“Did you know art galleries will deliver within an hour if you pay them enough,” she informed me as she turned back and casually fired another bolt into Goodfellow’s pride and joy.
“I think Cherish can hold her own with Robin,” I said.
“I know she can. That does not mean I want the sight inflicted on me,” she replied with exasperated annoyance. It was also said with a maternal protection I didn’t think she knew was present. With one last shot, she pierced the chest where the heart would be before tossing the crossbow onto the bed. The room was painted a deep chocolate brown, the same color as the wide streaks in the pale blond hair that was twisted into an intricate braid. She wore different clothes than she had yesterday. The painting wasn’t the only thing she’d had delivered. “I had clothes sent from my apartment, including what you have there,” she offered as she noticed my gaze. “I thought Cal could borrow some of yours. Robin, of course, had all new delivered. Not many, though,” she said. “I expected the entire upper loft to be devoted to them.”
“To be fair, no one can go in his apartment now,” I reminded. “His cat might very well kill them and use the body as a plaything.” And that he’d only had a few clothes was a bad sign that Robin had had all the togetherness he could tolerate.
“Yes, his pet. How very unlike Robin to take on something that requires attention—attention that I’m sure he thinks would be better spent on him.”
Pucks weren’t well liked by other supernatural creatures. Their trickster personalities—in other words, the lying and stealing—didn’t make them very popular. Pucks also tended not to associate with other pucks—ever—which was understandable. All those massive egos gathered together, each vying to be the center of attention—as Cal had said, “All those drama kings in one place . . . no way that would be a pretty picture.”
“He gets lonely.” More precisely, he anticipated being lonely. Despite having us now, not to mention the continuous faceless stream of sexual partners, one day Cal and I would be gone. When you live thousands of years, it’s the price you pay for befriending humans. A mummy cat would be around much longer. Although there was Cal’s Auphe blood. It was possible he could live longer than your average human. Could, but wouldn’t.
I’d been the only constant for his entire life. I’d been the one who raised him. I’d been the one to help him back to sanity after he’d escaped the Auphe following two unimaginably horrific years as their prisoner. He was rational now, but even so, he lived his life balanced on the thinnest of tightropes. I’d seen the suicide run he’d once made to save me. I wouldn’t be around to see the one he’d make to join me, but I knew it would come. I also knew that as much as I tried I couldn’t change that.
“True, Robin and I don’t always see eye to eye, but when the time comes I’ll do what I can.” She laid her hand on my cheek. “I hope he can do the same for me if . . .”
I knew what she left unspoken. If we made it past this. If we were still together. If I could forgive her.
Now I knew there was nothing to forgive. I tilted my head down and kissed her. A warmth of lips, a fleeting touch of silken tongue, and a taste so familiar it seemed I’d known it all my life. “I was a bastard,”
I said quietly, taking her hand and intertwining fingers with hers. “I expected perfection when I’m far from it myself. I’m sorry for that. We all have secrets. Or will.”
An emotion flickered behind twilight eyes. Regret. Her hand tightened on mine. “Now I know how it feels to be on the receiving end. It’s not a pleasant sensation. I’m sorry for that, no matter what my reason.”
I nodded and said quietly, “Cal.” Now worry joined the regret in her eyes. “You have to know and you have to remember, if there had been no Cal, there would be no me. I don’t know who or what I would’ve been, but it wouldn’t be the person I am now. I do know this though: It wouldn’t be a change for the better.”
“Niko . . .”
I didn’t let her finish. “Just remember.”
Her eyes cleared. “I will. I promise.”
Time would tell.
The bedspread on Seamus’s bed was brown and gold. The sheets were ivory, the same as Promise’s skin. The light brown of my skin was a stark contrast to hers, yet it fit. Just as we fit—as we always fit. The touch of my hands on her breasts, stomach, hips; the feel of her beneath me, wrapped around me . . . how could that not always be?
Rosewood blinds hid the now afternoon sun as I finally lay relaxed in a way I didn’t often allow myself the luxury of. There was a kiss in the dip of flesh where my neck met my shoulder. Only a kiss. Promise didn’t bite, not even gently. The lightest of nips, more of a caress, really, was as close as she came. Teeth were for food to her. They had been for spilling blood and ripping flesh for the majority of her life. When that was true, biting wasn’t erotic. It was the equivalent of using a steak knife during foreplay.
I imagined Seamus had felt differently. But a sociopath’s preferences, whether vampire or human, weren’t worth wasting thought on. I twined a mixed strand of dark brown and pale blond hair around my fingers and tugged lightly as she raised her face to smile down at me. “Are things better now?” I didn’t need my brother’s name added to the question to know that she wasn’t talking about her and me. The warmth of her draped over me was more than answer enough to that. As for Cal . . .
I told my first lie to Promise and kept my first secret.
“Cal is fine.”
I met her eyes as I said it. I could’ve hidden that it was a lie, covered it up with my mother’s skill. Or I could’ve looked away to soften it. I didn’t. In my mind I had no choice.
If there had to be dishonesty between us, then I would be honest about it.
9
That evening Niko and I had driven to one particular junkyard we’d been to more than once in the past. We’d passed through the unlocked gate when I let Niko know what I thought of the new arrangement between him and Promise. Honest dishonesty?
“As philosophies go,” I observed, “I gotta say: That’s fucked up.”
“No one asked you to say. It’s between Promise and me.” Niko eyed my wrist and narrowed his eyes.
“Jesus, yes, I’ve done my meditation. Give it a rest, Buddha.” I had done it, and I tried to do it every hour. So far it had worked. Either that or no one had really pissed me off. I had to say it was probably the second one, but I was still in there, meditating my ass off. Shoving the monster down. Niko said it would help, and if he said so, then that was gospel in my book. I’d do it until it became habit, and who knew? It might have me slamming less heads against the bar at work. “I’ll pay my tab next week,” my ass.
Habits. Meditation might make it there, but there was another old habit between Nik and me that I never needed reminding of. Without warning, I twisted sideways and jammed a foot in his abdomen. “See?” I said. “Meditation. My foot is one with your stomach.”
“Forgive me. I shouldn’t have doubted you. You seem so much more at peace.” Instead of the hands on the ankle and the wrench I expected, his leg twisted around mine and took me to the ground. The knuckles of his fist pressed just hard enough against my larynx to make the memory stick. “By the way, sometimes the fish sticks were fried zucchini,” he added, “and cartoon Great Danes don’t actually solve mysteries.”
“So you were born a diet Nazi.” I waited until he moved to sit up. I didn’t try anything else. There was no countermove to having your larynx crushed. Choking and dying tended to take up the rest of your attention. “And now you’re talking trash about Scooby. You are one evil bastard.”