And it was a sad statement about my life when desire gave way to practicality.
“It’ll be faster if you do.” While I could shift into my Aedh form and travel there under my own steam, my energy levels were still low and I really didn’t want to push it. Not yet, not for something like this.
He rose, dragging me up with him, then wrapped his arms around me. “Wait.” I broke from his grasp and moved around the desk, striding out of my office and down to the storeroom at the other end of the hall. We kept all RYT’s—which was the name of the café I owned with two of my best friends, Ilianna and Tao—nonperishable items up here, which meant not only things like spare plates, cutlery, and serviettes, but also serving gloves. It was the last of those that I needed, simply because I didn’t want to leave fingerprints around Wolfgang’s house for the Directorate and Uncle Rhoan to find. I tore open a box, shoved a couple of the clear latex gloves into the back pocket of my jeans, then headed back into the office. I grabbed my cell phone from the desk, then let myself be wrapped in the warmth of Azriel’s arms again. “Okay, go for it.”
The words had barely left my mouth when his power surged through me, running along every muscle, every fiber, until my whole body sang to its tune. Until it felt like there was no me and no him, just the sum of us—energy beings with no flesh to hold us in place.
All too quickly my office was replaced by the gray fields. Once upon a time the fields had been little more than thick veils and shadows—a zone where things not sighted on the living plane gained substance. But the more time I spent in Azriel’s company, the more “real” the fields became. This time the ethereal, beautiful structures that filled this place somehow seemed more solid, and instead of the reapers being little more than wispy, luminous shapes, I could now pick out faces. They glowed with life and energy, reminding me of the drawings of angels so often seen in scriptures—beautiful, and yet somehow alien.
Then the fields were gone, and we regained substance. And though it involved no effort on my part, it still left my head spinning.
“You,” he said, his expression concerned, “are not recovering as quickly as you should.”
“It’s been a hard few weeks.” I stepped back to study the building in front of us, even though all I really wanted to do was remain in his arms. That, however, was not an option. Not now, and certainly not in the future. Not on any long-term, forever-type basis, anyway.
Which, if I was being at all honest with myself, totally sucked. But then, I had a very long history of falling for inappropriate men. Take my former Aedh lover, Lucian, for instance.
“Let’s not,” Azriel said, his voice grim as he touched my back, then lightly waved me forward.
Amusement teased my lips. “He’s out of my life, Azriel, and no longer a threat to whatever plans you—”
“It is not the threat to me I worry about,” he cut in, his voice irritated.
I raised my eyebrows. “Well, he can hardly threaten me, given he and everyone else wants the damn keys.”
“His need for the keys did not stop his attempt to strangle you.”
Well no, it hadn’t. But I suspected Lucian’s actions had been little more than a momentary lapse of control—one he would have snapped out of before he’d actually killed me. Although, to be honest, I hadn’t actually been so certain of that when his hands had been around my neck.
I opened the ornate metal gate and walked up the brick pathway toward the front door. Wolfgang’s house was one of the increasingly rare redbrick Edwardian houses that used to take pride of place in the leafy bayside suburb. The front garden was small but meticulously tended, as was the house itself. I pulled out the gloves as I walked toward the house and said, “Lucian is no longer our problem.”
“If you think that, you are a fool.”
And I wasn’t a fool. Not really. I just kept hoping that if I believed something hard enough, it might actually come true. I switched the discussion back to my health. It was far safer ground.
“You can’t expect me to recover instantly, Azriel. I’m flesh and blood, not—”
“You are half Aedh,” he cut in again. His voice was still testy. But then, he always did sound that way after a discussion about Lucian, whom he hated with a surprising amount of passion for someone who claimed it was only his flesh form that gave him emotions. “More so, given what Malin did to you.”
Malin was the woman in charge of the Raziq, my father’s former lover, and a woman scorned. My father had not only betrayed her trust by stealing the keys from under her nose, but had also refused to give her the child she’d wanted. Instead, for reasons known only to him, he’d gone to my mother and produced me.
“Meaning what?” My voice was perhaps sharper than it should have been. “You never actually explained what she did.”
And I certainly couldn’t remember—she’d made sure of that.
He hesitated, his expression giving little away. “No. And I have already said more than I should.”
Because of my father. Because whatever Malin did had somehow altered me—and not just by altering the device the Raziq had previously woven into the fabric of my heart, which had been designed to notify them when I was in my father’s presence.
My sigh was one of frustration, but I knew better than to argue with Azriel—at least when he had that face on. “It doesn’t alter the fact that a body—even one that is half energy—can run on empty for only so long.”
A fact he knew well enough—his own lack of energy was the reason he’d been unable to heal me lately. Of course, reapers didn’t “recharge” by eating or sleeping or any of the other things humanity did, but rather by mingling energies—which was the reaper version of sex—with those who possessed a harmonious frequency. Unfortunately for them, such compatibility wasn’t widespread, and Azriel’s recharge companion had been killed long ago while escorting a soul through the dark portals. The good news was that he could apparently recharge through me—though why he could do this when I wasn’t a full-energy being but rather half werewolf, he refused to say. Just as he’d so far refused to recharge. Up until very recently, he’d been more worried about the threat of assimilation—which was when a reaper became so tuned in to a human that their life forces merged and they become as one—than the lowering of his ability to heal me.
All that had changed when I’d almost died after a fight on the astral plane. Because, as I’d already noted, without me, no one could find the keys. My father’s blood had been used in the creation of the keys, and only someone of his blood could find them.
Of course, making the decision to recharge and actually doing it were two entirely different things. Especially when I had barely enough energy to function, let alone have sex.
Which was another sad statement about the state of my life.
I punched the security code into the discreet system sitting to the left of the doorframe. The device beeped, and the light flicked from red to green. I opened the door but didn’t immediately enter, instead letting the scents within the house flow over me.
The most obvious was the smell of death, although it wasn’t particularly strong and it certainly didn’t hold the decayed-meat aroma that sometimes accompanies the dead. Underneath that rode less-definable scents. The strongest of these was almost musky, but had an edge that somehow seemed . . . alien? It was certainly no smell that I’d ever encountered before, although musk was a common enough scent amongst shifters.
Was that what we were dealing with, rather than a demon? I had to hope so, if only because I then had more of a chance of redirecting the search to the Directorate.