Shades of Gray by Lisanne Norman Page B

today, though I gather from the glow you seem to be wrapped in, Spring is now due.”
    She smiled, taking the glass from him as he returned to her side, sipping daintily from its contents.
    Sitting down, he nodded. “She usually comes to me, pouring out her wrath and venom for not remonstrating with you when you send for Vartra.” He swirled the contents of his glass before taking a sip. “This time, for some reason, I seem to have been spared.”
    She sent images of Vartra returning later that day to Kuushoi for a week as Winter still ruled in most of the lowlands, the thaw being late this year.
    “So she’s sulking for today. Is she continuing to hide our Hunter of Justice from the Camarilla? Ironic that he is a descendant of Vartra.”
    Nodding, she put her drink on the table by her elbow and leaned forward to regard him seriously.
    L’Shoh flicked his ears backward in denial. “Not just my Avatar of Justice, Ghyakulla—ours. You had more to do with creating him than I did. It’s taken a long time to get to this point, Cousin; enjoy this small victory. Despite what I do from now on, he could still bring it all to ruin around our ears.”
    She smiled, letting him see she had no worries about his part in their venture.
    “I know you have faith in me,” he said, his mouth twisting slightly as it opened in an ironic smile. “I wish your sister had, then we wouldn’t have had to resort to your subterfuge to get her to protect our Avatar.”
    Frowning, she looked briefly away from him.
    “I don’t like it either,” he said, putting his glass down abruptly and reaching out to take her hand in his. “If only it hadn’t been for Kuushoi’s treachery on our wedding night, you’d be my wife, not her. You know we work well together, Ghyakulla. Kuushoi barely speaks to me.”
    Pulling her hand away, she looked at him intently. She could feel his genuine regret at the circumstances of his marriage to her sister, but she herself had none. The thought of being confined to the cold of Winter had appalled her, creature of sunlight, warm breezes and forests that she had always been.
    Putting her hand up in a warning gesture, she watched his face resume its normal mask of neutrality as he lowered his hand and sat back in his chair.
    Obviously following her thoughts, he smiled ruefully. “You’re right, you wouldn’t have made a good Winter Guardian, nor she a Summer one. I suppose it’s as well your sister’s devious nature showed itself when it did.”
    “Events happened as they must,” she said slowly, as speech was not how she normally chose to communicate. “You acted nobly, even if she didn’t, believing that marriage to you would bring her greater power. You have come to love each other, though she’ll not admit it.”
    Even as he looked at her in disbelief, she sent him images laced with gentle amusement and memories of how he indeed did love his sharp-tongued mate.
    I’m no innocent, she reminded him.
    Hardly, when you conspire with me to make Kuushoi do our bidding, he replied.
    Only she can reach our Avatar at this time. He must counter the darkness that spreads between Ghioass and M’zull and reaches out to taint Shola. It threatens to engulf us all.
    “And when he’s on K’oish’ik?” he murmured. “Kuushoi can only reach him because of the cold between the stars.”
    She smiled gently, letting him know she had other plans already in the making.
    “What is it about Vartra that interests both of you so much?” he asked abruptly. “Why are both of you so obsessed with him?”
    Ghyakulla shrugged, telling him in mental pictures that it was his mortality that made him so unlike Varza, who had preceded him. He was peaceful, gentler in every way than the Entity of War had been. He is my natural mate .
    “Yet he refuses to choose between you and your sister.”
    Her eyes clouded over, becoming distant as she looked to some time and place beyond him. “He will choose when it’s time,” she said,