Byzantine Heartbreak (2 page)

* * * * *

The Chronometric Conservation Agency near-Earth satellite station. 8 hours later.

The next time Ryan checked Brenden’s office, the Spartan was there. Ryan tapped on the glassed-in walls, then pushed the door open. “You disappeared. I was going to suggest a trip back to New Orleans.”

Brenden grimaced. “Sorry. The Athens office had a security issue. Had to drop everything and jump.”

“Yeah, I know. Irene said you’d jumped to Greece. I figured you’d gone back for some ouzo and olives, but she said it was a contemporary jump.” Ryan shrugged. “Next time I have five minutes to spare, perhaps?”

Brenden frowned. “Perhaps.” He jerked his chin at Ryan. “I heard you were locked up with that human all morning. The politician.”

“Stelios?”

“That’s the bastard.” Brenden stabbed at his desk controls. “Better you than me. Fucking humans. Add politics into the mix and they’re twice as shifty. Don’t know how you stand it. He’s worse. He’s Worlds Assembly. I hear he’s tight with Shun.”

Ryan could feel his mouth lifting involuntarily at this litany of Cáel’s woes. “He’s not all that bad,” he said. “He doesn’t like Shun any more than you do. And he’s Greek and drinks ouzo, so he’s not completely beyond redemption.”

Brenden raised a single brow. “He doesn’t drink your fine Irish malt, then?” he asked, sounding like he was ready to be completely insulted all over again, this time on Ryan’s behalf.

Ryan hesitated. “I’ve not taken him back to New Orleans.”

“Then you’ve no idea if he’s a proper drinking man or not, do you?” Brenden pointed out, sounding almost prim.

“Oh, he can drink,” Ryan assured Brenden and let the office door shut itself, so that Brenden could get back to work.

He made his way back to his office, wondering how Stelios would handle a fifth of 100-proof Irish malt, especially the way they served it in New Orleans. It had tested the endurance of many a good man before and found them wanting.

It would be interesting to see Cáel’s reaction to the stuff.

One day. Maybe. He just didn’t know the man well enough to invite him back. Not yet. Cáel was an interesting human, but the huge divide between human and vampire Cáel had yet to become even aware of, yet alone begin to bridge.

Ryan dismissed the human from his mind and hurried to his office. There were far more interesting matters to occupy his mind that one simple human.

Chapter Two

Ryan found Nayara waiting for him in his office—but it might have been Nayara from out of his memories. She stood at the armoured glass windows, staring at the darkside of Earth, where South America had all but disappeared, the blank expanse of the Pacific Ocean stretched like a dark negative space across the view and Europe took up the horizon.

She was wearing a long white robe with a richly embroidered hem that swept the floor. The simple robe was pulled in around her waist by a jewel-encrusted belt and over the top of the robe, around her shoulders, lay another brightly coloured and embroidered length of cloth. A mantle. It would have been covering her glowing red hair, but she had dropped it down around the back of her neck. Her hair was elaborately coiled and curled and held in place with clips embellished with more jewels. A cuff of gold encircled her wrist and rings adorned her fingers.

She turned to glance at Ryan as he entered and he saw that her eyes were made up with dark kohl and powder.

This was Nayara as he had first met her. A rich, beautiful upper class citizen of Constantinople and one of the most sought-after women in the city. She had fielded dozens of marriage proposals each year, until her constant company with Ryan and Salathiel had made it clear that she would never marry.

“You have been back to Constantinople?” Ryan asked, surprised. He and Nayara were the only two travellers in the agency that knew the time markers for the city, but neither of them voluntarily jumped back there. He certainly did not. The memories were too painful. He was glad the city and the time period were not one of the more popular ones. They were rarely forced to take a traveller back there.

“Rome,” Nayara replied. “A quick shopping trip for the costume and props department.”

The wardrobe department could and did manufacture most of the clothes and accessories the travellers and their companions wore, but the items were modelled on authentic fashions, which sometimes had to be fetched from the past, along with notes and observations on the wearing and use of the items. Rome and that era were familiar enough to Nayara that she could barter and observe accurately. She also knew ancient Latin well enough to pass as a high-born native.

“And how was Rome?” Ryan asked.

“Crowded,” Nayara replied, turning to gaze out the window again.

Ryan stepped to her side and stared out the window, too. He let the silence grow for a few moments. “It’s still turning, then?” he asked.

Nayara glanced at him and grimaced. “I’m sorry. I have something on my mind.”

“I can tell.”

She sighed. “I’m not even sure what it is that is bothering me.”

“Something about Rome?”

She shook her head and looked out the window at Earth as it slowly rotated, always displaying its mysterious dark side, with the marvellous display of light clusters showing where humans congregated in small and larger numbers. The thickly congested Mediterranean basin was just appearing, with its vaguely kidney-shaped sea, surrounded by globules of intense concentrations of light that almost glowed.

It could be hypnotic, watching Earth spin and tell its tale of humanity.

Ryan deliberately turned his back on the window and faced Nayara instead. “Something about Charbonneau—Rob, I mean? And Christian and Tally? The baby?”

Their brand new family—
family...
Ryan kept pausing to savour the word in his head, even though he could barely speak it aloud because it still seemed so unnatural. The first real family amongst the vampires was one of Nayara’s pet projects.

Ryan wasn’t sure if Nayara or Brenden was the oldest vampire in the Agency, because Nayara had never revealed her real birthdate. Ryan only suspected she might be older than anyone guessed. But if she was the oldest, then it seemed fitting that she supervise the care of the youngest among them.

“They’re fine, Ryan,” she said, her voice soft and gentle with a warmth he rarely heard. The warmth, the caring, made him mentally catch his breath. He forced himself to remain casual and not react to it. The caring was not directed toward him, he knew that. He curled his fingers in so they bit into the reinforced plasma steel of the wall beneath the ledge he was leaning against.

“Something about the station?” he prompted. This systematic probing was an old game for them. Nayara’s memories and responsibilities stretched so far and her mind could make such nebulous connections, that forcing those far-flung connections to the surface sometimes took concerted, organized effort. Ryan had learned never to ignore Nayara when she was troubled. It was not simply a mood or a passing moment. Nayara meant exactly what she said: something deep in her subconscious was tickling, trying to speak to her and she needed help to pull the offending matter out into the open.

It was a game that only the two of them knew about. To everyone else, Nayara was always placid and optimistic, as she dealt with the myriad responsibilities of the station with what looked like little concern or trouble.

Ryan suspected that perhaps only two people still living had ever seen Nayara lose her cool. He was one of them and he suspected Brenden may be another. If there was anyone else alive who had seen Nayara’s white hot temper let loose, they were as silent about it as Brenden was.

“It’s not the station,” Nayara said slowly. “Not exactly.”

“Indirectly, then,” Ryan said. “Something outside the station that is affecting us? Well, that’s a long and distinguished list, these days.”

Nayara gave him a ghost of a smile. Her eyes, so exotically big and slightly almond shaped, were simply beautiful. Especially with the thick fringe of lashes that bordered them. The kohl enhanced them in a way that made them very hard to ignore.

In the space of a heartbeat, but for what felt like much longer, memories crashed through into the forefront of his consciousness. Memories that he usually managed to keep locked safely away. Forbidden memories, of Nayara’s eyes locked on his as he made love to her, driving into her as Nayara begged him for more, harder, faster, in a strained, desperate voice.

So many moments of love and sex. Tender ones. Raw, lusty ones.

Nayara’s gaze catching his across a hundred rooms, a thousand spaces, over hundreds of years, her expression varying from amusement, to horror, to warning of imminent danger...to the one he remembered best: open love.

Ryan realized he was staring at her and yanked his gaze away. “Something to do with the station?” he repeated, as he stared at the floor and worked to contain his heart rate and bring it back to a quieter mode.

“I’m not sure,” Nayara replied. Her shoulders lifted a little, shifting the gauzy mantle. “Perhaps if I leave it alone, it will come to me.”

“When it’s too late, perhaps,” Ryan replied. “Tell me what you’ve been doing these last two days. Maybe something you’ve done, or someone you’ve spoken to has triggered an internal alarm for you.”

Nayara tilted her head and turned to look at him, smiling properly. “You won’t give up now, will you?”

Ryan found himself smiling back. “No.”

Nayara gave a small laugh. “Very well then. I consulted with Fahmido and Natália on the six week review of Jack and—”

“’Jack’?” Ryan repeated.

Nayara’s smile widened even more. “It’s a perfectly fine name, Ryan.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t aware they’d even named the boy. How exactly did they settle the naming issue, in end?”

With two fathers, both determined to leave their bloodline stamped on the boy by name, if not by genetics, the child had gone nameless for weeks as the debate had raged around him. Neither father had been willing to compromise.

Nayara gave a soft laugh. “Rob and Christian gave the name to Tally, of course. I pointed out that the boy, when he grew, would earn his own name, just as Rob is already earning his name—”

“Which is?” Ryan asked curiously. Damn, but he had been out of the operational side of the agency for too long. He’d been too busy playing politics with humans. He needed to plug back in.

“Half the agency is still used to calling Rob ‘Charbonneau’ and Christian and all the French speakers around here have pointed out that the people in the village where he first settled would have given him the name, because of his looks.”

Ryan ran his hand over his own cropped mane of hair. “Black Celtic. It comes with the genes.” Then he rolled his eyes. “Hell, no. Not ‘Black Robert,’ surely?”

Nayara grinned. It was an impish expression, for her. One she rarely showed.

“Makes him sound like a pirate,” Ryan complained.

“It suits him better than Charbonneau,” Nayara replied. “He really doesn’t look all that French.”

“When you thought he
was
French, you didn’t think that,” Ryan pointed out.

Nayara rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Jack Robert Constantine Talison is thriving
and
growing, thank you.”

Ryan absorbed the different parts of the boy’s name and realized he was smiling. “Jack is one of Christian’s names, I remember. Jackson Hamilton, I think. Robert is Rob’s, Constantine is for when Rob was Constant Charbonneau Villeneuve and the family name is Tally’s.” He chuckled. “They covered everything.”

Nayara nodded. “But that isn’t the thing that is bothering me. It was good news that Fahmido provided.”

“So what did you do next?”

Nayara shrugged. “The usual. Appointments, tasks, troubleshooting, calls, meet—” And she stopped, her lips parting and her eyes taking on a far-away glaze.

“What is it?” Ryan nudged gently.

Nayara blinked, her gaze refocusing on him. “I...it’s...nothing, Ryan.”

“What thought just occurred to you?”

She gave another tiny shrug. “Nothing.”

Ryan sat his full weight on the window ledge and crossed his arms. “You’re not really going to try lying to
me
, are you?”

He watched her hesitate and realized she was weighing up doing exactly that: lying to him. Stunned, he wondered what it was she was considering hiding from him.

“Give, Nayara. Now I know you’ve remembered, I’ll dig it out of you with whatever tools I can think to use, if I have to,” he warned her. “Especially if I think the station is in danger. You’ve already suggested it might be.”

“No,” she said quickly. “It’s not. Not at all. It’s just the opposite. I’ve remembered and it’s stupid. It’s actually embarrassing. It’s personal.” She bit her lip, glanced at him, then her glance skittered away and he realized that she really was feeling awkward.

“Since when could you not tell me anything?” he asked.

Her gaze swung back to meet his eyes squarely and she just looked at him. No coyness. There was challenge there.

Suddenly, Ryan realized what she would not share. His gut tightened. “You like someone,” he said, fighting to keep his expression neutral.

“I don’t know if I like them. I barely know them outside of business,” she said and Ryan could see she was picking her words with care. “Sometimes I find them most irritating.” She frowned.

“Do you at least want to give me the gender so you don’t have to keep circling around the pronoun?” Ryan asked.

Nayara’s smile was wise. “And so you can build fantasies around me? Hoping it is a woman, Ryan?”

Hating it’s anyone at all
, he thought. He made himself smile. “Why not?”

“Letch,” Nayara chided him. Her frown came back.

“What?” he asked.

“I may even have imagined it,” she said. “The reaction, that is.”

Ryan found himself straightening up as he put the bits and hints she had given him together. “Wait...wait. This isn’t someone
you
like. Well, you might like them. It’s someone you think likes you. Or is...what, making a move on you?” He lifted a brow. “Hitting on
you
? Someone has guts.”

The crease between her brow deepened a little. “I’m not sure they had seduction in mind, Ryan. It was incredibly subtle. And subtle isn’t something I would usually associate with this person.”

Who has she been meeting with the last two days?
Ryan made a mental note to find out as soon as possible. Who was it that had flummoxed her? He hadn’t seen her so unsure of herself in years.

“So you think you may have been misreading the situation?” he coaxed.

“Possibly.”

“You weren’t,” Ryan said flatly.

Nayara simply looked at him, waiting for him to explain himself.

Ryan shrugged. “At the level we work and the sort of people we deal with, they don’t accidentally let slip anything. Everything they do, subtle or not, is planned and deliberate. They’ve had training and years and years of experience at hints and gestures and timing. Whoever this joker is, they meant to leave you with
exactly
the impression you got.”

Nayara was back to frowning again. “They meant to leave me confused?”

Ryan shook his head. “They left you thinking about possibilities. Potentials. And they’re going to leave you stewing about it for a while before they follow up with their next gambit.”

“Which will be?” Nayara asked. Ryan was the politician, the strategist. Nayara always bowed to his expertise when it came to this sort of game-playing.