A Life Earthbound (21 page)

A noise caught her attention and she tilted her head to look up, a surprised smile blooming over her face.

“Brogan,” she said, rising to her feet.

He was standing just outside the doorway looking whole and unscathed, to her immense relief. His tall figure that was always too thin was covered in his black Fury uniform, though he looked disheveled and exhausted, as though the last several days had been hell for him. His eyes were hollow with dark shadows, but his smile was genuine.

“Hi, Rhiannon,” he greeted, his soft, poet’s voice courser than usual. He cleared his throat, embarrassed by the sound of it.

Because he looked as if he needed it, and she knew she certainly did, she stepped forward and hugged him. It wasn’t easy for her to show affection this way, but with everything that had been going on since he left, she realized just how much she’d missed his calm, comforting presence. With him, she always knew what to expect and what to say. Brogan was the very definition of consistency.

“I was worried,” she said, pulling away to examine his appearance with concerned eyes. “How did it go?”

He shrugged, trying to look as if he didn’t care but instead he only managed to show his frustration. “Dante’s long gone, unfortunately. I tried to track him down, but the trail got cold.”

“Is that why you were gone so long? No one would tell me anything,” she asked.

“I tried to be as thorough as I could. I visited the alley, his now empty apartment, the stores he went to on a daily basis…no one has seen or heard from him. He must have fled the night he attacked us. It’s going to take more investigating to find where he’s gone.”

“Did you tell Thea?”

“I just came from there. Rian thinks it’s best that we keep an eye out, but lay back for awhile, let him come to us, so to speak. But Jax and Blythe are antsy. They want blood, ya know?” He smiled, as if it were a joke between them.

“Blythe has always been impatient,” Rhiannon mused, smiling back at him. “How is that going, by the way? Being on speaking terms with her?”

He shrugged again, knowing it was a tough subject between them. “It’s fine. Nova and I…well, we just wanted to make things easier for Nyxa, and since she and Blythe are trying to mend things, we figured it would help if we did our part.”

“That’s nice of you,” Rhiannon told him, though Brogan could hear the disdain in her voice.

“Are you worried I’ll start spending more time with her than I do with you?” he asked, a bit timidly, hoping not to offend her. He knew she had a tendency to close down if confronted with too many questions about her thoughts and feelings, and usually it was easier to avoid those topics. But he had been friends with her for so many years, and he knew better than most how she felt in regards to Blythe.

“If you wanted to spend time with her, I wouldn’t hold it against you,” she assured him, though she turned and started busying herself with repotting a basil plant on the counter in the greenhouse.

“I don’t think I could spend longer than five minutes with her. She’s too high strung for me.” He chuckled, resting against the doorjamb as he watched her. “I can’t help but feel uncomfortable around her most of the time. With you, it’s never been that way. I’ve always felt relaxed with you.”

“Likewise.” She smiled, looking at him.

Despite everything that had happened over the years, he appeared relatively unchanged by the tragedies he’d been through. He had a resilience she admired more than she could say. He’d lost his father in the most brutal of fashions, had found out all of the horrible deeds his father had committed, and yet he still carried on with unshakable strength. She wondered if anyone else had any idea just how strong he was as a person, and how wise and caring a soul he had. It seemed sometimes that she was the only one who noticed. He was, much as the fairies were, forgotten by most of those on Euphora.

“Do you want to help me pick some tomatoes for dinner tonight?” she asked impulsively, no longer feeling like being alone.

“Sure.” He smiled and brushed at his curly dark hair, pushing it out of his face. “It feels good to be home. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Brogan,” she replied, feeling at ease for the first time in days.

A few weeks later, she had a bad, and very unwelcomed, case of déjà vu.

She had left the breakfast hall and was on her way to work one uneventful morning, only to notice two men walking briskly through the atrium, heading straight toward her.

She paused mid-step, her eyes honing in on none other than Burke Callahan, and a younger man she could only assume was his son, Michael.

“Rhiannon!” Burke greeted, a bright smile on his face. “How lucky we are to run into you this fine morning.”

He approached and offered his hand. She took it, her lips curving politely even as her eyebrow lifted in annoyance the moment he raised her hand and lightly kissed her fingers. Gallantry from a man did little to impress her, especially because it was often a cover for hidden motives. And she could tell from a mile away that Burke Callahan had an ulterior motive…she could sense that mirage again, that mask that portrayed friendliness when she was certain he would offer no such thing if you crossed him.

“Good morning, Burke,” she responded as he released her hand, which she made a mental note to scrub clean. She turned to his son, who looked remarkably the same as he had the last time she’d seen him nearly twelve years before.

“You remember my son, Michael,” Burke beamed proudly, as though showcasing his thin son as a magnificent piece of art.

Rhiannon shook Michael’s hand politely, noting the disdain and indifference in his eyes. Interestingly, he looked very little like his father and he certainly had none of his charm.

Michael was barely as tall as she was, his body slight and his hands soft. His pale skin looked as though he avoided the sun at all costs. In fact, by the look of his scrawny, unused arms, he avoided manual labor at all costs, as well. Just what it was he did as an Enforcer, she couldn’t be sure.

He had the same sandy blonde hair, combed over to the side with meticulous care, not a strand out of place. His face had honed over the years, but his brown eyes had the same arrogance in them that she remembered too well from when they were kids. His mouth was curled into a sneer edged with boredom and annoyance.

“Nice to see you again,” Rhiannon said courteously, though it was a bold faced lie. Nothing about him was nice and never had been.

“This place hasn’t changed,” Michael drawled, glancing around with bored eyes. When he stared back at her, he looked her up and down with equal boredom. “Nor have the people.”

“Yes, well, our lives are rather unexciting compared to yours, I’m sure, being an Enforcer and all,” she replied, tilting her head up and displaying equal disdain.

“Nonsense!” Burke chimed in, patting his son on the back and chuckling. Michael glared at his father but Burke didn’t notice. “Surely we see more action, but we all know the world wouldn’t be able to function without all of you.”

“Nor without the fine work the Enforcers do,” Rhiannon nodded, meeting Burke’s eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

She swept past them without bothering to look at Michael, who she sincerely hoped never to see again. How in the world Thea and the Furies allowed that scrawny, arrogant prince to be an Enforcer was mind boggling to her. There was just no way he pulled his own weight. In fact, she was certain that all he did was boss others around while they did the hard work, and he just sat back and took all the credit.

She wondered, yet again, if he even wanted to be an Enforcer or if he was just doing this because his father was forcing him. If so, sooner or later he was going to get himself killed, because there was just no way he could handle himself around a demon in a one-on-one fight.

Deciding he wasn’t worth her time and energy, she pushed thoughts of him out of her mind and instead focused on her tasks for the day.

She entered the Greenhouse, mentally going through her
to do
list, her notebooks in one arm and her other reaching for her glasses in her purse. She glanced up as she found them and spotted her father sitting at his drafting table, staring at a blank sheet of vellum, his hands clenched into fists on his knees. She stopped and watched him, wondering if he was okay.

Hanging up her bag and setting down her books on her desk, she approached him, clutching her glasses in her hands to steady herself.

“Good morning,” she tried, hoping not to startle him. But he didn’t even flinch, or move; instead he remained still, his eyes staring at nothing.

Tentatively, she moved into his line of vision, and slowly reached out her hand to touch his shoulder. Biting her lip, she brushed her hand over the cashmere of his classic, steel gray sweater, and he shivered slightly under her touch.

“Is everything alright?” she tried again and this time she saw a shimmer of light flicker over his face, and a flash of agony so brief she almost didn’t notice it. But it was there, and as swiftly as it had come, it was replaced by an expression so empty he appeared dead.

His eyes shot up to meet hers, the green in them dulled. It alarmed her to see his vitality, his strength, sucked out of him this way.

“What are you doing here?” he croaked, his voice hoarse as though he hadn’t had water in days.

Startled, she blinked and stared at her watch. “It’s seven, I always come to work at seven,” she reminded him, wondering if he had lost his mind.

His eyes narrowed, and he scowled as he stared around him. “It’s seven already?”

She nodded and then realized he was wearing the same clothes he had worn at dinner the night before.

“Were you in here all night?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“I must have lost track of time.” He cleared his throat and rubbed his face, looking tousled and agitated.

Concerned, she gripped his arm and pulled him to his feet. “Go to bed, get some sleep. I’ll take care of everything today.”

He suddenly looked at her with a kind of weary wonder, as though he was seeing her for the first time.

To her bewilderment, his eyes filled as he watched her silently and fear punched viciously through her chest.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, more frightened by the desolation in his eyes than she could say.

He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m fine, Rhiannon.”

With that, he turned away from her and left the room, leaving her standing alone, feeling lost and confused.

How was she supposed to interpret any of this or deal with it? She was used to order, structure and finite actions, tidy feelings and predictable words from her father. To see him virtually self-destructing right before her, and to quite literally have no clue what to do about it, was killing her. And despite what Thea had told her, she just wasn’t sure she was up to the job of rescuing him from himself.

Because it was easier, she pushed away the uncertainty, and the fear and the pain, mentally disposing of them with greedy haste. Later. Later she would deal with it, when she could figure out what to say and how to say it.

And if the thought crept in that maybe it was something inherently wrong with her, not him, that was keeping her from understanding how to help, then she simply disposed of that, too.