Page 18 of The Storm
“I just lost a friend.” His voice was hard. “Indulge me.”
Her senses went on alert. “Where are you?”
“Oslo. Are you in Bergen?”
Damn. “No, I’m in the UK.”
“Where?”
She thought about the Irina downstairs. If she brought a scribe in, they’d leave her without a backward glance. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Damn it, Reni. All I want—”
“I’m in the middle of something,” she said. “I’m with good people. Competent people. That’s all I can give you.”
“You’re never willing to give me much, are you?” His voice was bitter. “I suppose I should be used to that by now.”
She’d be angry, but his grief was too raw. “Is Leo with you?” He’d told her about his family, even when she tried to ignore him. It was too much intimacy, but Max told her anyway. “Is Malachi? Rhys?” A tremor of alarm. “Are your brothers all right?”
“It wasn’t one of my brothers,” Max said, his voice going dead again. “It was a friend. I should let you go. You’re busy.”
“Max, I’m—”
He hung up.
“Sorry,” she whispered.I’m sorry.
* * *
Vienna, Austria
2014
Someone was poundingon the door of the rented flat, and she knew it could only be Max. He’d left his key with her. She went to open the door and backed out of his way as he stormed in.
“‘I’ll see you when I see you?’” he shouted. “What was that, Renata?”
She closed her eyes and let his anger smash and fall against the hard wall she’d erected. Then she walked back to the bedroom and continued packing her things.
She’d been in Vienna too long.
The Battle of Vienna would be one to write songs about. If she were still an archivist, she’d already be composing one. The battle of the four archangels, two of them sacrificing themselves in a grand attempt at redemption while giving the Irin and Irina warriors time to fight back the army of Grigori that flooded the city, joined by their new allies, the free Grigori and their newly discovered sisters.
It would be a beautiful and frightening song. Threaded between the grand battles, Renata could sing a softer harmony of quiet nights and peaceful mornings spent with the scribe currently storming through the apartment.
Max stood in the doorway of the bedroom they’d shared, glaring at her and the suitcase on the bed.
“This is it?” he asked her. “This is what you’re doing?”
“What did you expect me to do?” she asked. “Run away to Istanbul with you? Leave my life behind?”
“Everything has changed!” he shouted. “The Irina have come back. The singers’ council has reformed. You don’t have to hide anymore.”
Her mouth fell open. “You did. You expected me to abandon my sisters and run away to be your little mate.”
Max grabbed her shoulders. “Would that be so awful? To be my mate? To have a life with me?”
She wrenched herself away from him. “You knownothing.”
