He pulled back and crossed his arms, making his biceps bulge. “Don’t do this.”
“It’s a legitimate question,” I said.
“How many men have you slept with?”
“You’re my third. Answer the question.”
“Well, are we counting long-term partners or one-night stands?”
I sighed. “Would you like to count partners only?”
He grimaced. “Less than twenty.”
“Would you care to elaborate?”
He mulled it over. “Eighteen.”
“And how many of them lived in the Keep with you?”
The answer came a little quicker. “Seven, but none shared my rooms.”
“What do you mean, they didn’t share your rooms? Where did you . . .”
“In their quarters.”
I laughed. “Oh, so you graced them with your nocturnal presence in the bimbo room, Your Majesty? Like Zeus, in a blaze of golden light?”
He showed me the edge of his teeth. “They liked it.”
Arrogant ass. “Sure. So why don’t you let women in your rooms?”
“Because being in my rooms means being in a position of power.”
If he thought I would stay in a bimbo room when this was over, he was out of luck.
I would be dead when this was over.
“In the public eye, there is a huge imbalance of power between you and me. If I went to the Keep with you, Atlanta would stop viewing me as Kate Daniels, agent of the Order, and would perceive me as Beast Lord’s Girlfriend Number Nineteen. Or Number Eight, depending on how they chose to look at it. What little reputation I’ve earned would be wiped away and you can bet that the Order will take me off the current case faster than you can snarl.”
“We both have to give up some things,” he said.
I crossed my arms. “I’m so glad you see it my way, Your Majesty. Quit being the Beast Lord, give up the Pack, and come live with me in my apartment.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
I smiled at him.
“I get it,” he said. “Point made. It’s not fair. But the Pack is who I am. I built it for my people. The Order isn’t who you are. Half of the time you’re trying to figure out how to hide what you find from them. I’ve read your report of the flare. If there was a lying competition, you’d win it hands down.”
That hit really close to home. “The Order is where I choose to be right now. If I’m taken off this petition, it will go to Andrea. She’s my best friend. If she collides with the Mary’s magic, she might be exposed. It’ll destroy her. In any case, I don’t have to justify myself to you.”
“Andrea knew the risks when she became a knight. You didn’t put her into this situation, she did it herself. You’re just delaying the inevitable. She’s trying to live in two worlds at once and she can’t.”
Ouch. That hit really, really close to home.
He kept going. “You don’t want to justify yourself. I respect that. But you want me to be your dirty secret. To skulk about and pretend that you’re not mine in public. I won’t do it.”
“I’m asking you to be discreet.”
“No.”
“Would you like to borrow a pair of my panties to wave around at the next Council meeting to get the point across?”
His eyes flashed. “Got any to spare?”
I could’ve picked somebody rational. But no, I had to fall in love with this arrogant idiot. Come to the Keep with me, be my princess. Mourn me when your crazy dad kills me. Yeah, right.
He got up, took the phone from the counter, and set it before me. “I said we both had to give up something.”
“So far I’m the one expected to give up things. What’s your sacrifice?”
He nodded at the phone and rattled off a number. “That’s the phone of the Keep’s steward. His crew makes all the sleeping arrangements. I called him this morning to tell him I would be coming in. Call him. See if I requested a room to be prepared for you.”
The phone rang.
We both looked at it.
It rang again and I picked it up. “Yes?”
“Kate?” Saiman’s voice sounded mildly anxious. “I see you survived the night.”
“Barely.”
Curran picked up his empty plate.
“Are you injured?”
“No.” Just tender in some places.
“That’s good to hear.”
The sound of tortured metal screeched through the kitchen. Curran was slowly, methodically rolling the metal plate into a tube.
“What is that noise?” Saiman said.
“Construction.”
“Are you planning to visit the Temple today?”
“If the magic complies.”
“I would be interested in learning what you find out.”
“Your interest has been noted.”
I hung up. Curran dropped a chunk of nearly solid metal that used to be a plate onto the counter.
I looked into his gray eyes. “Curran, if you attack him, I’ll have to defend him. There is no competition there. If I had wanted to be with him, I could have.” Crap. That didn’t come out right.
He took a deep breath.
“What I meant to say was, he offered and I declined.”
“Come with me.”
“I can’t.”
A shadow passed over his face. “Then we’re done.”
“So it’s all or nothing?”
“That’s the only way I can do it.” He turned his back to me and walked out.
CHAPTER 19
THE MAGIC HIT TEN MINUTES AFTER CURRAN LEFT. I grit my teeth, got dressed, saddled Marigold, and headed to the Temple.
All or nothing. Hello, Your Fuzzy Majesty. My name is Kate Daniels, daughter of Roland, Builder of Towers, the living legend, and coincidentally, the man who is trying to eradicate you and your people. If you take me in, he will move heaven and earth to kill you and me, when he finds out who I am. Even now, I’m being hunted. And if you keep sleeping with me, you’ll never be the same.
That was what all or nothing really meant. And I wanted so badly to ignore it and go with him to the Keep. When had I become so attached to that arrogant bastard? It wasn’t last night. Was it all the times he’d saved me from myself? At least, I knew when it started—when he tried to trade the lid wanted by a horde of sea demons for Julie’s life.
I would kill to stay with him. Now there was a scary thought.
The temperature continued its suicidal plunge. Despite all the layers of fabric, I could barely feel my arms, and my thighs were frozen solid. Grendel and Marigold seemed no worse for wear, but then they’d run the whole way.
Bordered on three sides by a low brick building and by a brick fence on the fourth, the Temple looked almost cheerful against the stark landscape of ruined buildings: bright red walls, snow-white colonnade, and equally white stairs perched upon a snowy lawn. Just a few yards to the left, Unicorn Lane lay in wait. An area of deep violent magic, Unicorn Lane cut across the battered Midtown like a scar. Things that shunned the light and fed on monsters hid there, and when desperate fugitives fled there, neither PAD nor the Order bothered to follow them. There was no need.
Unicorn Lane ran straight as an arrow, except when it reached the Temple grounds, where it carefully veered around the synagogue. Mezuzot, verses from the Torah, written by a qualified scribe and protected by pewter cases, hung along the perimeter of the Temple wall. The wall itself supported so many angelic names, magic squares, and holy names, it looked as if a talismanic encyclopedia had thrown up on it.
Four golems patrolled the grounds: six feet tall and red like Georgia clay. The shapeless monstrosities of the early days, just after the Shift, were gone; these guys had been made by a master sculptor and animated by a magic adept. Each had the muscled torso of a humanoid male, crowned with a large bearded head. At the waist the torso seamlessly merged into a stocky animal body, reminiscent of a ram and equipped with four powerful legs with hoofed feet. The golems stalked back and forth, carrying long steel spears and peering at the world with eyes glowing a weak watery pink. They paid me no mind. If they had, they wouldn’t be difficult to kill. Each was animated by a single word—emet, truth—cut into their foreheads. Destroy the first letter and emet became met. Death. An end to the golem. Judging by their slow gait, I could waltz in, take the letter off, and skedaddle before they could bring those big-ass spears around.