She laughed. "That may be, since I expect you to stay at the spa for at least three months."
"What?" Robby gave her and Angus an incredulous look. "Ye canna be serious. If I doona practice with my sword for three months, I willna be fit for duty."
"They also have an excellent Vamp psychologist - "
"Nay!" Robby interrupted her. Now he knew why they were pushing this damned spa on him. "I'm no' going to a psychologist."
"Lad," Angus began. "Ye're suffering from post-traumatic - "
"I know damned well what I suffered. I doona need to whine about it to a therapist. 'Tis a complete waste of time." There was no way he was going to talk about what had happened to him. Why on earth would he describe every painful, humiliating detail? It would be torture all over again. No, it was much better to simply put the whole nasty ordeal behind him. And kill the bastards.
Emma took a deep breath. "If we made it an order - "
"Then I would quit," Robby interrupted again. He could hunt down Casimir on his own.
Angus gave his wife a sympathetic look. "I knew he wouldna agree to yer fancy spa, but ye gave it a good try." He glanced at Robby. "We doona want you to quit, lad. We just want you to get better, both in body and mind."
"I'm no' crazy," Robby growled.
"Nay, but ye're angry as hell, and it makes you too unstable for work. No' only would ye be risking yer own life, but the lives of anyone working with you."
Bugger. Robby ground the tip of his sword against the brick pathway. Angus knew exactly how to get to him. He could never put the lives of his friends at risk. "I might agree to a short vacation. That's all."
"Good." Angus nodded. "Ye can use our castle in Scotland, or Jean-Luc has offered his home in Paris."
"Been there, done that," Robby mumbled. He'd been head of security for Jean-Luc in Paris for ten years.
"Jack said ye could use his palazzo in Venice," Angus continued.
"Does everyone want rid of me?" Robby grumbled.
"We all want you to get better," Emma insisted. "Roman offered his villa in Tuscany or his new one on Patmos."
"Patmos?" He'd never been there before.
"'Tis a Greek isle," Angus explained. "Verra lovely, I hear."
"It's where Saint John envisioned Revelations and the end of the world," Emma added.
"Well, that's comforting." Robby shrugged one shoulder. "Fine. Whatever. I'll go for a week or two."
"Four months," Angus said.
Robby gaped. "What? The spa was only three months."
"The spa had a therapist," Angus reminded him. "We figure if ye're on yer own, ye'll need more time. Of course, ye could change yer mind about therapy - "
"No. Hell, no."
"Then four months it is," Angus said. "All expenses paid. Plus yer usual salary. Ye canna beat that, lad."
Emma smiled. "We'll see you at Christmas, and you'll be so much better."
Better, his arse. This wasn't a vacation. It was a bloody exile. Imprisoned on an island like Napoleon. But then, Napoleon escaped from his first island. Robby figured he could do the same. For a Vamp with teleportation abilities, it would be easy. And no one would ever know.
Island of Patmos, three months later...
Olivia Sotiris eased the back door shut. It had to be about one-thirty in the morning, she guessed, but her inner clock was still on Central Standard Time.