Page 29 of The Bookseller and the Alpha
Powerful? Me? I huffed out a small laugh. “I’m a Null.”
“No, you aren’t,” Leylani contradicted. “I can feel your power.”
I cuddled Pompy more tightly to my chest and she whined, sensing my distress. This was turning out to be a weird day. I didn’t know how to reply. I’d always been a Null, but now maybe I wasn’t.
“Leave it, Leylani.” Akira stepped between us and I immediately relaxed now that the woman’s strange eyes weren’t on me anymore. I turned away, looking out the window, watching the grey sky. It looked as though it would rain. Great. My carpet would get wet unless I got a barrier up against the weather.
Akira’s voice was low but I hadn’t stepped far enough away and I could hear her chewing out her partner. “It’s our job to protect her. It’s bad enough that we’re invading her privacy as it is, without you asking personal questions.”
“But she has power,” Leylani muttered back.
“So what? We’ve got our orders.”
“And they weren’t weird?”
“Enough.” Akira’s voice snapped into the space around us. “Do your job.”
Okay then. As if this whole thing wasn’t already a shit show I had bodyguards who didn’t want to be on babysitting duty. I stopped pretending that I couldn’t hear their whispered discussion. “Listen,” I said, keeping my tone polite. “You don’t want to be here and I don’t need you to be here. I’d much rather just be left alone to tidy up and get my life back into some semblance of order.”
Akira’s spine snapped rigid. “Sorry ma’am, but we can’t do that. We have orders that you’re to rest while this mess gets fixed.”
I ran one hand through my hair. I felt better than I had expected, sure, but who wouldn’t want to rest after the day and night I’d had? The emotional blows of two break-ins plus a head injury and a very confusing morning left me wanting to curl upunder my mound of blankets and hide for the day. Preferably while binge eating ice-cream. But the only person who was going to get my apartment back under control was me. “I can’t rest, Akira. The apartment needs to be fixed up and I don’t have staff to do it for me.”
Did I sound bitter? Perhaps a little. My sister lived in the Palace. It came with the job. She worked damn hard, but she didn’t have to cook or clean for herself. Nor did she have to go grocery shopping, do laundry or worry about her appliances breaking down or intruders in her apartment. It was the biggest perk of her job. Being the personal pre-cog for the Council President—who was probably as annoying and bossy as Luc, given that he was his brother—was no easy job, but it came with all the trappings of living in the Palace.
I sighed. If I was getting bitchy about my sister, I definitely needed a nap. “I’m sorry,” I started to say but Akira’s phone chimed and she pulled it out to look at a message.
“About that,” she said, smiling. There was a knock at the door and Akira stepped forward, checking the peephole.
“Are you expecting someone?” I asked.Moron much? This was my apartment.
“Your staff,” she said, giving me a wink and opening the door.
Five guys in work clothes trooped in. At my evident confusion, even Leylani allowed a small smile to crack her face. “You go rest,” she said. “We’ll handle it all.” My bed was calling me. I really, really wanted that nap. But there was one problem. Leylani must have seen the hesitation on my face. “The bill will be covered by the Palace. Don’t worry.”
Two hours later I woke up from a long nap, feeling much better. Lying in my bed, my hands idly stroking Pompy’s back, I wondered why the Palace was going to cover my repair bills. I’d have to follow it up with one of my bodyguards later.
As if she could sense that I was awake, Akira called through the half-open door. “Want coffee?”
“You’re my hero,” I said, stretching out the kinks in my back as I rose from the bed. Five minutes later, I stumbled past the living room, and into my kitchen, taking the mug of coffee Akira was holding out to me. I inhaled the rich aroma and took a big mouthful.
Wait. I turned slowly, eyes roaming my living room as my conscious brain caught up with the changes in the space. All the changes. The glass-free carpet. The glass sliding door to the balcony repaired and whole. The room was warm and cosy. And my couch...
“That’s not my couch,” I said, pointing to the much larger and newer couch that now had pride of place in my small living room.
“’Tis now,” Leylani said, from where she stood, watching out the balcony window.
I really, really liked the couch. The dark blue leather was perfect. And the style looked familiar. So familiar, in fact, I was sure I’d saved a picture of that exact couch on my phone. I couldn’t afford it, but I’d saved the picture in case I ever won the lottery.
My phone pinged.
Annoying Alpha: Did you have a good nap?
Me: How did you know I’d had a nap?
Annoying Alpha: I have spies everywhere.
I rolled my eyes. Of course the two women in my apartment reported to him.
