Free Kindred of the Fallen by Isis Rushdan Page B

here at the house when we’re in town,” Cyrus said.
    Abbadon stood a tad shorter than Cyrus, dressed in navy fatigues, a sleeveless shirt and boots. Bare sinewy arms accentuated his lean, muscular frame. He’d only spoken for a moment to Cyrus, but his disposition seemed as unyielding as his stiff stance.
    Cyrus dropped his arm from around her shoulder, leaving her exposed, unprotected. She edged closer to him, wanting to snuggle into the shelter of his chest. He was the reason she had almost been kidnapped by thugs and thrust into harm’s way, but she’d never felt safer than enveloped in his warm embrace.
    “And this is my ward, Cassian.” He turned to the young man, who hurried over. “He’s Talus’s brother.”
    “Ward?” Her cheeks burned hotter. “You raised both of them?”
    Cyrus nodded.
    How silly to be jealous of Talus.
    Cassian swooped in and shook her hand in a firm two-handed grip. Charged current nipped her fingers. She waited for the undulations of her core to give her a glimmer of the boy’s soul, but there was only his ecstatic grin and handshake for her to go on.
    “Go to the city and keep your sister company,” Cyrus said to the young man.
    Cassian cast a glance at Serenity. “How long do we have to stay away?”
    “You’re not being exiled. You’d think you two might appreciate a couple of days off.”
    She wasn’t sure the other evening, but now she was certain of it. Cyrus didn’t have an accent of any kind, his diction crisp and intonation fluid. He spoke like a man who either had no roots or belonged to the whole world.
    “So you want us to stay gone for two days?” Cassian asked.
    “Go have fun. And take a car. I don’t want you on a motorcycle.”
    Sighing, Cassian traipsed away.
    Abbadon eased forward. Sharp eyes the color of the ocean after a storm studied her. At first glance he appeared bald, but a thin layer of dirty blond hair covered his oval head.
    The same electric clip she had felt from Cassian brushed her before she shook Abbadon’s hand. She sifted through the layers of her core, scanning for something, but her internal barometer was kaput. Any sense of what to make of them, besides the exterior they presented, had been masked. She was blind around them.
    Abbadon looked at Cyrus’s chest. “Trouble?”
    Cyrus picked at the hole in his shirt. “I took care of it.”
    They stood in front of a stone path running through trimmed hedges on the side of a Mediterranean style villa. A vibrant green lawn sprawled to the right. A seven bay garage ran along the left side of the mansion.
    “Where are we, exactly?” she asked.
    “My home in Valhalla.”
    “We’re upstate?” She took in more of the lush surroundings. Trees with long limbs stretching from the base of the trunk lined the drive she had missed coming up, forming an archway of emerald foliage that scattered the light. Clusters of purple azaleas adorned the path.
    “Not quite. We’re in Westchester, near White Plains.”
    “If we’re not in one of the five boroughs of NYC, then we’re upstate.”
    Cyrus took her by the hand and headed toward the veranda.
    “We should call the police and file a report,” she said as they ascended the steps.
    Abbadon tilted his head to the side, his expression a tangle of curiosity and amusement as if the suggestion had been outlandish.
    Cyrus breezed through the front door. She twirled around the opulent foyer, trailing him, soaking in the gleaming cherry hardwood floors with marble insets and a dome ceiling so exquisite it must have been hand-painted.
    “Involving more humans, especially police, would only complicate things,” Cyrus said.
    More humans. There it was again, that razor sharp distinction.
    Those mercenaries had told her he wasn’t human before he’d unloaded about being Kindred. And she had witnessed impossible things, like him stopping the blade of a sword with his arm and surviving the blast of an energy gun from a sci-fi movie.
    She grabbed the