Free Unbinding by Eileen Wilks Page B

now.
    I see two possibilities, both of which will entail additional outbreaks. In the first possibility, the chaos energy was undirected, in which case it will continue to break out randomly until it has been exhausted. In the second, the chaos energy was directed. If so, it is unlikely that Dyffaya áv Eni achieved his goal—whatever that may be—with a singular outbreak, so you may expect more.
    “Wait a minute,” Kai said, her stomach going tight and unhappy. “Wait one minute. Dyffaya is the sidhe god we just—well, not killed, because he was already partly dead. Defeated, I suppose. But his knife is truly dead. Nathan killed it. That was supposed to destroy his link to our realm.”
    So we believed. But while Nam Anthessa is gone, its energy is not. If that energy is being directed, who better to do so than the god of chaos? This is why I owed Nathan Hunter a warning before departing. Dyffaya is best known as the god of chaos, compulsion, and madness. He was also, at one time, the god of revenge.

SEVEN

    “Y ES, but it was a very long time ago,” Nathan said.
    Kai straightened from extended triangle back to mountain pose. “How long?’
    “Dyffaya hasn’t been the god of revenge for . . . eh. I’m not sure of the years, but he hadn’t yet been killed when he lost that particular domain, and his body-death took place during the Great War. A very long time ago.” He tossed several pairs of socks on the bed, where a small pile of underwear and two pairs of jeans waited.
    Kai inhaled and bent to the left. When they got back to the lupi Clanhome, she’d traded her glasses for extended wear contacts. She didn’t even have to take them out at night, which she loved; waking up unable to see clearly had been a problem on one of her quests. “So you don’t think he’s keen on getting revenge on you for killing his knife?”
    “I expect he’d like that very much. I’d better have the new suit along, don’t you think? Just in case.” He went to the closet.
    Now to the right. “You don’t seem upset at the idea.”
    “I don’t much care for suits, but—oh. You meant about Dyffaya. I’ve made enemies before. I expect I will again.”
    “You have any other enemies who are gods?”
    “I don’t think so. Should I take one dress shirt or two?”
    Exasperated, she stopped to look at him. He was studying the clothes on the bed, his eyebrows pulled together in thought. His colors were as thoughtful as his expression—blues and greens, mostly, with traces of the amethyst she always saw in the Wild Sidhe.
    Even at times like this, when she was ready to knock some sense into him, the sight of him pleased her eyes. Not that he was extravagantly gorgeous like Cullen Seabourne. Nathan was more Jimmy Stewart than Brad Pitt—tall and lanky, with the kind of face that made people feel welcome instead of making them swoon. A Hispanic Jimmy Stewart, that is, or Native American, or some other nationality with warm brown skin and hair as black as the space between stars. Hair as black as a hellhound’s, in fact. At the moment, it was much shaggier than those sleek beasts. Nathan didn’t let his hair grow long, as that gave an opponent something to grab in a fight, but he hated haircuts and put them off as long as possible.
    He must have felt her looking at him, because he looked up and smiled. A soft, pleased pink washed through his thoughts.
    When she first met him, Nathan hadn’t smiled often. He smiled more now, but each one still arrived like a discovery, created on the spot for just this moment. This particular smile said,
there you are
, with as much pleasure as if he’d been looking for her for hours instead of sorting through socks and underwear. She smiled back. She couldn’t help it. “I think it doesn’t matter about the shirts. You don’t even know for sure you’ll be going anywhere, much less when or where.”
    “The when and where depend on when and where the next chaos outbreak occurs,