Page 66 of The Storm
“This is beautiful,” she said, her entrancing voice capturing everyone’s attention. “Does it still work?”
Kyra didn’t speak much, but when she did, it was impossible to ignore her. Max couldn’t explain it other than to say his sister’s voice was magnetic. She was a first-generation daughter of an archangel; everything about her was magnetic. But there was something special about her voice. No one was immune. Not even Peter, who walked toward her.
“It was Evelina’s,” Peter said. “Artis’s mate. It still works, but we do not bake. We buy our bread from a woman in the village.”
Kyra’s smile was open and bright. “If I could get some wood for it, I can bake. I had an oven similar to this in Bulgaria. It was very relaxing, and Artis might enjoy fresh bread.”
All Peter could do was nod. He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he stopped, turned, and walked to the barn with Renata behind him.
Leo came to Max’s side. “We should have brought women home years ago.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” Max said.
“Don’t you think so?” He nodded at Peter. “Look at him. He’s actually speaking.”
“It wouldn’t have worked because we needed to bring these women.” He watched his warrior mate guide the milk cows into the barn, patting them on their backs and trying to engage Peter in conversation. “Only them.”
Chapter Three
If Kyra had tried imagining Leo’s grandfather, she would have imagined an older, white-haired, bushy-bearded version of her mate. And her imagination would have been very close to reality. Artis of Dunte, elder scribe and master smith, sat in a round chair facing the sun. He was a tall man, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was a little stooped by age and displayed no apparent signs of sickness.
But Kyra could see what the others could not. Artis was not sick; he was tired.
She had seen the same look on countless Grigori andkareshtafaces in her life. Unlike the Irin, who could harness magic to prolong their lives infinitely, children of the Fallen all died eventually. They lived longer than humans, but with no Forgiven magic to prolong their life, they were mortal. They persisted in perfect health, untouched by old age, until one day they simply ran out, like a toy whose workings had broken from too much use. Sometimes they lingered in a coma for a few days or their heart would give out suddenly. Then they would return to the heavens, a swirl of dust rising in the air.
If Leo had not mated with Kyra, sharing his magic with her, it would have been her own fate as well.
Artis opened his eyes and turned his face from the sun as Kyra entered the library with a tray of warm bread spread with butter and mugs of fresh milk. The corner of his mouth turned up. It reminded Kyra of Max.
He said, “The food of the angels.”
“Bread?”
“Bread.” He rose and walked to the table. “Fresh bread and milk.”
“Turkish people consider bread sacred, but they eat so much meat.” Kyra set the tray on the table. “I’m not accustomed to it. I prefer bread.”
“Turks are a herding people,” Artis said, sitting down in the smooth wooden chair. “Herding people eat meat. We are farming and fishing people here. We eat fish and what we can grow.”
“And milk.” Kyra sat across from him and raised her mug.
Artis lifted his mug to her. “And milk. The best milk in the world.”
Itwasdelicious milk. She’d visited the market in town their first afternoon at the farm to gather supplies. Eggs, milk, and all the vegetables they could eat could be found at the farm, but they needed flour to bake bread. Oil to cook. A bit of meat, though Leo and Max—normally heavy meat eaters—were happy to eat the egg-and-vegetable frittata Renata had baked the night before supplemented by the smoked fish Peter had caught.
“This place reminds me of a farm we stayed at in Germany. There were apples in the cellar and cabbage in the garden.” Kyra had explored everything, including the path that led from the woods and meadows down to the ocean. “I was young then. My father had a compound there.”
“Barak?” Artis’s lip no longer curled at the name. “Did you stay there with your brother?”
“Yes.”
“The Grigori?”
“Yes, my brothers are all Grigori,” Kyra repeated. “Free Grigori.”
Artis grunted and bit into his bread. The night before when Leo had told his grandfather Kyra’s parentage, the reaction had been involuntary and instant. It hadn’t surprised Kyra, though Leo and Max had been offended. Barak was one of the Fallen, a sworn enemy of the Irin scribes, and she was his daughter. Even if her sire had redeemed himself in his death, Artis had lived for hundreds of years seeing Barak’s children as deadly enemies.
“We get news,” he said. “We do get news up here. That young watcher in Riga forces it on us. Visits once a month whether we want him or not. So I know what you are.”
