Defy the Dawn (Midnight Breed 14)

“Of course, you did.” Zael side-stepped her attempt to kiss his cheek in greeting, earning him a frown. “What do you want, Sia?”

She lifted a slender shoulder, although her expression was anything but nonchalant. “It’s been so long since I saw you last. I hoped we might have a chance to talk for a while…privately.”

Ever the confident one, she pivoted and began walking toward the halls of the council chamber. Zael’s jaw clenched with a hundred shades of misgivings, but he fell in behind her. She led him into an empty library and closed the door. He stayed put only a couple of paces inside the room while she dropped elegantly onto a silk-covered sofa beneath a sparkling stained-glass window.

“She’s pretty,” Tamisia remarked idly. “For one of her kind, that is.”

Zael grunted, not about to play this game with her. “I doubt you brought me here to discuss the attributes of other women, Sia. I seem to recall that was always your least favorite subject. What’s on your mind?”

“You mean, besides you?” Long lashes framed the knowingly coy gaze she fixed on him. “I’ve missed you, Zael. Each time you leave the island, it seems you’re gone longer and longer.”

She spoke in that sultry voice that used to have some power to sway him. Not anymore. And to hear her plying it on him now only made him suspicious of her motivations. Tamisia was a shrewd woman who went after what she wanted. So, what did she want from him now?

He leaned against the library wall, studying the beautiful blonde elder who was so accustomed to wrapping any male around her dainty finger. “Somehow, I doubt you’ve been waiting here, pining for me, Tamisia. We were only together a few times. You’re hardly the type to waste away.”

Her pout faded into a sly smile. “You know me too well, Ekizael. No, I haven’t been pining. Elyon has been seeing to that lately.”

“Elyon?” Zael balked at the mention of his former legion comrade who served as a sentry for the colony. “Now, there’s an odd match. The rebel of the elder council and one of the most idealistic of Selene’s old guard.”

“It’s nothing,” Tamisia said with a dismissive flick of her hand. “It’s a dalliance. One I have no intention of continuing.”

Zael chuckled. “Does poor Elyon know that?”

She eyed him haughtily. “You of all people have no room to judge me. You never stay with anyone.”

No, he didn’t. Until recently, he’d never given much thought to his nomadic way of life. Nor the women who came and left his bed, creating barely a ripple of regret for their loss.

And then he met Brynne.

It was impossible to think of going back to his old ways—the endless wandering or the rest of it—now that she had entered his world.

But it was even worse than that.

Now that Brynne Kirkland was in his life, Zael couldn’t imagine what a day without her would look like.

To say nothing of his nights.

“When do you expect you’ll return to the outside again?” Tamisia asked, breaking into his thoughts.

Zael shrugged. “As soon as the council delivers their decision, or soon after. Why?”

Although she shook her head as if she meant nothing by it, there was a note of hesitancy in her stare. A plea—one she didn’t seem certain how to put into words.

“What’s wrong?”

She swallowed. “Do you think… Do you think it might be possible for me to go with you?”

Well, he sure as hell hadn’t been expecting that. He was taken aback and couldn’t hide it.

Tamisia was a high-ranking, well-respected member of the colony. An elder responsible for helping to shape the laws and direction of the entire community. He never would have dreamed she’d be willing to give all of that up.

“Go with me?”

“Not as your woman, if that’s your concern,” she quickly added. “Although if you wanted to try, you might be able to convince me to change my mind on that.”

“I don’t,” he told her gently. “And what you’re asking of me… You must know that if you leave, there’s no coming back.”

A strange hauntedness crossed her face, but it was there and gone in an instant. “I know it means if I go. It will be for good.”