vastly improved during the course of their evening sessions.
She leaned forward and studied the board. "I'm going to be in check soon."
Three moves to checkmate, two if she made a mistake and moved the bishop. "It would appear you are correct."
Eve groaned and flopped back into her rocker. "One of these days, my friend, I'm going to win, and when I do, I'm going to make you eat your superior attitude."
Tempest chuckled. Friend. Strange, but he considered her one, too. An unlikely pair to be sure. When Eve had moved to the complex, she’d shunned all things to do with his profession. He'd watched her epic meltdown when he was rescued and heard about her ultimatum to Thanatos. Over the years he'd watched her grow up and mellow out. No longer was she the naive woman who had surfaced at the Rose about the time he had started to take an interest in living again.
"What occupied your day?" She pushed the decking and set her rocker in motion. Her eyes had returned to the chess board, and she studied the squares and pieces.
"PT and sparring in the morning, a doctor's appointment in the afternoon."
She stopped rocking. "Is everything okay?"
He nodded. "Routine appointments."
"Dolan said you were kicking his ass during training runs, and no one can beat you on the mats. You should be happy. He's a man who prides himself in being the best at everything he does."
"He is no longer the best because he won’t train in the tactics and skills he needs to maintain his proficiency without your approval."
Eve sighed. "I know. We've been talking a lot. In here, in my head, I know what he used to do saved countless lives. I know it. I'm working on it. Dolan promises me he doesn't miss that life, but I know keeping him from being able to go if he wants to leave is wrong."
Tempest absorbed the statement and turned it around and around in his mind. Since his captivity, taking his time to decode and decipher intent and sincerity had become the norm for him—perhaps due to the intensive psychological therapy he'd gone through since he'd resurfaced.
No. His internalization of others' words and meanings allowed him to strip his emotion from his responses. The words he uttered needed to be congruent with what would allow him to complete his goals. He had two missions to perform, and he'd be damned if a misplaced comment would sideline him from dispatching his objectives.
He glanced at his friend. She studied the board intently. The metamorphosis of the woman since she’d arrived paralleled his. She’d grown up and he’d grown older. She’d learned to understand her husband's life, and he’d learned to understand what happened in his past affected his future. She wanted nothing but to love her man, and he wanted... two things and only two things—to free Pilar and to eliminate the three Fates thereby destroying Stratus. He stared across the darkness.
"You've changed. So has your man."
Eve leaned forward. The tactic was one she employed when she wanted him to look at her. A tick of a smile twitched at the corner of his lip as he glanced at her for a moment. Only then did she ask, "What do you mean?"
"He's happy here. Content and settled. He wasn't before you."
She drew a ragged breath. "Thank you. You don't know how hard it was to come here and draw a line in the sand, to tell him what I needed to make our relationship work. The doctor warned me some people would call me selfish or self-centered, but it wasn't why I asked him to walk away from his past."
"Then why did you?"
"Well, I guess it was so we both could get to this place. The point where logically I know he'll go again if one of you is in jeopardy or he believes his skills are needed. Doctor Wheeler worked with both of us, and because Dolan agreed to step away from it when he did, we were able to walk down this path together. I was so ignorant. Arrogant even, but he never gave up on me."
"He loves you."
"And I love him." She reached down and shifted the pawn forward one block. It was the best move in an impossible position. "What are you going to do now? Scuttlebutt downstairs is that you've been cleared to work."
"Ah." He chuckled and moved his knight, taking the pawn. "Check." He smiled at her groan. "I have some people I want