She sighed and lifted the kettle to be sure there was water, then set it to boil on the stovetop. Opening a cupboard to the left, she pulled down two heavy mugs. He didn’t seem like a dainty teacup kind of man. Besides, why the hell would she waste fine china on some crazy intruder? She dismissed that thought as soon as she had it. She didn’t honestly believe that’s what was happening here. He was wearing the same clothes, carrying the same sword as her warrior. No intruder could have made that happen. And as far as she knew, no one other than her, Mr. Sotiris, or the cleaning staff ever entered the statuary room.
She slid her gaze sideways to find him standing in front of the kitchen’s big bay window, eyes closed and face lifted to the warm afternoon sunlight streaming through the glass. His expression was one of pleasure, but there was agony, too. Damn. It was as if he’d missed the sunlight. As if he’d believed he’d never feel its warmth on his face again. She stared. He was just as beautiful as she’d always known he’d be. Tall and muscular, with the physique of a warrior, or in this day and age, a soldier—one of those super, special forces kind. He had unruly black hair that touched his shoulders, and skin of a sun-kissed gold, which might be why he was enjoying the sun so much. She wondered about the color of his eyes, but when she looked at his profile, she saw a solitary tear roll over his cheek. He made no move to brush it away, simply dropped his head to his chest and breathed.
Maeve’s heart ached for him. She couldn’t be human and not empathize with such obvious pain. “Are you all right?”
He didn’t answer right away. But then his head lifted and he looked at her. “No. To be honest, I may never be all right again.” He smiled, but it was a faint shadow of his earlier grin. “I would appreciate the tea, however. If that’s what you’re offering.”
She blushed. “Right. Sorry. Do you like cookies?”
He sighed. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had one.”
She tried not to stare again. He’d think she was some sort of fool if she didn’t stop. But geez. Never had a cookie? “It’s a sweet,” she offered, not knowing what else to say. “Flat and crispy, with . . . well, these are the ones I like, so they have chocolate chips.”
He was studying her as if she were speaking a foreign language, or at least one he didn’t understand. Speaking of which. . . . Haha. Speaking. It was funny, because she was talking about which language and. . . . Never mind. It was one of those jokes no one else ever understood.
“They’re good,” she said finally. “They taste good. With the tea.”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“You can sit there.” She pointed to the table in front of the window. “I’ll bring the tea.”
Taking two steps, he stared at the table and chairs for a moment, then chose the side facing into the sun, and sat. He kept the sword with him, she noted, not even leaning it against the wall, but bracing it against his leg, one hand holding it loosely. She had no doubt he was as good as his word, and could swing it up and at an attacker’s throat in an instant.
Once they were seated, after he’d sipped his tea with obvious enjoyment, but rejected the cookie after one bite, she studied him over her mug and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Dragan Fiachna,” he said, with a slight dip of his head. “In service to Lord Nicodemus. Though . . .” He paused, and another flash of pain clouded his expression. “I don’t know that he still lives for me to serve in this world.”
“Look. I know you said Mr. Sotiris did something to you—”
“A curse.”
She gave him a blank look.
“Sotiris cursed me and my brothers. Four of us. Though I don’t know about my liege. I believe him too powerful to have been swept up in Sotiris’s magic, but . . . I don’t know if any of them still live.” He seemed lost then, for the first time since he’d opened the stairwell door. It was a foreign expression on such a powerful man.
“I can help you with that,” she offered without thinking. No matter how much she loved reading and role-playing fantasy, she wasn’t sure she believed any of it. But he just looked so sad. Whatever his story, she had to help if she could. “I’m good with computers and the like. If your friends are around, I can find them.”
“If they live.”
“Hey, you’re alive. Why not them? And you say this Nicodemus person has as much magic as Mr. Sotiris, which you say is a lot. So odds are he’s still around too, right?” She didn’t know what the hell she was saying. Magic, for Christ’s sake. She was just as crazy as he was.
“I have to kill him.”
Maeve held her breath. “Kill whom?”
His pretty green eyes—she hadn’t noticed those before—turned in her direction. Green eyes with long black hair and a beautiful face. He’d look right at home on the red carpet. In a tux, like those vampires in all the gossip mags. Oh, yeah. A tux for sure. Focus, Maeve.
“Sotiris, of course,” he was saying, completely casual, as if he wasn’t talking about murdering her employer. Granted Mr. Sotiris was an asshole, but he was the asshole who signed her paycheck for doing a job she loved. Or she’d used to love. She still would if the place wasn’t so damn remote, or if she didn’t have to live here 24/7. Besides, maybe Dragan was speaking figuratively. He couldn’t really mean to kill someone, could he?
“Um. That’s against the law now.”
“Your law has no authority over me,” he said, easily dismissing her cautionary words. “And I doubt Sotiris bothers overmuch with it, either. He cares only for himself and does whatever he wishes, without regard for others.”
That did sound like Mr. Sotiris. But she still felt an obligation—not to her employer, but to Dragan. Whatever had happened to him was very bad, and she didn’t want him to be locked up in jail after . . . everything. Whatever it was. She grimaced at her own thoughts. “Um, look. What if we . . . find your friends first. Maybe they’ve already reached some kind of agreement with Mr. Sotiris. Or maybe . . .” She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t think for one minute that her warrior’s friends—if they existed and if they really were alive somewhere—would have made peace with the bastard who’d kept their friend cruelly captive for who knew how long? But that made her even more determined. They should get out of this house and go find his friends before her boss came back and discovered. . . . Whoa! What’s with this “they” shit, Mae?
Well, of course, she was going to go with him. Hadn’t she just been scolding herself for hiding away from the world, for being stuck in a rut of avoidance? This right here, with Dragan, was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. She wasn’t going to hand over her car keys and just wave him good-bye, was she? She had the ridiculous thought that he probably couldn’t even drive. Yeah, because that was the big issue here.