Page 13 of The Gathering Storm

Will grinned. Wasn’t that the truth. Daughters, especially fighters like Sigrid, were always getting into scrapes. Sometimes those scrapes involved swords, guns, and other assorted weaponry, and the resulting wounds could be deadly, even for the immortals. Death claimed everybody, given enough time.

“Did you go to college?” he asked.

“I have,” she acknowledged. “Several times, but not until arriving in the New World.”

Will sat forward and braced his forearms on the tabletop. Her scent drifted over him, as it had when she’d visited his apartment that morning, and now as then, it stirred his senses from interest into desire.

He shook it off, disciplining himself, and focused on the conversation. “Where?”

“Harvard, first disguised as a man, later as myself, then Duke and Emory.” She shrugged one shoulder, shifting the thin silk covering her upper body. It pulled against her breasts, highlighting them, and Will’s mouth went dry. “I followed the early discoveries of DNA and its deciphering, and realized that if the People’s underlying genetic structure could be untangled, we would gain a powerful tool in our quest to preserve our culture.”

“So you became an expert.”

“Yes.” Her expression shifted infinitesimally, flashing momentarily into something less than happy, and cleared just as quickly. “Did you always want to tend bar?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to be a lot of things when I was a kid. Back in high school, I thought about going into genealogy, so when the career rotations came up in the ninth grade, I asked Dr. Upton if I could work with him.”

“How long did you work in his office?”

“Still there,” he said, and grinned. “Liked it so much, I started volunteering after the rotation was up. There’s just something about digging into the past that gets under your skin. You must feel that a lot with the work you do.”

Her eyelids lowered, covering the frigid blue of her irises. “The past is an ever present memory. I need not turn to work in order to feel it.”

The poignancy underscoring her words pricked Will. He cupped a hand over hers, resting in her lap, and squeezed gently. “Sorry.”

Her eyes flashed up to his and widened. “Why?”

Because he should’ve known better than to bring up the past to a Daughter with as many battles under her belt as Sigrid had.

Just then, the owner appeared at the table carrying a piping hot pizza, and the mood was broken. Their conversation returned to the light banter they’d shared in the car and continued in that manner over the meal. When they were finished, Sigrid insisted on paying. Will barely refrained from rolling his eyes. He’d been taught better, and besides, Sons knew their places. By accepting Sigrid’s invitation to lunch, he’d also accepted the role she wanted him to play.

For the moment, just until he could talk her into a more equitable arrangement.

He drove them back to the IECS compound more slowly than he’d driven to Franklin and parked in her allotted spot outside her office. She allowed him to help her out again, then stood in front of him with her hand in his and her head tilted to the side, studying him beneath lowered lashes.

That same old nervous energy enveloped him and he eased a fraction closer. She was right there, so close her breaths touched his skin, so close her mouth was a scant hand’s breadth away.

She placed her free hand on his chest and ran a finger along the collar of his jacket. “Kiss me, Will Corbin, beloved Son of Wilhelmina the Fierce.”

She didn’t need to ask twice. He cupped her slender hips in his hands and urged her against him, meeting her halfway, and his mouth came down on hers in a gentle echo of their first two kisses. Soft, teasing, light. He flicked his tongue out, tasting her, and nearly groaned as her tongue touched his.

Sweet Mother. He’d wanted her so long, too long to stand in the middle of a public parking lot and neck with her without giving his desire away.

He ended the kiss abruptly, leaned his forehead against hers, and pretended his chest wasn’t heaving with every breath, that his dick wasn’t half hard just from the simple touch of her mouth on his.

Her hand curled around his collar and tugged, and the corners of her mouth tilted up. “Tonight.”

He tried to answer, cleared his throat of the desire choking him, and managed a hoarse, “Yeah?”

“I’ll be at The Omega. Save a dance for me.”

His hands tightened reflexively on her hips. A dance with Sigrid, the woman he’d wanted since the first time he laid eyes on her? Hell, yeah. He’d be there with bells on.

She leaned into him, brushed her lips against his again, then slipped away, her heels a sharp rap against the asphalt. Will stood there unable to turn around. One day he’d have to watch her walk away for good. When that time came, she’d leave him broken in ways he could only imagine. With an immortal Daughter, that was a given.

Will left his car parked where it was, in a guest spot outside Sigrid’s office, and walked across the campus of the Institute for Early Cultural Studies, the People’s leading research center. Here, top scientists worked on projects assigned by his cousin Rebecca Upton, the IECS’s director, to further the People’s ultimate goals: Cultural continuation, freedom from persecution, the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Light.

Every member, whether mortal or immortal, had a duty to aid the People. Most did, some didn’t, but all kept those goals uppermost in their minds.

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