She met his gaze. “Lifetimes.”
Mac prowled the tiny room inside the diner—fighting the blade’s restlessness, far too aware of the exit that wasn’t here. Just a confined little space with a watercooler, the tiniest of tables with a battered metal chair, and a cot crammed up against the wall.
Gwen pointed at it. “There,” she said. “You.”
“We can’t stay here.” The restlessness pushed those words out, the blade hungering for more action, for a better taste of blood—for that which their enigmatic captor had offered him.
But not hungering hard—at least not for now. For now, it understood that Mac would do as he needed to maintain control. For now, it offered a grudging—very grudging—respect.
“Right,” Gwen said, hands on her hips and a smear of ketchup on her shirt. “Sure, then, let’s go. Because hey, I don’t need the chance to talk to you, or to reassure myself that you’re okay, or to make clever plans, or even to be smart about where we go next. And you clearly don’t need a chance to sleep off the whole demon blade hangover thing.”
It stopped him short; he sent her a startled look.
“Oh, please,” she said, tipping over to annoyance. “You’re a furnace.”
He ducked his head. Okay then. He might have a possessed blade and a mission and a life pretty much hanging in the balance, but Gwen had a temper—and he was pretty sure this round went to her. The burn of the healing went to his bones.
“An hour,” she said. “Ninety minutes. We can’t just rush out there, triggering off chaos wherever we go while that man looks for us. We have to talk.”
There was truth to that. “We do,” he said.
“I need to know that you’re okay, for starters,” she said—and then, before he could say anything, gestured impatiently. “No, no...I mean, obviously not, right? But...relatively speaking.”
“It’s under control,” he said, and meant it. Although, of course he had to add, “I don’t know for how long,” if he was going to be truthful.
“Longer if you take a moment than if you don’t,” she pointed out.
“Hey,” he told her. “You already won that one.”
She tilted her head slightly, looking pleased. “Did I?” she said. “Well, good for me. Let’s not waste it.” She gestured at the cot.
“You—”
“Get real. I had plenty of sleep last night.” That, he knew, was a lie—the strain of the past several days showed in her face, the faint bruised look around her eyes and the pallor beneath her scattered freckles. Even her bright pink hand bandage had begun to fray around the edges. “Besides, you need it worse.”
That, he knew, was no lie at all. He eyed the cot—its knit throw, its narrow stretched canvas—and Gwen laughed, if just a little bit. “Nice try,” she said. “Too small for both of us, I’m pretty sure.”
“C’mere,” he said, and didn’t have to reach far in this tiny room. Her uncertainty showed as he pulled her close, but as before, he simply held her—maybe a little too tightly, maybe with a bit too much intensity—and after a moment she returned it, stroking his back in an unconscious gesture.
Then he pulled back, took her face between his hands and kissed the hell out of her.
“Wha—” she said when she drew back, looking as dazed as he felt.
He still managed to say, “Something to remember, going into this.”
“I had plenty to remember already, if you want to know.” She touched her mouth with her fingertips, sent him a thoughtful look. “Although I suppose there can never be too much of that particular good thing.”
“My sentiments exactly,” he said, and took himself over to the cot.
She touched the pendant, where she’d habitually tucked it beneath her shirt. “We really need to talk,” she said, and then clearly had no intention of telling him just what that meant—pointing at the cot instead, and waiting as he lowered himself down, hunting sleep.
—want and need and demand and blood and pain and PUNISH PUNISH—
“Shh.” A voice in his ear, a hand on his face. Lips on his mouth. “Shh. Sleep.”
He slept.
Mac woke with Gwen’s hand draped over his chest and her cheek on his hand. Even as he took the first deep breath of waking, she lifted her head.
“Hey,” she said, revealing the seam of the cot imprinted on her face.
“Hey,” he said and lifted her wrist to check her watch. His, it seemed, had been a casualty of the past few days. It probably lay in pieces on the hotel floor.
“Not all that long,” she told him. “Ninety minutes. Feel better?”
“Better,” he affirmed. And he did. The blade had calmed, leaving him with nothing but a trickle of feeling—an awareness of the unrest in the city without the unceasing demand to be part of it, to imbibe of it.
“Good.” She climbed to her feet, a weariness in her movement. The cot wasn’t quite jammed against the wall; she swung her leg over it and sat on his thighs. No seduction there...just the comfort factor of their bodies in contact. He pushed up on his elbows to regard her, brow raised; listening. She placed a thoughtful hand flat on his stomach and made a face. “Here’s a thing you need to know—I did that—there, in the diner. When things were about to go really bad. I stopped that.”
He hadn’t expected that. Hell, no.
She read his expression easily enough. “I mean, what I did was make the feeling go away. That man’s bad mojo, or however he spreads his nastiness. Or maybe I put a double-rainbow force field around the place. Something. You know I’m just making this stuff up as I go.” She touched the pendant again.
“You... That?” He nodded at it. The blade knew of its presence...rested in silent resentment of it.
She nodded. “It’s changed these past couple of days. Maybe it was being with you...maybe it was the blood it soaked up. As if metal could actually do that, right? Maybe I woke it up by pitting it against your blade. I have no idea.” But her features had gone pensive...words not quite said. “The point is, I did it. Or it did it. And that means it might be useful again.” She took a deep breath, looked right at him. “I really need to know more.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at the pendant outlined beneath her shirt. And, “Yeah,” again. “But don’t ask me how to find out. Or when we’ll have the time to do it.”
“Maybe we should run,” she suggested. “Get out of here, away from that man. Figure out what’s going on.” She hesitated, then added, “Together, I mean.”
He couldn’t help the grin. “Liking the sound of that,” he told her.
She watched him a moment longer, then shook her head. “But you don’t think so.”
He could wonder when she’d learned to read him so well...but he didn’t. Several days or a lifetime—it didn’t matter. They’d already been revealed to one another, whether they’d meant to or not. So it wasn’t hard to look up at her and say, “He’d find us.” And then, more seriously, “Gwen, I don’t know how it’ll go with me. I don’t know if I can hold out, and I need to deal with him while I still can.”
Her fingers flexed against his stomach, as if she could hold on to him with pure will; she looked away, blinking. But if her eyes grew shiny, her determination didn’t fade. “I know,” she said. “But it was a nice dream.” She looked down at him from her perfect viewpoint. “I see that some part of you liked it, too.”
“Honey,” he said, “your sexy ass is sitting on my thighs. I can’t even imagine the time when that wouldn’t get my attention.”
She tossed her head. “I’ll remember that.” And then she clambered off. “Let’s go then. Do our thing. Whatever it is.”