Page 30 of Warrior's Reign
“Hasshe seen my flowers, my son?” his mother asked.
He avoided meeting his mother’s keen stare. “She has.”
Mother inhaled. “Vykhan. . .”
“The situation is nuanced,” he said finally.
Her smile was brilliant. She kissed his cheek again. “Well. The ones who are worth it usually are.” Her gaze sharpened, and he knew as soon as she returned to her office, she would pull Reign’s records if she hadn’t already done so. “Don’t you usually invite your new recruits for dinner with the family?”
“You know full well I do. The tradition started with your mother’s mother.” As a welcome, and a way to show honor to someone who had just agreed to devote their life, and possibly the lives of their line from then on, to the service of the royal family.
“I’ll coordinate our schedules.”
“It is possible Reign will not accept.”
She looked at him like he was mad. “She’ll accept.”
After a moment, he forced his mind back onto work. It was never ending, and it prevented him from devolving into an obsession with Reign. He had doubts about involving her in the upcoming assignment, but she was uniquely situated to assist, from Evvek’s preliminary report. . .and if he was truthful, he had wanted the excuse to speak to her alone. He would have to assign her a team leader soon, or it would be noted that he continued to handle such a junior member directly. And anything of note, was gossiped on incessantly throughout the ranks of their small cohort.
Vykhan sighed, and commed Evvek. “She’s in. Prepare a redacted brief.”
12
There wasn’t much time.Reign logged off the comm that kept Ibukay’s people linked and headed toward a part of the city smart humans avoided. Hood over her head, the blue skin enhancement obscuring her humanity, she blended in well enough. She moved quick; when Vykhan commed her for a brief on the upcoming assignment, he’d expect her to respond quickly. She wasn’t ready to reveal her field assets yet, but she needed to speak to them face-to-face.
Two people waited for her in an abandoned restaurant, doors and windows shuttered with steel. She eased around the back and knocked.
The door opened a fraction of an inch. “Password,” a feminine voice hissed.
“You’re fired,” was Reign’s dry response.
The door opened. “That worksss just as well.”
She stepped inside. “I thought it might.”
Lights half-heartedly flickered on, revealing a kitchen stripped bare of everything but archaic commercial appliances and a dull prep counter. A tall Eshai female enveloped Reign in a hug. She was cool to the touch, as usual, her skin an iridescence of green shading into yellow in a pattern of reptilian scales. Bright eyes blinked at her.
“You’re feeling like yourself now,” Martha said, finally releasing the hug. “We were worried.”
Reign shifted, a little uncomfortable. Her stint of depression, of almost giving up, had affected others. While brooding at her family home, she’d contacted her team and ordered them to disband—just a day before Ibukay found her. They hadn’t though, waiting.
“I won’t do it again,” she said quietly. “I haven’t lost someone before.”
“The first time iss alwayss difficult. Some time to grieve iss understandable.”
“Itis good to see you, girl,” Reign said, squeezing Martha’s forearm. “Where’s Icolo?”
“Here.” The baritone voice came from a darkened corner. A scrape of metal on the tiled floor and then a man came into the dim light.
Night black skin, silver hair cropped short, and wide, unblinking eyes a shade of green that shamed emeralds, the Aeddannar male stopped several feet away and surveyed her, his arms crossed over his chest.
“So,” Icolo said. “You don’t plan to abandon independence entirely.”
Reign looked around for a chair, settled for a stack of crates, and sat. “No, but we’ll need to screen our clients to avoid those with hidden agendas. I won’t be an unwitting inroad to the palace.”
“Makesss sense,” Martha said. “Do you need uss?”
“Of course.” Reign frowned at her. She’d never kept a large staff when she freelanced, but she’d needed more than rotating independent contractors. Icolo and Martha handled recog, admin, and were extra muscle.
