Summer Storm (Codex Blair Book 8) Read online

  At least I’d stopped him from calling me ‘Mistress.’ That was a small victory, at least.

  “Is a term of respect, Miss Blair. Why is you not wanting it?”

  “Because it’s a term most people use for someone they consider to be above them. Students call teachers ‘miss,’ and so do servants. You’re not a servant here, and I’m not your teacher, so...please stop.”

  He screwed his face up, glaring at me. “Is not possible.”

  I sighed and looked over at my bowl of oatmeal. My stomach rumbled.

  “All right, I’ll let it go for now. But it’s my goal for the year, I hope you know. We’re going to be on even terms eventually.”

  He laughed at that. “We shall see, Miss Blair. We shall see.”

  At least he didn’t have a problem talking back to me. That was an improvement.

  “What is you nervous about?”

  I stiffened when he asked again. I’d hoped that he’d forgotten about that and we could move on to a different topic. It had been a mistake to tell him I was nervous. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  “I have to see Emily this afternoon. We’re going to have lunch together.”

  “You loves Miss Emily. You is always making eyes at her, and you is getting along very good. Why is you nervous about that?”

  I looked down at my fingers, twisting them together. “Because I kissed her.” I peeked up at him and saw his mouth drop open.

  “You is kissing her!” he chortled, dropping his book and grabbing hold of his stomach. “Oh, you is kissing the paladin!”

  “Hey! Stop laughing at me.” I shoved his shoulder, but it didn’t get him to shut up. I glowered at him. “It’s not funny.”

  “Of course is funny, Miss Blair. You has danced around Miss Emily for years now. Is good that you is finally doing something about it. Will be very interesting. How is she responding to your kiss?”

  I frowned. “I don’t really know. We didn’t talk about it after it happened. She had to go back to work, and I went back in the house. To be honest, it’s all kind of a blur. I think I was so anxious that I blacked out a bit.”

  He patted my leg sympathetically. “Is OK to be nervous, Miss Blair. Anyones is being nervous when they is exposing themselves. But I is sure everything is goings to be OK.”

  I groaned and lowered my head into my hands. “You can’t know that, though. I’m about ninety percent sure she’s going to tell me this is all a bad idea and that we shouldn’t take anything any further. Which, you know, might be the truth. There’s every possibility that if we get involved--assuming she even likes girls--someone could try to use her against me.”

  Fred pinched me.

  I yelped and scowled at him.

  “You is not thinkings right if you is thinking that Miss Emily is not able to take care of herselfs.”

  I bit my lip. “Yeah, I guess you might have a point there. She’s pretty badass.” I smiled, thinking of all the things I’d seen her do. I remembered when we’d gone to the demon party with Mal--she hadn’t even entertained the idea that I might go on my own. She’d wanted to protect me. And now here I was, worrying that someone would hurt her.

  But how could I not? My job came with a lot of danger. Danger she didn’t need added to her plate, considering everything she had to worry about for her own job.

  She was a warrior for the Lord. She had a lot to worry about.

  I grabbed the bowl of oatmeal from the table and proceeded to scarf it down. It’s much easier to forget about things when you have a mouthful of food.

  Fred patted me on the back. “What will be, will be.”

  Ah, like I hadn’t had that thought already. I grimaced and ate more oatmeal.

  “We’re going to have to get some work done before lunch. I promised Diego,” I said, putting the almost empty bowl back on the table.

  “We can does that,” he replied.

  “Great. Let me finish my food, and then we’ll go downstairs.”

  I had no intention of studying books.

  Sixteen

  The wind whipped my hair about my face as I stood in the park, looking down at Emily seated on a picnic blanket. She was wearing a dress and a cardigan--clothing that would be out of place this season, except that it was an unseasonably warm day. I was wearing my most intact pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. I’d managed to find clothes that didn’t have burn marks on them, but I would never clean up as well as Emily did.

  She was absolutely beautiful, looking like a spring goddess with her bronzed skin and her red hair pouring out in tight curls.

  “Are you going to have a seat?” Emily smiled at me, patting the blanket with one hand.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek. My knee-jerk reaction was to turn around and bolt. Run away from the issue at hand and not deal with it. If I ran away, I wouldn’t have to deal with the rejection I knew was headed my way.

  Emily’s going to tell me that she’s not into girls and this won’t work. Or, no, she’s going to tell me that it isn’t girls she’s not into, it’s just me. Oh, Gods, this is going to be so painful.

  My thoughts kept racing around in my head, but there was nothing I could do about them, no way for me to quiet the thoughts rampaging inside me.

  Without answering her, I knelt on the blanket, tucking my legs beneath me.

  “There we go. Now, stop looking like a wild animal.”

  “What?”

  “You look like, if I make one wrong move, you’re going to bolt.”

  I blushed, lowering my eyes so my lashes hid them. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I understand why you’re so nervous.”

  My eyes jerked up at that, wide and afraid. I didn’t bother trying to hide my emotions from Emily. She’d always been someone I could be up front and honest with about how I was feeling. If there was one person in the world I could trust, it was Emily.

  And now I was going to lose her. We hadn’t even started lunch yet, and we were already on the topic of her abandoning me. But maybe that was for the best, because my stomach was doing odd little flips and moving around so much that I didn’t think I could swallow a single bite.

  I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be hungry. I was so nauseous right now.

  She sighed. “I suppose we should acknowledge the elephant in the room, then?”

  I nodded mutely. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I didn’t have a defence prepared to convince her to stay. All I could do was sit there and wait for her to deliver the fatal words.

  “I like you,” she said. “And I’m glad you kissed me.”

  I slapped a hand over my mouth to hide my reaction. “You what?” I said through my hand, not trusting my mouth to close properly once I was done speaking.

  She giggled, shaking her head. Her hair bounced from side to side with every movement of her head, and I lost myself for a moment just staring at her.

  What else could I do when presented with such a beautiful woman? She did all sorts of funny things to my insides, and all I wanted to do was kiss her again.

  Or sit there and soak up the sight of her. Listen to her laugh. Listen to her talk to me for days on end.

  All I wanted was to be around her. I didn’t want to do anything else with my time. I just wanted to spend time with her and drink up every moment I was afforded.

  “I don’t see why you have such a problem seeing your own worth, Blair,” she said.

  I blushed, dropping my hand to put it on my knee. “I don’t see how we got on this subject.”

  “Well, you’re clearly having a hard time comprehending that I like you.”

  “Yeah. So? It doesn’t make mathematical sense.”

  “Attraction isn’t mathematical.”

  “Sure it is. There’s science to back that up.”

  “And yet we both exist in a world of magic,” she said, smiling at me.

  Ah, she had me there. There were things science couldn’t explain. Things I could do that bro
ke the laws of physics and nature. I could create fire with a snap of my fingers. Weylyn could transform himself from a giant wolf into a slightly oversized dog. Emily could fight demons without breaking a sweat or getting a single hair out of place.

  Me? I looked like a well and true mess once I got into a fight. But not Emily. She always looked like a Gods-damned avenging angel right out of the old paintings.

  But she’d also pointed out one of the things I’d counted as a positive toward the possibility of us developing a relationship: we both existed in this world of magic. She could understand why I got into fights. She could understand the things I was, and how dangerous I was, and she didn’t run away from either of those things.

  She knew how I was, and she didn’t shrink away from me.

  Shawn hadn’t been able to understand those things, and that was what had created the gulf between us at the end of the day. If I had a chance at finding love and peace with anyone, it was Emily.

  But she was way too good for me. She was a warrior of God, for Christ’s sake. She was pure in ways I’d never be able to understand, never be able to measure up to.

  Maybe I’d be the Shawn side of this relationship, if one were to develop at all. I could be the one who didn’t understand her fully, and that would end up with her pushing me away slowly. Piece by piece.

  But she hadn’t done any of that yet, and maybe I owed her the chance.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be such a fraidy cat.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?” She quirked her head to the side, narrowing her eyes.

  “Huh?” I jerked.

  “You got lost to me just then. I’m wondering where you went.”

  “Nowhere. Nothing at all going on in this head. Nope.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? I think you’re forgetting that I already know you, Blair, and that you can’t hide from me. I know all of your little tricks, and I can tell when you’re freaking out. Like you are right now. So, why don’t you share with me what you’re so worried about?”

  I bit my lip, twisting my fingers together in my lap. “I just... It’s stupid. I don’t even want to see it.”

  She reached out and placed a hand on my twisting fingers, quieting them. “Let me in, Blair. Let me help.”

  I stared at her, lost in her green eyes for what felt like an eternity. “I don’t think I can keep up with you. You’re so much more than I could ever hope to be. You... You’re pure in ways I can’t understand. And wait a minute--aren’t you not allowed to like me?” I frowned.

  “Why on Earth would I not be allowed to like you?” Her brow furrowed, and she tilted her head to the side again.

  “Well, because...you know...Jesus and all that jazz. Doesn’t the Bible forbid it?”

  She laughed at that, which made me feel like an idiot somewhat, but I didn’t say anything more. She was going to have to expand on why it was so funny to her.

  I didn’t see anything funny about it. The way I saw it, she was going to go to hell just for liking me, and that wasn’t any good. Now, I didn’t think I was going to hell. But that was because I didn’t subscribe to that particular set of beliefs. But Emily was a Christian, and a rather devout one at that. She was a warrior of the Lord, one of the Seven, whatever that meant. You don’t get to be a part of all that without believing in everything the books say, and I was pretty sure they said she wasn’t allowed to like me.

  “Oh, Blair. You don’t get to choose the way your heart leads you. No loving Father would fault you for that,” she said.

  And, well, I guessed that was that. If she believed that, there was nothing anyone could do to change her mind. And wasn’t she in the perfect position to have the final say on how that went?

  I shrugged. “I guess that settles that. You’re not going to get into trouble with your group, then?”

  “My group?”

  “The Seven. The super-holy warrior group that you’ve mysteriously kept to yourself.”

  “Ah. I was wondering how long you’d wait before you jumped on that. I figured I had a few minutes, because you’d want to get your fears out of the way first. Right on schedule, then. No, I’m not going to get into trouble with anyone.” Her eyes sparkled, and I knew she was deliberately not giving me any further information on that topic.

  “Oh, come on. Just spill it, already.”

  “Spill it?”

  “You know I want to know more about the Seven. Why are you being so secretive?”

  She gave me a look from beneath her long eyelashes. “For one thing, it’s a secret order. It kind of comes with the territory that you keep it to yourself.”

  I pouted. “So, you’re not going to tell me anything?”

  “Well, I didn’t say that.”

  I scooted closer to her on the blanket. “I swear to keep it to myself. I won’t tell anyone about it. Not even Fred.”

  “But we all know you tell Fred everything.”

  “I do, normally. But if you make me promise not to tell, then I won’t tell,” I said, deadly serious. I would keep it to myself, if that was what she wanted from me. After all, that’s what you do for the people you love, right? You keep their secrets for them.

  She leaned in to me so that her head rested on my shoulder. I held myself very still, almost afraid to breathe, because that might upset her balance and then she’d sit away from me. My shoulder was warm where her head pressed against it, and all kinds of shivers ran down my spine.

  I delighted just being close to her.

  Had this been waiting for me the entire time, and I just hadn’t known about it because I’d been too chicken to make a move? I regretted all the time spent apart that we could have spent together. But we hadn’t exactly been apart. We’d been together in a different sense.

  A friendly, tension-filled sense. Where I’d tried to keep my interest in her to myself, because I didn’t think she’d be able to handle it.

  And the whole time, she’d been into me as well. My relief was massive. I didn’t have to hide anymore.

  “The Seven are old, older than most written records. We were given swords crafted from the daylight of the first seven days and charged with keeping the children of Adam and Eve safe. For although they were cast out of the Garden, they weren’t unloved by God. Over the years, as humanity has spread, so has our edict. We protect everyone from the evil that lurks in the dark, so that they might live their lives as they wish to.”

  “But there are rules of engagement. You mentioned that before.”

  She nodded. “Normally, we’re not supposed to engage in a battle that we aren’t Called to. I bent the rules a bit for you, instead going to a fight that I’d not been told to be a part of. We don’t have a commander, but the others weren’t very happy with me. There wasn’t much they could do about it. It was a battle with a demon, after all.”

  “I still don’t know why you weren’t Called to that fight.”

  “Neither do I. But we aren’t Called every time a demon is in flux in the world. If we were, we’d never sleep. Generally, we’re Called for mass destruction, for things that threaten the world as a whole. Not for the little fights. But I don’t particularly like that, so I’ve been branching out.”

  I turned my head so I could press a small kiss into her hair, smiling. “I’m glad you’re branching out.”

  “Times are changing. Something is afoot, and not just in London. But things do seem particularly bad here. More and more often, we’re Called on, when it used to be something that happened maybe once a year. I don’t know what’s happening...”

  “I might know something about that,” I said, looking at the sky.

  “Oh?”

  “There are these things that are only referred to as ‘Others.’ I don’t know anything about them, no one does, but they tainted Lilith, and I suspect they tainted Deacon and the vampires as well. I fought something else a week or two ago, called an Utakar. It was after a Fae, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been tainted a
s well. They said it was acting outside of its normal behaviour, and that seems to be the best indication we have as to whether or not something is tainted--if it’s behaving oddly.”

  She nodded. “So, we have a new threat. And it’s creating dissent, urging things to attack outside of their normal pattern.”

  “Yeah, and I’m pretty sure their goal is world domination or something equally dramatic.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do monsters do things? The vampires who were tainted wanted to take over the world and create a new order. Deacon was fairly limited in that he just wanted to blow up London, but he was a weird one.”

  I left out the part about the Winter Lady having disappeared and the suspicion that the Others had something to do with that. I didn’t know a lot about it, and I didn’t entirely know if I believed that the Others were involved. It was suspicious that she wasn’t dead yet.

  Things like the Others--why would they hesitate to kill someone? No, it didn’t make sense. It was probably something else altogether.

  “That would certainly explain all the things that have been going wrong of late,” Emily said, sighing. “What can we do about it?”

  “Right now? I’ve been told there’s nothing I can do. I’m just supposed to leave it up to the Order to handle it, now that I’ve told them the problem exists. But I don’t trust them to handle it. They didn’t want to believe me at all, until one of their healers proved I was telling the truth about the taint. Hell, they might have decided that the taint was real but that the Others weren’t. What am I going to do then?”

  “Fight,” she said. Such a simple answer, but it was the same conclusion I’d come to.

  “I can’t right now, but I intend to. I’m growing in power every time I train with Diego, and someday I’ll be able to take on these Others and settle this once and for all. I have to. Someone has to keep the people safe.”

  “We’ll do it together, of course.”

  I was silent at that. Part of me desperately wanted to protect Emily. I didn’t like the idea of her charging into a dangerous battle with me, even though that was the very basis of our association. She’d plunged into battle with me before—we’d fought back-to-back in the middle of a horde of undead.