Page 39 of Immortal Burden

I considered heading out to confront him at the Guardian Compound, but that posed too great of a risk. We couldn’t clash there, especially not over something personal that ran the risk of outing us as more than mere familiars and colleagues.

Urgh. He’d played this perfectly.

When Cornelius Martel didn’t want to divulge information, he went to great lengths to make it so.

Even with his own daughter.

I strode toward my balcony, throwing open the double doors and looking out over the expansive grounds, needing the picturesque, serene view and the cool, crisp air of the dark night to calm my rapidly escalating temper before it destabilized my magic and my control.

I’d barely gotten a few moments into it when a figure at the edge of the gardens caught my eye.

A familiar figure that had me starting in surprise at their very unexpected presence on my home territory.

I teleported down from the balcony and landed just a few feet from him.

“Lucian.”

“Sorceress,” he returned with a lift of his lips, standing there with an odd mixture that he could only pull off of regal, king of his domain, along with the raw edge of an experienced warrior, as well as the impassioned sexuality of somebody with an overwhelming allure.

“What are you doing here?”

“You might want to brace yourself.”

Well, that didn’t bode well.

Today was clearly determined to graduate from bad to worse with absolutely no sense of a reprieve.

11

~Lucian~

Inhibited. Secretive. Enchantress.

Before registering my presence which I’d purposely made known, I’d watched her sweeping through her chambers of her palatial estate with the practiced grace of a being determined to project a perfected image to the world.

Even alone, it clung to her.

Burdened her.

Furthered her repression.

Her and Ryker were opposites, yet her inhibited disposition had clearly infected him. I’d watched him live as somebody other than his true self throughout their years together.

Observing her now in invasive detail for the first time, since I’d always been preoccupied with my fixation on him prior to this evening, I could now understand why she’d gravitated toward him. His loud, unabashed and unapologetic personality coupled with his reckless tendencies offset the extreme opposite in her, giving her somewhat of a reprieve from the pressure of it and the burdensome existence it truly had to be.

Apart from him now and bearing such a heavy secret, the pressure had to be crippling.

It stood to reason that she would be desperate to unburden herself of it.

Time to find out.

I stepped closer.

She tensed, her fingers flexing in anticipation of needing to call her magic.

I certainly did make her nervous.

“You should ward this property,” I advised.

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