AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We can talk about it in the morning if you’ll have a better idea of things then,” Finn suggested, surprisingly patient. “We’re all tired.”
Alma shrugged, thrown off-balance by the less antagonistic demeanor Finn had adopted. She wanted to be angry with him, particularly after the bath spent in remembering their arguments. But the man sitting at her vanity, facing her, was difficult to be angry with. He was paying attention, being respectful, and not cutting her off midsentence with an insult or a dig at her intelligence or common sense. Alma was suspicious. He stood, finally, yawning and turning to leave.
“One last thing,” he said, the tension returning to him. Alma steeled herself for him to say something insulting or stupid—or both. “I want to apologize for being an asshole today. When I got the room next to yours, Dylan pointed out what a jerk I had been all day, and I realized he was right.”
Alma shrugged. “Neither of us was at our best,” she suggested charitably. The apology surprised her somewhat, though Finn’s admission that Dylan had prompted it did not. Alma wondered why they hadn’t just agreed Dylan would share the room closest to Alma, since she got along better with that brother. She supposed they had their reasons for determining it with a coin toss. “I accept the apology. I’m sorry I was acting like an asshole too.”
Finn smiled slightly and turned away, leaving her room and closing the door behind him. Alma suddenly felt every bit of the fatigue she had earned during the day, and no amount of frustration kept her from turning off the lights in her room and gratefully climbing into her own bed, curling up, and falling asleep in a matter of moments.
six
Finn woke to the aroma of coffee and something delicious smelling cooking. He dragged himself out of bed, feeling as if he had slept only three out of the last eight hours, but telling himself that he was on the clock. It was to be expected he’d sleep lightly. He pulled a T-shirt on and left the guest bedroom he had taken, scrubbing at his face with his palms before he navigated the stairs to the main area of the apartment. The smell of mouthwatering food intensified as he made his way, and when he reached the ground floor of the unit, he saw Alma busily cooking and Dylan sitting at a barstool watching as she did something at the stove. Music played quietly from a speaker set off to the other side of the open kitchen. For once something he liked: alternative rock.
Finn sat down next to his brother in silence. The two nodded to each other in greeting, and Finn glanced at Alma. She was dancing slightly, oblivious to anyone else, focused on the task at hand. In the morning light that poured through the high windows, Finn had to admit she wasn’t difficult to look at.
“My dear brother has joined us,” Dylan said, projecting his voice above the music. Alma looked up from her work at the stove sharply, her features briefly wary and disappointed before she replaced the expression with a more neutral, polite one. She turned away from the work of cooking scrambled eggs and Finn watched her retrieve a mug from a cabinet, filling it with coffee wordlessly and depositing it in front of him, gesturing to the milk and sugar. Finn doctored his coffee and watched with amusement as Alma ignored him completely, diving back into her cooking and her enjoyment of the music. She was moving her hips, singing softly along, closing her eyes occasionally and nodding her head in time.
After a few minutes, she served up eggs alongside bacon and French toast on three plates. She deposited each in front of him and Dylan. Finn was impressed. He was generally useless to the world until after he’d had a cup or two of coffee and, although he knew Alma had excellent manners, he hadn’t reckoned on such a spread for her unwelcome guests.
He accepted a fork and knife from her and started in on breakfast, wondering what motivated such a change in demeanor. Likely, he thought with a twinge of envy, his brother had been at work softening the stubborn woman. Finn had spent most of the time he was awake thinking of the variety of things he knew about Alma’s situation and the importance of her reaching her full abilities—things Alma did not know. Her grandmother had told him certain things privately, outlining why it was so important Alma be protected until she allied with another elemental. Finn was glad he and his family had little to do with the politics of the elemental world. The stress of “wild” elementals had made things precarious for even the oldest families. Lorene’s instructions to him were to prevent Alma from being forced into an alliance with another family and to keep her from being killed. Considering some rivals Alma’s family had, it could prove to be a challenge, even if he and his brother kept a watch on her twenty-four hours a day.
Dylan had made it clear to Finn it would be much easier to protect and defend Alma if he wasn’t constantly offending her and picking fights. The fact that Finn was barred from telling Alma specifically what they were protecting her from made it difficult to bear when she insisted she was fine and could take care of herself. Alma had been sheltered from the darker parts of the elemental community, even as she had been trained for her place among the elite. She had only been formally introduced to the families Alma’s grandmother trusted. Even in college, her grandmother had kept as many bad influences away from her granddaughter as possible, though she had told Finn sadly she hadn’t been able to temper the girl’s wild spirit before she had become a woman.
“So,” Dylan said, pushing his plate aside when he finished eating. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
Alma glanced at her phone, taking a sip of her coffee. “I have a meeting at eleven with a client who wants to introduce me to someone who needs a translation from Russian into Bulgarian,” she said. “After that I am working at home all afternoon on translation work I’ve already lined up.”
Finn glanced at his brother. One of them would have to go with her to the meeting. It would be better for both of them to go, but it would be much less conspicuous for Alma to have one more person as opposed to two. If one of them remained at the apartment, it would also let them guard against anyone sneaking in while she was away. Alma leaned against a counter and Finn knew she was waiting for them to weigh in.
“One of us should go with you,” Finn said. “I’d say both of us, but that would be too obvious. Anyone watching you would figure out you’re being guarded.”
Dylan nodded his agreement.
“How well do you know the client?” he asked.
Alma considered it. “The one who contacted me, I know pretty well. I don’t know his new client at all.”
Dylan glanced at Finn, who shrugged.
“It could be nothing, just a coincidence.”
Alma raised an eyebrow. “Are we really going to do this thing where we question everything that happens in my life?”
Dylan smiled mildly at the woman, and Finn took a deep breath, forcing down his impatience. “Since your grandmother hired us to protect you, we have to look at the worst possibility for every situation.” He kept his voice level. “Which one of us goes with you?”
Alma looked from one to the other, her arms crossed over her chest. Finn noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra and wondered, without meaning to, whether she was wearing panties underneath her pajamas. He pushed the thought away immediately.
“Well, you decided by coin toss last night, go for it.” She collected their dishes and took them to the sink. Finn read her irritation and knew she was trying to suppress it, to channel it into more productive activities. He looked at his brother who shot him a grin and found a quarter in his wallet he had left on the bar the night before. Finn called heads, as he typically did; the quarter landed on tails. Dylan would go with Alma to her meeting. Finn tried not to be annoyed when Alma greeted the news with a satisfied smile. He knew she preferred his brother’s company and he could understand why. It seemed as though if he and Alma spoke for more than ten minutes at a time, they had an argument, sniping at each other in irritation over some very unworthy topics.
Finn realized he was as much to blame as Alma for the arguments. The fight that started their relationship off had been a portent for how it would continue. Alma was fiercely independent, a trait Finn could appreciate and would normally have enjoyed, but her independent spirit could get her into trouble under the current circumstances. He had never again tried to impress upon her the limits of her abilities, particularly since she hadn’t come into her full power as an elemental yet. But he had been tempted with every argument they’d had since that first day.
Dylan was the more suitable person, Finn told himself, as he settled in on the couch in the living room. She was meeting with someone she knew already. If the “new client” was someone suspicious, Dylan could handle the situation. If he wasn’t, then he and Alma could come up with a decent cover, a reason for him to be there. When Alma came down from her bedroom ready for the meeting, Finn tried not to stare. She was professional looking, in a pair of dark-wash jeans, a subdued blouse, and a fitted blazer; but somehow although she was dressed conservatively, Finn couldn’t keep his eyes from tracing her curves. His gaze lingered at her full bust, the way her hips moved as she walked across the floor in a pair of low heels. For a moment he was tempted to ask her to get something for him from the kitchen, solely to see her from behind. He conquered the temptation and turned his attention firmly back to the hockey game he was watching, even though he wasn’t interested in the least.
Dylan came out of his room in a suitably professional looking outfit and he and Alma discussed what the cover would be. Dylan would be her assistant. Alma produced a notebook for him to write in while they met with the clients. They went over their cover story and Finn thought to himself that it stood as good a chance as any of working. Finn got involved in the planning before they left, taking Alma’s phone from her, and programming his own cell phone into it as one of the quick dial contacts.
“Dylan’s got me on his phone too,” he said. It was an obvious precaution they took with every phone either of them ever owned. “If anything goes down, call me. Even if you can’t talk. If I get a call from you, I’ll know there’s something going on and I can track you down from there.” He didn’t tell her he had a barely legal program built into his phone that would trace the location of her cell phone once it received her call. It wasn’t important. He could track any number that called, and if Alma and Dylan were separated, it would do no good if Alma couldn’t call.
Alma said the meeting shouldn’t last longer than an hour and left with Dylan in tow. Finn tried to settle back into watching the game, but found he felt anxious despite the precautions they had taken. While Dylan had had no problems dealing with similar assignments in the past, Finn understood from his conversations with Alma’s grandmother they were up against some heavy hitters—something Finn and Dylan hadn’t really contended with before. The client they were seeing wasn’t an elemental and had no idea Alma was. Finn knew there was no reason to suspect anything was out of the ordinary. In addition to the phones, Finn and Dylan had invested in fail-safes. They carried backup contact methods, so in the worst-case scenario, they could always find each other.
