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Azriel didn’t reply, but then, he didn’t have to. Even Lucian couldn’t have missed the sudden jump in air temperature. I wondered briefly just how dark Valdis’s flames were, but didn’t turn around to check.
“Stop avoiding the question, Lucian. Why are you here?”
He snorted softly. “You were here to meet your father, were you not? I thought I might be of some use—especially since the Raziq were likely to turn up and cause problems.”
“But how the hell did you know we were even going to be here? It’s not like we’ve been anywhere near each other recently, so you couldn’t have read it in my thoughts.”
The Aedh generally could read human—or non-human—minds only when they were in close proximity to them. However, they formed a strong mental link with their partners during the act of sex, enabling them to hear their thoughts from a distance.
That bond was—according to Lucian—somewhat inoperative between the two of us. In fact, he’d claimed he could read my thoughts only when he was physically making love to me. Whether that was true or not I had no idea. I trusted him, but no matter what Azriel might think, it wasn’t blind trust. I knew he had secrets. Knew they were more than likely dangerous ones.
“If you do not wish anyone to know where you are,” he said, “then you had better inform your friends of this fact.”
“Ilianna told you?” That surprised me. I would have expected a little more caution, even though she knew Lucian was involved in our quest for the keys.
“No. I was at your home waiting to see you, and the note from your father was lying in plain view on the table. If you didn’t want anyone to know where you were, you should have hidden the evidence.”
That was true enough, I guess. But I hadn’t thought it necessary to hide the note in the safety of our own home. Yet . . . something still niggled. And I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was disbelief or Azriel’s distrust flowing through the far reaches of my thoughts.
“Well, as it turns out, you’ve missed all the action.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”
“My father was less than impressed by the discovery that I have a tracker in my heart. He left the minute he sensed the Raziq’s approach.”
I stepped around him, then headed out of the station. He fell in step beside me. Azriel was a seething mass of annoyance that followed.
“And the Raziq? I venture they were not pleased by such an outcome.” His gaze raked me, and deep inside, desire stirred. Goddamn it, what was it about this man that called to me, even when I was annoyed with him? “Are they the reason you have the bruises?”
“No, they’re thanks to my father.” I stopped at the traffic lights and punched the button with a little more force than necessary. Who, exactly, I was more annoyed at I couldn’t say for sure—my father, the two of them, or myself for not being strong enough to tell Lucian to fuck off and leave me alone.
In fact, right now, I wished both of them—and the rest of the damn circus that had entered my life around the same time—would just go away and leave me in peace.
“Your father?” Surprise edged his tone. “Violence might be one of his mainstays, but it’s rarely unleashed when he still requires that person’s assistance.”
I gave him a long look. “And just how do you know that about my father?”
He snorted. “He’s a Raziq, is he not? They are rebels and outcasts for the precise reason that they do not conform to Aedh standards—not only in ideology, but in their very natures.”
He lies, Azriel said. There is more to his knowledge than what he claims.
Just as there’s more to your dislike than what you claim? I grouched back.
And yet I couldn’t dismiss his doubts, simply because I agreed with them.
“What you said sounded more like firsthand, personal knowledge than like a general statement about the Raziq.”
“I said I’d ask around about your father, and I have. Aedh numbers may place us on the verge of extinction, but that does not mean there are none in this city. Hieu is old even in Aedh terms, and not unknown.”
“All that sounds a little too convenient.”
“Sometimes the truth is.” He caught my hand and pulled me to an abrupt stop. “You know why I’m on this hunt. I want the Raziq.”
“I know—”
“No, you don’t,” he interrupted fiercely. “Because I don’t just want them dead. I want them burned from existence. I want them erased from the memory of the earth itself and their names never to be mentioned, even in the darkest whispers in the darkest of places.”
I stared at him, for the first time seeing the true extent of the anger and darkness in him. And I couldn’t help wondering just what he would do to get that revenge—and what he’d already done.
