“Hm. Too bad. I do. You can’t just pretend you’re not upset about all you learned when we were at Tom’s. I get it. How can you not be? I’m not going to judge you for your feelings. I just want you to talk to me so we can work our way around it.”
“I can’t emote on demand.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to share yourself with me. I’m not looking for tears or rages, unless that’s how you feel and you want to do that. But you’ve avoided me for four days. If you’re angry at me, let’s talk about it so we can work it out.”
“It doesn’t matter. You think what you think about her and I think what I think. Anyway, just because we’re bonded doesn’t mean I have to vomit all my feelings at all times for your amusement.”
She stood and grabbed her purse, clamping down on her own hurt. “You’re right. You can’t. And if sharing with me makes you feel that way, there’s nothing more for me to say. I’ll be away until Friday. I’ll call you when I get back.”
She’d hoped he would come after her, but he remained seated so she took her coat and left Heart of Darkness, running into Simon on the way to the door.
“Meriel. It’s good to see your pretty face.” He bent to hug her. And then when he pulled back he took a good look. “Don’t tell me he’s still locked up.”
“He doesn’t want to share with me and I can’t make him. But I can’t sit here knowing he’s upset and that he won’t open up even a little. I know it’s still new between us, but I can’t feel this way and I don’t think it’s helping him either. Keep an eye on him please. I’m going to San Francisco. I’ll be back Friday.”
“Give him a chance. He’s never had anything even remotely like what he’s got with you. It makes him vulnerable to share. He doesn’t know how to do it right.”
“I know. I’m not walking out on our relationship. Just this moment in time. I brought him dinner. I try to talk to him. He ignores me. He hasn’t slept over in a few days. He’s shutting me out of his life so until he’s ready to let me in, I have to be patient.” But it hurt too much to stay around just then. She wanted him to come to her and share. Understood why he hadn’t yet, but it left a lump in her throat and hurt her stomach.
“He’s been working too much. I think he slept here last night. Though I did notice he’s got one of your T-shirts as a pillowcase, so he’s not as tough as he tries to come off. Will you be safe? I mean, away from here when all this stuff is happening?”
“Yes. I’ll be on Owen land with other Owen witches. Life goes on. I can be there for him, and I am, but I can’t experience his grief and his guilt. I have to go. Please watch him. If anyone suspicious comes around, will you let me know?”
“If that bitch comes around, I’ll make sure she never can again. And you be careful too. I don’t like you being away right now with all this mess.”
“I can’t be here right now, Simon. I’ve given him space. I’ve not shown him just how upset I am. But I have feelings too. And I have a job. I have a clan to run. This meeting is important and so I’ll go. It’s two days.”
And all she could do, she thought as she drove home, was hope he felt it when she was gone.
“YOU’RE being a grumpy fuck who is going to have my fist in his eye in about five seconds.” Simon growled at Dominic from across the table.
Dominic slumped, looking around for the eight-millionth time, hoping to see Meriel and then remembering she was gone. And then he’d start missing her again. Even more than he had an hour before.
“You miss her.”
He sighed. “When she said she was going I didn’t think she meant it. I went to her house yesterday morning and she was gone. I had no chance to apologize or to even say goodbye.” He should have followed her when she’d left Heart of Darkness that night. He’d let pride keep him glued to his seat as she walked away.
“Do you even know if she got there safely?”
“She sent me a text when she got to San Francisco giving me her hotel and room number.”
“You haven’t called her yet? What the hell is wrong with you? I know you understand the magickal stuff now, I’ve seen how much stronger you are. The wards on the club, all the diversions and glamours between the back room and the front of the house are seamless. Gage’s idea of changing the overall flow of traffic between Other and human entrances was helpful too. You’re better now. With her in your life. You’re stronger. You don’t lose your cool at all. It’s like you’ve finally calmed down enough to know you’re doing just fuckin’ fine, thankyouverymuch.”
Dominic laughed at that description. “Pretty much from a short time after we met until this fight, we’ve gotten along. Sure we bicker. She’s a very vexing woman sometimes.” He said that with a big smile. “I came up on this thing and when we were in Bend, we had this unity and closeness. She’d been supportive and helpful. She left me and Tom alone enough to work through our stuff, but not long enough for us to start fighting.
“The way she is stuns me. She’s got this effortless intuitiveness about what I need. I took that. But I got back here and we sort of fell back into our schedules and I guess I fell back into my old patterns. I didn’t have this person to share with and turn to before her. I sure didn’t have a person I was metaphysically attached to, who shared my life in such a breathtakingly intimate way. And I was pissed off. Scared too probably, that she gets to me the way she does. I didn’t want her to be right about my mother and I resented that she was.”
“Why aren’t you telling her this?”
“I thought I could hold out until she got back. Give us both time to get past the anger and hurt. Be a little further from it. I’d show up at her place with flowers and some sea salt caramels and a lot of groveling, that we could get to makeup sex within an hour or two.” He covered his face. “I know. God. I’ve never run after a woman before. I let that get to me and then I’ve suffered for it just like she knows I will.”
Simon laughed. “That’s tough love, man. But it’s either deal with it now and at least get some relief from this suffering and then you can get to the sex part way faster when you get back. Or you can wait till she gets back after you’ve suffered for another day and then still have to apologize and admit you were being a jerk.” He tipped a beer in Dominic’s direction. “She’s a ruthless, canny bitch. I really love that.”
Indeed. He did too apparently.
“So I talked to Nell earlier. They got some possible hits on my mom.”
His friend looked around and then shook his head. “Get your head out of your ass. Damn it, Dominic. You are one of the smartest guys I know. Street smarts, business smarts. You are a survivor for a reason and that’s because you are fearless when it comes to the truth. Except for now. Why you holdin’ on to some fantasy that this witch is anything but a cancer? You don’t need to find a witch like her unless you got plans to remove her from your enemies list.”
“Why does everyone judge her? You don’t even know her.”
“Fuck you, Dom. Neither do you. And that’s a fact. What I know is as much as what you know. It’s as much as what Meriel knows. Tom knows even more. You’re the only one who looks at all this evidence and decides to just ignore the facts. That’s not you, man. Think about this woman.”
“She’s my mother.”
“So what? Huh? She gave birth to you and then abandoned you a time or two, oh and then maybe was even stealing your life force to get high. Brava. We know she’s turned. We know there’s no cure once you turn. She’s a turned witch who will kidnap, torture and maybe even kill, most likely kill, to get her fix. She is not whoever she was when she met your dad. She is not even a witch anymore. Her ties to her own magick are dead. She’s cut herself off from her gifts. When even nature won’t recognize you, you are not a cat people want at Thanksgiving dinner.”