No wonder.
No wonder she’d thought of her father. Just no freaking wonder.
I am nine years old, and my father is dead.
No one will talk about him.
I live with my aunt. She won’t talk about him, either. I learn through overheard whispers—car abandoned, body not found. Witnesses who say they saw a horrible fight, but neither the victor nor the victim are identified or located.
They wonder if he’s coming back. But I don’t.
I know.
I am nine years old, and my father is dead.
She found her hand wrapped around the pendant, her eyes closed and her head tipped back. Curse and boon, that pendant. A reminder of the past—but not just the good of it. The awful of it, too. The way it clung to her...the way it sometimes seemed to call to her, something far away and just beneath the threshold of what she was able to hear.
Other times, other places, she had dismissed that sensation—wasn’t her life strange enough, in the wake of what her father had done to her?
Here and now, it seemed all too real. As if the metal breathed with her, breathing into her.
As if she wasn’t alone.
I know you.
She jerked, hand clenching, sucking in a surprised breath.
That trickle of thought hadn’t been hers.
Not hers at all.
I KNOW YOU.
More than a trickle. She jerked from it, eyes flying open in time to see Mac jerk awake in sync with her, his body trembling, his blue-grey eyes dark and confused and downright feral—his voice, when he spoke, distant and hoarse. “I...know...”
And then he seemed to wrench himself out of whatever gripped him and he saw her, truly saw her. And as she opened her mouth to say she had no idea what, just that fast, he was up and pivoting over her on one knee, pushing her back flat.
And now she was the one to tremble. But there he stopped, hands on either side of her shoulders, his eyes closing briefly and his face twisting in something that seemed like pain. It left him breathing hard, but when he opened his eyes, they were clear and bright and looking directly at her. Seeing her, in truth.
Why she hadn’t fought him off, she didn’t know. Why she hadn’t kicked and screamed and shoved and scratched—
She didn’t know.
“Mac,” she said, barely more than a whisper. No more than that, and whether it was question or request, she didn’t know that, either.
He lifted one hand to clear the hair from her face, to touch her cheek and brow. “I’m sorry,” he said, and brought his mouth down on hers. Not the ferocity she’d expected, but a gentle, cherishing kiss. And in that, more—so much more—than any crushing demand.
When he straightened, she could only look at him, feeling the surprise still etched on her own face, her mouth still open—still feeling his touch.
He ran a thumb across the line of her lower lip, hesitated—muscles working in his jaw, nostrils flaring briefly—and then pushed himself away. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
She didn’t move. “Why?”
It seemed to surprise him. “Why?”
She propped herself up on her elbows. “Why are you sorry? Why did you do it? Why did you stop?”
“You’re crying.” It wasn’t an answer to any of that. It didn’t even seem like part of the apology. Just the next step in a disjointed conversation.
“I’m not,” she said, and ran fingers across the corner of her eye, discovered it wet—discovered tears trickled down into her hair. “Am I?”
That wry grin of his, on the mouth that was made for it.
Among other things.
He said, “I think we need to talk.”
Devin dropped the scant pages of the Albuquerque paper onto Natalie’s desk.
She never took her eyes from the computer monitor before her. “I wondered what you’d think of that.”
Devin snorted. “He didn’t take my warning very seriously.”
Rash of thefts indeed. The least of it. There had been fights, assaults, break-ins...a swath of violence across that lower right quarter of the city, with enough trickling into their southwest turf to keep them busy on the way home. Enough to shove aside the little hate fest demonstration by the local better-than-thou group currently targeting a diversity support group.
She laughed, looking at him over the precisely organized workspace. From there she followed her own passion for research into things that might help blade wielders cope, handling the unsavory interactions with the lawyer they seemed to have inherited along with this estate—a man who knew too much, while not truly knowing anything at all. “Devin,” she said, “last night you said he looked beat to hell. And you know he wasn’t in all these places last night.”
“Maybe not.” He headed for the huge, bright bank of windows across the outside wall.
The grounds outside the window showed him nothing. A huge expanse of aquecia-watered lawn, here in the elm and cottonwood-littered bosque of the Rio Grande; the guesthouse that had been Natalie’s home when she worked for Sawyer Compton. But it wasn’t the grounds that drew him.
It was the city beyond and the overreaching awareness of it. No, the newcomer couldn’t have been in all those places the evening before. But— “Maybe he wasn’t. But he’s involved. He’s the one Anheriel followed.”
“That wasn’t all we felt last night.”
There, in the truck...the cold sensation that gripped both of them, leaving Devin aching for something to strike at and Natalie pushing focusing exercises on them both.
He shook his head, his gaze out the window, his feet restless. “He’s involved,” Devin repeated. “Damned if I know just how. I’ve half a mind to chase him down and—”
“Maybe he needs help,” Natalie said.
“Maybe he’s already heading for the wild road,” Devin said darkly, knowing the truth of that even as he said it—feeling the tug from his blade, the suggestion that they should go take care of this interloper.
Or maybe just join him in madness.
Devin pushed it away—and saw understanding in Natalie’s eyes. New to her blade, she’d never felt that beguiling touch of madness—and if her new techniques were as useful as she hoped they’d be, maybe she never would.
But the understanding wasn’t just for him. “If that’s true,” she said, “then he does need us. But not as his enemy. He needs help. And if it doesn’t come from us, then who?”
Natalie. Thoughtful, organized...and stubborn.
“We’ll see,” Devin said. “I want a better idea of what’s going on out there.” At Natalie’s expression, he shook his head. “It’s one thing to take him on. It’s another to leave ourselves vulnerable to him.” You, he meant. I won’t take chances with you.
Maybe she heard that. She settled, returning her attention to the ancient text she was examining via Project Gutenberg. “I think we’ll want to try to find a copy of this one,” she said. “You have to read between the lines, but I’m pretty sure this author has gathered anecdotal incidents about wielders.” She made a few notes, then pushed back from the desk. “I’ll head to the library and see if I can find anything about what we felt last night.” She added a rueful expression. “In English.”
“I’m headed to the gym,” said Devin. His best option for building boundaries against the blade. “I have the feeling I’m going to need it.”
She nodded. “Good idea.” And then her attention drifted to the window, too. “I only hope he’s got his own gym. Or that he knows what he’s doing.”