Byzantine Heartbreak Read Online Free Page B

he would feel intimidated if he knew. After a while he would grow to resent her years and feel that somehow she was superior to him.
    It was a vampire thing, to judge by how long a vampire had walked the earth and consider a vampire greater or lesser because of it. Nayara had always considered it a particularly stupid measure of a vampire’s worth. Just because a vampire had managed to avoid the few ways a vampire could die and had the great good luck to have been made before another, didn’t make him or her any better than another vampire.
    To judge a vampire by their making date was as lunatic as the humans who used to judge each other by what family or race they had been born into.
    Ryan wasn’t aware of his unconscious prejudice, though. He was a very old vampire himself and had lived among vampires who naturally thought in such ways. He had acquired their way of thinking by osmosis and still hadn’t off-loaded the habit.
    Nayara had no intention of using herself as the test case to force his change of thinking. Hard feelings would be roused because of it and she had already handed Ryan too many bruises over the last few centuries. She didn’t want to test his seemingly endless capacity to forgive and discover it had limits, after all.
    So on this matter, she was on her own. No sharing with Ryan. No unburdening herself as she had nearly done once already.
    She knew why she was noticing her age today, of all days. She was unsure of herself.
    She rarely felt unsure. She couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t completely certain and quite comfortable about any decision she had to make, her role in a situation, or the expected outcome.
    Life had become very predictable, lately, even with all the crises swirling around them.
    But Ryan had made her feel awkward and inexperienced and that was a novel thing. It was the novelty that had her casting back through her memories, trying to remember the last time she had felt quite so gauche. And thus her years of memories had made themselves felt.
    Nayara stared at the pitch black hole of the Atlantic and tried to tell herself that feeling awkward, that not knowing everything, was a good thing. It meant she was learning. Growing.
    After more than three thousand years, Nia? Do you really believe that? She asked the questions of herself with a wry smile.
    The door that connected her office with Ryan’s slid open.
    “Nayara, what the hell?” Ryan demanded.
    She whirled. “What’s wrong?”
    “No one can reach you,” Ryan said, striding toward her.
    “I went off-net for a while.” Nayara turned her comm links back on. Instantly, white alerts filled her head with their little chimes. “Oh...” She tried to sort them out, then muted them all and looked at Ryan. “What’s happening?”
    “I’ve no idea,” Ryan said. “But Cáel Stelios is on his way here. Justin is bringing him. He wants to talk to both of us immediately. And he’s bringing Ursella Shun, too.”
    Nayara checked her time map. “It’s three-thirty three a.m. in Greece and the Worlds Assembly is not in session. Cáel should be asleep. This must be bad news.”
    Ryan shoved his hands into his pockets. “I wouldn’t know. I was just told to find you.” He sounded mildly resentful at his messenger status.
    “I’m sure they were in a hurry, or they wouldn’t have been so abrupt,” Nayara said soothingly. “I hope it’s simply an urgent matter.”
    Ryan grimaced. “Make amends for my bad temper?”
    She smiled. “I’ve always said you were the one that should have the red hair, not me.”
    He turned his head a little. “They’re here.” Ryan’s hearing was slightly better than hers, so Nayara settled in to wait. It could take a minute or two for the visitors to actually step in the door.
    Ryan settled himself against the edge of her desk. He was wearing black today, which she preferred him in. The shirt looked like some sort of soft, almost sheer velvet, that made the most of his clear,