Page 35 of Fortune's Ashes
‘Yeah.’ I sighed.
Lukas raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re not surprised, are you? You’re the only phoenix, Emma. That’s the way it works.’
My feelings about it were complicated. ‘Whether he was becoming a pain in my arse or not, I certainly didn’t want him to die. If he’d resurrected, my name would have been cleared for his murder.’ I waved a hand around. ‘And there would be someone else to share this weirdness with.’
Lukas snorted. ‘Nobody seriously believes you’d kill the man.’ He might be surprised. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘from what we know of him, he wasn’t the sharing type. He was a con artist, nothing more, nothing less. I have no sympathy for him.’
I believed him, but that didn’t make me feel any more relaxed about the conversation we were about to have. Swallowing hard, I met his eyes. ‘I didn’t plan to run away that night.’ The words burst out of me as if I couldn’t control them. ‘When you proposed, I mean. I’d learned something new that made me act like that.’
Lukas didn’t move a muscle; even his face suddenly looked as if it were carved out of granite. There were only two feet separating us but it felt like an abyss. ‘Something new, D’Artagnan?’ His voice roughened. ‘Because of something I did?’
‘No!’ I shook my head. ‘God, no, it wasn’t you. It was,’ my voice faltered as I recognised the cliché, ‘it was me,’ I finished in a near whisper.
The only evidence that Lukas heard me was a faint tightening around his mouth.
‘You remember Zara,’ I said, referring to the only other Cassandra I’d ever met.
‘Of course I do.’
I dropped my gaze. ‘Something happened after she died. I touched her body in that house and I felt something, something like an electric shock.’ I raised my head and risked looking at his face again. Confusion flickered across it; of all the things, he must have imagined I would say, he’d never expected this.
I rushed on. I had to tell him now, before I lost my nerve. ‘Then later I saw something. Like a – vision. In my head.’ I wasn’t explaining myself very well. ‘I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I saw images that later turned out to be your proposal. I saw the future before it happened, Lukas. And it’s not the only time. There was an incident on Baker Street yesterday. Plus, the reason I was at Phileas Carmichael’s office before Cobain died was because I’d had a vision that something was going to happen there.’ My voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I’m a Cassandra. Zara’s power must have transferred to me.’
Lukas stared at me as the silence stretched out between us. I felt the familiar return of oily nausea, but this time it wasn’t pregnancy induced. Eventually I couldn’t stand the silence. ‘Are you going to say anything?’
He slowly ran his tongue across his fangs and placed the cushion to one side. ‘That’s it? That’s the reason you left me?’
I blinked, startled at his note of disbelief. ‘Did you hear me? I’m a Cassandra. There’s no doubt.’
‘I heard that part.’
My fingers twisted together. ‘I’m sure those vamps you had trailing me told you how much time I spent at the Carlyle Library. I’ve been through every book I could find, and there’s no cure. I’m going to be like this until the day I die! Properly die, I mean.’
He continued to watch me.
‘You hate Cassandras, Lukas. You despise them – you’ve told me that more than once. In fact, you hate anything to do with prophetic visions of the future.’
Lukas leaned back and crossed his legs. A tiny smile lifted the corner of his mouth. ‘D’Artagnan,’ he drawled, ‘there’s nothing you could do that would make me hate you. Ever.’
‘You say that now but—’
‘Ever,’ he repeated. His smile widened. ‘You’re right that I don’t like the power that Cassandras wield, and yes, I’ve told you that it terrifies me. But that’s because it’s the sort of power that can’t be trusted unless it’s in the right hands. I didn’t know Zara, and I was genuinely frightened by the thought that someone whose motivations and morals I couldn’t ever properly know possessed that sort of power. But I knowyou, and I can’t think of anyone I’d trust more to be a Cassandra. You won’t abuse it and you won’t use it for your own ends. I trust you. More than I trust myself.’ He gave me a satisfied look. ‘In fact, I can foresee that you’ll do an incredible amount of good with it. I can help you.’
He wasn’t getting it. ‘You hate what I can do. Sooner or later you’ll end up hating me too.’
‘Hate is a very strong word. I don’t hate anyone. Or anything – except maybe gherkins.’
Unable to help myself, I hissed, ‘This isn’t the time for jokes!’
Contrition lit his face. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m just relieved that this is all it is. I thought it was going to be much worse, that my proposal had made you realise you didn’t want to be with me, or I’d done something to scare you off for good. We can deal with this. We can turn it into a positive.’
His use of the word ‘we’ almost undid me and I choked back an involuntary sob. ‘You told me once that nobody should wield that sort of power.’
His expression didn’t change. ‘Nobody should, but it’s a fact of life that some people do. Knowing that you’re one of those people actually makes me feel better, not worse.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Remember, I was there after Zara died. Our roles could easily have been reversed. I could have been the person to receive her … gift instead of you.’
He held my gaze. ‘This is not going to be what ends us.’ His tone was implacable. He nodded decisively then continued in a more relaxed manner. ‘You know, when we first met, I really didn’t like the police.’
I nodded; I was aware of that.
