LITMIR.BIZ

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all of you, Gilly. All of you.”

      Gilly stood staring at him silently, and for a moment, Gavril feared he had revealed too much too fast. There was no question in his mind that he’d fallen hard for this woman, but she’d yet to voice how she felt about him. Sex was one thing. Feeling another. Matters of the heart went much further, much deeper than sex. He resented the fact that the Elders had lit into the Triad about having relations with the Benders, but he understood. Every group had their rules. Even Benders. While on a mission they were to keep one head in their pants and the other on the task they’d been assigned. So far they’d blown that one out of the water big-time. The last thing he felt about that, however, was regret.

      Letting out a deep breath, Gilly said, “We need to head out. It’s a decent hike back to the Elders. We’ll probably wind up back at the hotel a bit early, but if Evee shows up first, I don’t want her worrying about where I am, as well.”

      Feeling a stabbing pain in his heart that Gilly hadn’t even acknowledged all he’d shared with her, Gavril simply nodded, and both of them headed back to the Monteleone.

      By now the trolleys were running, and it would have been easier to hop one and take it down to Canal Street, which crossed Royal, where the hotel was located. But Gavril hoped the walk might give Gilly time to absorb all he’d said and respond in some way.

      They’d just crossed Iberville and took a right on Royal, when out of the blue, Gilly reached for Gavril’s hand and held it tightly. His heart soared. Her palms were sweaty, so he knew that she was nervous. She probably had no idea how to respond. Although she might not have had the words to respond to him, her taking his hand said more to Gavril than a thousand words would have. Even better, seconds after taking hold of his hand, Gilly moved closer to him. To anyone watching, the two of them must have looked like a couple in love, enjoying each other’s company. But sometimes words weren’t necessary. Actions spoke more openly and loudly than a thousand syllables strung together.

      When they finally reached the hotel and entered, Gilly let go of Gavril’s hand and headed to the bank of elevators.

      Gavril silently followed, unable to take his eyes off her. He’d known many women in his life, but none so beautiful inside and out as Gilly François. He tried to harden his heart and mind to keep things in perspective, but neither would harden. If only she’d say something about how she felt, aside from holding his hand, he’d be more certain of the direction to head in with her.

      Gavril knew of the Triad curse, which mandated that they not marry a human or live intimately with one. Like he needed something else to add to his ever-growing list of things to do—protect the safe zone of the Chenilles, find the missing ones before they attacked humans. And now, everything they’d been working so hard for came to a screeching halt because Viv was missing, and she was a priority. This was something Gavril completely understood.

      But somewhere in the middle of fixing this, fighting that, he set it in his mind to find out a way to break the curse that bound the Triad, even if he had to visit their Elders himself. Surely there had to be a loophole; all laws had them. He assumed curses were the same. No one, not even a witch, could remember everything that might cover generations of Triads to follow. Not as far back as the 1500s.

      Times and situations changed over the years. Unless the Elders who’d issued the curse were able to see far into the future, they had been only dealing with then, with the times, situations and customs that affected that time period. He seriously doubted they had seen so far into the future. Maybe they had only assumed that the curse they’d set upon the first Triad would hold forever. Or maybe not.

      Gavril thought of the Elders who watched over the Triad now. They were like mother hens to those three women. Even in anger, he couldn’t see them implementing a curse that had no end, with no out clause. Anger was indeed anger, and punishment was punishment, but didn’t love trump them all? Surely the original Elders had felt some sort of compassion for the first Triad and left a door open that no one had found yet.

      Yet. That was the key word.

      Once that curse was broken, and if he ever got Gilly to speak her mind as far as he was concerned, his intent was to have her for the rest of her life. Having traveled the world many times over, Gavril had yet to meet anyone as unique, smart, caring and beautiful as Gilly. A man didn’t place the largest diamond found in any mine on a shelf, and then leave, hoping it might still be there once he returned. Gilly was his rough-cut diamond, and if it took his entire lifetime, he’d look for a loophole in the curse for the simple purpose of making her his own.

      These were words Gavril kept to himself; if Gilly heard them, she’d take off running like a wild rabbit, thinking him mad. What business did a human, who had no concept of the magic they generated, have in messing in witches’ business?

      And she’d have been right.

      But the one thing he did do well was investigate. He’d developed his investigation skills over the years while hunting Cartesians. If somehow he had the chance to read the document that sealed the Triad curse, he’d pick it apart until he found a loophole that worked for them. They’d be free at last, something he knew the Triad had never experienced before.

      He wanted, more than anything, to be Gilly’s hero.

       Chapter 4

      “I knew something like this was going to happen,” Arabella, the head of the Elders, said when Gilly told them about Viv going missing.

      “Well, if you knew, why didn’t you warn us about it?” Gilly asked. The last thing she’d wanted to do was come back to the Elders, especially after they’d been royally reamed out during their last visit. The Elders lived only a couple of blocks from the Triad in the Garden District, but coming here again felt like they’d walked the green mile. They’d had no choice. Not with Viv missing. No matter what the consequences might be, they had to let the Elders know.

      “Oh, she did,” Vanessa said.

      “She did not,” Gilly insisted.

      “Uh-huh,” Taka, the third, said. “Remember the whole thing about Viv and Evee being intimate with their Benders, how it needed to stop. Well, it obviously didn’t stop, because now we’ve got another catastrophe on our hands. They should have listened—that’s all I’ve got to say.”

      “I wish,” Vanessa said.

      “Wish what?” Taka asked, frowning.

      “That that was all you had to say.”

      Taka tsked loudly, and then looked at Gavril and said, “No offense meant, Mr. Bender, but witches have rules to live by. If we don’t live by them, then all kinds of havoc occur, like now. There are reasons we have leaders, Elders. It’s not like the Triad is out there on their own. They have us to bounce things off of.”

      “So, you’re saying that you’re blaming Evee and Viv’s intimacy with Nikoli and Lucien for all this chaos?” Gavril said.

      “I am,” Taka said.

      “This isn’t the time to go into your rant about the Triad members having relations with the Benders,” Gilly said. “Viv is missing and that’s what matters most. Besides, I think all three of you have this relationship thing wrong or twisted sideways somehow. It doesn’t connect or make sense.”

      “It makes complete sense,” Arabella said. “As it was part of the curse set on the Triads since the 1500s. Nothing has changed to refute it. The intimacy you’ve obviously taken course with regarding these young men has caused nothing but disaster.”

      “No disrespect meant, ma’am,” Gavril said, “but that’s baloney. My cousins and I have tracked these Cartesians around the world. Have been to places where they’ve taken out an entire species from the netherworld in a city. Humans died, more Cartesians showed themselves. But not once did it have anything to do with me or my cousins being intimate with any female. Witch or no witch.”

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