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Colum: Remember when I used to just sit in my archive, all alone, drinking tea?

Franco: Yes, I remember when you were slowly turning into a sad hermit…

Colum: I was not a sad hermit.I was a happy hermit.

Franco: Admit it, you like the drama and adventure.

Colum: I admit nothing.

Colum stirred milk in his tea, listening to the sound of Annie and Xavier’s voices drifting to him in the kitchen from where they were currently cuddled up on the couch.He couldn’t hear what Xavier was saying, but it must be amusing because Annie was laughing.God, but he loved that sound.

He placed the spoon in the sink but didn’t pick up his cup, didn’t seek to join them.Instead, he rested his hands on the counter and took a moment, trying to calm his thoughts.Something that was easier said than done, given everything that had happened.It had been a whirlwind to be sure.

Colum hadn’t had a moment alone since the attack, as he, Annie, and Xavier had closed ranks, none of them willing to leave the others after the horrors of last night.

Once the mercenaries were gone, the three of them had taken up camp in the tiny living room in his flat, while Spartan Guard and both knights and security officers from England swarmed the archive and stood guard.Initially, they’d simply sat together in silence.Colum suspected he and Xavier had been in shock, Xavier’s eyes closed as he waited for the paracetamol to kick in, a lovely bruise forming along his hairline where there was also a small cut that had bled a lot but wasn’t enough for a trip to A&E.As for Annie, Colum sensed she’d been trying to shut down that darker side of her nature, the one she’d shed after leaving the CIA.He feared it had cost her something to open herself back up to that part of her personality.

Eventually, they started talking, rehashing the events—Colum was heartsick over the loss of the Wedgewood—simply because that was the safer topic.They’d yet to broach their feelings over what had happened.Colum typically preferred to avoid those kinds of conversations, but right now, there were too many emotions fighting for dominance.Feelings he hadn’t experienced before.

If he was smart, he’d keep his thoughts to himself.After all, none of them had gone back to bed after the break-in, and now it was evening, so they were functioning on fumes at the moment.It was why he’d offered them tea, thinking they could all benefit from a jolt of caffeine.Annie and Xavier went the opposite direction, opening a bottle of red wine.They’d had dinner delivered because they hadn’t felt up to cooking.Even if they had, his cupboards were bare, something he wasn’t going to be able to address, since Eric had basically put them on lockdown, quadrupling the number of knights and Spartan Guards protecting the archive.

Eric had video called him in the wee hours of morning, shortly after the mercenaries left.No doubt a Spartan Guard had briefed him on the situation.

Eric had asked him no less than a dozen times if he was okay, if he’d been hurt.While Colum was touched by his concern, he hated that it had triggered his brother’s guilt over not managing to keep him safe.No doubt, Eric was reliving the trauma of Josephine’s death, horrified that he’d put Colum in harm’s way.

Once Eric was certain he was uninjured, Colum gave him the information they’d discovered from the mercenaries.He’d explained to Annie and Xavier what little they knew about the Spaniard, who appeared to have his finger in a lot of pies.The man had had a dangerous run-in with Vadisk in Crimea, and he was after Wilde’s tell-all.While Eric didn’t say as much, it was obvious he was concerned about this new threat, particularly since none of them had a clue who the Spaniard was, how he knew so much about the Masters’ Admiralty, or what his intentions were.

Colum had been tempted to ask Eric if he’d given any more thought to his request that he not be married to Nikolett, but Eric had looked exhausted.Besides, he’d asked for a few days, and it hadn’t yet been that.

“Colum?”Annie called.

He’d stayed away too long.Picking up his tea, he rejoined them in the living room.

“Sorry,”he said as he claimed his spot on the couch.“Woolgathering.”

“You okay?”Xavier asked, leaning over Annie to grip Colum’s knee.

He nodded, even though it was a lie.He was a million miles from okay, but God help him if he knew how to articulate all the shite running through his head.

Mercifully, Xavier had no trouble opening that door.“I was terrified last night,” he admitted.“I thought I was going to lose the two of you.”

Some of the pressure on Colum’s chest lifted.He wasn’t alone in this.“I felt the same,” he confessed.“When that man hit you, when I saw the blood…”

Xavier lightly touched the cut on his forehead.“Head wounds bleed.”

“How is your headache?”Colum asked.

“Gone.I’m fine,” Xavier reassured him.

It occurred to Colum that Annie had remained silent during their exchange, her ever-present smile gone.Now that he thought about it, it had been absent all day.

“Annie.”Colum wrapped his arm around her shoulders.“How’re you getting on, love?”

She sighed heavily.“Do I scare you?”

He and Xavier exchanged a confused glance.

Xavier cupped her cheek.“Scare us?What are you talking about?”