Page 29 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
Morgan laughed. “Way. Take it, will you, it’s freezing my hands!”
“On the glass, on the glass!” He swatted aside the tiny silver chip beneath the lighted microscope as if it were a fly. “Here!”
Morgan gingerly deposited the heavy chunks onto the lighted glass base of the microscope and sat back, watching Beckett with an affectionate smile. He leaned down to peer at it. Beneath the glass, the light ticked up several degrees, though he hadn’t touched any dial or switch.
“Whoa,” he breathed, “this is totally new technology. There are all kinds of code embedded in the links, and is that . . . what is that?” A bubble of light the size of Morgan’s wedding band hovered over a jagged spot on the edge of a broken link, illuming the blackened metal from both sides. He made an interested grunt. “I’ve never seen that on any of the other collars.”
“No doubt they’re improving all the time,” muttered Morgan sourly.
Careful not to touch it with his fingers, Beckett used a pair of wooden tongs to rotate the broken collar. The bubble of light followed the move. “Why is it frozen?” He tapped a link. “Honor?”
“Mmm.” Beckett’s Gift fascinated her no end. What must it be like to be a power source all your own? She thought she’d probably use it to create an age-defying diffuse glow around her face, then wondered absently if she could bribe him to follow her around, doing just that. She touched her cheek, considering.
“So Magnus is back.”
“That he is.”
Beckett looked up expectantly, as if just realizing what that meant. “And?”
A swell of emotion
rose inside her, huge and bright, and for a moment she couldn’t answer. Half her lifetime of searching, and finally, finally they’d succeeded. Morgan still didn’t quite believe it was real.
She said simply, “Mission accomplished.”
A new light appeared in his eyes. A new tension sharpened his face. “I want to meet her.”
Morgan recognized that look. It was a version of the expression Magnus got whenever Hope’s name was mentioned, from the time he’d been a much younger man, with an unscathed face and a soul untouched by darkness. He’d never even met Hope, so it made no sense whatsoever, but each and every time someone said her name, Magnus’s eyes would grow darker and hotter, his face flush with something that looked—before he could stifle it—suspiciously like longing.
And here was Beckett doing the same thing. Morgan sincerely hoped every unmated male in this colony wasn’t going to start fighting over her goddaughter. Then again, she thought, brightening, we haven’t had a proper suitor challenge around here in ages.
God knew Honor wasn’t going to be helping that situation along anytime soon, prickly ice queen that she was.
“You will. Just not right now; she’s on her way to meet the Assembly. Which is where I should be going, incidentally.” She stood. “I’ll see you—”
He stood also, abandoning the collar. “On her way to the Assembly? How long has she been here?”
“Hours, ducky. She’s been asleep—”
“And I’m just now finding out? Why doesn’t anybody tell me anything around here?” He seemed really aggravated. He stared at her, awaiting an answer.
“Because, dear boy, you spend most of your time hunched over this table, fiddling with your computers and sending encoded messages all over the world—”
“Planning is a necessity when you’re trying to overthrow a totalitarian regime—”
“—which doesn’t allow for much in the way of conversation. Your groupies might love you, but they’ve learned by now not to come knocking when the lab lights are on. Hence your lack of knowledge on the comings and goings of new—and quite lovely, I might add—persons.”
The treats and presents look returned to his face. He crossed his arms over his chest. Trying to seem nonchalant and utterly failing, he drawled, “So. She’s pretty then.”
Drily, Morgan said, “She looks exactly like her sister, Beckett. She’s more than pretty.”
His lips twisted. “So she’s scary pretty.”
“When I said she was lovely, I wasn’t talking about her face.”
Now he looked confused. “So she’s . . . nice?”
Morgan considered that. “If by ‘nice’ you mean she’s the type of girl who’s afraid to say what’s on her mind, or ask for what she wants, or wouldn’t tell you when you’re being an asshole because she might bruise your delicate ego, then, no. She’s not nice.” A smile lit her face. “She’s unnice. In fact, she’s decidedly wicked.”
