Keeper of the Moon. Harley Jane Kozak

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СКАЧАТЬ opened Vernon’s tired eyes and looked into the eerie eyes of the beauty who, until a minute ago, had been sleeping.

      As images slid into focus, Sailor waited for something to look familiar, but in front of her was a man she didn’t know, in a house she didn’t recognize. A cabin, really, but a sophisticated one. She could see past the man to a woman, and beyond the woman to a kitchen, state-of-the-art, very modern, with a Wolf range. In a bay window hung an ornament, a carving in wood that she knew well, because her great-aunt Olga had an etched glass version of the same image: a tree with roots so long they circled up to meet its branches. Sailor’s eyesight was remarkably good, which was strange. Then again, at this point everything was strange.

      Her head hurt and her chest burned. She was lying on a sofa covered with a soft blue blanket. The blanket was stained with blood.

      “How are you feeling?” the man asked.

      “I don’t have a clue,” she said. “What happened to me?”

      The woman came closer. Elven. Typically beautiful. She was at least six feet tall, both athletic and voluptuous in the particular way that distinguished Elven women from human, except when the humans were surgically enhanced. She had white-blond hair and green eyes so pale they looked haunted. “You were attacked,” she said. She held a bottle of rubbing alcohol and sterile gauze.

      Jonquil stood, sensing a party taking place, his huge tail wagging exuberantly.

      “Sit,” the woman said, and the dog sat so eagerly that Sailor wondered if the stranger were a dog trainer. The woman said, “Do you remember it at all? It was half an hour ago.”

      Sailor thought about it. “There was a bird, or—wings, at least. It sort of sliced me open.” She looked down at herself and moved back the blanket to see that her sternum was bleeding, her chest exposed. She pulled at her torn tank top and jogging bra, trying to cover herself.

      “Let’s have a look,” the man said.

      “Are you a doctor?” Sailor asked.

      “Why else would I want to look at your naked breasts?” he asked, which made her laugh, but that turned into a cough, which hurt.

      “Come,” he said. “Let’s see how bad it is.” He wasn’t remotely attractive, she thought, and he was old, at least as old as her own father, but there was something about his hands and the way he moved that—well, it was ridiculous, but she found him appealing.

      He, however, was focused on her wound. He frowned, so she said, to distract him, “It’s not deep, is it? And it burns a bit, but I have a high tolerance for pain. I can’t imagine why I passed out.”

      The man glanced at the Elven woman, then said to Sailor, “You’re not in the habit of passing out?”

      “Are you kidding? I’m as healthy as a horse. A healthy horse, that is. Well, obviously. It’s a ridiculous saying, isn’t it? Because it’s not as if there are no sick horses in the world. They can’t possibly all be dying accidental deaths.”

      “Are you always this talkative?” he asked.

      “No.”

      He glanced at the Elven woman again. She handed him the gauze and rubbing alcohol.

      “What? What is it?” Sailor asked. “Why do you keep looking at each other?”

      The woman said, “Whatever it was that attacked you—”

      “Other,” Sailor said.

      “What?”

      “It was Other, whatever attacked me.”

      The woman moved closer. “What are you?”

      “What am I? I’m a Gryffald. Sailor Ann Gryffald, to be exact.”

      “Are you kin to Rafe Gryffald?”

      “He’s my father.”

      The woman frowned. “You’re the Keeper’s daughter?”

      Sailor winced. “Keeper” wasn’t the sort of word you said in mixed company, and the man applying rubbing alcohol to a gauze pad appeared to be mortal. The first rule of Keeperdom was nondisclosure. “The question is,” Sailor said, nodding toward the man, “what’s he?”

      He looked up and gave her a smile. “Don’t worry. I’m a friend. You can speak freely.”

      Sailor looked to the woman for confirmation. She nodded.

      “Okay, then,” Sailor said, and then, as the alcohol touched her wound, “Ouch. My father is the former Keeper. He’s now serving on the International Keeper Council at The Hague.”

      “So your uncles are—”

      “Piers and Owen. Keepers of the vampires and shapeshifters, but also currently serving on the International Council.”

      “And you’ve inherited the family proclivity toward—”

      “Otherworld management? Yes. I am the current Keeper of the Elven.”

      “Bloody hell,” the woman said. “The grown-ups have left the building.”

      Sailor shrugged. In her three months on the job, she’d gotten several negative reactions to her youth and inexperience. The truth was, while she looked like a teen, she was twenty-eight. The three Gryffald brothers, Sailor’s father and two uncles, were well-respected in the Otherworld, but respect isn’t always passed on to one’s heirs, and while Sailor had been born with the mark of the Keeper, she’d assumed she had decades to prepare for the role. Fate had decided otherwise. When her father had summoned her home from New York, she’d come. There was no question of refusing—Keeping was the family business—but L.A. wasn’t rolling out the welcome mat.

      “Yes,” Sailor said. “I’m no happier about it than you are, but anyhow, nice to meet you. Except I haven’t met you.”

      “Alessande Salisbrooke,” the woman said.

      “And I’m Vernon Winter,” the man said.

      “Okay, nice to meet you. So what’s my diagnosis here, doc?”

      “I’m not a doctor.”

      “I thought you said you were.”

      “No, I’m a stockbroker.”

      “Why are you examining my chest? No, never mind. Stupid question.”

      He smiled and once more she found herself drawn to him. Was he mortal? She was no longer sure. “I’m doing it because she can’t,” he said, nodding at Alessande. “She shouldn’t be touching you, because the Elven are highly susceptible to what you’ve got, which is a disease. You’re both lucky to be alive.”

      “Lucky to be alive?” Sailor said. “Because of a scratch on my chest? It was weird, the attack, but hardly life-threatening. And I have no diseases. What are you talking about?”

      “I’m СКАЧАТЬ