Spartan Resistance (26 page)

“Disciplined enough to do what they say they’re going to do. It’s a lost art, even in today’s military.”

“All that Prussian training, I suppose,” Billy said lightly.

“Probably,” Brenden agreed. “It reminds me of how I grew up. There was never any choice for me. I was going to be a soldier whether I wanted to be or not. Every Spartan was a soldier first and something else after that.”

Billy grinned. “We studied Sparta, in
my
military school. We used to have formal debates over who would win if you put a Spartan and a Roman legionnaire into the ring.”

Brenden smiled. “I’ve heard that one before. Depends on the weapons, in the end. Romans were tough bastards.”

“Coming from a Spartan, I consider that high praise. King William was particularly keen on the Spartan idea of discipline and that was passed on to the entire army. He did manage to carve out a nice little empire for himself using Spartan principles.”

“We had three principles, not twenty of them.”

“He polished them up a bit.” Billy shrugged. “Same general idea. But we didn’t have a Thermopylae to prove our worth, either.”

Brenden sighed.

“Still a tender subject?”

“Always will be.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “My father was one of the three hundred.”

“Sorry.”

“Forget it.” Brenden’s mouth curled up at the corners. “It’s all ancient history, anyway.”

Billy laughed and pushed his glass across to Brenden. “Yes, it is. Here, with my compliments.”

The big man lined the glass up carefully next to the first nearly empty one.

“Why did you come back tonight, anyway?” Billy asked curiously.

Brenden shrugged. “I watched Laszlo leave the villa this morning and tracked him back to his hotel. The Aldrovandi Villa Borghese. You’ve got taste.”

“My favourite hotel in Europe,” Billy said. “That makes sense. Laszlo is me. He would feel the same way about the Aldrovandi as I would. Besides, it’s right next to the gallery.” He picked his next words carefully. “That’s not exactly earth-shattering news. Yet you jumped back here to tell me that?”

Brenden finished the first shot and picked up the second. “I wanted to make sure you settled in okay. You’ve never time jumped before, you’ve never gone back to being human and I dumped you here on your own last night with very little preparation. Most of our clients go through a couple of days of orientation before we take them back on a jump….” He halted, looking down at his glass. “Damn it, of course,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Laszlo turned up a week ago. He said he wanted to take a time tour. But we figure he’s already a traveler, so the tour was a ruse.”

“A way to get inside the agency?”

“To meet us, anyway,” Brenden agreed. “He’s still an unknown quantity and most clients are kept at arm’s length….” He trailed off again, studying the brown liquid in his glass. “Shit,” he muttered and drank the shot.

Billy waited.

Brenden cleared his throat. “He’s ingratiated himself. Mariana thinks he walks on water. Even Kieran, our resident mentalist, says he’s a good guy. Rob is all for handing him the keys to the kingdom and I know Nia and Ryan already think of him as one of the family because of the stunt he pulled at the gala last night….”

“What stunt? What gala?” Billy frowned. “Wait, it’s late August. You’re talking about the Borghese gala? I forgot, out on Evergreen. I’ve been going to that thing every year for eight years now. Of course, Laszlo would have remembered that. Tell me what the stunt was.”

Brenden described the blood-throwing fanatics at the gala and how they had pulled Mariana out of it using Kieran’s peculiar talents and psi-skills, combined. “Laszlo threw himself at the lunatic with the spike,” Brenden finished. “I couldn’t figure out where he’d suddenly developed the courage and physical strength to pull it off, but now I understand.” His gaze flickered toward Billy, then back to the table top. “Everyone at the agency thinks he’s a hero.”

Billy’s heart had been beating steadily since they had arrived in New Orleans. It was one of the most difficult things to adjust to, hearing and feeling his heart running all the time. But now it squeezed hard, making his breath escape in a rush. “Everyone except you,” he finished.

“I might, if I could figure out
why
he did it,” Brenden replied shortly. He got to his feet. “We’d better get you out of sight. I’m not too worried, not back in this decade, but you might give yourself away without realizing it. You’re better off staying out of circulation as much as possible.”

“And stay out of history’s way?” Billy asked.

“Something like that.” Brenden pulled out an old fashioned wallet and withdrew actual money from it and put it on the table beneath the bill the waitress had brought them.

“Not that I can do anything creative without money, here,” Billy pointed out.

“There’s a stash in the back of the linen press, if you need funds,” Brenden said as they left the bar and headed back upstairs via the public staircase next to the bar entrance. “We use these studios a lot, so everything a stranded traveler might need is tucked away for emergency use.”

“Including clothes,” Billy finished.

“Especially clothes. And shoes. Shoes are a dead giveaway. They change so much from decade to decade and they’re the hardest to reproduce authentically. If you ever think you might be talking to a traveler, check his shoes. If he’s just arrived and hasn’t had a chance to buy contemporary shoes, it’ll stand out like a sore thumb.”

“Perhaps someone should look at Laszlo’s wardrobe,” Billy pointed out.

“He covered that,” Brenden said, pulling out the key for the apartment from his pocket. “If he’d got a single detail wrong, someone would have spotted it. We all are familiar with anomalous slip-ups and he’s been vetted up to the eyebrows. He’s a good traveler. Well-trained.” He unlocked the door and pushed it open.

Billy stayed outside the door, where he could watch Brenden’s face. “Does that bother you? That he fooled you?”

Brenden straightened up. “Not as much as not knowing why.” It was a candid answer, one of only a few straight answers Brenden had ever given.

Billy realized that they were standing close together. It had been completely unplanned, but now he was aware of it, Brenden’s proximity seemed to shout in his mind. Nerve endings came online and his body tensed. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but it seemed to him that he could feel Brenden’s body heat radiating against him—a heat that no normal vampire would have. It was human heat, but he shouldn’t have noticed it, because he was human hot himself.

Brenden grew still and wary, in one in-drawn breath.

“A couple of shots weren’t enough to let me get used to it,” Billy said. He shifted closer, a half step that brought him almost to the point of brushing Brenden’s chest. He was able to look Brenden in the eyes. Brenden’s were black, framed with thick lashes that might have been effeminate on a smaller man.

Brenden shook his head. “You’re reading the wrong signals.”

Billy smiled. “No, I’m not. You haven’t moved away.” Now, he really could feel Brenden’s heat. He could smell him. A spicy smell, purely masculine. His body thrummed in reaction.

Brenden let out a breath that sounded shaky. “I don’t…” he began.

“Don’t…?”

“Do this,” Brenden ground out.

“Sex? Or men? Either way, you’re a liar.”

Brenden’s jaw rippled. His throat worked. But he didn’t speak. Billy recognized that for a moment, he
couldn’t
speak. He was fighting an internal dilemma. Fighting his instincts. And he still had not moved away.

Billy swayed so that his body pressed lightly against Brenden’s and his lips touched Brenden’s mouth.

The soft touch was electrifying. He tasted warmth and whiskey and a surprising softness. His nerves tingled and his body leapt to the most painful alertness, so that just the slight chaffing of the shirt against his skin was almost overwhelming.

He slid his hand around Brenden’s neck, holding him still, so that he could deepen the kiss.

Brenden stirred. His hands came to life, sliding up Billy’s arms, to his biceps. But they didn’t sweep higher. Instead, Brenden’s big fingers gripped his arms and he was being turned and moved into the room. He heard the door shut.

Then Brenden pushed him away, breaking the kiss. His hands gripped Billy’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length.

They were both breathing hard, far heavier than a simple kiss would normally provoke. Brenden’s gaze dropped to the floor, then he looked up again, looking Billy in the eyes. “Damn it,” he said softly. Wonderingly.

Billy knew, as surely as if Brenden had spoken the words aloud. “That kicked up your resistance,” he said.

Brenden shook his head. Slowly. “Not resistance. Guilt.”

“Same thing.”

“Except that guilt is something I know what to do about.” His fingers tightened for a moment. “Stay right here,” he said. “Don’t move an inch.” He let him go and took a small step backwards, bent his knees and jumped. His feet had barely left the floor when he disappeared, leaving Billy with a strumming body and a mind full of questions.

Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2265 A.D.

 “We need to talk,” Brenden said from behind her, making Mariana jump.

She turned, shading her eyes with her hand. He was outlined by the brilliant noon-day sun, a dazzling silhouette. “Talk about what?” She made it sound as casual as she could, even though her heart was racing. Would he never stop sneaking up on her like that?

“Laszlo.”

Mariana dropped her hand and looked down at her board. It was a good way of hiding any reaction that might show on her face. Laszlo had gone back to his hotel hours ago, after thanking Nayara for her hospitality and after pulling Mariana into a fierce hug with his arms iron bands around her waist. He had kissed her until she was breathless.

Then he’d rested his forehead against hers, so that the green in his eyes seemed to be all she could see. “Dinner tonight?” he asked, his voice low.

Her pulse leapt. “Yes,” she said. Her voice was low, too, but that was because her breath had evaporated. Her body throbbed and she could feel the good aches from an enthusiastic night of sweaty sex and tendon-straining pleasure. “Dinner tonight sounds good.” But dinner was of no interest to her at all. Her mind had already leapt beyond dinner, to what might come after.

“Somewhere private, away from the media and blood-wielding protestors,” Laszlo suggested, his thumb stroking across her cheek, leaving silvery sparks in its wake.

“Here?”

“I want to take you away from your job for a few hours and from everyone who might remind you of your duties.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“Do you mind…would you consider my hotel suite?”

“Is there a reason I should not?” she asked, puzzled.

“It seems like such a clichéd location.” He sighed and straightened up, but his arms didn’t let her go. “Especially for me.” His mouth quirked upwards. “I don’t like offering you clichés.”

“But perfectly private locations are difficult to arrange here in Rome and Brenden won’t let either of us use another jump car, not while they’re still trying to figure out what happened to the last one. That leaves public transport and he’d melt on the spot if I even suggest it.”

Laszlo laughed. “It’s difficult to imagine anything making Brenden melt but I do agree with you.” He kissed her. “Once this business is done and we are free to go where we want, I will take you somewhere perfectly private and perfectly pleasant, with not a hotel room in sight.”

Mariana gave him a small smile. “Let’s talk about that once the agency thinks it’s safe for us to move freely.”

Laszlo’s expression didn’t falter. “You still don’t trust me, Mariana. Not completely. But that’s to be expected. Never mind. I will content myself with dinner tonight. And dessert.”

Her heart gave a little skip.

He had kissed her one last time and hurried out to where the taxi was waiting at the bottom of the broad steps, then waved goodbye as he settled inside. Mariana sighed and tried to ignore the tiredness dragging at her. Instead she immersed herself in work, which never failed to absorb all her attention and diminish any worries and blow them far from her mind.

So when Brenden appeared behind her and said they should talk, she had been startled, because she had passed through the command center barely ten minutes before and saw that Rob was in charge and Brenden’s office was empty, which usually meant he would be gone for several hours.

Mariana glanced at the board in her hand. She had five minutes before she needed to report to Nayara on Mavourneen’s progress, which was why she was standing in the south cavedium in the first place. “Can we step inside to talk?” she asked. “The sun is very strong.”

“Sounds good,” Brenden rumbled, startling her all over again. He was agreeing with her?

They walked through the big arch into the south gallery, the long series of interconnected rooms that surrounded the main courtyard at the front of the villa. These were the oldest sections of the villa.

Away from the sun, the air was cool and seemed to whisper through the long, open rooms, bathing her skin with freshness.

Brenden drew her over to the corner of the first long room, between the doors into the next room and the doors out onto the verandah that edged the courtyard, with its tall columns in ranks along the edges. She realized that he was shepherding her in such a way that she would end up with her back to the corner and Brenden in front of her. That seemed far too claustrophobic to her way of thinking, so she waited until they were both in the corner, then stepped around him, lifting the board. “It’ll distract me,” she explained. “I’ll put it on the table over here, then we can talk freely.”

When she returned to the corner, Brenden was the one with his back to the wall. That made her feel much more relaxed. “What about Laszlo?” she prompted him.

Brenden scrubbed at the hair on the back of his neck, ruffling the thick, gleaming black locks. He kept his hair short, which made his shoulders seem that much bigger. “Look, Laszlo seems like a decent man to me—”