Part 20 (1/2)
”You know her scent, right?”
He nodded. She patted his back.
”Then you can track her,” Sasha said calmly. ”We'll find her.”
”What if she's mad?” Crow Shadow sat back.
Sasha smiled. ”If she's female, she's gonna be mad. If she's not pregnant, she might call you out of your name and slam the door in your face. Then you're off the hook. But if she is pregnant, after you man up, fall on your sword, and treat her nice . .. she'll probably be glad you went through all the trouble to come and find her. It hasn't been that long. Not like you're looking for her after five years or something.”
”You think so?”
”I know so.” Sasha cuffed his neck. ”All you say is: I freaked out. .. left, because I realized we didn't use anything and we just met. But it messed with my mind, because you were such a nice person, a decent person, and you didn't deserve that. But then I realized that I didn't have a number, or an address, just the memorya” and I didn't know how to find you ... so I've been riding all over New Orleans looking for you for weeks.”
”d.a.m.n . .. that does sound good.”
”That's 'cause it's the truth,” she said, shaking her head.
His muscles ached as he stretched in the window seat. He'd kept vigil all night just as he'd promised her, watching the moon, watching her sleep, glad that Sir Rodney's baths were enchanted just like his beds. Her serene beauty was simple, completely untarnished by the outside world when she'd surrendered to obliviona” that someone had tried to take that peace from her was a travesty of the worst order.
Memorizing every feature of her, he tried to begin the mental separation that he knew had to happen. She belonged in the human world; her parents would be overwhelmed to have her back. Sir Rodney could glamour away the experience from her mind. She would go back to being a vegan; he would return to his home country and go back to being a wolf.
But then she opened her eyes and smiled at him and pushed her long, mussed spill of damp blue-black hair over a creamy shoulder. She breathed in the morning and held the covers up closely, modestly, and then shyly lowered her dark velvety lashes.
”You kept watch for me all night,” she said quietly.
”I promised I would.”
You have kept many promises to me, and even offered your life . . . and yet, we do not even know each other. ”
”Is that important?”
”To most it is.”
”You deserve to live.”
”Why?” She stared at him.
”Because you do.” He stood, feeling uncomfortable, and walked to the table. ”You should eat.”
She avidly shook her head no.
”Green tea and sweet cakes,” he said into a silver dome and then uncovered it.
She laughed and craned her neck to see. ”How did you do that? There is so much magic, so many things that I've heard about as stories as a child ... but you are showing me the good parts.”
He stood up a little taller and brought the tray to the bed, resting it on the white, fluffy goose-down duvet. ”There are good Dragons and bad, good wolves and bad,” he said, pouring her tea and handing her a cup. ”Good sorcerers and bad . . . good Faeries and bad . . . yin and yang, black and white, chi that runs through all, balance necessary in all.”
”How did you become so wise?”
He chuckled. ”I lived through good and bad. That is not wisdom, just experience.” He took a sip of tea and left her bedside, not completely trusting himself.
”Then how did you become so brave?” she said, sipping her tea and peering at him over the rim of her white porcelain cup.
”I met you,” he said quietly. ”And I knew you deserved to live.”
CHAPTER 23.
”How is he doing now?” Colonel Madison asked, his worried gaze sweeping Sasha.
”Better than last night, sir. Thank you for your concern.”
Woods nodded and s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably where he stood. ”Hunter is a good man, sir. We'll miss him in the firefight tonight.”
Fisher cut him a glance and then looked at Sasha. ”He means a lot to all of us, Captain . . . not just as a soldier, but as a friend.”
”Yeah, I know. Thanks, Lieutenant,” Sasha said quietly. But she had to shake the blues, had to focus on what had to be done. Redirecting her thoughts, she brought her attention back to the colonel. ”After the press conference this morning, I'll need to go check back in with our allies.”
”Do what you have to do, Captain. We know our positions and where our rendezvous point is. I just hope our plan works without any more loss of human lives.”
”Roger that, sir,” Sasha said and then quietly slipped past the door.
”It was the closest holy site to where the Chens were that was open for evening Bible study,” an exhausted Fae archer said as he motioned toward a Methodist church. ”We glamoured them past the other humans and got them hunkered down in the bas.e.m.e.nt until daybreak. . . got them a little food and some water. But Sir Rodney thinks that until this blows over, it may be best to bring the girl and her family back to the sidhe.”
Shogun wiped his palms down his face and then looked at Amy.
”My parents will not leave their store,” she said, looking up at Shogun.
”I know ... but maybe once they see you I can convince them to go on vacation, just for a little while. Maybe if I pay for them to return to the old country to visit relatives and visit graves there?”
She nodded and took up his hand. The Fae archer thrust his shoulders back and led the way, opening the locked church door with ease. Shogun hesitated as Mr. and Mrs. Chen stood up from a pew and faced him. Stained gla.s.s let in prisms of multihued sunlight, but nothing compared to the expression on Mrs. Chen's face when she covered her mouth and then ran headlong toward her child. Shogun stepped back as Mr. Chen then ran up behind his wife, both parents crying, encircling their daughter as she openly sobbed.
”Xie xie, xie xie!” Mrs. Chen exclaimed, thanking Shogun over and over again in Mandarin. She intermittently went from frantically kissing her daughter's face to hugging Shogun and kissing his hands, clutching them up in hers. ”Bless the good police!” she said, so overcome that she had to be helped to a pew.
”My daughter. . .,” Mr. Chen said, wiping his eyes. ”Did they hurt you?”
Amy's lip trembled and then she sought her father's embrace hiding her face against his neck. But Shogun landed a hand on the older man's shoulder, knowing what he was delicately asking.
”No, sir . . . we got to her in time. Your daughter is frightened and shaken, but in the same condition as she was before she was abducted.”
Mr. Chen began rocking with his child in his arms, exclaiming. ''Xie, xie.” between sobs of relief.