Leander Hastings had been a very unhappy man for most of his life. At a young age, his father and brother had been killed, his mother driven insane, and his sister kidnapped and eventually killed. He had spent many years looking for revenge, and after so very long, he had not achieved near as much as he would have liked. He had loved and lost so much with just the troubles his family had faced, but then he had fallen in love with Suzanna. After her death, he had mourned her, choosing to remain alone despite the advances so many women so often made.
That is, until he met Linda Downey. He had been running one of his many schemes against the wizard council when he had found her being traded into slavery. He helped her escape, planning on sending her on her way as soon as possible, but she had insisted on helping him to change the course of magical history. She had a fierce and stubborn nature that reminded him so much of his sister, and he couldn't help but give in to her, though he knew it had very little to do with her enchantress powers and more to do with the very nature of her. Hastings tried with great difficulty to keep his distance from her, but one night when she glowed beneath the Eiffel Tower and the wine made his head swim, he let go of all of his resistance and kissed her, spilling the secret of his affection for her shortly after he tore his lips from hers. The second she had admitted her own feelings for him, he had given up any hope of possibly keeping himself from her for another second, and thus their relationship began.
But even quicker than it started, it came to a screeching halt. Linda had made a couple of visits to her sister, though she never told Lee much. He supposed it was because the horrific history of his own family that he had shared with her had kept her from sharing her own family stories. But after one such visit, Linda came back to him in obvious distress. He had tried to coax out whatever troubled her for weeks, but she only dove further into their work against the wizard council. After a while, he gave up, assuming that things would just return to normal after a while. But after several months, Linda was still constantly distracted and depressed, and Hastings could think of no way to cheer her up. He took her to one of their favorite hole in the wall restaurants while they were working in Rome, but instead of cheering her up as he had hoped, it made her cry. He quickly took her back to their room and swept her into his arms, cradling her close to him as she wept. She spilled the whole story about her nephew and the terrible situation with Jessamine Longbranch. When she was done, for whatever reason, Leander felt himself inclined to share some secrets that he too had held back from her, and they also had to do with her family. After Linda heard about his relationship with Suzanna, she packed and left him.
Hastings was up in arms without Linda. At first he had promised himself that he would keep his distance, knowing that she would find him if she was willing to forgive him his secrets and his past. But as time passed, he grew more worried about her. He began trying to track her down, starting by looking for any traces of her family. Despite his skill and effort, he was unable to find Linda anywhere, though. He had tried tracking down her family, only to narrow it down to somewhere in the Midwest not far from where Suzanna had once lived. Then he had tried searching through the long list of enemies they had piled up, in case she had gotten herself in some sort of trouble, but no matter how hard he looked, Linda could not be found. Years passed and Hastings search dead ended. He told himself to give up, and he even managed to focus on other matters, but he never really stopped looking for Linda.
He was back in his house in England for a while, enjoying a nice break from traveling and adventure as he plotted his next move when the phone call came. He was confounded as to who would be calling on him at such an early hour of the morning, but he answered anyways with a firm, "Hello?"
"Lee?" a whisper purred into his ear. "It's me. Linda. I need your help."
"Linda?" Hastings sucked in a breath like he hadn't breathed in years. So many thoughts rang through his head. First, he realized that he had immediately recognized her voice even though he hadn't heard it in so long. Then, he felt his heart pounding away in his chest at the thought of her. His Linda is alive, and safe, and… needs his help? "What could you possibly need my help with after all of these years?"
"Lee, I…" Leander frowned as she stalled, knowing he sounded harsh and angry when all he wanted to do was ask her where she was and how she was. "I told you about my nephew, Jack. Well, people are after him. They've figured it out. He knows everything now and he's already been attacked and we went to dig up Suzanna's sword and…"
"Shadowslayer," Hastings interrupted Linda's rambling as some memories that he hadn't thought of in years suddenly sprang to mind as if they had happened just yesterday. "Yes, I remember it."
"Right…" Linda muttered, trailing off into an awkward silence. Lee frowned as the memory of the night she left crowded his thoughts, but it faded away as she cleared her throat loudly and purposefully. "Anyways, Jack is going to need training if he's going to keep surviving the attacks that are bound to keep coming. I mean he's basically been surviving by pure luck all of these years and it's bound to run out. I know I probably don't have the right to ask a favor of you, but I don't know who else to ask. I mean you do know how to train warriors and…"
"Of course, Linda," Leander cut her off once again as he wondered when she had started to ramble so much. He had always remembered her as being brief, bold even, and to the point. "I'd be happy to train your nephew."
"Really?" Linda asked flatly.
"Yes, really," Lee almost laughed. She sounded so skeptical as if she had planned on having to beg him into it. It took almost everything in him to keep from telling her that he would do anything if it meant seeing her again. "Just tell me when and where."
"Well if you could come here? To Trinity, Ohio. His mother, my sister, Becka, doesn't know anything that's going on. But Snowbeard is here, and he's going to train him in wizardry. Plus Jack's still in school, so it's probably best for him to stay here. You'll need some sort of cover though for why you're spending so much time with him and what you're doing. Maybe you can get some work at his school? Or maybe you can say you're helping him with soccer. Or…"
"Linda," Leander sighed as he cut her off again. He could have listened to her voice for forever, but he was desperate to see her. "I'm sure I can figure something out."
"Right. You're good at coming up with…" Linda stopped herself and Hastings was grateful that she hadn't said something they'd both regret.
"I'll come as soon as I can," he offered.
"Okay," she paused and Leander hesitated, wondering if he should break the silence first with the apology he had gone over in his head for years. He didn't get the change though. "Thanks. I really appreciate this, Lee."
"Of course," Lee nodded and abruptly stopped as he realized she couldn't see him. "Where should I meet you?"
"I, uh… won't be around," Linda answered. "I have other work to do."
"More important than helping your nephew?" Leander cursed himself as the slight slipped out of his lips, already knowing how petty he sounded before she even responded.
"It's actually doing this to help him," Linda snapped. "I'm leading some false trails to keep people away from him. To keep Jack safe."
"Right," he frowned, his mind beginning to come around to the thought that perhaps she had set up false trails to deter him from finding her for all of these years. "I'll make it Trinity as quickly and discreetly as possible then."
"Good," Lee smiled sadly as he heard the familiar click on the other end of the phone after Linda's short response. He had never been a happy man, but in a weird twist of fate, the future was beginning to look a little brighter. He had not only found out that the love of his life was still alive, but he was closer to her than he had been in sixteen years. It wasn't much, but when it came to love, Leander Hastings was used to settling for what he could get.