Primal Bonds
Page 27

Sean snapped his head up to look at the Fae, but he was gone, the clearing empty. Sean softened his hold on Andrea. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that before?”
“I didn’t know before. He’d just revealed it before you came blundering in. Now, will you please let me up?”
Sean got lithely to his feet and pulled her up beside him. “Why the bloody hell did you run out here to see him alone?”
“I wanted to know why a Fae wanted to talk to me so bad. I knew you’d never let me out if I woke you.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t have. What else did he tell you?”
“Nothing. You interrupted.”
Her anger was strong, but so was Sean’s. “Just because a Fae says he’s your dad doesn’t make it true. You can’t trust the bastards.”
Andrea jerked from his grasp. “Watch it. I’m one of those bastards.”
“Not what I meant, and you know it. I don’t think of you as Fae anyway.”
Now her gray eyes became chips of ice. “Well, I am Fae. You want to mate with me and sleep with me, but you’ve only seen the Shifter side of me. There’s another side, and it’s as much a part of me as the Shifter is. You don’t get one part or the other; you get the whole package.”
Sean gentled his voice. “I know that, love.”
“Are you going to run to Liam now, tell him everything?”
“He’ll need to know.”
“Go on then.” She spun around and marched back to the house without waiting for him.
“Damn it, Andrea.”
Andrea heard the frustration in Sean’s voice but didn’t look back. She couldn’t. If she stayed near Sean, he’d see the worry in her, which had sprung there the moment her father—if he was her father—had spoken to her. The Fae had not only claimed to be her father, but he’d asked Andrea to bring him the Sword of the Guardian.
Under roiling clouds and cold the next day, Andrea studied her ley line maps with renewed intensity.
She was alone to do it. Sean had left as soon as it was light, kissing her good-bye but not bothering to tell her what he was off to do. Glory had appeared after breakfast, but she’d been moody and unhappy, Dylan nowhere in sight. After lunch, Glory had reemerged from her bedroom in tight black leather pants, a lacy blouse, mile-high shoes, and perfectly coiffed hair, her body doused with perfume. She told Andrea with a sweet smile not to wait up and drove off in her small car.
The day was full of clouds and wind and rain, which matched Andrea’s mood. Andrea’s ley line maps weren’t helping—she had traced the line through the river valley that wound through Austin but not the offshoots of that line. Since she didn’t have the transportation to do it herself, the next best thing would be to see whether someone else had mapped them, but she’d need a computer to find that out. Though Glory had an old PC, not all Shifters were approved for Internet access, and then they were only allowed dial-up. But if Andrea used Sean’s computer, she’d have to tell him why she wanted to and get into explanations that made her uncomfortable.
Then again, Sean wasn’t home. Liam had ridden off to do whatever Shiftertown leaders did, and Connor was at school. Andrea put everything back into her folder and went next door.
Kim was home by herself, working in the kitchen. She’d started a law firm to represent Shifters and also to study human-Shifter law and try to change some of the inequities Shifters had gotten stuck with. It was a slow process, but Kim and her friends were trying. Kim had an office, but some days Kim found it easier to work from home.
Kim was happy to lead Andrea upstairs to Sean’s bedroom and his computer. Sean’s room was small, compact, and neat, except for a pile of clothes crumpled near the bed. Andrea felt a tingle of Fae magic from the polished wooden sword case on his dresser, but she knew without looking that the sword wasn’t in it. Sean had taken it with him wherever he’d gone.
The computer was old, and Andrea expected it to be of limited use, but the connection went through quickly and the Internet was open for business. Andrea blinked in surprise at the speed. Shifters were only allowed dial-up connections, no cable, no DSL.
Kim smiled at her confusion. “Last year I helped out a Shifter who is very good at computers. He and Sean ‘enhanced’ this one.”
“That’s Shifters for you,” Andrea said, typing in her search strings. “They won’t break laws, but they’ll bend them into all kinds of weird shapes.”
Kim laughed. “A good way of putting it.” She patted Andrea’s shoulders and left her to it.
Some local Wiccans had mapped ley lines in the Austin area. The lines veined out from the riverbed, one running straight down Lamar, one snaking under the university’s main campus. Long ago, another had followed what was now Mopac, but that one had withered and died when the railroad with its iron rails that had been laid there.
Andrea enlarged and printed out maps, tucking them into her file folder.
“Don’t forget to delete your search history,” Kim said from the door, as Andrea finished up.
“Sorry?” Andrea stared at the computer. She’d used the Internet before, but her access to computers had been limited to the two at the community center in her Shiftertown, a place she hadn’t visited often.
“If you don’t, Sean will know what you were looking up. I take it you don’t want him to?”
“I can erase that?”
“Yes, but if you simply erase the whole thing, he’ll know you were looking for stuff you don’t want him to know about. And then he’ll bug you to tell him.”
“No kidding.” Andrea glared at the plastic box. “Where is Sean, anyway?”
Kim looked surprised as she slid into the chair and started clicking things. “He left early this morning, I supposed on Shifter business. He didn’t tell you?”
“He sleeps with me, but he’s not exactly verbose. He expects full disclosure from me but doesn’t return the favor.”
“That’s a Shifter for you. Liam talks and talks and talks, and tells you nothing at all. The gift of Blarney, he calls it.” Kim smiled at the computer, her eyes filled with love for her talkative mate. “This will be fun. I’ll delete your trail and load it with legal questions. Sean’s eyes glaze over when I talk about legal issues. Or I can fill in with searches for shoes. Or baby furniture.”