Page 41 of Rock Bottom
His gaze landed on my chest, and he looked at Kirsten, who told him, “It chose her. I don’t think I’ve ever explained it to you?”
He shook his head. “I recognize it as yours because I’ve seen you wear it. What do you mean, it chose her?”
“It’s an ancient object of power,” Cora told him. “It chose Kirsten a while back, possibly because she has dealings with the person who owns the other half of the original necklace or pendant or whatever. It’s probably realized she’s never again going to be in a situation where the two halves might find a way back to each other, and it seems to have picked your Silver.”
“Does this put Silver in danger?”
I noted that Julian opted to use my name rather than a pronoun. I was dressed like a girl, but I was feeling more male at the moment. I’d gone into boy mode while bouldering, but the fright of the necklace had pushed me even farther male. Julian often picks up on that, and I now understand he does it by scent. Knowinghowdoesn’t make it feel any less intimate. It’s still huge — that he can read me so easily, without me ever having to say a word.
“It might,” Cora told him. “We’ll do everything in our power to inform her of the dangers and figure out how to keep her safe. There’s no immediate risk of the necklace doing anything to put her in danger while she’s on this property, though. She’s safe at Homewood.”
I looked at my plate. I only had a few bites of food left, but I suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore. Kirsten had shown me the bin for uneaten food, and I scraped my bowl and plate into it, and then rinsed both and put them in the dishwasher along with my glass. “Anything else I can do to help clean up?” I asked Kirsten and Cora.
“No, go with Julian and have fun,” Kirsten told me. “We’ll talk later.”
“We can sit on the patio, we can go back to the suite we were in earlier, or we can…” He tilted his head. “There’s a hot tub, and I sense tension. Would you like some wine or beer while we soak?”
I turned to Kirsten. “You said I can’t hurt it, so I’m assuming it’ll be fine in the hot tub? I could take it off, but I’m guessing it’ll just come back to me.”
“Nothing’s going to hurt the coin, and the chain is titanium. Water isn’t going to faze either of them. I have a special box for it. I’ll put it in your room, and you can try to take it off and put it in the box. It may stay there since it’s in your room, or it might jump right back on you. It was on a leather piece when I got it, and Mordecai had the titanium chain made. Doesn’t matter what it’s on, the coin can make it longer or shorter. I was knocked out once and someone tried to take it off me, and it made the chain super short, so they couldn’t get it off over my head.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want it.”
She frowned, thoughtful and sad. “I’m sorry. Truly.” She looked at it on my chest and met my gaze again. “Mordecai will likely check in soon, and I’ll get his input on what we might do, but as far as I know, once it decides something, that’s what it does.”
“Put it out of your mind,” Cora said. “Have fun with Julian. Go.”
Julian walked me to a screened-in balcony and took the lid off a four-person hot tub.
“There are no cameras directed towards the hot tub, though security has one that’s aimed at the door going in and out,” Julian said while he took his clothes off. “You know there are hawks during the day, so you can probably guess there are night creatures out during the night. Nudity isn’t a big deal here, with so many shifters around, but I want to be clear there’s no expectation of privacy, other than no camera pointed directly at the hot tub.”
I nodded, stripped down to my panties, sat on the edge of the hot tub, lifted enough I could take my panties off, and kept my legs together to spin around and drop into the water. No way had anyone seen what was between my legs.
He grinned and stepped into the tub. “Well done. Marco sent me some images of you climbing on the boulder in the meadow, and of you talking with one of our hawk security guards. It seems you’ve kept yourself busy. I hope it was an enjoyable day outside.”
“Camera images? How many cameras are on the property? If they caught me playing music, that could be a problem.”
He shook his head. “Telepathic images, from the view of the security person watching you. I have no idea how many cameras are on the property, but I know they’re scattered pretty heavily around the house and the farmhouse. No one’s going to see or hear anything you played, though. I’m telepathing Marco now to make sure he knows you have a concern, and he’ll see to it no one shares anything the cameras picked up. They wouldn’t have anyway because…” He shrugged. “They wouldn’t, but since you’re concerned, Marco will see to it there isn’t a problem.”
I relaxed. If something leaked we’d deal with it. Not the end of the world, and it might make the song more popular in the long run, having the extra publicity.
“Okay. What’s the deal with the boulder? I recognized it as powerful, though I have no idea how, but it’s like I knew — and then Marco said basically the same thing.”
He smiled. “Marco told me if the subject came up, I could explain. Understand, normally I wouldn’t be able to, things that aren’t my secret to tell, right? So I’m glad he gave me permission. When the wolves, the entire pack, gather for their full-moon run, they walk into the field in their human forms. Cora and her top people stand on the boulder and give a little pep talk, to bring the pack together. It’s this big magical thing, and it’s hard to explain. Later, she and her people come down, and everyone strips andchangesto wolf, and they spend the night in their animal forms, running through the forest and doing wolfie things.”
He lifted my beer and handed it to me, and I took a drink while he continued. “There was a big battle a while back. Major violence, a whole lot of power built up. Bad energy. We won, but it was a close call, and a lot of blood was spilled. It left an imprint on the field, and we’ve been working to bring joy and happiness to the meadow as much as possible.”
“When the big bad vampire, the ancient guy, tried to kill Marco and take over his territory?”
“Yes, but how do you know of this?”
“Kirsten and Nathan gave us the highlights. Old dude, short, with hair on his knuckles, but scary powerful.”
Julian nodded. “Terrifyingly powerful. Yes.”
“Right. So you’re saying it was okay, me being there, because I was… not happy, exactly, but enjoying myself?”
His smile lit his face. “It was better than okay. Mostly, for my part, I’m happy my friends are getting to see the parts of you I’ve seen all along. You’re a phenomenal human. Self-aware, secure in who you are, and so balanced. Everything about you is balanced. The gender stuff, of course, but even your physical versus mental acuity. You get sports jocks who are dumb as a box of rocks, and genius nerds who can’t climb a steep hill without tripping and falling on their face, but you are brilliantandathletic.”
