Page 287 of Seer Prophet

She didn’t speak, which was fine by me.

The car moved faster than I realized, suggesting it was equipped with motion stabilizers, since I didn’t feel the dip in my gut. It seemed only a handful of seconds ticked by after that first smooth rise before I felt us begin to slow.

When it glided to a stop, the orange-eyed seer smiled at me, offering his arm.

I considered not taking it, then decided it was a small, pointless battle to fight.

Sliding my hand through the opening between his body and arm, I held him through his suit jacket lightly with my fingers.

I followed him out of the elevator and into a high-ceilinged foyer. My eyes glanced down at the click of my heels on stone?and I nearly tripped over my own feet when I saw a mosaic of semi-precious stones formed in the symbol of the sword and sun. It covered most of the marble tile directly under a spherical skylight.

Then the stone ended, and a thick, sky-blue carpet took its place. Even that particular shade of blue made me pause, since it, too, was associated with the Sword.

This guy was clearly a fan of my husband’s.

Maybe him and Kat would get along just fine.

Lifting my eyes with an effort, I focused forward, distracted by the enormous window overlooking the city and, in the distance, the Persian Gulf. Sunlight glimmered on the water at the base of the hotel, as well as on the Gulf itself, and on the metal and glass structures that clustered around downtown Dubai like the Burj Khalifa’s children.

I didn’t stop walking as I gazed out that window, although I flinched as it dimmed in front of me, changing tint dramatically from some kind of virtual, sun-shielding effect.

The view didn’t disappear, but it grew significantly more muted.

I could still see sun sparkles out on the water, but now those starbursts looked dark gold instead of white. The shielding significantly cut the glare in the room, but I found the effect gloomy, making the colors less dramatic without the real rays of the sun.

By then, I’d stopped walking.

I stood not far from a fireplace that danced incongruously in a stone grate to my right.

To the left of that fireplace, and more or less in front of me, a ring of white leather couches coiled around the edges of a sunken living room. The walls and decorative tables of the room were filled with what looked like expensive art, both the sculpture and painting variety. A giant copper and crystal water-sculpture of the sword and sun covered the wall nearest to the foyer.

Unsurprisingly, the furnishings looked expensive?and modern.

I recognized one of the paintings. The artist was seer, and used to live in New York. A few of her paintings hung in the House on the Hill hotel when I lived there. I looked away from the painting, glancing again at the sword and sun sculpture on the wall, then around at a few other pieces, noting the location of the doors, and the security cameras.

I was still looking around, when I heard a pale cough from the vicinity of the couch.

I’d known we weren’t alone in the room. Even so, I’d avoided looking that way?partly because I wanted the rough layout of the apartment first, and partly because I knew it would annoy the crap out of this joker, whoever he was.

Now, however, I looked down.

My eyes landed on the nearest end of the white leather couch, and the profile of a lanky, young, handsome seer with black hair. He stretched as if waking up, rubbing his face with one hand and yawning as he looked back at me. He stretched enough to pull his black T-shirt up to where his stomach showed, but I barely noticed the flash of skin and muscle, or the rest of his dark clothes. I stared at his pale, gray-tinted eyes instead, thrown briefly by his features, by the familiarity of them?

When someone cleared their throat more pointedly from the other end of that same piece of U-shaped furniture.

I shifted my gaze, turning my head to the right to compensate for the length of the couch and the size of the room.

Once I had, shock rippled my light.

I managed to control it before one of them might see the shock in my features, but in looking at that face, and the bright blue eyes that gazed back at me, I realized I needn’t have bothered.

He knew who I was.

The recognition there was overpowering, even without the emotion I saw woven into his expression. His words removed any trace of doubt.

“Dearest.” He rose smoothly to his feet. “You are even more gorgeous than I remember… even with all of that crap on your face.”

I followed him with my eyes, swallowing as I remembered how tall he was, even taller than Revik, which always threw me when I’d known him before. I watched his blue eyes in stunned disbelief. My gaze drifted down when he held out his arms, as if to embrace me from where he stood. When I didn’t move, or speak, he moved rapidly to close the distance between us.

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