WarriorsApprentice (13 page)

She gasped and looked up into Ty Borland’s dark eyes. Beside
her, Huon slipped onto one of the wrought metal chairs. He stuck the tip of his
index finger in the crumbs and sucked them into his mouth.

“Terrible waste of good food.” He smiled at her around his
finger and her heart rate climbed.

Ty pulled out the seat opposite her. “How are you?” His deep
voice invested the question with a significance that resonated with far more
than the customary query. It took her back to the night they had spent together
and the things they had done.

“I’m… I’m fine. How are you?” She looked at him and realized
her question was not just a formality. His face seemed gaunt and strained, his
lips tight and his color dull and grayish. “Have you been ill?”

He lifted one shoulder. “I had a slight accident. I’m all
right now.”

“Another training incident?” she asked.

He shook his head but offered no further explanation.

“You were right about Venice being more than just romantic.
Venice is more dangerous than I thought,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
“One of the guys I work with has gone missing.”

A look passed between Huon and Ty, then Ty said, “Maybe he
just got sick of the job and quit without telling anyone.”

“Well, that would make more sense than the explanation my
boss came up with,” she replied, leaning forward. “He’s crazy.”

Although there was no one close she lowered her voice. Both
men moved in closer.

“He thinks there are demons in Venice and he imagines he’s a
demon hunter and he’s going to take them all out. Sometimes he scares me.”

Instead of laughing as she’d expected, both men looked
grave. Obviously neither of them found delusional mental illness a topic for
levity.

“Will it help you to talk about it?” Huon asked, his
attention focused entirely on her. “If there’s anything we can do to help you,
you need only to ask.”

“Huon and I will come with you if you’re afraid to go back
to your apartment on your own,” Ty said.

Touched by their concern, she smiled. “You don’t have to do
that. I don’t really think he’d hurt me.” She thought for a moment and
reassessed. “Maybe he would be dangerous to someone he thought was a demon. I
wonder if I ought to notify someone…like a doctor or a family member.”

Once again Ty looked at Huon, who put his hand on hers. “He
sounds odd. What exactly does he think is happening and what role does he
expect you to play?”

Huon’s concern felt warm and comforting. Hopewood’s behavior
had
been worrying her and she didn’t know what she felt about continuing
to take his money. Maybe if she talked it over with Huon and Ty she would begin
to see things more clearly and if that didn’t work, perhaps another perspective
on the problem might help.

“Hopewood calls himself a demon hunter. He believes another
race dwells on Earth with humans, a race created by and in league with the
devil, and who must be destroyed before they destroy us.” Huon’s indrawn gasp
interrupted her. She smiled reassuringly at him. “I told you he was crazy.
Anyway, Hopewood has set up offices in Venice because he thinks ancient ley
lines cross here and that’s why Venice has always been a center for occult
wisdom. He wants to use the energy of these ley lines to trap demons and force
them to take him to their cities.” She shook her head. “He says he wiped out a
whole demon stronghold, women and children and all.” She looked up and
instantly forgot about Brian Hopewood’s craziness. “Ty, are you sure you’re
okay? You’ve gone very pale. Can I get you a glass of water or something?”

“He’ll be all right. Go on.” Huon had bitten his lip so hard
he’d punctured it, and a tiny bead of blood flowered on it. Ty’s wound must be
serious.

“Okay. Where was I? Oh yes. He says he used ley lines in
China and did the same thing, although there they’re called dragon currents.”
She looked at both men. “Have you heard of ley lines? They’re supposed to be
areas of psychic or mystical energy.”

Ty nodded. “Yes. We’ve heard of them. The study of them is
called geodesy.”

“You mean they’re real? I thought it was just something
Brian made up.” She drew a deep breath. “Anyway. He wants to kill all the
demons in the world…or under it.” She twisted her lips. “It doesn’t sound very
nice and I’m glad none of it is true.”

Ty made a deep, guttural sound, as if he were in pain. Huon
looked at him, his jaw set and his eyes the hard, cold blue of ice. She
wondered just how close the two of them were if Ty’s injury upset Huon so much.
Her consideration of Brian and his bizarre behaviors suddenly gave way to a
completely unexpected image of Ty and Huon making love. The accompanying wave
of lust made her groin clench. Who would have believed the idea of these two
strong males together would be so hot?

“What does he plan to do next?” Huon’s voice, interrupting
her lurid fantasy, brought her back to reality.

Judie assumed he was trying to distract both himself and Ty
from Ty’s condition, so she continued, “At the moment he’s gathering as much
information as he can and trying to expand his hunter group. You wouldn’t
believe it but he manages to find other people who believe all this stuff. Once
he has everything he needs, he says he’s going to launch the definitive strike.
My job is to design and build the gadgets he thinks are weapons. At first I
thought it was harmless but it makes me feel uncomfortable and I’ve just about
decided to quit.”

Ty’s head snapped up. “You’re quitting?”

“I think I should. It doesn’t feel right working as hard as
I do for a non-existent cause. I feel guilty for taking Brian’s money. He’s
clearly delusional and he gives me the creeps. Like I said, I should really get
him help.”

“Hopewood is rich enough so you don’t have to worry about
taking his cash.” Ty’s smile looked false, but at least his color had come back
a little. “If he wants to waste his money on a foolish idea, it might as well
be you he pays. At least you’re sane and sensible and won’t take advantage of
him.”

Judie nodded. “That’s true.”

Huon squeezed her hand. “And if the lunacy gets to you, you
can talk to us about it and know we’ll be happy to listen to you.”

Judie’s pulse rate spiked. “Are you staying in Venice?”

Ty nodded. “For the foreseeable future, yes.”

“If I did quit I wouldn’t be able to get another job in
Venice. Where will you go after…? ” She realized what she was about to say and
her cheeks heated. “That is…”

Ty’s hand came out and covered hers and Huon’s. “Perhaps you
shouldn’t quit your job just yet, Judie.”

“You might just need to take a break,” Huon said. “To get
away from your boss and your workplace for a while. Come for a walk with us. We
could all use the chance to clear our heads.”

“That would be lovely.” She nodded and stood up.

She linked her arm through Huon’s, but when she did the same
to Ty he winced.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You
are
hurt. Perhaps I’d
better just let you go home and rest.”

“Going home is an excellent idea,” Ty said. “But not to
rest. Why don’t you come with us? I can think of lots of things we can do to
make me feel better.”

He smiled and a jumble of excitement, nervousness, heat and
lust tumbled through her.

They led her arm in arm out of the square and along the
bustling thoroughfare.

A sharp tug on her shoulder snapped her out of her state of
anticipatory bliss. She jerked to a halt just as the pressure lightened.

“My bag,” she cried, spinning around just in time to see a
slim figure twisting and turning to disappear into the crowd. “He stole my
bag!”

Before she had finished speaking, Huon leapt into the air,
executing a graceful 360-degree turn, already running as he hit the ground, but
the thief had blended into the mix of people who packed the streets.

“Huon. Leave it,” she called. “You’ll never be able to catch
him.”

“Huon
will
catch him,” Ty asserted. “And he’ll get
your bag back.”

“But it could be dangerous,” Judie replied.

“The petty bag snatcher who could hurt Huon doesn’t exist.”
Ty sounded absolutely confident.

“I’d rather lose the bag than have Huon get hurt,” Judie
insisted. “I read up on travel advice before I left home. You’re not supposed
to resist or give chase if something like this happens. You’re just supposed to
let it go and report it to the police and insurance.”

“Will the police and insurance get you back your house keys?
All the personal things you have in your bag?” Ty stopped and looked up.

Judie followed his gaze to where Huon appeared, Judie’s bag
clutched in one hand, the other wrapped firmly around the wrist of a skinny
young man clad in dark jeans and a thin, worn T-shirt. Huon, with his shapely
lips clamped into a thin line and a frown furrowing his brow, looked powerful
and dangerous. Her fear that he could have been hurt seemed suddenly silly.

A shiver raced up Judie’s spine.

“Here’s your bag,” Huon said, passing it to her. “And…” He
nudged the boy with his elbow, without letting go of his wrist.

“
Scusi, Signora
,” the boy muttered.

“Your apology,” Huon said, satisfaction in his voice. He
turned to face the culprit. “And now, Ty and I are going to make sure this
doesn’t happen again.”

A look passed between Ty and Huon that Judie could not
interpret, then Ty nodded.

“Come on,” Huon said. “We need to go somewhere a bit less
public.” Still maintaining his grip on the boy, he dragged him down the street.

Judie’s shiver turned into a solid lump of dread. The boy
was a thief, but one good look at him told her he was hungry and cold and had
more need of money than she did. He didn’t deserve to be hurt at the hands of
these two strangers. Yes, she’d had sex with these two men—wild, crazy,
unbelievable sex—but what did she really know about them? Just because they had
not been violent with her didn’t mean they were never violent.

A whimper from the boy drew her attention. His face had
paled to a sickly sallow and his hands shook. He dragged his heels, trying to
dig them into the cobblestones, but Huon, strong for all his slight build,
dragged him into the mouth of a deserted alleyway. Judie, bundled along by Ty’s
arm linked with hers, had no choice but to follow.

A few feet into the shadowy street, Ty dropped Judie’s elbow
and shrugged out of his jacket.

“No. Don’t.” Judie’s protest, uttered as it was from a mouth
gone dry, went unnoticed.

Huon let the boy go and thrust his hands into his pockets.
Judie cringed. No matter what the boy had done, two against one, or the use of
a weapon, could never be justified.

The rush of blood pounding in her ears made her feel faint
and drowned out the meaning of the flood of rapid-fire Italian Ty unleashed.

It took her a moment to pull herself together enough to sort
out some kind of sense from the very fluent, very colloquial and very street-oriented
language Ty used. So many of the words were new to her, not included in the
polite vocabulary of everyday social interaction she was used to, but slowly
some of it began to filter through her fear and shock.

“I’m telling you, you little…” she heard. “You can keep…the
tourists.” Tybor’s speech was filled with words she might not have recognized,
but she got the gist. ”Or you can use this…opportunity to change. Do you
understand me?”

The boy’s head bounced up and down in a frantic gesture of
agreement. Broad streaks of pink now colored his cheeks and instead of the
terror Judie had seen before, he looked…embarrassed?

“And you know what will happen if you try this again?” Tybor
asked.

“I won’t. I will do what you say. I promise.” The boy’s
voice quivered but his head kept nodding, over and over.

“Good. Because Huon and I, we will know and we won’t be so
generous next time.”

And with that, Ty draped his soft black leather jacket over
the boy’s shoulders and Huon withdrew his hand from his pocket, bringing with
it a fistful of money that he thrust into the boy’s hand.

“Now go and get a decent job and stay out of trouble.”

“
Grazie
.” The boy backed up, cast a quick look at
Huon and fled the alley.

Huon sighed and turned to Judie. “I hope you don’t mind that
we didn’t report him to the police. We got your bag back intact.” He shrugged
his shoulders. “He’s just a hungry kid. He did the wrong thing but when you’re
displaced from your homeland, surrounded by strangers, it’s easy to make poor
decisions.”

“Especially when everywhere you look,” Ty added, “you see
people who have more than you ever dreamed of having. It seems unfair because
it is unfair. No kid should have to steal just to get enough to eat and keep
warm.”

“No,” Judie said, relief washing over her in a wave. “I’m
glad you let him go. I thought… I was afraid you were going to…” A small
hysterical giggle escaped and she put her hand to her mouth to cover it.

“You thought what?” Ty demanded. “That we were going to hurt
him? We wouldn’t.”

“It looked… You said ‘someplace less public’…”

“We wanted more than one quiet word with him,” Huon said.
“But we didn’t need any onlookers to decide to weigh in against the Gypsy.
There’s too much prejudice in the world. I’ll be damned if I add to it,” he snarled.

“It’s over now,” Ty said, repossessing himself of her arm. “We’ll
go to our apartment and you can have a drink and recover and put it all behind
you.”

Judie agreed and Huon took her other arm and once more they
walked down the busy Venetian streets. For a few minutes, neither man spoke.
Judie assumed that, like herself, they were occupied with their thoughts. Hers had
been momentarily diverted from the promise of sexual pleasure to come. Instead
she pondered the nature of these enigmatic strangers. The compassion and
understanding they had shown added another, richer layer to the most amazing
sexual adventure she could ever have dreamed of.