Cronin's Key III (28 page)

Then like he
walked out of thin air, Adelmo appeared. A flickering apparition,
but Adelmo all the same. “Thank you for caring for him.” His voice
sounded like wind through the trees.

The sound of
Adelmo’s voice stirred something in Jorge and he roused from his
listless state. He looked around the room, his eyes still all
black, and he saw his father. He scampered out of Alec’s arms.
“Papa! Papa!” Jorge cried and ran to him. “Jorge stay with Papa!
Jorge stay with Papa!”

“
Oh,” Alec started to say, no doubt wondering how on earth
to break it to a perpetual six-year old that he would be without
his Papa for eternity. He would be orphaned, forever. He’d never
grow up, he’d never be old enough to understand that parents
weren’t around forever. Cronin recognized that losing a father was
something Alec was struggling with himself.

“
He can stay if he wants,”
Alec’s mom said.

“
He can?” Alec asked.
“Because he can stay with me and Cronin if he wants. We’ll look
after him.” Alec’s mother smiled sadly, and Cronin squeezed Alec’s
hand.

“
Papa,
” Jorge said.
“Jorge stay with Papa.”

Adelmo wiped
the tears from the little boy’s cheeks. “Is this what you want?
What about Alec?”

“
Alec is Jorge’s friend,” Jorge said
, not taking his eyes off Adelmo.

“
Will you stay with him?”
Adelmo asked.

Jorge’s little hands fisted Adelmo’s
shirt. “Jorge stay with Papa.” Then Jorge looked at Heather. “Jorge
can stay in the pretty place with his Papa?”

Heather smiled ethereally, and
nodded.

Jorge smiled his
little fanged smile and hugged his father’s neck, and he
started to cry again. “Jorge was sad. Jorge thought he lost his
Papa.”

Adelmo gave Alec a teary smile. “Thank you.” Jorge turned
in Adelmo’s arms
, and with a
single wave of his chubby hand, they were gone.

Alec took a
deep but shaky breath, and Cronin pulled him against him, kissing
the side of his head. “Oh, m’cridhe.”

Heather stood silent and waiting, and
when Cronin released Alec, his mother took his hand. “Ailig, my
beautiful boy,” she said. “Can I ask you something?”

Alec nodded.

“
If you wish to relinquish
your powers, just say the word.”

Alec
was clearly
surprised by this. “You can do that?”

Heather nodded. “Of course. And you’ve
said a few times now you’d rather be without them.”

“
You heard me?” he said
softly.

“
We hear everything,” she
replied.

“
Oh God,” Alec cringed. “You see
everything
…?”

Heather
laughed, a chiming of bells. “We don’t look in bedrooms, Alec. Or
on dining tables, or over sofas, or in the shower—”

Cronin cleared his throat, wanting the
earth to swallow him whole.

Eiji laughed the loudest, and Heather
raised an eyebrow at him. “Or on futons.”

Eiji shut up after that.

Heather smiled fondly at Alec. “Just
say the word.”

It was silent between them for a
moment, and Cronin had no doubt they were having a silent
conversation. Then Heather cupped her hands to Alec’s face and
kissed his forehead. “Consider it done.”

And she was gone.

Everyone stood in silence staring at Alec.
Had he really just given up every
power known to vampires? Did he?

Alec wiped
his eyes with the back of his hand and looked up at the sky. The
storm was gone as quickly as it came in, and the sun was starting
to rise. “We need to leave,” he said. He slid his arm around
Cronin’s waist and held on tight—the way he used to travel when
Cronin leapt… before Alec had powers.

With
not a word
spoken, but questioning eyes from everyone, Cronin held out his
hand. Everyone touched him, and they were gone.

It had been three months since the Zoan
incident
, and the New York
apartment was blessedly quiet. Eiji and Jodis were enjoying some
time alone in Japan. Kennard and Stas were in the Lithuanian
forest—Alec couldn’t believe Kennard agreed to go anywhere but
London—Benito and Viviana were back in Italy, the Russian elders
were safe in Moscow, Jacques had gone to Paris to help the new
elders, and Kole and Eleanor had gone to the theater.

The world elders
agreed that because the portal opened before they could
hold their meeting, Alec wasn’t to be held accountable for acting
without counsel. Not that it mattered anyway—Alec had told them he
was done. Though he was glad, out of all this mess, the one good
thing to come from it was that there was now a governing body of
twelve world elders. Cronin, Jodis, and Eiji were a part of it, and
Alec of course—even though he wasn’t an elder. But the pressure was
off him alone now and dispersed onto the shoulders of wiser, more
deserving vampires.

So while there had still been meetings
, there had been a lot more peace and quiet.
Still not enough for Alec’s liking though.

Cronin took Alec’s hand,
pulled him to his feet from where he sat on the sofa, and
kissed him softly. “Close your eyes.”

“
I hate surprises,” Alec whined
as he closed his eyes. He didn’t really. He loved
surprises. But he just pretended he hated them.

“
No you don’t
. You
love them,” Cronin said with a laugh. “Now keep them shut until I
say so.”

Alec felt them leaping but didn’t want
to ruin Cronin’s happiness, so he closed his mind down and allowed
himself to simply see nothing.

Alec knew
they were in a small room somewhere. His vampire senses told him
there were four walls surrounding him only a few feet away. But he
felt no threat. In fact, he felt something else.

Cronin’s breath was close, and Alec
could tell he was smiling when he spoke. “Open your
eyes.”

They were standing in a room with white walls and dark
wooden beams
that held a low
ceiling just above their heads. There was an empty fireplace and
not much else. But Alec automatically knew where he was. The view
out the window confirmed it, even though it was night outside. Alec
could see across the field to the river. They were standing in the
farmhouse at the field of Dunadd. The field where they would leap
to for privacy. The field where a human Cronin had died, the small
farmhouse Alec had once said he’d love to own.

He spun to look at Cronin.
“How…?”

“
Keeping secrets from you is not easy,” Cronin said. “But
keeping it a secret from the others was the hardest part.” He
smiled as he recalled Eiji’s blatant inability to keep his mouth
shut, let alone his mind.

Alec saw
where
Cronin’s thoughts had taken him. “He knows,” Alec said. “About my
powers. He’s just pretending he doesn’t.”

“
Really?” Cronin’s eyebrows rose to his hairline.

Alec
chuckled. “Not at first. In the beginning he thought I’d
relinquished my powers like everyone else did, but I’d catch him
looking at me. His mind was curious, always looking, then one day
he thought something funny and I laughed. He never said anything,
but he smiled at me, and he knew.”

“
And he said
nothing?”

Alec
breathed in deeply, feeling more content than he had in a long
time. “He knows I don’t want the world to know. I’m happy with the
vampire world thinking I’m powerless now. Well, except for the
Elder Council. They know of course. But it allows us to be normal,
for a while anyway. Until the next imminent threat. Though I don’t
think it will take Stas long to realize I’ve still shielded his
mind… if Kennard lets him up for air long enough for him to even
think of other things.”

Cronin laughed at that.
“I thought we were supposed to be rid of all duties of the
key for a few hundred years,” Cronin said. He kissed Alec with
smiling lips.

It was true. From what Viviana and Jodis could determine,
the next portal opening would be in
two hundred and fifty-eight quiet years when the planets
aligned with the design of the world-famous Hagia Sophia church in
Istanbul. Nine circle design over the great Byzantine Cistern,
which of course was built over nine open pits….

“
Fingers crossed,” Alec agreed. “Two hundred and fifty-eight
years is a good start, but I have no doubt that someone will get
too big for their boots and try for good old world domination. Not
now, but in a hundred years, a thousand… I don’t know.” The truth
was, when Alec was offered the very real option of relinquishing
his powers, he’d said no. As much as his talents were a burden, he
couldn’t bear the thought of Cronin, or any of his friends, being
in danger and not being able to save them. That, and the fact he’d
not explored the talent of replicating as thoroughly as he’d liked.
Cronin was rather fond of going to bed with two Alec’s.

Cronin smiled. “So we have a little
while to ourselves, yes?”

Alec nodded. “Peace and quiet, and
fornication.”

Cronin
barked out a laugh. “It was normalcy you wanted.”

Alec looked around the small, empty
room. “And normalcy I got. I cannot believe you bought this
place.”

“
I thought to furnish it
and a little remodeling, but wanted your input. It is,
after all, our new home.”

Alec put his
hand to his mouth. “You really bought it?”

Cronin
nodded. “You mentioned wanting to purchase it, though you said it
was only an errant thought. But after all we’ve been through, even
if we have forever, I would say life is too short to be left
wanting.”

“
Oh.”

“
I sold the apartment in London, which easily covered the
cost of it,” Cronin told him. “The land was the most expensive
part. As you can see, the house is rather humble.”

“
The house is
perfect.”

And it was.
Small. Private. Home.

Alec took
Cronin’s hand and pulled him into the next room. It was a sitting
room, a small living area. “We can put the shelves of memorabilia
along that wall,” he said. Then moved into the next room, the
master bedroom. “And this could be our room. The bed can go here
and a shelf on that wall for your ax and helmet—”

“
And
Ra’s sun disk and
Emperor Qin’s stone plate,” Cronin added. He was smiling
brilliantly.

“
And we’ll need to do the spare room for when Eiji and Jodis
visit and my dad. And Sammy the cat will love it here,” Alec went
on, now walking into the bathroom. “Oh.” He stopped, looking at the
hideous tiles and ancient fittings. “Well, this will need redoing,
because… well, yuck.”

Cronin
laughed. “We’ll need to do a lot of remodeling, Alec. The windows
need to be replaced with the UV filtered glass. I want the metal
security plating that I installed in New York, though I’m not
certain such an old building will handle such
improvements—”

His words were cut off by Alec taking his face in both
hands and kissing him soundly. He pulled back with a smile, then
taking his hand again, he led him outside
into the peaceful night. The view over their field,
the blanket of long grass to the tree-lined river under the
Scottish moon was perfect.

“
This is ours?”

Cronin gave a nod. “Technically, it’s
yours.”

Alec stared at him. “What?”

“
I bought it for
you.”

Alec opened
his mouth, then promptly snapped it shut. It was such an
extravagant thing to do. Such a thoughtful, most perfect
gift.

“
It is for both of us,” Cronin amended, clearly not sure of
Alec’s reaction. “It is our home. We will live here, if that is
what you want.”

Alec laughed
and the sound rang out over the field. He’d never wanted anything
more. “It’s so perfect, Cronin!” He looked down toward the river.
“You know, we could have a house warming party and make it a
surprise wedding.”

“
A wedding? Are we not
already wed?”

“
We’ve done the hand-tying
wedding, but not the wedding ring kind.”

Cronin’s eyes widened. “Alec, if you
wished for a wedding ring you should have said-”

Alec cut him
off with a laugh. “You’d think I’d be sick of anything to do with
circles, but I would like to wear a metal band on my finger that
says ‘I belong to Cronin’.” Before Cronin could answer, Alec showed
him the vision from Cronin’s human memory, of the wedding so long
ago. The music played, and the newly wedded couple danced. The
vision was faded, but the emotion was anything but. “We could
dance,” Alec whispered. “Like they danced. You longed for it back
then, and now you shall have it.”

Cronin’s eyes closed and he started to
purr, and. Alec could see in Cronin’s mind how much he would love
that, he could feel it in his heart. “M’cridhe.”