Page 17 of Guard

Myrria snapped from her daze and tipped her head to look Rixx in the eyes. “I do like it.” She gave her head a brisk shake. “I love it.” Then she threw her arms around him. “This might be the best present anyone has ever gotten me.”

Rixx was startled by her arms wrapped around him, and even more surprised when Zala jumped into the embrace, curling her small arms around one of his legs and her mother’s waist. Warmth pulsed through him, and he was sure it was as much from Myrria as from himself.

Then, just as quickly as Myrria had hugged him, she pulled away and smoothed her hands down the front of her dress. “I’ll bet that you two have been so busy you haven’t taken a break to eat, have you?”

Rixx had been too focused on the task of repairing the machine to think about food, but he also knew that they had finished the last of the bread that morning and there was little left in the house’s meager pantry.

Zala must have thought the same thing because she shrugged it off. “We haven’t been hungry, have we Rixx?”

He started to agree with her and assure Myrria that they did not need to eat, but the woman produced a paper sack from within her bag and plunked it on the table. “Madam Serena has a new cook and insisted I bring some of her pastries home to test them out. She claims that her girls should not eat any more of them or I’ll have to let out all their dresses.”

Zala didn’t wait for a formal invitation, setting upon the paper sack and pulling out two round, puffs of bread dusted with brown sugar. She handed one to Rixx and put the other one to her nose, inhaling so deeply he thought she might suck part of the bread up her nostrils.

Myrria laughed. “Serena buys the most expensive flour and sugar since she serves treats to her clients.”

“I love your bread, Mama,” Zala mumbled through a mouthful, “but this is…” The rest of her statement dissolved into a sigh of delight.

Rixx did not take a bite of his roll right away. Instead, he eyed Myrria, sensing a subtle change within the woman from when she had left the house that morning. “Then your visit to your friend was successful?”

Myrria shifted her gaze fully to him, holding his eyes with her for several beats before nodding. “In more ways than one.”

Rixx did not know what she meant, but there was none of the usual hesitation when she looked at him, none of the usual reserve. Something thrummed through him again, something he was certain came from her, but it carried no trace of fear.

His pulse tripped when it hit him that he was sensing desire. Her desire.

Then a sound jolted him from his confusion, and Myrria swung her head to the door where keys were jangling in the lock.

Chapter

Seventeen

Myrria’s mind raced as the lock to her door turned from the outside. Without thinking, she shoved Rixx toward the bedroom and he stumbled back, his face registering understanding only a heartbeat before the door swung open.

“Who do you—?” Myrria started to yell when she recognized the wrinkled face that poked around the door. It was her landlady.

She clamped her mouth shut even though she didn’t relax. Donya might not be the Zevrians, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t turn Rixx in if she suspected that he was in her house.

“Myrria?” The woman’s voice cracked as her shrewd gaze slid around the small interior. “I thought I heard voices in here.”

Myrria fought the urge to glance toward the bedroom where the curtain was half drawn. She suspected that Rixx has slipped inside the attached bathroom, but there was no way to know without looking, and that would be a sure giveaway.

Instead, she tipped her head toward Zala. “My daughter and I were talking. You remember that I have a daughter, don’t you?”She hadn’t meant for her words to sound so hostile, but she was still recovering from the shock of the woman entering her home unannounced.

Donya frowned at Zala, who beamed innocently at her. “It sounded like a man was in here.”

Myrria didn’t answer this. An outright denial would come to haunt her if Donya spotted Rixx. Kurril had no laws to protect tenants, and the only way to keep her lease was to follow all of Donya’s rules and pay her on time, which Myrria did. She knew well enough not to demand repairs or improvements, even though the home desperately needed both.

Donya was one of those bitter old women who believed that single mothers should not exist and that every home needed a man with a firm hand on things. Not that she had a man in her house. If there had ever been a husband, Myrria suspected that she’d killed him and probably eaten him, but that didn’t stop the landlady from turning her nose up at Myrria for having an absent husband. Myrria’s assurances that her husband would be coming back any day was probably one of the reasons Donya let her stay.

“Did you finally step out on your old man?” The woman grinned maliciously, as if ready to pounce on this as a perfect reason to turn her onto the streets.

Myrria folded her arms over her chest. “I did not.”

Donya snorted out a half laugh that said she did not believe Myrria, her small eyes narrowing in on the bedroom.

Myrria knew that Donya would not only turn Rixx in for the bounty but she would sound an alarm so quickly that therewould be no chance for him to run. The old woman might look frail but Myrria had heard her scream before.

Donya’s gaze fell on the wanted flyer crumpled in the wastebasket. “You hear about the criminal that’s loose around here?”

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