“I don’t mean any regular old box,” he told her. “I want you to think outside of your box.”
She pulled back to stare at him. “I don’t understand.”
“You need to remember all the reasons you have to live, because if someone goes into a life-or-death fight without having those reasons firmly fixed in their mind, often they don’t make it out the other side alive. The fact of the matter is, you are not facing an either/or situation, where you either fly or die.” He held up a finger. “Here’s the first thing to remember. You may be healed.”
Her face clouded over. “I don’t see how. I—the bone crushed, Quentin. I felt it go.”
He flicked her nose, and he wasn’t gentle about it, so that she jerked her head back and blinked. “You are not a healer. You can’t diagnose yourself, and you don’t know what might happen. Say it.”
“Fuck you,” she said. But she didn’t put any heat behind it, and he could tell at least she was listening to him.
“Number two.” He held up two fingers in front of her face. “You may not be healed back to what you were before, but you may gain something back. Okay, this one is likely. This might mean you go for shorter flights than you’re used to, or it might mean you go parachuting, and you learn how to glide. Maybe we’ll need to build a brace for that wing. Don’t get me wrong, I know that would be terrible and it would suck, and you would have every reason to rage against it. But you’ll be in the air.”
“Parachuting?”
He could tell the thought had never crossed her mind, and why would it? She’d never had to consider it before. He lifted a shoulder. “Along with a version of paragliding. You can ride thermals. Eventually you would have to land, but that’s true now too. I know it’s not the same, and it’s not as good. The point is, there are ways that we can make what was done to you survivable. You just have to believe it.”
She gripped his wrists so hard he felt his fingers grow numb. “I can ride thermals.”
“You can as much as you need,” he said gently. Thank gods, she was listening to him. “You can free-fall and do somersaults in the air. Anything you like. I’ll go with you. I enjoy parachuting.”
“Do you?”
He nodded. “Reason number three. There’s your job to consider. You love being a sentinel so much you endured coming on this trip with me instead of throwing the job back in Dragos’s face.”
“True,” she said, very low. “But if I can’t really fly—if all I can do is ride thermals and parachute, I won’t be the same at my job.”
“You’ll have to rethink how you approach work and what your strengths are, but that is doable too,” he said. “I’m the first sentinel that isn’t an avian, but I am a sentinel. I won my position, and I deserve it. The same applies to you. Your wings didn’t make you a sentinel. You did.” He paused to make sure that sank in. Then he said, “Number four. There are people who love you. Niniane and Grym. Hell, maybe Grym is right, and Dragos does too. Graydon’s pretty mad at you, but you know he loves you.” He took a deep breath. It was time to throw himself on his sword. “Me.”
Her eyes dilated until they were mostly black. “You?”
“Yeah, don’t dwell on it,” he said. Okay, he was done now. He tried to pull back so that he could stand up and walk away.
She lunged forward and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Oh, no you don’t!” she said. “You can’t just throw a tear gas canister like that into the room and walk away when it goes off.”
“I don’t see why not,” he muttered. He tried to turn away, but her face was ablaze with so much emotion he remained on one knee just so that he could keep gazing at her, and soak up the sight.
“If anybody would have said I was unlovable, I would have thought it would be you,” she whispered.
Suddenly he had no desire to go anywhere as his face creased with silent laughter. He told her, “I would have said so too. Then I found out that, even though you are still the most maddening creature I have ever met, you are actually quite lovable.”
Her head bent down as she slipped one hand to the back of his neck. She said softly, “And even though you are every bit the dangerous bastard I thought you were, you are really quite trustworthy.”
The words hit him between the eyes. They were all the more powerful because he knew how little she cared for returning courtesies, mouthing platitudes or pretty nothings. He said, barely audibly, “I’m glad you think so.”
Her long fingers worked at the back of his neck, massaging him. She straightened her back as if steeling herself. “About the mating thing.”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh, is that still in the room?”
Laughter flashed in her eyes. Then she sobered. As blunt and direct as always, she said, “I haven’t put words to what was going on inside me, but I could be mating with you too. I’ve never experienced this kind of—total engagement before. You don’t need things I’m not interested in giving. You fight me, and you don’t back down. You can fight with me on the battlefield as an equal partner. You’re strong enough to hold your own, and you’re willing and able to negotiate.”
When she paused as if searching for more words, he held her gaze as one corner of his mouth lifted. “And I sex your ass up.”
She burst out laughing. “And that too. The thing is, we have a choice right now. We haven’t gone too far, and we can back the hell away from all of this if you want. But before you make any decisions, I want to tell you something. A very long time ago, I made a promise to any mate who might or might not come into my life one day.”
Whatever he had been expecting when he initiated this conversation, this wasn’t it. He whispered, “What did you promise?”
She stroked his jaw lightly with one hand. “I will never betray my mate and never endanger his life with my carelessness or impetuosity. I will fight for and with him, and always have his back whenever he might need me. I will not leave him, and I will not lie to him, and if he will only be patient and forgiving, I will learn how to forgive too, because he will be the most important thing, ever, in the world to me. I will give everything I have to him, along with everything I can be, if he will only do the same for me.”
She couched everything she said so carefully, but those words she spoke were his words. Those promises were to him.
“Why are you telling me this now?” he asked, very low.
“Because as you said, you’re going into war too, and you need to know who your fighting partner is,” she said without preamble. “You need to know that you can trust me. I heard what you said. I heard everything you said, and while I’m still struggling with all of it, I want you to know that somehow it’s going to be okay.” Her eyes filled and she struggled for a moment. Then she said, “I might not know the details of how I’m going to survive, but I know that I will, because I could never endanger someone who was even a possible mate by throwing my own life away.”
That wild, dangerous part of him. He knew now where it was running, and to whom. The panther sank down and put his head in the harpy’s lap. He was an alpha male with too much edge, and he set it all at her feet.
He had never imagined he would find someone strong enough to take everything he was, and willing enough to embrace all of it. He could never have known that the one place where he would find peace was in the heart of the wildest, edgiest creature of all.
As the panther found his peace, the harpy stroked his hair and discovered tenderness. Then everything that lay twisted between them came clear as they reached the heart of the labyrinth they had been traveling together.
NINETEEN 