"This is so lovely," I couldn't help but say, wondering how many people it took to keep up a house and grounds of this size. The room we were in was clearly a favorite, the walls a dappled oatmeal color, bearing a number of small, brilliantly colored, but obviously quite old paintings of the Renaissance style. Antiques mingled with more comfortable furniture, a blue and cream rug on the floor mimicking a mosaic. Outside, the garden was dotted with red and amber flowers, along with a thousand different shades of green. "And the views are outstanding."
"Perhaps you and I should have our discussion in the library," Kristoff said slowly, his speculative gaze on me.
"There's nothing you can say to me that you can't say in front of Cora," Alec said in an even tone. "For lack of a better phrase, we are bound together."
"Temporarily," I said quickly, giving him a look that should have melted his hair right off his head. "We're temporarily bound together."
"Cora is in denial," he told the two of them. "There's nothing temporary about our bond."
"Er . . . bound together how?" Pia asked, her face rigid with some strong emotion.
"It's a long story. What did you have to say to me?" Alec asked.
Pia swallowed nervously, glancing over at Kristoff.
"Maybe I should leave," I murmured, moving toward the door. "I think I'm in the way."
"You're not - " Alec started to say at the same moment that a shadow moved in front of me, and a woman stood in the doorway, pinning me back with a glare.
"Yes, you should leave. You're most definitely in the way, and I, for one, don't appreciate you trying to steal my man."
Alec spun around to stare at the woman, a stupefied expression on his face. "Eleanor?" he said, looking as if he had just taken a kick to the gut. "It can't . . . Eleanor ? "
"Who exactly are you?" I couldn't keep from asking, the hairs on the back of my neck rising.
"I'm Eleanor of Riger," she said with a venomous look and toss of her head. "And I'm Alec's Beloved."
I stared at the woman, stunned beyond anything in my experience. She was shorter than me, barely over five feet, with dishwater blond hair, shrewd black eyes, and a sharp, angular chin that was raised as she looked down her nose at me. This was me? The past me? But how could that possibly be? I shook my head, so confused I just wanted to walk out and leave it all behind me.
"Eleanor," Alec repeated, finally pulling himself together as the woman - I couldn't think of her as me, since she was nothing like me - walked over to him, and without a glance at anyone wrapped her arms around him and damned near sucked his face off.
"Yes, my darling, it's me. I'm back."
"But . . ." My fingernails dug into the flesh of my palms as I struggled to keep from yanking her off Alec. "But I . . . er . . . Alec's Beloved is dead. She was run over by an oxcart several hundred years ago."
"How do you know that?" Kristoff asked, giving me a long once-over.
"I . . . uh . . . I had a vision of the event."
"Ah." He didn't look convinced, but let the matter drop as Eleanor came up for breath. I noticed Alec didn't seem to be fighting her very much, although his expression was anything but overjoyed to see his longlost Beloved. Or, rather, the original version of her.
Jesus wept, what had I gotten myself into? I should be happy she was back. Now I could wash my hands of him and be through with vampires forever.
My inner devil delighted in the feelings of intense unhappiness that thought triggered.
"I was dead," Eleanor said, kissing Alec's chin before turning to face me. I ground off a good layer of enamel trying to keep from yelling at her for doing so. "But they had me brought back."
"We know a necromancer," Pia said, her gaze flicking between Alec, Eleanor, and me. "We thought if we brought her back, the council would be forced to get you out of the Akasha, Alec. We didn't know that you . . . that Cora . . . oh, man, what a mess."
"One that I'm sure we can figure out," Kristoff said, gesturing toward a couple of couches. "Please sit, Cora."
"Where are my manners? Yes, please, sit down, all of you. We have so much to talk about." Pia shook off her stunned expression and smiled as she moved over with me to one of two couches.
"It's a lovely room," I said, standing awkwardly by the door, miserable but refusing to acknowledge that when Eleanor, with one hand on Alec, tugged him down next to her on a love seat. "And a lovely house."
"It is pretty, isn't it? It's built on a twelfth-century tower that was later part of a monastery. There's a cloister and everything. But I can show you around the house later - there are so many questions that Kristoff and I have. Like how did you meet the Ilargi who stole Ulfur? And how did you get out of the Akasha, Alec?"
Alec had been watching me with an avidity that evidently didn't make Eleanor happy at all, for she put a proprietary hand on his thigh and gave me a cool look as he answered. "I have Cora to thank for that."