Dragon Knight (The Collegium Book 3) (21 page)

Since Lewis was trapped in a board meeting, Gina decided she’d wander off on her own, grab some lunch, maybe do some shopping. But the best of plans could be side-tracked, and from answering the forecasters’ questions—they were remarkably tactful concerning what it had felt like to control the zombies, former humans—the discussion had turned to exactly how the demon had hidden its presence online. From there, it was a matter of pride for Gina to race the forecasters to unravelling the demon’s dark web activities.

Their intent pursuit was interrupted by Zhou’s return, which meant the board meeting was over. Zhou exchanged a glance with his deputy who was seated at the computer beside Gina’s.

Gina would have questioned what that glance meant, especially when it seemed to take in her presence in the Zone room, but her attention was distracted.

Kora entered behind Zhou and smiled at Gina! The commander of the guardians looked better. Her eyes were red-rimmed with tiredness, but her upright posture had lost its defensive rigidity.

When Gina blinked before tentatively returning the smile, Kora grabbed her arm. “I just need to borrow Gina,” she said to Zhou, and towed her out of the room.

Bewildered, Gina didn’t even think of resisting. “If it’s about yesterday’s fight, I don’t know anything more about the zombies than Fay and Gilda.”

“It’s not about yesterday. Or not directly.” Kora released Gina and led the way to the stairs, descending four flights fast enough that Gina had to hold any further questions. They walked into the guardians’ headquarters and through them to Kora’s office. An office that had once been Lewis’s.

Kora sat behind the desk, gesturing for Gina to take a visitor’s chair.

Irresistibly curious, Gina managed to peek at the photo frames angled on the desk.

Kora swiveled them towards her. “My husband and stepdaughters. Ayesha is twelve and Teegan nine. They’re getting to an age where they need me to be there, to be a constant presence and not a source of uncertainty. That’s why I accepted this job, even knowing I’d never be able to replace Lewis.”

Kora replaced the photo frames and leaned back in her chair. “I taught Lewis when he was a new trainee. Weapons training and basic magic, suitable for a new guardian to teach while she was recovering from a broken arm. He was always ferociously focused. No one ever noticed how old he was. They just responded to the force in him.”

“I’ve noticed,” Gina said.

“I’m sure you have. It’s been an eventful few days. Quite an introduction to the Collegium for you.” Kora laced her fingers together. Her wedding ring, but no engagement ring, gleamed. “You’ll have seen how much the Collegium needs Lewis—with his new powers, whatever they are, or without them. He is a leader precisely because we all know he’d never ask us to do anything more than he’d do himself. He has a quiet, unacknowledged bent for self-sacrifice.”

“I didn’t realize you knew him so well.” Gina wasn’t sure where this was leading.

“Lewis commanded the guardians. Those of us who served with him had an added incentive to study his ways. We had to know we could rely on him.”

Thinking of the situation at the compound yesterday, Gina could understand how vital that trust was in an emergency. People didn’t have the luxury of time to assess an order. They had to act.

“When I stepped into Lewis’s job as commander of the guardians, I knew I’d have to prove myself. Despite my own track record. And then, there was the complication of a president of the Collegium who lacked his own magic. Perhaps I overdid the attempts to protect him.”

Gina smiled faintly. “Possibly.”

“And I feared you,” Kora added deliberately.

“Why?”

“A new girlfriend at just this time. You could have been attracted to the status of his position as president. That wouldn’t make you someone to rely on. And then, there’s Lewis himself. He rarely commits himself on a personal level. If you were a casual relationship for him…” She shrugged. “Then no threat. But if you were more, you could distract him precisely when Collegium issues most needed his attention. As it is…”

Gina was reluctantly fascinated by this revelation of how closely her and Lewis’s relationship had been and would be scrutinized. “As it is…?” she prompted.

Kora smiled. “You proved yourself, yesterday. The demon and those zombies were as bad as anything I’ve encountered as a guardian. You held your nerve and you did more than that. You were a key part of resolving the situation. If you’ll excuse the personal comment, because I don’t mean to offend you—” Gina gestured acceptance—“You’re strong enough to match Lewis, and for that reason, I’m going to do something I never thought I’d do. I’m going to give you some match-making advice.”

“You’re kidding?” Gina certainly hadn’t expected that.

“Not in the least.” Kora glanced at the photos on her desk. “Everyone needs to love and be loved. Lewis is no exception, but he thinks he is. I told you that I’ve known him since he was a kid. Lewis will sacrifice his happiness if he thinks it’ll save yours.”

“I want Lewis,” Gina said plainly.

“But he comes with baggage. He has had a lot of missions like that one, yesterday. That makes for baggage. And then, he has whatever this new power is—although you seem to know about it and to be comfortable with it?” Definitely a hint of a question there, but Kora continued. “Finally, loving Lewis brings all the complications of his role as president of the Collegium. Life with him means life with the brawling, intense, and sometimes weird members of the Collegium all competing for his attention. The woman in his life would have to be able to handle it, and to claim her own equal or more than equal status. He’d give it to you, but he won’t ask you to handle it.”

Gina stared at Kora.

Kora met her gaze levelly. Woman to woman. “If you want Lewis, you have to prove it to him.”

Lewis had lost Gina. After the board meeting and its unexpected conclusion, he’d tracked Gina as far as Kora’s office, but from there…Kora said she had no idea where Gina had gone.

“She said she had some things to do,” Kora said without looking up from her paperwork.

Lewis slapped the doorframe of her office, his old one, then swiveled around and strode out. He responded briefly to greetings called to him by guardians on the floor or in the training ring, but he didn’t stop to talk. He’d made a concerted effort to clear his desk sufficiently to get away on time, although not early, and now, Gina was gone! He could have eaten a proper lunch instead of the limp tomato sandwiches Shawn had brought him.

He tried calling her again, but her phone was switched off. He wasn’t worried, since he had a text from her.

“Busy!” with a smiley face emoticon.

No, he wasn’t worried, but he wanted to be with her.

“If Gina turns up or calls, tell her I’ve gone to my apartment.” At a minimum, he’d change out of his suit. Perhaps he’d also get in some time in the pool at the apartment building doing laps. Something had to burn the confusion out of his brain.

“Will do,” Haskell said. Her tone was cool. She still had a pile of work to do since he’d shoveled his paperwork at her when she came on-shift.

She’d survive. And it would convince her to support his intention to replace his three guardian PAs with one trained and efficient secretary.

Lewis walked to his apartment, turning over in his mind what the board’s proposed changes would mean for him. What he did, how he acted, would shape the Collegium’s future. He tried Gina’s phone again, but it was still turned off. Unreasonably annoyed, since she had every right to be busy with her own life, just as he was with the Collegium, he fitted the key to his apartment door and opened it.

He didn’t get any further.

“I thought you’d be longer.” Gina swiveled around to face him.

He didn’t have a balcony, but she seemed to have brought a jungle inside, positioning pot plants by the living room window and placing a wicker chair among them. The rest of the apartment was equally transformed. The walls were a light yet not glary white, or off-white. Not stark at any rate. They made the photos he’d hung on them stand out, and Gina had replaced his beige furnishings with strong colors that picked up the colors in the photos. A dark hardwood covered the floors. The kitchen…he didn’t care about the kitchen.

“How?” he managed. The apartment was alive and welcoming, somehow Gina’s while also his.

“I’m a house witch with a credit card.” She walked over to him. “I’m also a woman in love.”

He clasped her hand. “Gina, there are things you should know.”

“Come and see the bedroom.”

He followed her helplessly. Her perfume was a faint tantalizing promise, as was the warm hold of her hand. Her hips swayed in tight jeans. She’d shed her denim jacket and her t-shirt had a laced back, like an evening gown and just as provocative.

“Do you like it?”

The bedroom, idiot!
And the changed bedroom was incredible. The timber frame of the new bed matched the dark hardwood floor which had a thick white rug on it that matched the white of the bed coverings. A red armchair and jungle-green curtains somehow also worked.

“It’s great,” he said inadequately. He was desperate to accept what she was offering—herself—but he had to be honest with her. Totally, self-destroyingly honest. “I want to rip your clothes off and make love to you right now.”

She smiled hugely. “Exactly the effect I was going for.”

“But there are two things you need to know.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, suddenly as serious as him. She tugged him over to the bed and sat beside him. “There’s one thing I need to know. Then you can tell me anything else.” She took a deep breath. “It’s only been four days since we met, but…do you love me?”

“Yes.”

She sagged against his shoulder.

Not the most romantic response, but then, nor was his bitten out “Yes”.

“Can I tell you the rest, now?” he asked.

She nodded against his shoulder.

“First, the board surprised me at the meeting, today. They’ve rethought the restructure of the Collegium and while I’m to remain as president, they’re splitting the traditional duties of that role into those of a chief executive officer, to be responsible for operational matters primarily, and that of chairman. I would be chairman, which would free up some of my time. That’s the good news.”

Gina drew back from Lewis. So far, everything had gone with dream-like perfection. He loved her! But this news…she hadn’t realized how much she’d counted on Lewis’s commitment to the Collegium to keep him from journeying on the Deeper Path—and leaving her behind.

“With your freed up time, would you be taking the Deeper Path?” She’d told him yesterday that when he did, she couldn’t maintain a relationship with him. To watch him distance himself, emotionally and in experience, would be a slow death for her. But now, she questioned whether she had the courage to say
no
to having him any way he’d let her.

Lewis turned to face her, hooking a knee up on the bed. “I know that you’ve been pursuing clarity of sight and the Deeper Path for a long time. It’s been your dream.”

“If you’re going to suggest that you could translocate me with you,” she broke in. “It wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t be able to see what you saw. And besides—”

“I won’t be journeying the Deeper Path,” Lewis said. As she stared at him, he added. “Or at least, I won’t be leaving Earth to do so. I want to learn about the silver energy I see and how I can use it, and why the demon’s energy looked like copper. It makes me wonder if human magic, the golden threads, are an in-between state.”

“You’re not leaving?” Gina interrupted.

“I know the Deeper Path has been your dream, so me rejecting it might seem—”

She stopped his words with a kiss. A kiss that toppled him over and continued as they stripped each other of clothes and inhibitions.

“I take it that you don’t mind that I’ll be around more and not taking the Deeper Path.”

Naked and panting over him, incredibly aroused by his touches and passion, she answered from the heart. “The only thing you need to explore is me.”

Lewis smiled his slow, devastating smile. “I can do that.”

I’m so glad you enjoyed
Dragon Knight
. I’ve wanted to write Lewis’s story for ages, and it was just as much fun—and as intense—as I’d imagined. Gina is certainly the perfect match for him.

You can find the other Collegium books at Amazon; i.e.
Demon Hunter
and
Djinn Justice
. They tell Fay and Steve’s story.
Doctor Wolf
, Steve’s sister’s story, will be out late April 2016.

Sign up for my New Releases newsletter is available at
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—and you can chat with me at either place, or on
Twitter @Jenny_Schwartz
. I love to talk about books.

Happy reading!

Jenny