Chapter Seven
Eudora spent Saturday getting all the supplies she was going to need for the event the following day. When she stopped for lunch, she answered a call. “Hello?”
Sern’s voice said, “What are you up to today?”
“I just grabbed what I needed makeup-wise. Why?”
“A friend is a real estate agent and has time to take you around looking for new and reasonable accommodation.”
“A friend with pointy ears?”
There was a low laugh. “Perhaps. Will you come along?”
“I am about to have lunch.”
“A giant mound of fries is not lunch.”
“It is if you do it right. These potatoes have died for me. I will respect the lives that went into this.”
“May I join you?”
“Sure.”
The call ended.
She didn’t look around to see where he was. She could feel him approaching.
As he walked up next to her, she casually held up a second fork. “Make yourself useful.”
His preferred coffee was set in front of him while she sipped her soda.
“You knew I was nearby?”
“I knew the moment you fixed on me and decided to contact me today. It was an odd feeling, but I knew what it was.”
He forked up some fries and gravy. “Interesting.”
“Yup.”
“What did you get today?”
“Makeup that matches my preferred colour palette.”
“Why were you wearing pastels?”
“Likon asked for them, so I didn’t stand out. He wanted me to blend in.”
“And for years, you blended.”
“Yup, and I would for years more, but he pulled the trigger, and since all I have is my own dignity, I had to protect it.”
Sern wiped some gravy off her cheek with his thumb. “I have the greatest respect for your dignity.”
“I know. It’s what I like about you. The respect is felt in everything you do.”
He looked at her, and an embarrassed look came to his eyes. “I didn’t realize you were aware of it.”
“Your brother acts similarly. I think Delia is working to make a call to your home.”
Sern blinked. “What?”
“Den said you called home regularly until you were sent here. She is communication. She will be making the call.”
Sern swallowed. “When?”
“Ask Den. I introduced them because I thought Den and Del would be cute.”
Sern looked at her in astonishment and then started texting. The language he spoke in was low and liquid. He paused to check his phone and sighed. “Yes, seven will be fine.”
She smiled and kept eating.
When he finished talking to his brother, he hung up with a shaking hand. “You knew she could connect through the stars.”
“Of course. She called for me when she needed me, so there I was. And then we returned together.”
“You were taken?”
“No. We followed the taken. I did it after dinner, after work. When Likon went out to play with others. We worked with the earth-born djinn and managed to get the children confined back to this world. Then, we locked the Shadow Mage portals. If they open one, it’s going to happen with a bang.”
“There is a mage that does explosions?”
“Chemical reactions, yes.”
“Ah. And you got together on this?”
“They stole siblings, relatives. They tried to lure us in and got so much more than they bargained for.”
Sern blinked. “I see.”
She grinned. “As my sister said, they called the devil, and I showed up.”
Understanding flared through him. “You... they targeted the mages.”
“Yup. They pulled in friends, family, distant cousins, and one coworker. We got them all back, but time is different there. Faster or slower. One weekend here was six months there. We learned what we were, learned what was necessary, and did a lot of damage. And the one of us who guards mental health took the time that they lost from them and removed their pain, shame, and panic. Probability sent them the hint that they would need counselling over time.”
“They can’t just be corrected?”
“The temporal elf threw you all back ten years so you could focus on the present. That time was enough for many of you to work through your issues, and you had each other to draw on. We don’t live as long.
We haven’t seen that kind of brutality and didn’t even know it existed.
When we survive it, we just want to feel safe, and then we take control by any means we can. ”
His eyes widened. “Before Likon.”
“That is when it happened for me. I went, I fought, I returned, and I needed to hide. Shadows caused the fire that burned my home. There was no source of ignition. They attacked my neighbours first. My address was difficult to find.”
“I had no idea.”
“No, but you got to meet me after I had my time to hide and heal.” She smiled. “Connected via Den because of the divorce locking up my finances and computer.”
Sern blinked. “Because you decided it was time.”
She grinned and went for the last forkful of fries. He beat her to it but offered her the fork. Eudora leaned forward and smiled, meeting his gaze as she took the last of the fries he offered. His eyes were doing fascinating things that nearly shot sparks when she licked her lips.
“So, house hunting?”
He looked at her, focusing on her mouth. He nodded, and she flipped a tip to the table. He got up, and she linked her arm through his. He looked down at her sundress and sandals in deep, dark red. “You look...”
“Well, don’t forget. Strong can be sexy.” She winked, and they walked to his car.
He blinked and opened the door for her with a bright grin. “I am guessing the genie is out of the bottle.”
She chuckled and slid into the car. “You would know.”
He was laughing when he got behind the wheel and flicked on the GPS to lead them to the first house.
It looked like her afternoon was set.
She laughed and held her makeup bag and purse on her lap. This was going to be interesting.
The friend was a charming dark elf named Hektor Weskilit. He asked her what she was looking for, and it was simple. Two rooms, a reasonable living room, and a kitchen large enough to turn around in.
Hektor smiled. “That’s it?”
“What more do I need?”
“A larger closet. Some storage space. A pool. Hot tub. Back patio.” Sern looked innocent.
“I can just find someone who has those things and visit.” She had an idea of what Sern was angling toward, and she wasn’t going to make it easy.
Hektor laughed. “There are a few apartments and one small house nearby. Shall we just pick one at random?”
“Not the house. I will stick to an apartment if there are neighbours at stake.”
Hektor nodded. “Right. First, we will look at the property with the most to offer, and then we will work our way down the ladder.”
“Isn’t that the opposite of what normally happens?”
“We have learned to adapt to different situations.”
Sern smiled. They were at his home, and it was just as elegant to her as he was. Hektor was sitting, and he opened a portfolio before pulling out different apartment listings.
She looked them over and sighed. If she had some savings, she might have been able to manage the mid-range one. She checked her account and did some math. She reached to look at one of the pricier ones and cocked her head as she did math.
She grimaced and put it down. It was pretty and fancy but a waste of money. “We can look at this one.” She held up the mid-range apartment. “Not to be Goldilocks, but this one is too small, and this one is too large.”
Sern nodded. “Hektor is going to make contact to see if it is available to view. Did you want to go for a nice, quiet walk?”
She looked at Hektor and back at Sern. Hektor was on the phone with no one. Then she nodded. “Sure.”
Sern got up and extended his hand to her. “Come on. I want to show you my house.”
She smiled and then went for a walk, taking in the gym, which looked very recent, as the scent of paint stung her nostrils.
Eudora’s lips quirked, and he continued the tour. He didn’t seem the type for a crafting room, but there it was.
She glanced at him, and he looked innocent. There was a sitting room that was all cozy, and she felt her soul relax as she looked at it. “You seem to have done a lot of recent renovations.”
He smiled. “Well, you never know who you will need to host.”
They saw the billiard room, the formal dining room, and the kitchen. It was a lovely house.
They walked outside, and she saw the deck, the carefully fenced pool, and the hot tub. Her muscles imagined the heat wrapping around them, and she sighed. “It is a lovely house.”
“Thank you. Avor’s company built it, but I have added some recent alterations.”
“Avor... oh. Him. Lovely wife and child. Big wings.”
“Yes. Oh, of course, you have met. They are very into children’s charities.”
“Yes. Ira is adorable.”
He nodded. “She is. And all signs are that she will follow her mother’s genetics.”
“So, no female dragons?”
“No. Do you want to know why that is a very bad idea?”
“Because a dragon female in dragon form is an egg layer, and with the right mate, that can make a lot of eggs?” She smiled. “With human genes ripening within two decades and some of those eggs having possible more laying females... yeah.”
He blinked. “That’s... right. How do you know that?”
“There is an apocalypse movie about dragons, and that is sort of the thing that happened. They just eventually outbred the humans and burned everything else.”
“I don’t think I saw that movie.”
“We can get overcooked popcorn and watch it one night, if you like, for educational purposes.”
Sern squeezed her hand. “I would like that.”
“So, what else is on the tour?”
He grinned. “Upstairs. This was a pack house, so it is designed with large rooms and plenty of them.”
“Right. And you are living here alone?”
He grinned. “I live in hope of a large family and friends visiting.”
“Wow. Well, your kids would be on the larger side. They would need the space.”
He chuckled. “I hadn’t considered the possibility of a family until recently.”
She smiled. “Speaking of family, did you want me to call Den and Delia and see if you guys can call home?”
Sern paused and then turned to ask her, “Could you? Please?”
She sighed and shook her head. “That face isn’t fair. From your mother or your father?”
He chuckled. “If she makes contact, you will find out.”