He was stronger than he’d been at first. And no doubt he’d continue to recharge as the days passed. But he wouldn’t feel good, wouldn’t feel capable, until he was back to normal. Normal for him, that was. He glanced at Maeve, muttering to herself and tapping at her computer, and wondered what she’d think when she finally discovered his true self, wings and all. Although she had seemed disappointed at their absence.
“Ah ha!”
Her triumphant cry had him sitting on the side of the bed facing her, eager to be doing something other than lying in this room and contemplating his magical future.
“Yes!” She gave a little sitting dance, bouncing on the bed in a way that brought a smile to his lips, despite his dreary thoughts.
“You found something?” he ventured to ask.
She looked over at him with a huge grin. “Not just something. I found this.” She swiveled the computer around to face him.
He stared at the screen, then glanced up and said, “What is it?”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “What is—? Shit.” She climbed over to sit next to him and held the computer on her lap. “Sorry. Their graphics are for crap. Try this.”
He looked again and found himself staring at a column of images. Photographs of some sort, he intuited. He’d seen something like it during the time Sotiris had tried to torment him with television. These weren’t good photographs, however. Simply individuals staring out with dead eyes and unhappy expressions.
“This one,” she said eagerly, pointing at a man very close to the top of the page. “Is that him? Is that your Nico?”
Dragan twisted his head around to stare at her, so close he could see a few faint freckles on the creamy skin of her cheek. “Nico?”
“Yeah.” She pointed again. “Is that him?”
He forced himself to look, afraid to hope. He studied the small picture, staring hard, then blinked several times and leaned closer. So much of Nico’s self had been the constant, raw force of his power. This flat, lifeless image. . . . His heart seemed to stutter in his chest, and he gritted his teeth, forcing his hands to steady as he reached for the computer and pulled it even closer to his eyes.
“His hair is shorter, much darker. And he’s thinner, but . . . Nico,” he whispered, eyes closing as his head drooped toward his chest, unable to breathe for the overwhelming sense of relief that swamped his senses. Nico was alive. He was here. Was it possible the others were too? He shoved that thought away, not willing to hope for too much, or even worse, to contemplate the many possibilities that could have taken his brothers from him forever.
He took what fate had given him for now, knowing his leader was near. Nico would know what to do with Sotiris. They just had to get to him.
“That’s him?” Maeve asked again, her voice layered with emotion as she read the truth on his face.
He nodded without looking away from the lifeless image. “Can we go to him?” he asked softly.
She nodded enthusiastically. “Sure. I’ve even got his address, if he’s still there. Or if it was ever real. Might be a business address, too. But it’s a place to start. Let me download this page. . . .” She spoke absently, fingers flying once more.
“When can we leave?”
She chuckled. “In the morning, dude. I’m tired.”
“Of course,” he said, instantly contrite and feeling useless. It was a rare experience for him. “How long do you think. . . . I ask only because I’m unfamiliar with your country.”
“Um.” She tapped a final key, then set the computer on the bed and turned to face him, one knee angled flat in front of her. “Let’s see, he’s in Pompano Beach,” she said slowly, as if sounding out the words. “That’s pretty far south. Let me just check. . . .” More tapping, maps this time. He recognized those, despite their differences from his own time. “Whoa. That’s a lot,” she exclaimed. “Twelve hundred miles, give or take. Eeesh. We might be able to do it in two days, if we don’t hit any traffic or—”
“You should teach me to drive the SUV, so you can rest. It will be faster.”
“It would, yes. Assuming you went faster than thirty miles an hour, since you’re not used to our speeds. Even worse would be you driving eighty miles an hour on a few hours’ instruction. And then there’s the fact that you don’t have a license, so if we did get stopped with you driving, you might go to jail for at least a few hours, until I paid your fine and got you out. Assuming I could, since you have no ID at all. So basically, having you drive would probably slow us down, not speed us up.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a hand, stopping him.
“I’ll teach you to drive. But the long haul . . . that has to be me, okay?”
He gave her a long-suffering look. “I’ve fought more battles than you can imagine. I’m quite adept with new weapons and techniques. This SUV of yours is simply one more weapon.”
“Oh, my God! That’s exactly my point. It is not a weapon, okay? Geez.” She shut the computer as she stood, then walked over to place it on the table. “Let’s go to sleep now. We’ll get up bright and early and hit the road. Start driving, I mean. Okay?”
He fought the urge to laugh at her reaction, even though what she said made sense. At least for now. She didn’t trust him yet. He understood that. But she would, and then they’d see about driving, and everything else.
MAEVE CHANGED into her night clothes with quick, furtive movements, while Dragan was in the bathroom doing . . . whatever. She didn’t want to think too hard about that. She pulled on the sweats and t-shirt that were her usual cold weather sleepwear, even though the room was a lot warmer than she preferred. Her other option was a t-shirt and underwear, and she wasn’t going to do that. Glancing down, she saw that her breasts were completely obvious, her nipples poking through the t-shirt’s thin cotton like hard, pointed pebbles. Stifling a groan, she contemplated putting her bra back on, but she’d never sleep with that thing digging into her. She had her mother’s slight build, paired with her paternal grandmother’s generous bosoms, as that same grandmother would say. Which meant she definitely needed a bra for daywear, but refused to wear one at night. It always felt so damn good to take it off.
Of course, she’d never shared a bedroom with a boy before. Or rather, a man, because Dragan hadn’t been a boy for a long time. And that was not even counting the time he’d been trapped.