Firebolt

Chapter 23

THE NEXT MORNING I found Lucian waiting by a rented SUV. I ran straight into his arms and gave him the longest kiss ever.

"I hope you're done mixing business with pleasure," he said with his face buried in the nape of my neck. He opened the passenger door for me. "So, did you enjoy the museum?"

"Yes, especially the exhibit on you and your family," I teased.

His face turned red. "I hate that stupid thing. It took hours for them to get the measurements right, and they still did a crappy job."

I laughed excitedly. "So where are we going?"

"I told you it's a surprise, although not the one I had planned, but it will have to do." He started the SUV and music blared from the radio.

"I want to play you something, " he said, and took out a disc from a grey CD file and slid it into the player. The song had an upbeat rhythm, and I started bouncing in my seat. The lyrics were deep, and I got lost in them as I listened to the vocalist singing of a girl he hadn't found yet. He sounded lost.

Lucian smiled, and looked at me every five seconds through the corner of his eyes.

"What?" I asked, scared I had something in my hair or worse, my teeth.

"You know who that is?"

"Who? The guy singing?"

He nodded.

I listened again. "No, should I?"

A huge grin appeared on his face.

"C'mon, Elena, guess."

I giggled. "Is it you?"

He roared with contagious laughter. "Hell no. I can't keep a tune."

"Then who?" I knew I'd never heard this voice before.

"It's Blake."

My mouth dropped. "Get out! Really?"

"He has what it takes to make it big, but the Council doesn't want to grant him permission to go for it, because he's the Rubicon. It doesn't stop him from doing a couple of gigs though."

"Wow. Do you think he wrote this song for Tabitha?"

Lucian gave a chuckle I'd never heard before.

"What?"

"Elena, Blake only keeps Tabitha for one thing?"

"He's that shallow," I asked, disgusted.

He smiled again, but this time I could see sadness around the edges. "You still need to learn that Blake only does things for himself, no one else."

"Then who did he write this for?"

Lucian shrugged. "He recorded this about a year ago." His forehead crinkled in thought.

"You really miss him, don't you?"

His nose wrinkled, not answering, as his eyes looked out the window on his side.

"So, what song did you play when you faced the big, mighty Rubicon?" I needed to change the topic. A huge grin spread over his face and lit up his eyes. He happily took out another CD.

"Blake once admitted that there was something about this song that scares the living crap out of him." The radio swallowed the CD, and his grin spread wider.

My eyes grew bigger as the song started. "You know AC/DC?"

"Elena, everybody knows AC/DC," he said, rolling his eyes.