The Lost Chalice (The Relic Seekers Book 3) (26 page)

Kendall hadn’t expected him to bring the subject up, and it annoyed her because she didn’t have any good answers. “Is it really your business?” And her classy billionaire boss had an edge himself. Tattoos?

His eyes narrowed. “I’ve looked out for you all my life. You think I’m going to stop just because I lost some memories?” He stepped closer. “I know you feel something for me, more than just what you felt for Adam. I felt something when we kissed. Hell, I think I saw something.”

He must have glimpsed something from the vision. Kendall touched his face. “Nathan, I think the world of you.”

He trapped her hand against his jaw. “You kissed me back at the hotel. Me, not Jake. How do you explain that?”

“I don’t . . .” She felt irritated, because she didn’t know. “I don’t have to explain everything I do to you.”

“Don’t be pissed at me because you can’t decide which one of us you want.”

Kendall clenched her fists, wishing she could hit him, partly because he was saying things she didn’t want to hear. She did give him a good shove. “You didn’t just say that.”

Nathan cut her off by doing something completely uncharacteristic. He pulled her close and kissed her. Not a hesitant, wounded kiss, or one born of a spontaneous moment of joy. Not even one from a vision. This was hot. Kendall’s lips responded, opening to his. Her legs wobbled like jelly and she clutched his shoulders just to stand up.

Nathan leaned back, his eyes glowing, teeth showing through panting lips. “See.” He turned and walked off without a word.

Kendall sat down on the floor, thoughts and emotions still shooting through her head and body like electric shocks. “Well hell.” After a minute she caught her breath and got up. She thought about checking on Jake to see if he’d seen the Thomas look-alike, but she was afraid he’d sense Nathan on her. That could refuel the war between them, and how could they effectively find the Holy Grail and evade the Reaper if they were fighting among themselves?

She walked downstairs and saw Aunt Edna peeking out the front window at Doris’s bed-and-breakfast. “She’s got another guest. A woman.”

“Maybe if you actually put up a sign saying bed-and-breakfast, you’d get more guests. You have two storage rooms you could clear out.” Kendall looked out the window, but Aunt Edna grabbed her arm.

“Close the curtain. We can’t let her see us watching. She thinks I’m jealous because she has more rooms. Bimbo. Do you want to go to the shop with me?” Aunt Edna asked. “I need to check on a delivery.”

And get away from Nathan and Jake? “Sure.” And she would get to spend some time alone with her aunt.

“We should let Jake know where we’re going. He’s very protective of you,” Aunt Edna said. “So is Nathan. There’s something familiar about him. I feel as if I’ve seen him somewhere before. Perhaps in the newspapers. Oh, there he is now. Nathan.”

Nathan was coming around the side of the house near the entrance to the cellar. He stopped when he saw Kendall.

“We’re just going down to the antique shop,” Aunt Edna said. “You’ll tell Jake, won’t you?”

Nathan’s hands clenched against his thighs. He nodded.

While they were gone, Nathan and Jake searched the rest of the house. Nathan seemed distracted. “You’re acting strange,” Jake said as they finished up in the cellar.

“I kissed her.”

Jake frowned. “I know. I saw you.”

“Not at the hotel. Earlier, in the attic.”

Jake gripped Nathan’s shirt and shoved him against the wall. “We agreed hands off.”

Nathan didn’t fight back, but his eyes started to turn. “I know, and I honor my agreements. That’s why I’m telling you I screwed up.”

Jake let go and stepped away. “What kind of kiss?”

“It was hot,” Nathan said.

“You bastard.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, but because we have an agreement, I’m telling you. It won’t happen again.” Nathan ran a hand over his head. “Unless she asks me to.”

“Did she kiss you back—” Jake looked out the window and went completely still. “There’s someone across the street watching the house.”

Nathan hurried to the window and looked out. “Thomas?”

“I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”

They slipped out the back door and ran through several backyards before crossing the street and working their way back down to Doris’s bed-and-breakfast. “There, you see him?”

He was wearing dark clothing and hiding behind a van. Jake and Nathan circled around behind him and grabbed him, except he was a she, and she was Brandi.

“What the devil are you doing here?” Nathan asked.

“I came here to find you. There wasn’t a room available over there, so I got one here.”

“How did you know we were here?” Jake asked.

“I called the castle to check on everyone. Fergus said you were coming here. Is Kendall all right? I don’t know what happened. I woke up in a closet in Thomas’s town house. Everyone was gone. I thought the Reaper had killed you all.”

“Would that have been a good thing or a bad thing?” Nathan asked.

“Are you crazy? I can’t fight him alone.”

“Kendall said you left the bathroom because you heard Thomas. When you came back, she passed out.”

“I thought I heard him. I swear it was his voice.”

“Did you see him?”

“No, but I saw someone. I’m sure it was the Reaper. He looked at me and it felt like he sucked all the life out of me.”

“He’s shown up here too,” Jake said.

“The Reaper?”

“No, Thomas.”

Brandi’s eyes widened. “Here?”

“Or someone who looks like him,” Jake said. “I followed him in.”

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Are you sure he’s dead? Maybe the Reaper did something to him. I mean, hell, we’ve got Raphael who was dead, and now he’s not. Adam, who was supposed to be dead, and now he’s not. A bunch of men who used to be statues, running around the castle. Seems to me nothing connected with the Protettori stays dead.”

“I buried him,” Brandi said.

“Did you see the body?” Nathan asked.

Brandi shook her head. “Not after I identified him. The casket was closed.”

“We’ll know for sure before long,” Jake said.

“How?” Brandi asked.

“Nathan’s opening Thomas’s grave,” Jake said.

It took a while to calm Brandi down. Nathan was afraid Doris was going to hear Brandi yelling and think they were attacking her. He was about to put his hand over her mouth to shut her up when Jake hit a pressure point in her neck and she dropped like the guards had at the Reaper’s château. Nathan caught her. “You don’t need Raphael’s ability to put people to sleep,” Nathan said.

“This only works close up,” Jake said. “It’s not as cool. We need to get her out of sight. Can you do your thing?”

“Run?”

“Like the wind.”

Carrying Brandi, Nathan focused and felt the adrenaline kick in. He was able to control it more than before. He had Brandi at Aunt Edna’s and inside the house before Jake hit the front yard.

He laid her on the sofa. When she woke up, she was angry. “What happened? How did I get here?”

“You passed out,” Jake said.

Brandi frowned and then put her head in her hands. “I know it’s probably best. It’s been driving me insane thinking he could be alive, that he faked his death. I need to know for certain.”

“They say the Reaper is a master of disguise, and I saw him impersonate a historian. Who’s to say he couldn’t throw on a wig and some makeup and impersonate Thomas?”

“Why?” Brandi asked.

“We’ll ask him when we find him. Jake and I need to get to the antique shop,” Nathan said. “You could stay and keep watch while we help Aunt Edna. But if you see him, don’t approach him. Even if he looks like your brother.”

They positioned Brandi in Nathan’s room with the door cracked so she would have a view of Thomas’s room, and then they drove to the shop.

“Good move getting rid of Brandi,” Jake said.

“The antique shop is the only place we haven’t searched, and I don’t want her there. She might sacrifice us all to destroy the chalice.”

“You, anyway,” Jake said. “I think she’d enjoy that.”

The drive only took a minute. Jake tapped his fingers on his knee. “You didn’t answer me.”

“About?”

“Kendall. Did she kiss you back?”

“That’s between me and her.”

“Damn you.”

Edna’s antique shop was on Main Street, tucked between a bookstore and a bakery. A sign over the shop read “Aunt Edna’s Antiques.” Nathan and Jake parked around back—Nathan remembered the parking lot from when he was a kid—and went inside. The shop had everything from furniture to jewelry, but a lot of what she sold was junk, as in not really valuable or antique.

“She’s got a lot of stuff here too,” Jake said. He was still pissed about the kiss.

“Some of it’s good, but most of it’s junk,” Nathan said, weaving through the displays that Kendall had loved helping set up when she visited.

“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” Jake said. “Just give me the Holy Grail.”

They found Kendall in a side room examining a small wooden bowl. Her face was lit with excitement.

“Is that it?” Nathan asked.

Kendall looked up and smiled. “No. Aunt Edna got it from a yard sale for a dollar. It’s from the seventeenth century, probably worth five hundred.”

“Where is she?” Jake asked.

“As soon as I told her, she ran off. Said she had something to do.”

“We found something too,” Nathan said. “Our least favorite redhead.”

“Brandi? What’s she doing here?”

“What she’s always doing, checking on our whereabouts,” Jake said. “She’s worse than Raphael, showing up out of the blue. Maybe she’s related to him. She sure gets around fast.”

Kendall paused, eyes narrowed in thought. “If you and I are children of former Protettori, who’s to say there aren’t more?”

“Oh hell,” Nathan said. “That’s all we need. Another one.”

“She was actually worried,” Jake said. “She thought the Reaper had killed us. She called the castle and Fergus told her we were here.”

“Did you ask her about the town house?” Kendall asked.

Jake nodded. “She thinks the Reaper knocked her out. She saw something dark and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in a closet.”

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Kendall said. “Shhh, Aunt Edna’s coming.”

Aunt Edna was talking to someone. “I think you’ll like it.” She stepped into the room with an elderly man who was wearing a hat. “Oh, Jake and Nathan, you’re here too. Well, everyone, this is Charles Rutherford. He’s looking to buy the antique shop. He has a collection of antique cups and bowls. I knew he was down at the diner and I couldn’t wait to tell him what Kendall found.”

Everyone in the room was stunned, with the exception of Aunt Edna.

Marco covered his shock and smiled graciously at them from under his wide-brimmed hat. He had cut his hair and trimmed his beard. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Is that the bowl?” he asked, looking at the one in Kendall’s hand.

“Yes, isn’t it lovely? And very valuable.”

“Yes, it is. Thank you for showing it to me, but I’ll have to look at it later. I have some business to attend to.”

“Oh, that’s disappointing,” Aunt Edna said. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

“Nice to meet you,” Marco said stiffly. He scuttled out faster than Nathan had ever seen the old man move.

“What’s he doing here?” Kendall asked as soon as he and Aunt Edna left.

“Looking for the chalice, I guess.” Nathan barked out a laugh. “An antique cup and bowl collection, huh? Sly old man. We’re searching for him all over Prague, and he beat us here.”

“How did he know the chalice was here?” Kendall asked.

“I told you that old man’s more than what he seems. He probably has more tricks than Raphael. Maybe he really is Merlin,” Jake said, remembering how Art had referred to Marco.

“Why run off if we’re after the same thing?” she asked.

“Maybe he didn’t want to admit it in front of Aunt Edna,” Nathan said.

“I’ll go catch up with him and find out what’s going on,” Jake said. “We’d better let Raphael know he’s here.”

Nathan’s phone rang. It was Hank calling to say Thomas really was dead. “Then who did you and Brandi see?”

Jake frowned. “Maybe the Reaper is cloning his goons. You two keep searching for the chalice while I have a chat with Marco.”

Nathan sighed. “I’ll call Brandi and let her know her brother is really gone.”

Brandi had just talked to Nathan when the doorbell rang. There wasn’t anyone else here, so she walked downstairs and opened the door. Maybe it would be the imposter, and she would kick his ass. It was Fergus, and three men who looked like they were extras in a medieval movie.

“Brandi?” Fergus looked shocked. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as everyone else. Who are they?”

“Don’t ask. It’s a dreadful story. Where are Kendall, Nathan, and Jake?”

“They’re helping Aunt Edna move some things, which means they’re really searching for the chalice.”

“Shhh,” Fergus said, rolling his eyes toward the men in a way that made him look like he was having a seizure. He leaned closer and whispered, “Don’t trust them.”

The men, who looked a little lost, started asking about food. “Who are you?” Brandi asked.

“We’re guardians,” a rough-looking redhead said.

“I thought Raphael was the only guardian left.”

A big blond man spoke up. “We were sleeping. Is there any food to be had?” He looked like he could eat a whole cow.

“Let’s go inside,” Fergus said. “Perhaps Kendall’s Aunt Edna has some food. I’m sure she would be happy to feed you.”

Brandi pointed to the refrigerator. “Help yourself.”

They cautiously approached it and opened the door. “Look at this, will you,” the bald man said.

The redhead looked suspicious. “It might be sorcery.”

The blond stuck his head inside. “I’m so hungry I don’t care.”

“They’re really guardians?” Brandi asked.

“They’re statues.”

“Statues?” Brandi looked at the men. Baldy was picking his nose.

“They were, until Marco awoke them.”

Statues! Walking and breathing! It was true. “Should they be out here walking around? Shouldn’t they be protected?” They were walking relics. Relics needed to be protected.
Or destroyed
. The first thought surprised her. This was the first time since her parents’ deaths that she had thought of relics with any sense of preservation. She always focused on destruction. She thought about Nathan and his determination to protect them. Had she become so jaded she was blind?