I couldn’t trust what he said to me now that I had a small inkling that this could have been stopped, that he could have stopped this. Probably, anyway. Or maybe. Hell, I had no idea, but I felt like he’d lied to me regarding a major life event so that I would choose the path he thought was best, and then I went and had sex with him. As illogical as it was, and heritage be damned as this had nothing to do with logic, I felt betrayed. I glared at him and he glared back, his eyes flashing to that eerie white, ice blue. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, recognizing the threat. I looked away first, uncomfortable with the intimacy of his gaze, no matter how harsh it was.
“There was a man,” I began, and I told them everything.
Letting out a low string of curses, Bahlin got up and walked away, getting in the first available elevator and going up. I turned and followed his retreat, staring after him, confused at his reaction. I was the injured party, not him. If anyone was going to be storming off, it should have been me. I continued to stare at the elevator, watching the light indicate stops and starts at each floor. I thought I knew who the man was now, though with all of the other supes who had foretold of the event, it was impossible to be positive. Not without confronting him, which I lacked the courage to do. Yet. I had a dragon’s ass to kick first. Great way to hone my fighting skills, I guess.
“Why is he so upset?” I asked, though I didn’t direct the question to Sarenia or anyone else. It was merely a verbalization of thought. “I’m the one who’s been wronged here.”
“Likely he’s upset because he wants you to trust him,” Sarenia answered. “And I suggest you strongly think about your second statement.”
I looked over my shoulder at her. “What? Why?”
“As to the first, he’s worked with the Council for the last three hundred years, offering guidance to Niteclifs ever since his election as representative of the shape-shifting and were-factions.
“And regarding the second, to your statement you’ve been wronged? How, child? An honorable man falls in love with you, and you seem to think you got the short end of the stick? It doesn’t follow any form of logic I’m familiar with.”
I didn’t correct her calling me a child. Hell, she had seen and done things that were so old the history books had omitted them as no longer relevant. Freaking Atlantis. I was little more than embryonic when compared to her. What was disturbing was that such ancient creatures would entrust justice to me, but there it was.
And as for logic? I covered that already.
“How has he offered guidance?” I asked, working hard to school the emotion from my voice. Jealousy had no place in my queries.
Sarenia, though, wasn’t fooled. “He has counseled them throughout their ten year term, in both their activities and their investigations. He is a wise man, Maddy, and you will do well working with him.”
Jumping from topic to topic I replied, “And there’s no way to definitively qualify whether or not he loves me in such a short time. I wouldn’t even trust probability statistics to that problem.”
Sarenia leaned back on the sofa, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. Great. I was giving an ancient a stress headache.
“Love is not a probability statistic, girl, and logic has little to do with it, if anything. It is what it is, no more, no less. And the only who can legitimately qualify those feelings would be the owner thereof.” I began to open my mouth to comment that she’d called love both logical and illogical and she said in a reverberating voice that drew stares, “No arguments, Madeleine Dylis Niteclif. None.”
I hunched my shoulders and thought about what she’d said. She was right, and I hate being wrong—hate it enough that I fought against the urge to apologize. “Trust has to come into play. Unfortunately, that’s something Bahlin and I need to work on in every aspect of our professional relationship.”
“And personally?”
“Let’s not go there yet, okay? I may have just sent us down in a blaze of glory, setting a new worldwide record for the decimation of a relationship in less than twelve hours. I’ll get back to you.” I paused, thinking about Sarenia’s role, the mythology of the Atlantean people