Richard carried the suitcase down the narrow stairs with ease.
That didn’t seem right. He should feel some exertion from it.
Once on the street, the limo driver offered to take the suitcase and put it in the trunk. Richard lifted it as if it were a feather and handed it over. He could tell it was heavy by the way the driver used two hands to get the suitcase in the trunk.
How odd. And how interesting.
Once inside the limo, Marian pulled out her phone from a bag that also carried her computer. “I need to rearrange some things since I didn’t expect to be going out of town today.”
“Go for it.” He settled back and wondered how he could test his newfound strength. He squeezed the armrest but let go when he felt the leather cushion begin to give way.
He lifted his hand and saw his finger impressions embedded in the leather. Well. He’d better be careful about how hard he shook hands in the future.
His muscles had not changed. Something else was augmenting his strength. A telekinetic ability? One or two members of the Court had possessed such strength. They had been valuable soldiers but, unhappily, their gift had not shown up in their descendants.
Why, in God’s eyes, would such an ability manifest itself in him now? He looked down at his hand, frowning. More power was always helpful, but not if it couldn’t be controlled.
“Something wrong?” Marian set down her phone and brushed her finger over his side, where the bullet had gone in. “Does it hurt? Do you need a doctor?”
“Only lost in thought, Angel. And perhaps a little tired. Sit with me.” He put his arm around her shoulder. She stiffened for a second, took a deep breath and relaxed against him.
Ah, very good. She was different from the beautiful, tanned California girls. But those relationships were physical. Holding Marian close felt more precious.
If he desired, he supposed he could kiss her and much more right here. They had time before reaching the airport.
Yet somehow, he thought it would break the spell. He wanted her. But he wanted her not in some rushed coming together. He wanted their first encounter to be binding.
And then what?
He had no idea. He smiled. And that was the best part of it all. Finally, something utterly new to conquer.
Stellar.
“This is definitely the way to travel.” Daz put his feet up on an ottoman and his hands behind his head. He was almost too big for the chair in the plane’s cabin. “Nice ride, Prince.”
“‘Richard’ will be fine, thanks. Or ‘dude.’”
The teasing was typical of a soldier, Richard decided, but typical didn’t apply to Daz any more than it did to Marian. He quickly skimmed the report on his laptop about Daz that Marshal had somehow cobbled together in the last few hours.
Daz’s record showed a college degree, decorated service with the U.S. Navy and eventually he’d become the leader of a Navy SEAL team. His credentials were so impressive that Lansing had hand-picked Daz to mentor the firestarter. Daz had a young son, by a woman he hadn’t married, but he supported the boy and was living up to his obligation as a father, at least as much as his work would permit.
It was as if a younger version of Marshal existed in the present day. Marshal had learned court manners and politics over the years. Daz could do that, if he ever wanted.
Right now, Richard was less concerned with Daz’s courtly manners and more about his manner toward Marian.
Daz handed Marian a drink. From her perch on the couch, Marian took a tentative sip.
“Oh, this is excellent!” she pronounced. “What’s it called? Do I want to know what’s in it?”
Daz screwed the tops back on the liquor bottles at the bar. “It’s called a Girl Scout Cookie and the main ingredients are cake vodka and crème de menthe.” His head disappeared under the bar for a second. When he straightened again, he held a beer.
“Vodka. Oh, God.” But she drank down a full swallow.
“It’s the cool new drink,” Daz said.
“Yeah, I tried one of those in college. Fuzzy navel or something. I didn’t try it again.” But she smiled to take the edge off the comment.
“Those things were always too damn sweet for me.” Daz drank down a long swallow of beer.
“I bet you put down a lot of beers,” Marian said.
“My share. More than my share.”
There was no way for Richard to break into the conversation. College was a normal human experience this century. A shared experience.
Richard wondered perhaps if he should go to college. No, he had tried that once a long time ago and been tossed out of a history class for disagreeing with the instructor’s portrayal of Henry VII, that miserly, cruel man.
Maybe he should’ve taken a course other than English history.
Marian stretched out on the couch. Daz claimed the chair opposite her. At least he didn’t presume to sit next to her. Richard sat crosswise to both of them, pretending to read a “definitive” biography about Rasputin. Richard well knew how wrong “definitive” statements about history could be. But he hoped to gain some nuggets from it. Philip Drake talked of curses, and the legends surrounding Rasputin’s death no doubt obscured the reality of things. It was unusual that the Soviets had looked into Rasputin’s abilities, but they’d been obsessed for a while with psychics, so that might explain their interest.
But he couldn’t concentrate. His angel looked adorable on the couch, her eyes covered by stray curly bangs. The traveling sweats she wore didn’t do her justice. They turned her into a blue blob, save for those wonderful brown curls.
“Why did you learn to make such a complicated drink?” Richard asked.
“Gotta keep up with the latest thing girls like.” Daz saluted Richard with his beer. “Stay up with the times.”
“Tradition sometimes has a reason.”
“Really? So why are you a surfer dude instead of the arrogant asshole prince your brother was?” Daz asked.
Richard slammed the book shut. “You want to revisit that argument?”
“No.” Daz shrugged. “I just wondered how you came out so different from him.”
“Surfing is a place where I can be who I am, without questions or interference. It’s impossible to explain it to those who don’t understand. But I’ve learned to be myself. Do you surf?”
“Some. I’m more for jet skis.”
“You lack patience.”
“Life is short, at least for some of us.” Daz looked around. “Your court must have some serious money to afford a plane like this. Where does it come from?”
Richard shrugged.
“A hidden royal treasury?” Daz asked.
“Hidden treasure rarely does any good, as it’s hidden and can’t be put to use. Our wealth is due to good investment choices by those who take the long view.”
“As simple as that?”
“As simple as that.”
“You realize we’ll track who owns the plane back to your people,” Daz said.
“I don’t care. Your telepath already has a brain stuffed with info about us. And such distrust, Daz. Doesn’t it go against the stated mission of the Phoenix Institute to covertly track our court? Alec Farley said he wanted all things in the open.”
“Alec’s not an idiot. Beth may have said you’re okay but your people backed up what your brother did. I can’t ignore that and neither can Alec. Besides, if he didn’t try to dig up something on you, Drake would.”
“No doubt.” Drake. Richard wanted a private conversation with that one. Or perhaps combat. One on one, if only to test himself. Someday. He flexed his fingers. His newfound strength might help, if he found time to practice and control it.
“Any other questions?” Richard asked.
“Plenty, but none you can answer right now,” Daz said.
“Because I won’t tell you?”
“Because words aren’t good answers. It’s how people behave that matters. You saved my life today. So I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. And we’ll see what happens next.”
Marian burped. Daz laughed.
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled. “I think one is enough.”
“You don’t drink much, do you?” Daz asked.
“No. Maybe once or twice a year.”
“You should relax more often.”
“That’s not good for me,” she said.
“It’s good for everyone.”
She shook her head and curled on her side, pulling a blanket over her shoulders. “Not for me.” She closed her eyes again.
Poor Angel. Her gift required intense concentration. Alcohol or another drug would interfere with that. No wonder she avoided drinking. But this drink had done her some good, if she could sleep. And it had the added benefit of shutting down her bonding with Daz. Or was it flirting?
Richard wished he could relax as easily as that. But his ability kept him from getting drunk. A closed path to him. Surfing relaxed him but he could hardly do that here.
Before surfing, he had brooded.
No, he must be honest with himself. Before surfing, his response to stress had been to run away. When faced with an untenable situation, he learned to quit the field.
Edward was the Queen’s darling. Richard was the lesser, the one never good enough. His brother knew best. So everyone said.
So Richard left, instead of fighting for baby Alec, and wandered, until California.
“So how did the Court take to your surfing?” Daz asked.
“They left me alone. Immortals learn a lot of patience.” Most of them.
“What brought you back?”
Richard tossed the book casually to the floor. Instead of resting, it skittered across the cabin, as if he was angry and had tossed it with force.
Daz snapped to his feet. “Short fuse, prince guy?”
Richard shook his head. “I’m chill.”
“Doesn’t seem that way.”
“That’s because you’re determined to poke at me until I explode.”
“Maybe so.”
“Tell me, is Farley completely in the open with his ability?”
“He hasn’t called a press conference or posted an Internet video of him fooling around with fire, if that’s what you mean. Though YouTube is probably only a matter of time. He’s used his powers in the open enough. There were even vids of the explosion he stopped in New York Harbor. But the resolution was too low to spot Alec inside the fire.”
“Being public doesn’t bother him?”
“He likes what he is. How about you?”
Richard snorted. “You want the Court in the open? Hah.” He grinned. Why not? The Queen would love the attention once she accepted the idea, and the cameras would love her if her health ever returned.
Daz swallowed the rest of his beer. “So what did you do in that court of yours for all those six hundred years? Recite poetry to each other all day?”
Chill, Richard reminded himself. “Yes, poetry and literature and history. We learned how to fight, how to acquire wealth, and how to influence events behind the scenes.”
“Like your brother tried to do?”
Back to this? “My brother led from the front lines. That’s how he died.” Richard stood. “That’s enough. You’re condemning my brother and yet how much better are you? You took the contract from Lansing, a man deemed too far gone even by the Court, to keep the firestarter under his thumb. You left the boy in captivity for years.”
Daz stood. They circled each other.
“You don’t know what it was like.”
“The hell I don’t! Lansing offered money and prestige, and a chance to do battle, so long as you followed orders. And you followed those orders well, until the firestarter called you out.”
“Fuck you.” Daz tossed his beer bottle across the plane cabin. It hit the floor and rolled harmlessly under a chair.
“You stood at your supposed best friend’s side and whispered words that kept him a captive. What makes you better than my brother?”
Now they were just two feet apart. Marian’s quiet breathing was the only sound in the cabin.
“You don’t know squat about what happened between me and Alec.”
“And you know nothing of what happened between me and my brother or the Court.” Richard flexed his fists. He wondered how much damage his punches would do with his new strength.
Daz raised his arms, ready.
They would battle. On an airplane, thousands of feet in the air, with his angel slumbering between them. And with him possessing this strange new strength that was, as yet, was untested.
Edward would have fought.
Still the same, eh? Richard shook his head. “This is idiotic. Go have another beer, Montoya.”
Richard walked past Daz and picked up Rasputin’s biography, which was wedged against the bar.
“You’re just giving up?”
“Not worth it, especially if injuries prevent you from being an effective bodyguard tomorrow.”
“You’re assuming you’ll beat me.”
“I know I’ll beat you.” Richard settled in the chair again, staring at the words on the page, not reading them.
“Oh, screw it.” Daz grabbed another beer. He flopped back down in the chair.
That was by far the most interesting thing his new recruit could have done. If Daz backed down because he thought a fight might have gotten him kicked off the mission, he was smart. If he’d done so because he really thought a fight over this was ridiculous upon reflection, well, even smarter.
Some battles did not need to be fought. If Daz understood that, he was rare among soldiers.
“Just remember one thing, Prince,” Daz said. “Alec’s my friend. I fight at his side because I want to, not because I’m under orders.”
“You’re here of your own choice,” Richard said in a mild tone.
Daz saluted him with the beer. “I’ve sworn to watch your back. That doesn’t mean I’ll be your friend.”
“I’ll try recover from that trauma.”
“Can I sleep now?” Marian said.