Page 50 of A Lion's Heart
Everything except where Keller and Gold had been while Nisa and Kyss were with Graham Parker. That was a private conversation, one Decan was going to have the moment he returned to his room.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” the Assembly Leader was saying as he held Nisa in his arms.
They were standing in the hallway now. The First Female smiling at hercompanheiroand her daughter as they embraced.
“I didn’t meant to frighten you, Daddy,” Nisa said in a tone Decan had never heard her use before.
Small pangs of jealously speared into him as he saw how Nisa looked up at her father. There was nothing but love and adoration in her eyes. Decan wanted that same type of look for himself. It was silly, he knew. He’d never planned on taking a mate. But here they were and their scent…it was beyond obvious. Gold had arched a brow when they’d walked in and Kyss had smiled knowingly. If the others recognized it, they hadn’t spoken a word. For that, Decan was glad.
“Let’s have lunch,” Kalina said. “We’ll get Shya, Nick and Ary and all head to the main dining room for something to eat. You must be starving since you’ve been traveling all morning.”
Decan continued to eavesdrop, not feeling one ounce of shame for doing so. Nisa was a part of him whether he liked it or not, which meant what she did and when she did it was his business. Case closed.
She must have felt the same way, at least a little, because she immediately looked over to where he stood. No, she wasn’t asking his permission to have lunch with her parents, but she was wondering what he was going to do. Where he would be while she was with them? She had no idea, he thought. No idea, how hard it was going to be for them to be away from each other now that they shared thecalor.
Neither of them spoke, mainly because Decan didn’t know what to say. Was he really supposed to tell the Assembly Leader that Nisa wasn’t going anywhere without him? No, that probably wasn’t going to go over too well. Besides that, he had to meet with Keller and Gold. Her parents keeping her busy would actually be a favor to him.
Rome turned, glaring at Decan. The Assembly Leader hadn’t asked to speak to him alone yet, but Decan knew a private meeting was coming. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but recognized that these were all steps to his future. Even the jagged little edges that pulled him away from the straight path he’d created for himself. Everything was leading to his own personal end game, one that he deserved.
“Let’s go,” the Assembly Leader said and kept his arm around Nisa’s waist.
He moved until Nisa had no choice but to look away from Decan and walk with her father. The First Female, however, stood in place a second or so longer. She looked at Decan with golden specks highlighting her light eyes. Her arms folded slowly across her chest as she tilted her head slightly and continued to stare.
“Have a good lunch, ma’am,” Decan finally said because his legs threatened to buckle under the intense scrutiny.
It was one thing to stand strong like any other soldier against their commanding officer, because that was not the time or place to show any weakness. The Assembly Leader expected that of him. But as for Kalina Reynolds, being in her line of fire was not something Decan had ever expected, nor did he believe would be as easy to handle.
When the edge of her mouth tilted in a slow smile, he almost breathed a sigh of relief. But it wasn’t until she’d turned and walked away that he let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.
“Bravo,” Kyss said and clapped from behind him.
Decan turned his head to look at the cheetah that was now coming to stand in front of him.
“You managed to make it through the first round.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked her.
“Oh come on, Decan. You can stop the act with me. Your scent is acrid and has been burning my sensitive nostrils since the moment you and Nisa walked through that door. And if you think her parents didn’t sniff out the fact that you’d slept with their daughter…no, you mated their daughter, then you aren’t as smart as they give you credit for.”
Decan’s hands briefly clenched and he rolled his head on his shoulders before speaking. He was not in the mood for her candor.
“Don’t you have something else to do?”
She shook her head and grinned. “Nope. I’m stuck here for the time being but nobody really trusts me enough to give me an assignment or invite me to lunch. So, after I finish razzing you about your new mate and her father who may just pummel you for daring to touch his child, then I’ll probably head down to the pool for a while.”
Decan frowned. “Don’t get comfortable here,” he told her. “Until you can produce some documents confirming your family and their whereabouts, you’re still an unlisted shifter. Most unlisted shifters are rogues. So if you want to keep playing with this team, you’d better come up with some proof that you belong here.”
She stepped closer to him, planting her palms on his chest. When he flinched slightly, because her touch wasn’t Nisa’s, Kyss had the audacity to smile broadly.
“I belong wherever I am,” she told Decan. “You should probably start thinking that way instead of constantly searching for your place in this world. It was in the military. Then it was in the SIC. Now you’re here. Make the best of it and move the hell on. Your bitterness smells almost as bad as that damnedcalor.”
She’d pushed away from him before Decan could do the honors and sashayed her hips down the hallway leaving him to stand there alone. And pissed off because her words had been too close to the truth.
“You’re way off script,” Keller told Decan the moment they were standing in the back of one of the storage rooms.
“Let’s just talk about what went wrong last night,” Decan said.
He wasn’t in the mood to talk about what he knew Keller was referring to. Especially not after is run in with Kyss half an hour ago.
