Moni_9780385341639_3p_all_r1.qxp:Layout 1
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6/27/08
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Karen Marie Moning
leather thong. He gave me a charged, appreciative look, making me glad I’d taken care with my appearance. A woman likes to know her efforts are paying off. He took my arm and suggested we go somewhere else. “They’re discussing the budget,” he advised in a deep, husky brogue, adjusting his stuffed backpack over a well-muscled shoulder. “Don’t you need to stay?” “Nah. Only full-timers have to suffer the meetings. I’m part-time.” He flashed a killer smile that made me stand up straight. Christian was the kind of good-looking that hit you over the head, made you keep stealing second and third glances at him: the five-o’clock shadow on the strong jaw, the broad shoulders, the flawless dark skin, and the striking tigereyes. There was an easy grace to his long-limbed body that hinted at maturity beyond his years. “Besides, it’s not a place I’m comfortable talking, and we’ve a great deal to talk about, lass.” I hoped that meant someone was finally going to tell me something useful about my sister. He led me to a windowless study room off a vending area in the nearly deserted basement of the building. We settled into folding metal chairs, beneath the hum of fluorescent lights, where I imagined Alina might have sat and studied a time or two. I wasted no time asking Christian how he’d met her. I wondered if he’d been one of the boys she’d dated when she’d first come over, before she’d been brainwashed by the Lord Master. I sure would have. In another life. A normal one. “She came to the ALD, looking for someone to translate a page of text.” “What kind of text?” I thought instantly of the Sinsar Dubh. “Nothing I could translate. My uncles couldn’t, either.” I assumed his uncles were linguists and said so.