Heart Fire (Celta Book 13) (29 page)

He shrugged, and that gesture
did
rile her.

“I wanted to get my business established.” His lips firmed. “I will never be able to forget that I am brother to Shade the murderer.”

“Are you going to let his actions define you?”

Antenn laughed shortly. “My brother’s murders
have
defined me, all the time I’ve been growing up. There are people in the FirstFamilies who will never look at me without seeing him first, no matter what. Powerful people. Only my father, T’Blackthorn, and my Clover relatives make me acceptable. If I were disinherited tomorrow, say, I would not live to the next day.”

Shock at his words pulled a gasp from her. “You mean that.”

“Oh, yeah. And if old T’Yew or his daughter, D’Yew, had lived, I wouldn’t be here today. I’m sure I’d have had an unfortunate accident.” Antenn’s mouth twisted. “And that’s one of the realities of my existence that I had to accept.” His gaze burned. “And something my HeartMate will have to accept.”

Her hand went to her throat. “I had no idea.”

“Of course not.” His lips curved in a sardonic smile. “I am not good for you, Lady. Not only because of my personal problems, but the external ones of my existence that I carry with me.” Another shrug. “I don’t dwell on it. Live in the moment. And once this cathedral is built, I’ll have proven my worth once and to all.”

A calendar sphere popped into the air. “Dinner with the Family,” it said in a voice that Tiana now knew was Mitchella D’Blackthorn’s.

“I must leave. I’ll take a waterfall at home.” Antenn bowed to her, and when he straightened his expression seemed vulnerable. “We, uh, are all right for now?” he asked.

“You mean just having sex?” she asked.

He laughed. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine with that.”

“For now,” she said austerely.

His shoulders straightened. “Being up front with you. I don’t want much more than that. Not right now when we have this cathedral project and the controversy going.”

“I can’t imagine HeartBonding with a man I’ve barely known for three days. Not at all wise.”

“Well, no.”

She decided to say something before he did. “And I’d rather keep the fact that we’re HeartMates to ourselves. I’m not going to say anything to anyone, not my Family, not even my closest friends.”

Hurt passed over his face—the reason she wanted to put it out there, so she wasn’t the one being hurt by those words, and that was low . . . and human—and he nodded, raised a palm. “I won’t say anything to anyone, not my Family nor my closest friends.”

“We understand each other then.”

“For the moment,” he said, pulling on his underwear and trous, studying her. “It’s a good thing that you’re a priestess, compassionate, forgiving. Lord and Lady know I have problems. And faults.”

“I’m sure,” Tiana said. Looking inwardly at their bond, she saw it wasn’t thick, but it did link them, emotionally, even physically, perhaps. But spiritually? She didn’t know. She would keep it open, observe it. Without the lockspell she didn’t think he’d be able to block it.

He finished dressing quickly, then walked over to her, eyes gleaming. He picked up her hand and kissed her fingers, placed her palm on his chest, then leaned down and brushed her lips, including a small stroke of his tongue. Then he kissed her brow. “We will have to make time to be together, and not only in dreams; though that was great,
this
was
the best
. Later.”

Before she could reply, he was gone.

S
he got up and threw her empty water tube in the reconstructor, then opened the bedroom door and walked to her waterfall room. Already she felt chafing of skin that hadn’t experienced a man’s body in a long while . . . and the strain of muscles she’d used enthusiastically.

TQ creaked and she became abruptly aware that she lived in a sentient House.

“I trust the interlude was pleasant?”

“The interlude was magnificent.”

“Good. That’s very good.”

“I certainly thought so.”

TQ chuckled.

“By the way, when Antenn is here and we are in my bedroom, I wish to always be in privacy mode.”

“Yes, Tiana. By the way, I have not received any more of your belongings,” he said. “No trunk or two have been sent to my mail cache.”

“I have everything,” she said, a little stiffly.

A long pause, and then TQ said in a near whisper as if not wanting to offend, “They aren’t much.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have much, and don’t really need much.”

“It’s lovely to have nice things,” TQ said in Mitchella Clover D’Blackthorn’s voice, and Tiana understood the House teased her. She laughed and realized that she’d tensed up again, the back of her mind turning over those words of Antenn’s about enemies. A good waterfall would ease her again. She bit off a sigh as she stepped into the enclosure and let the water stream down. So much had happened these last days that her life had been thrown off the course she’d plotted.

The greatest event and hopefully the best was discovering her HeartMate.

She hoped. Then she let her mind blank to another pleasure, liquid sluicing her body, herbs she loved and could name released in the steam that rose around her and suffused her muscles, loosening them. When she was finished, she dried herself the old-fashioned way with fluffy towels and donned a very old, very soft robe—one she only wore privately in her rooms at BalmHeal Residence.

But she was totally alone here, an extremely odd feeling. She had never lived alone, and worked in a busy building. She’d liked the extreme privacy before, but now she wasn’t sure about all this very quiet personal space.

She did know one thing. “TQ, your heat seems to be a degree or two too cold for me. Can you raise it, please? And do you have the energy to keep it that warm?”

“Oh, yes, Tiana. At once!”

“Thank you.”

“I am a wealthy House. I have received gifts and gilt and I have invested them well. You will lack for nothing within my walls,” he said, and it sounded like a vow.

“You’re wonderful,” Tiana said.

“Thank you. I wish to furnish the mainspace and would like your opinion on furniture.”

“All right.”

“Here are some chairs, which do you like best?” He showed her vizes of chairs against the walls—fancy carved wooden chairs with elegant fabric backs and seats, leather wing chairs like those in BalmHeal Residence but newer. Her breath caught.

“Which one, Tiana?”

“That big, fat cushioned one. The one with the round arms and back that could hold two of me.” For some reason just looking at that chair made her feel wealthy . . . and free. She could sit sideways with her back against one arm, legs hanging over the other, not at all a position her mother or BalmHeal Residence would approve of.

“Ah. I have only two of those in my basement storage room; shall I translocate them so you can examine them?”

“You can do that?”

“I am also a powerfully Flaired House and I have had some humans teach me such spells.”

She wondered who, but said, “That’s great.”

“Please go to the north mainspace that looks out on the back grassyard.”

Felonerb turned the corner of the hallway, burping, then said,
I have heard we are getting new furniture
. His claws clicked on the polished wooden floor.

“You will
not
scratch at
my
chairs,” TQ said.

The cat’s ears went down, then his expression changed from peeved to pitiful, with the big, pleading eyes Tiana didn’t believe for a second.

“I have found that cats particularly like to rip at wall panels of sisslerug,” TQ said. “I will put such panels in any room you designate, Felonerb Fam.”

“Oooh,” Felonerb said.
Thank you.
His whole posture changed, head and tail up as he pranced ahead of Tiana to the rear mainspace.

There stood two chairs, one in subtle stripes, one a very feminine, pastel floral. She wondered what it said about her that she loved the floral one. She’d never thought of herself as that girly. Antenn might find it uncomfortable to live with that chair. But as she contemplated it, she thought of what she knew of the Blackthorns—Straif extremely alpha-manly, a tracker. Mitchella, an interior designer. Antenn might already live with extreme girly. And, after all, Tiana was pleasing herself here. For the first time ever.

“I like the floral one.”

“I can change the tint from the background of powder blue to dusky rose or cream or pale green . . . Mitchella told me the pattern is called chintz.” TQ varied the background. It amazed Tiana how different the chair looked when just the base color changed. Obviously Mitchella Clover D’Blackthorn knew her stuff. “I like the blue,” Tiana said. “And could the room be close to that color or complementary?” She waved a hand.

“Certainly. These were sample chairs given to me some time ago, but I believe that Clover Fine Furniture has other pieces in this suite.”

“Oh.” Tiana didn’t even know that a bunch of pieces of furniture was called a suite.

“And I have all of Mitchella’s decorating plans and holo models with regard to myself. She decorated a mainspace of not quite these dimensions in this style.”

The air wavered and Tiana seemed to be standing in a different room—walls blue as she’d envisioned but a different, better hue. An illusionary chair like the real one was there—except it didn’t have Felonerb bouncing on its seat and arms in a frenetic pattern. There were also sturdy wooden side tables and another fat chair along with an equally overstuffed couch in a deeper shade of blue.

Her breath caught again, behind her fingers that had pressed to her mouth. “Oh. It
is
lovely, but, but—” She frowned, scraping her brain for what would make the vision perfect.

“Yes?”

For an instant Tiana was distracted by Felonerb’s Flaired leap to the other chair; he sniffed it and began rolling around on the seat. “Ah. Maybe the wood is too dark for my taste? Or maybe it should have more of a reddish tint?”

The tables cycled through colors until her pleased noise had TQ stopping at a lighter, redder hue.

“So good!” Her own furniture, to her own tastes, for the first time in her life! She cleared incipient tears from her voice and said, “I’m so sorry that I can’t help you pay for this.”

“Furniture, in the long run, is not important,” TQ said. “Much will come and go in my lifetime. Having you here and happy is important. Even with so short a time as you’ve spent with me, you bring peace and tranquility to my walls. I am better for them.”

“Thank you.”

Felonerb rubbed her ankles, front and back.
I’m hungry!

“Naturally,” she said.

Before her eyes, a simple dining room table of a deeper reddish wood, gleaming with polish, appeared by the window that looked out on the back grassyard and the gloom of early evening as the sun sank on the opposite side of the House. With another couple of faint thumps, two matched chairs with tapestry seats and backs sat near the table.

“Wow,” Tiana said.

Felonerb leapt for the chair, landed, and sat straight up, turning to grin at Tiana.

“You really want to sit at the table to eat?”

His ear cocked.
I can stand on the table—

“No, you can’t.”

Muzzle wrinkling, he said,
I would like to eat inside here where the ferals can see Me.

“No doubt.” She sighed. But as she watched, a sturdy tray extruded from beneath the windowsill.

“You can sit there, FamCat,” TQ said.

Felonerb hummed in pleasure.
Thank you, Turquoise House.

“Your behavior has been acceptable today, so you get a small privilege. If it continues to be acceptable, you will accrue more privileges. Should you backslide, privileges will be removed. You understand?” TQ asked.

“Yesss,” Felonerb vocalized. His expression grumpy, then calculating. Tiana had no doubt that he’d push the limits too far and find the exact line of how unacceptable his behavior could be without losing privileges. That would be interesting to watch over the coming days and months. It began to sink in that she’d be living here, with only Felonerb, for a considerable part of the year.

“Tiana, there are formal table settings—”

“No, thank you.”

“—and some that are more casual. I am coming to know your tastes. I think if you say, ‘Casual yellow,’ you will enjoy the results.”

“Casual yellow.”

The atmosphere over the table blurred with Flair, and then two place mats of woven butter-colored cloth and cream-colored plates with one yellow and one turquoise stripe sat on each mat.

“Sorry,” TQ muttered, then ordered, “Single.”

One setting disappeared, clinking.

“It has been a while since I had a single renter.”

“No problem,” Tiana said lightly, but her mind went to the cheerful dinner her Family would be enjoying right now.

Or maybe not so cheerful, because Garrett would be recounting his day and her decision to file a complaint against GraceLord T’Equisetum and his decision to co-file a petition with the NobleCouncil.

A relieved breath poured from her. Yes, much better to remain here, tonight. Eventually she would have to discuss the complaint—
everything
—with her parents, but the later, the better.

“I’m not sure what I want to eat,” she said. “I’ll look in the kitchen no-times.” She turned to leave the room, and Felonerb, who’d been making faces at the feral cats outside the window, jumped down to follow her.

Dinner passed happily with conversation with her Fam and TQ, and she sat at the table until the window glass reflected herself against the dark night.

“Would you like me to turn on one or several of the back grassyard lights?” TQ asked.

“No, thank you.” She moved to the chair and found that a side table and a lamp had appeared when she wasn’t looking. She sat and sighed, not quite ready to consider all that had happened that day, the events, the conversations. The sex with her HeartMate.

She didn’t know much about the FirstFamilies, not even much about being Noble, as she hadn’t passed from childhood to adulthood as a noblewoman. Though, like everyone else, she knew the highest Nobles were intertwined in webs of alliances that often opposed. And occasional feuds popped up to settle matters.

“Turquoise House?”

“Yes, Tiana?”

“I need some deeper background on Antenn Blackthorn-Moss.”

“Of course, Tiana.”

She rearranged herself in the big chair with fat arms, making sure not to hit Felonerb where he lay sprawled on one of those arms, paws up, sleeping in utter abandonment. Yet she felt as if questioning TQ wasn’t quite right, especially since she’d seen Antenn in the mural in the HouseHeart . . . but if she limited her questions and stuck with facts, she shouldn’t be violating his privacy too much.

And he’d thrown that verbal firebomb about him having enemies that would like him dead—and her, as his HeartMate, too.

“I don’t recall who of the FirstFamilies Antenn’s brother Shade killed.” And, what with everything, that notion of a verbal firebomb wasn’t good. Too many memories for herself.

TQ took on a lecturing tone. “It was a firebomb
spell
,” he said. “That GraceLord Flametree had developed and the Rue Family used on the Ashes.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Unlike the ones you experienced, the spell could not be stopped by regular Flair. Once it began to burn a person it could only be extinguished by the null who suppresses Flair, Ruis Elder.”