“Sure thing.” Constantine’s voice sounded clearly over the speakers.
Graydon said, “Text me when you’re ready to pick this up again.”
Then Dragos strode around the corner of his desk, wearing a look of concern on his hard features. He frowned. “You’ve been crying.”
She gave him a twisted smile. “Yeah, I got emotional after I watched Liam go into the building. He didn’t want me to come with him, and he ran in without a backward glance, and I was so glad that he was strong and secure enough to do that. . . . Then I cried like a baby all the way home.”
He pulled her into his arms, and she went gladly, soaking in the feeling of his fierce energy as it wrapped around her protectively.
She found her favorite spot, the slight hollow of breastbone in the middle of his chest where she could rest her cheek. They stood like that for moment and then she said, “I don’t want to be a helicopter parent, but you know, if he keeps growing like this, he’s going to be . . . What, like a twenty-eight-year-old when he’s actually two? That bends my head, and it makes me worry.”
She felt Dragos shaking his head. “Tough as it is to adjust your thinking, we’re never going to be able to judge him by normal standards. He’s too much of a prodigy.”
“I know, but my own past was so human, I don’t understand how he knows the things he knows.”
His fingers threaded through her hair. “The first-generation of the Elder Races were all fully formed when they came into being at the birth of the world. Magic has long since settled into balance, but in the beginning, it was nowhere near as defined. It ran hot and wild, and crazy things happened. It’s possible the only reason Liam is having any kind of childhood experience at all is because he was conceived, and he didn’t form spontaneously as the first generation did.”
She thought back to her shock when she first found out she was pregnant. She muttered, “His conception seemed kind of spontaneous to me.”
She could hear the smile in Dragos’s voice as he continued, “He’s also the product of two very rare and magical parents, and the combined Power he has inherited from each of us is quite unique. If he had been conceived at the beginning of the world, he might have sprung into existence fully formed too. As it is, he has to contend with the laws of nature as they are now.”
As she listened to him, she calmed. He was always so much warmer than her. She reveled in his body warmth, in the hard strength of his arms resting around her, in all the sensual evidence of his presence. “I love listening to stories about how things were in the beginning. It sounds fascinating.”
“It was a dangerous and unpredictable time,” he told her. “And, yes, it was fascinating too.” He rested his cheek on top of her head. “At any rate, all this talk about Liam is pure speculation, as we have virtually nothing else to compare him to.”
“We’ll just have to accept whatever the future brings us, and it’s okay,” she murmured. “I’ll adjust. The main thing is that he’s healthy and happy.” Tilting back her head, she gave him a wry smile. “One thing’s for sure—it’s never dull around here, is it?”
His sexy mouth widened. “No, it never is.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry I interrupted your meeting.”
He cupped the back of her head in one big hand. “You should always interrupt me. If I’m in the middle of something urgent that can’t be put on hold, I’ll let you know.”
Her gaze slid over to one corner of his office. Crates and stacks of books dominated that area of the room. The large round conference table was piled high with even more books, and there were more crates waiting his attention in the library.
Since July, Dragos had spent a virtual fortune on a variety of books on history and politics, both human and Elder Races, and the subject of each cluster of books focused on the gaps he had discovered in his memory.
Along with reading obsessively late into the night, he spent long hours talking to each of the sentinels, while major corporate decisions had been put on hold. His businesses, along with the Wyr demesne itself, were treading water but not making any forward strides.
Thankfully, they had the most active time of the political season behind them for the year. Dragos’s assistants, especially Kris, were dedicated to the point of obsession, and with the sentinels’ help, Dragos could afford to take time to concentrate on his own healing.
She asked, “How is it going?”
“Nothing new.” He growled, “I’m learning a lot.”
The frustration was evident in his voice. During the first few weeks of his recovery, he’d had several strong episodes of spontaneous memory retrieval. Now he recalled almost everything from the last few years, but since then, he had discovered that he’d lost entire centuries, and it had been at least ten days since he’d had his last breakthrough.
And, as he was quick to point out, so much of what had really happened in history had never made it into any book. Most of Dragos’s life, in fact, including any number of private wars, feuds, pacts, and betrayals.
Closing her eyes, she rubbed his wide, muscled back. “I’m so sorry.”
And she was. She was terribly sorry about his frustration, and she understood how the whole experience contributed to him looking at the world through even more distrustful eyes. He believed that they were more vulnerable now, and what he didn’t know could possibly hurt them one day.
But in a way, she couldn’t relate. She didn’t care about what had happened that far in the past. All that really mattered to her was that he was hers again, that he remembered her, that he had regained his physical health and he loved and needed her as much as he ever had.
The Wyr demesne was strong. They had all kinds of help and protection, and they could rebuild anything else.
She asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He buried his nose in her hair, took a deep breath and sighed. “You help just by being here.”
“Well, that bit is easy,” she told him with a smile. “Because I wouldn’t be anywhere else.” After a pause, she added more gently, “I do get concerned sometimes at how hard you’re working. It’s only been a month since you got hurt, so you might very well have more memories return. But I hope you can come to terms with the fact that you might not, either.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” he said. The tone of his voice had turned dark and edged. “But I’m not there yet, and in the meantime, I won’t let go of a single moment of my life without a fight.”
That ferocity of his was one of the very things that had drawn her to him in the first place. He wouldn’t let go of anything of his without a fight. And he was the meanest, nastiest fighter she knew.
Drawing comfort from that now, she lifted her head, and he responded readily, cupping her chin and covering her mouth with his, until everything else fell away in the brightness of the fire they created together.
Chapter Three
School was every bit as interesting as Liam thought it would be.
Well, actually the schooling bit wasn’t very interesting, but Mom and Dad had already warned him that he would know a lot more than other first graders. Be patient, they had said. Your school experience is going to be different from everyone else’s.
Everything else was awesome.
His teacher’s name was Mrs. Teaberry, and she was pretty old. He couldn’t tell what exactly Mrs. Teaberry was—he wasn’t very good yet at identifying other peoples’ natures—but she might be part Fae. Her hair was gray, and she had interesting lines on her face that moved around as her expression changed.
There were twenty kids in his class, and he watched them with fascination. Some were boisterous and excited, and others seemed timid and shy. One of them cried quietly for a few minutes, hiding it behind one hand. He felt bad for her, but as he sat across the classroom from her, there was nothing he could do to help.