my head. “That actually wasn’t the worst part. We took the dead sati back to the village that had asked for our help. They threw a huge feast to celebrate, and guess what was on the menu.”
“No!” She made a face. “You ate it?”
“It would have been an insult to the village not to.” I shrugged, trying not to laugh at her look of disgust. “Tasted like chicken.”
She pretended to throw her napkin at me. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
I put a hand over my heart. “Every word is true.”
“Was Chris there?”
“No, that was before I came to this country and met Chris.”
She leaned forward eagerly. “Tell me about another place you’ve been. And you can leave out the parts about eating.”
I chuckled and told her about the week I’d spent in Venice, hunting down a sea serpent that had made its way into the canals. After that I regaled her with tales of some of my South American adventures. She listened raptly, asking questions and laughing at some of the stories.
“Did you find it boring here in the US after all your travels?”
“I thought I would, but America surprised me. Once I lived here a few years, and Tristan and I became friends, I decided to stay.”
She laid down her fork with a sigh. “It must have been something to watch how much the world changed in the last two hundred years. You lived through the Industrial Revolution, the invention of cars, airplanes, television, everything.”
I gave her a playful scowl. “Are you calling me old?”
She gave me an impish grin. “Well, you did go to Woodstock.”
“True. Now that was an unforgettable time.” I smiled as I remembered the craziness of that weekend. “The sixties were the best decade for music.”
“How can you say that? The seventies had the best music.”
“Says the girl who was born when?” I teased.
“Hey, I know good music when I hear it,” she retorted. “Some of the best musicians might have started in the sixties, but they didn’t get really good until the seventies.”
“Like who?”
“Fleetwood Mac for one. Their earlier stuff is good, but Rumors was their best album. And Eric Clapton didn’t go big until he went solo in the seventies.”
I nodded. “They’re good, but what about musicians like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, or the Who and the Stones? I could name dozens of bands that did their best work in the sixties.”
She rested her arms on the table, and the gleam in her eyes told me she was ready to argue. We went back and forth, and I enjoyed the debate immensely. Sara knew her music, and she argued as passionately about the subject as she did about everything else she believed in. I could have sat there and talked to her all night.