Chapter Four #2
“Who are you?” the man asked, coming close enough that I could see he was dressed all in black: black jeans, a black shirt, and a black pea jacket.
But it was his eyes that caught my attention and held it—his irises were pale gray, so pale they were almost white, with a pronounced thick black ring around the outer edge.
“And why do you seek me? Deus, it was my mother, wasn’t it? ”
“Owain?” I said, noting that as Jerry had described, he had salt-and-pepper hair, the front of it swooping back in a wave that made my stomach tighten.
I still didn’t understand why she called his hair hip-hop, but that aside, Jerry was right: he was handsome.
I couldn’t tell if it was his jaw—angled in a way that made me feel a bit wobbly about the knees—or maybe the way his eyes seemed to pierce through me straight down to my soul, or if it was his wide, mobile mouth.
I tried hard not to stare at the lovely curve of his bottom lip, reminding myself that I had a job to do, and that did not include ogling my target.
“Who are you?” he repeated, his voice taking on harder edges. He stopped directly in front of me, his eyes going first to the pepper spray, then to the card held in my left hand. Without waiting for my brain to kick in and supply an answer, he plucked the card from my fingers.
“Berengaria Anastasia North,” he read, glancing from it to my face.
“Provisional thief taker. Ah. It was my mother who sent you to find me. Is she outside, waiting to capture me? I’m surprised she didn’t come in with you, although I suppose her ties to the Court of Divine Blood prohibit that.
Well, I won’t have it. I refuse to—one moment. ”
“Huh?” I asked, damning myself for being so stunned by his appearance that inanities were the only thing I was able to speak. I cleared my throat and said, “That is, yes, Jerry sent me, although I think she wants to talk to you, not enact a capture.”
In the distance, I could faintly hear a feminine voice, although I couldn’t tell what it was saying.
“No, you don’t have to go to the palace itself.
I already looked. It’s empty. Come back, I’m about to escape the clutches of a thief taker that Jericho sent after us.
” Owain turned back to face me. “I have no further desire to speak with my mother. If you would step aside, I’ll be on my way. Abaddon is empty.”
“Huh?” I asked again, then shook my head madly. “Jeezumcrow, the place has me sounding like an idiot. What do you mean it’s empty? It can’t be empty. It’s full of demons. It’s always full of demons.”
A bird whipped around the corner of the hall, careened into the far wall, righted itself, and continued flying straight at us in a lopsided manner.
“I don’t even know why you insisted on coming here looking for Desislav the Destroyer.
We could be at home, where I can sit by the fire and thaw out from this horrible weather.
Goddess above, was there ever such a climate?
” the bird said as she alighted on Owain’s shoulder, bobbing her head a few times as she caught sight of me. “What’s a knocker doing here?”
“Looking for Owain,” I answered, wondering why a vampire would have a raven as a pet.
He took a step back. “You heard Orla?”
“The bird? Yeah. I’m a knocker, like she said.
We can understand birds, not that they are usually chatty about anything but telling other birds how fabulous they are.
I can also understand some foxes, although not the ones to the north.
Their accent is beyond me. Hello, Orla. My name is Berry, and I don’t want anyone captured, let alone your . .. er ... friend.”
“Friend?” Orla said with a squawk, doing a little dance on Owain’s shoulder. “Gaoler is more like it.”
“You are absolutely free to go wherever you want,” Owain said, taking a step toward me. “Don’t let me stop you from blighting someone else’s life.”
Her eyes glittered with a wicked light. “I’m not leaving until you break my curse and give me the talisman you made!”
“Allow me to pass, madam,” Owain said, ignoring Orla.
“I wish I could, but your mother is concerned about you.” I studied his face, which was certainly no hardship. The closer he got, the more attractive he was.
I even liked the fan of crow’s-feet on the sides of his striking eyes. Sexy, sexy stubble and a cleft chin added to what I feared might be the undoing of my good intentions.
“I am perfectly fine now that I’m out of her clutches,” he answered.
Orla the raven snorted.
“What did you say?” Owain asked her.
“I snorted. The idea of you being anything but deranged is snort-worthy,” she said in a speed that, were she human, I would say was snapping.
“I’m so confused,” I said, managing to wrestle my eyes off Owain and onto the very odd raven. “Why are you standing on his shoulder if you don’t like him?”
“He cursed me!” she said in a near shriek, bobbing up and down again. “He cursed me after he tried to molest me!”
I raised my eyebrows at Owain.
He looked like he was about to roll his eyes, but managed to stop himself in time.
“I did no such thing. Well, yes, it is true I cursed her, but only because she tried to kill me repeatedly for a month after I rejected her advances. I feel a little cursing is justified after seventeen attempts at murdering me.”
“A raven tried to have sex with you?” I asked, well beyond confused and straight into the land of befuddlement.
“I wasn’t a raven then!” Orla said in a near snarl.
“I was a beauteous maiden, long of hair, and straight of limbs, and with plentiful baps that were the envy of all with working eyes! And it wasn’t seventeen—it was only sixteen times.
That incident with the poison was an accident.
I was trying to take care of that annoying milkmaid who looked at you with lust in her eyes, and you drank the mead meant for her, instead. ”
Owain’s expression turned to pure martyrdom.
“OK,” I said slowly, eyeing the bird. “So, you and your baps and hair and all the rest of you wanted Owain, but he didn’t want you?”
“I did not. Please move. If Desi is not in Abaddon, he must be out in the mortal world. I will have to find ...” He paused, and gave me an impersonal once-over.
Annoyed with myself for caring what he thought of me, I squared my shoulders and tried to appear like I had better posture than my normal slouch.
“You said you were a thief taker. That means you can find people.”
I backed up until I ran up against the door to the outside. “I am, and it does, although I’m only a provisional thief taker, and if you’re thinking I can find this Desi dude for you, I’d like to point out I already have a job: to find you.”
“You have done so,” he pointed out, reaching around me and opening the door, forcing me to take a couple of steps forward until I was almost pressed against him.
“Your job is completed. You can now take mine. I wish for you to locate Desislav. I will aid you in the search, since he is powerful and dangerous.”
“Freedom!” Orla screeched, and flew past me to a tree in a cement planter.
I looked up at Owain, once again admiring his face, and eyes, and that delicious lower lip, and for a few seconds, all I could think of was how good he smelled, and how much I wanted to run my hands through his hair. “I ... your mom seems concerned about you. ...”
“She isn’t, you know,” he said, leaning in until his scent wrapped around me.
His pupils flared, darkening his eyes even as I suddenly seemed to forget how to breathe.
“She wants something from me, a gift she gave me almost two thousand years ago. And if she gets it, Desislav the Destroyer will have the means to throw me back into the Seventh Hour with my brothers. I will not go back to captivity, either one of my mother’s making or that of a self-obsessed Greek god who runs the Hour. ”
“The Seventh Hour? The underworld one?” I asked, a sense of righteous indignation mingling with confusion and pure lust.
Lust? I thought back. Had it really been three years since I’d had a romantic partner? Where had the time gone?
“The very same. If you were planning on visiting, I would urge you to think otherwise. Their prison is dismal at best. At least the gaol my mother confined me to had a television and computer to while away the hours of imprisonment.” While he spoke, he more or less forced me outside onto the pavement.
“Who’s Desislav the Destroyer? And what sort of mother holds her son prisoner?”
“One who is obsessed with striking a blow against Cernunnos,” he answered.
“The Irish Cernunnos? Lord of the hunt?” I asked, more confused than ever.
“Come,” he said, blithely disregarding my question to gesture down the street. “I have obtained a secure room nearby. We will make plans for locating Desi and his blood moon.”
“Yeah, I may look like an idiot—” I started to say.
“No, you look incompetent,” Orla said, alighting again on Owain’s shoulder as he hustled me forward. “And also, you’re huge. When did people get so big?”
“—but I assure you that I wasn’t born yesterday, and I am most certainly not going into a room alone with you,” I finished with only one glare at the bird.
“Very well,” he said, and veered off to the left, a hand on my arm making sure I came with him.
“There is a restaurant a few blocks from here run by dragons. We will discuss your search for Desi there, where you will feel secure. Orla, you may not speak offensively to our thief taker. I believe your misbehavior qualifies as needing a time-out.”
To my astonishment, he drew a symbol on the air that hung glittering pale blue for a few seconds before it dissolved into nothing, taking Orla with it even as she was screaming, “Nooooo!”
“What—”