Page 61 of The Seeker
“Ask.” Vasu shrugged. “He knows the truth. All the Tomir do.”
“Fine.”
“Good.” Vasu stretched and turned into his more familiar self, complete with tiger-striped hair and bare skin.
“Clothes, Vasu.”
He glanced down. “Oh.” Vasu didn’t rush to accommodate her wishes. “It’s hot.”
“You still need to wear clothes.”
“Are you sure?”
She looked to the porch where a shadow passed. Someone was approaching the library. “Vasu, seriously,” she hissed, “put some clothes on.”
“Don’t you want to—”
“Meera?” It was her father, standing at the door. “Did you need help finding something?”
Since her father hadn’t gone silent in a killing rage, Meera guessed that Vasu had made himself scarce.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just looking for a topographical map of the Atchafalaya.”
“You’ll need to speak to Roch,” Maarut said. “I believe he just checked out every map and guide for the basin we have.”
“Roch?”
“Yes,” her father said. “Didn’t you hear? Rhys convinced him to act as your guide.”
Chapter Eleven
Rhys kept his eyes on the road and tried not to notice Meera’s gaze on him as he drove northwest toward the Atchafalaya Bird Research Center and Becki, the very nice avian biologist whom he’d been emailing the day before.
He tried to ignore her, but he felt her eyes on him, could almost hear her brilliant mind calculating. What? He couldn’t say. He didn’t know what Meera was thinking of him.
She was attracted to him, or she wouldn’t have kissed him. He was certain of that.
Rhys was also fairly sure she didn’t want to be attracted to him. It could have been a result of her own reluctance toward Irin men or because of too many interfering guardians. He couldn’t imagine a life as prescribed as hers. She’d been raised for a very specific role, and he could tell her personality bucked against it even as she recognized the value of it.
You could be her rebellion.
It was a tempting thought, to be the wild fling of her “vacation” as she referred to her time in Louisiana. To be her rebellion would be to indulge her whims and explore his own. They could be lovers. There could be naked chess. She could tell him more about these scrolls of sacred congress, and he would be her very happy pupil. When they had tired of each other, they could part with burning memories and no regrets.
You idiot. You’d never be satisfied with that.
Rhys wasn’t delusional enough to fool himself that way. He didn’t want to be her rebellion. He wanted more. Butmorewas complicated. Very complicated. More meant considering Meera as a potential mate and a move across the world. More meant navigating political spheres he’d left behind in England. More meant a life as the partner of one of the most prominent—and most targeted—singers in the Irin world.
If she even wanted that, which she probably didn’t. He was being presumptuous even thinking that far ahead. Maybe she was only looking for a lover.
She probably didn’t even want that.
“Am I losing the shine yet?”
“What?”
Roch was snoring in the back seat, and Meera’s eyes were hidden behind dark shades, but he could still feel her gaze.
“This is why I don’t tell people who I am,” she said blithely. “One of the reasons anyway. It’s always too much.”
