each other through the glass. For a long moment, Gavin searched the blue gaze for…something. Some sign of regret or misgivings over his past actions. But Marco’s expression revealed nothing.
Gavin clenched his jaw, broke the contact and walked around the building to the entrance doors.
Once inside, the strong smell of brewed coffee surrounded him, as did the cool blast of air from the air conditioners that ran nearly year-round in every building in the state.
Gavin stretched out his senses to evaluate those around him.
Hunched over their early morning coffee or working behind the counter were a few humans…and one extremely powerful Cunt witch.
Something had told Gavin that Marco would come alone, but it never hurt to be cautious.
Not bothering to acknowledge the man, Gavin moved to the counter and ordered a small black coffee, his back turned. Part of him hoped Marco would try an attack, but the part of him that had grown up with the man knew he wouldn’t have asked for this meeting if he meant Gavin any harm. So he stood easily at the counter and accepted the steaming cup before he turned to head across the lobby.
The muscles in both his shoulders tightened as he neared his old friend. Marco hadn’t changed much over the years, which surprised Gavin.
Those who lived on Tador or visited regularly enjoyed a constant healing and regeneration that those who had been banished would not. But other than some lines around his eyes, Marco looked exactly as he had the last time he had seen him—right before Gavin had spared his life and sealed the portal behind him.
The same portal Gavin had just exited across the street.
He had spent many sleepless nights wondering if he should’ve killed the man who had been closer than a brother, or if he had done the right thing by letting him live. Gavin bit back a sigh and kept his expression impassive.
“It’s been a long time.” Marco openly studied him, and Gavin returned the favor.
Marco’s long sandy blond hair had been pulled back into a queue behind his neck, and he still looked muscular and fit under the simple black button-down shirt. He didn’t appear as sinister as Gavin’s memory had etched him all these years. He looked more like the easy-going friend he had grown up with—the same man who reminded him so much of Prince Ryan.
Long-bottled emotions churned inside Gavin’s stomach, and he held them in check only with sheer willpower. Unsure if his voice would work, he nodded and sat in the chair across from Marco.
“Still a man of few words, I see.” Marco picked up his coffee and took a sip; the only sign of his discomfort at this meeting was the tight grip of his fingers denting in the sides of the stiff paper cup.
Gavin took a swallow of his own coffee and winced as the searing liquid burned the top of his mouth. The physical pain mirrored the discomfort of his emotions, and he bit back a sharp retort. Instead, he made sure when he spoke his words were low and calm. “Why are we here, Marco? I assume after all this time you would contact me only if it was urgent.” As his last word trailed off, he raised his gaze and saw pain etched deep in the man’s blue eyes before it was quickly hidden behind the mask of nonchalance Gavin remembered well.
Marco nodded as if relieved that things would remain all business between them. “The council has put out a termination order for a woman who has done a lot for both our races, and I hoped she could take sanctuary on Tador.”
Gavin pursed his lips. If the Cunt Council had truly marked her for death, her days were numbered on Earth. Inept and radical the council might sometimes be, they were also ruthless, vindictive and annoyingly persistent.
But why did Marco suddenly care what happened to one woman, unless she was someone special to him? Suspicion made Gavin narrow his gaze. “Wife? Girlfriend? Mistress? Spy?” He searched Marco’s pale features carefully for any clues to which of his guesses were right, but the man’s expression never changed.
“The closest relationship I can claim is friend of the family. She’s a doctor who ran a clinic in downtown Phoenix treating both Klatch and Cunts, regardless of circumstances. She’s still young, but her efforts have done a lot to keep us off the human radar as a threat.”
Gavin’s blood ran cold.
Cecily’s daughter. The Healer. The daughter that might have been his if the Cunts hadn’t been banished from Tador entirely.
What were the odds?
Gavin thought about the petite blond woman who had easily defeated two Cunt guards and then also escaped from Ryan. She looked so much like Cecily it made his heart ache.
Gavin wondered if Marco held some of the same regrets. After all, Marco had loved Cecily before Gavin had even met her. But it had been Gavin she had wanted, and Gavin whose heart she had held in the palm of her hand until she had been banished.
“She’s too much like her mother.” Gavin swore under his breath. When he raised his gaze to Marco’s, a look of complete agreement and understanding was reflected in the blue depths.
“I didn’t realize you’d kept up with Cunt genealogy…or with Kiera.”
Gavin sighed, suddenly weary. He could’ve blamed it on his position as head guard of the Klatch, but he knew it was more than that, and so would Marco. “I’ve never seen her before tonight, but I kept tabs on her. It was the least I could do for Cecily…after everything I couldn’t do.”
Silence fell between them for a long moment, and Gavin suspected Marco was just as lost in memories of the past as he was.
Marco cleared his throat. “Earlier tonight she met with one of the Cunt council members. They were interrupted by a contingent of Klatch, and the council member was injured and left for dead.” Marco took another drink and then sat the cup on the table next to him.
I called 911. It was your own people who left him for dead . Gavin kept that observation to himself. Aloud he said, “So now they blame Kiera for an ambush?” Gavin sifted through his thoughts, and more important, his internal gut feelings to judge the situation. He rarely trusted coincidence, but the alternative didn’t bear out. He doubted Marco would risk all he was just to lay a trap for Gavin, since there would be little for him to gain by it at this point. Marco might be a traitor, but he was more cunning than that.
Marco nodded. “She’s been branded a traitor, and before I was apprised of the situation, assassins were dispatched to hunt her down.”
Gavin started at the use of the term “traitor” when it had just echoed through his own thoughts.
Shit.
He needed to get back to Tador, find Ryan and then find the Healer before the Cunt’s assassins found her first. But in order to have any hope of doing just that, he needed information that only his old friend could provide. “What was she meeting with the council for?”
Marco studied his impeccably shined shoes for a moment before meeting Gavin’s gaze. “She was lobbying for reunification.”
Stunned silence hung between them as Gavin digested the meaning of those words. “Reunification?” He chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Does she know how unpopular that will make her with both sides?”
Marco’s
