“Maybe that’s because you haven’t had anyone to socialize with,” Katrina said, giving his arm a little shake. “Please? If you don’t like the company you can leave any time you want and we won’t question or pester, I promise. Please, Kyle? It’s been months since we’ve seen you, and I can’t bear the thought of you sitting here alone. We’re not your enemies any more, though to hear Nikolai tell it, we never really should have been. The Destrati, I mean. No doubt you’ve done your share to alienate the rest of the clans.”
Kyle threw his head back and laughed at her last half-teasing statement, then looked down at her with a smile. No one ever teased him. No one had the gall to. “My lady, I doubt in the whole of your existence that you have ever uttered so gross an understatement as that,” he replied. “Though, as I cannot bear the thought of your very human worry over my happiness, I will accompany you on your return home and ‘at least have a drink’ with you.”
Katrina smiled. “I’m ready when you are.”
Within moments, they vanished together, materializing on a moonlit veranda where Nikolai stood next to a tabletop, filling three glasses.
Katrina had been right.
The company had been a welcome change, and the conversation had been more inte
resting than he’d considered it might be. As with the hunt, one also became bored with seeing paths and futures and with hearing the thoughts of others.
Though far from omnipotent, Kyle knew a great deal about a great many things - so much, in fact, that he sometimes forgot all he knew and understood until he had cause to remember it. What he didn’t know immediately, he could easily learn through various means, but he tried to avoid infringing on the free will and privacy of others.
It was only polite; something many individuals, both ethereal and mortal, could do well to remember.
Nikolai had gone to oversee an issue in the Council chambers, though Katrina stayed behind to entertain their “guest”.
“If the queen is needed . . .” Kyle said, offering Katrina a low bow.
Katrina blushed. “Stop that,” she said nervously. “I don’t feel like much of a queen, to be honest. I mean, just last year I was an American grad student on a spring break trip to London. Now I’m the wife . . . wife ... of a gorgeous Russian guy who, as far as my mother knows, is some kind of banker, though Mom is thoroughly convinced Nik is part of the Mafia, running guns or drugs or something. Getting her to accept that he’s not only not any of those, but only a couple hundred years old and immortal - and oh, yeah, I am too, thanks to him - is hard enough without throwing some kind of pseudo-royalty into it.”
Kyle was impressed. “My lady is displeased?”
Was that disdain she heard in his question? If it was, she ignored it. “No, not really,” Katrina sighed. She turned, resting her hands on the balustrade as she looked out into the dark garden lit only by the three-quarter moon. “It just . . . gets a little hard sometimes, you know? And these people . . . um . . . well, they’re not people, really, but they are ...” Katrina put her face in her hands and sighed again.
Kyle waited a moment for her to collect her emotions. When she looked up at him, he returned her look just as frankly. He was so calm and collected all the time. Nothing seemed to bother him.
“Now, now,” Kyle said softly. “Do not attempt to pry into my thoughts, my lady. You’ve learned much from Nikolai, but some things aren’t for your knowledge. Not even if I were Destrati. Besides, it’s impolite to enter without an invitation, and that doesn’t extend solely to this realm.”
“Who was she?” Katrina asked.
Kyle leaned forwards and pushed himself up from his chair.
She placed a quick hand on his arm as he began to bow and she tried not to flinch at the glare he gave her. “Tell me,” she insisted, cutting off any farewell he’d been about to make. “Yes, I’ve learned a lot from Nik, but no one needs any kind of special reading ability to see that you’re upset over something. That so doesn’t mesh with everything I’ve been told about you,”
“Perhaps what you’ve been told about me is not only the truth, but how it should be. Now, release me, Katrina,” Kyle ordered.
Katrina ignored the warning in his tone and shook her head. “Uh-uh,” she denied vocally. “Squirm all you want. Go ‘poof if you want to; it will just prove you’re a wuss.”
“ ‘Wuss’?” Kyle echoed.
“American slang for ‘wimp’,” Katrina clarified. “Coward, loser, chicken—”
“All right, I understand,” Kyle said wryly. “I won’t go ‘poof. And the correct term is ‘shift’, not ‘poof.”
“Whatever,” Katrina said, smiling up at him. She removed the gentle, restraining hand on his arm and sat back in her seat. “You’re really tall. I thought Nik was tall, but you have him beat. But you’re not big. Nik has muscles—”
“Please tell me I’m not being subjected to this to fulfil some strange comparison fantasy of yours,” Kyle cut her off as he returned to the chair he’d been occupying. He reached for his glass. “Is Nikolai lacking in some way?”
Katrina shook her head.
“You’re alone, and I know how lonely it gets,” she said. “I mean, it’s been less than a year for me, being . . . not like everyone else. Most days I’m OK with it, especially if Nik is around, but sometimes being ‘alone’ gets to me, even if I am something of a queen.”
“I wouldn’t downplay the importance of your role here, Katrina. You’d hurt Nikolai’s feelings, not to mention those of the others,” he said gently. “You’re not ‘something of a queen’. You are the queen of Clan Destrati, wife of Sovereign Nikolai Peityr. It pleases me to see that he hasn’t gone the way of Dominic by having you sit as his right hand on the Council.”
Katrina lowered her eyes and shook her head. “I thought everyone should get used to me being around before I try to change the way they govern themselves. But Nikolai is gone so often, attending things like that, and I can’t help but feel lost and alone.”