She took one of the wandering paths. He waited until the tension across her shoulders eased before he spoke. “I’d shackle you again to protect you.”
“I know you’re old-fashioned—really old—but that’s not your call.”
He tightened his hands around the teacup. “What was I supposed to do? Until I destroy Corvus—”
“You can talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He noticed distracting her wasn’t on the list. Too bad. “Even Bookie thought the baited-trap idea was bad.”
She frowned. “Did you see him today? He didn’t answer my e-mail. But Liam seemed to think my idea had merit.”
Archer didn’t want to discuss how the meeting had gone down. He certainly wasn’t going to correct her mistaken notion that everyone else was against her self-destruction too. “I just need a little more time before you sacrifice yourself.”
She trailed her fingers across the leaves. The hazy light leached the color from her eyes so they gleamed as silver as when they’d made love under the showering water. “And I just want what’s happened to me to matter , to know it isn’t all pointless.”
“Oh, it matters,” he murmured.
“Before, you didn’t think anything mattered.”
He turned his face to the sky—so he didn’t have to meet that probing stare. “Maybe you’ve changed things for me.”
Like the fact he would never be allowed to return to the league.
Attacking another talya, it happened. Angry, hurting men with superhuman powers sometimes got cranky. As long as no one died, no harm, no foul. And they were hard to kill.
But to betray the purpose of the league, the mission of the teshuva to seek redemption . . . A demon not repenting was a djinni, its possessed just another djinn-man to be hunted into a better-late-than-never grave.
And all because he couldn’t forget the feel of her beneath him, beside him; couldn’t forget, again, how to feel.
He slugged back the rest of his tea. “Warm?”
She nodded, a faint frown creasing her brow.
“Good.” He didn’t want to guess whether the heat in his own skin was the memory of hers or the unholy promise of hellfire to come.
“You have changed,” she said. “The demon rides you hard. Ever since Zane’s death.”
He stiffened. “Of course, I’m keeping the teshuva on simmer. In case you forgot, we’re under siege.”
“You’ve always been under attack. Something else is wrong.”
A hint of violet played at the corners of her eyes. He knew she was calling on other-realm senses to monitor his response. The demon might not confer mind-reading powers, but the constriction of pupils, the dilation of blood vessels, the tinge of nervous sweat, could be every bit as damning.
She studied him. “You told me once you had no brothers. But all the talyan are your brothers now.” She took a breath. “Zane’s body might be dust already, but you don’t have to forget him. You’re still allowed to mourn.”
“I don’t have time to mourn.” Honest enough, although maybe he should convince her he needed time alone—with her—to work through Zane’s death. Maybe a couple weeks immersed in her welcoming body, how had she put it?—affirming life.
But she shook her head. “It’s not about time. You said you wanted me to help you feel.”
So much for distracting her with his needs. “I know what loss feels like,” he snapped. “I learned a long time ago.”
“The war . . .”
He glowered. He was supposed to be playing the wing-wounded bird, leading the hunter astray. So why did the ache seem real? “War is all about loss. What happened to Zane was a terrible reminder, but it’s nothing I’ve ever forgotten.”
“What have you tried to forget?” Her words, soft but relentless, stalked him. “What did you lose—or whom—that made you afraid to ever lose again? The farm? Your father?”
“Frederick.” The answer burst out against his will, startled like the bird into flight, never mind what was revealed to the hunter.
Sera was silent.
“A friend. A boyhood friend.” He raised his head to glare at her. “A house slave boy my age. For a few summers, we had a secret fort in the lowlands. Sometimes he did my lessons on the sly while I ran wild. All I had to do in return was chop wood for him.”
The swirl of green, brown, and violet in her gaze reminded him not so much of bright honeysuckle now as an orchid deep in the labyrinthine swamps he and Frederick had explored, rot turned to exotic flowers in the gloom.
“My father found out Frederick’s mother had taught him to read. He sold them in town, since what point having field hands who could read, and sent me away to school up North, since what good was an heir who chopped wood.” He clamped his teeth closed on the urge to tell her how, even then, his father had rubbed at the pains in his chest when working the cotton, and how rumors of war bubbled like foul swamp gases from the white fields. “When I returned, the bayou had been drained to make way for more crops. And I found out Frederick had tried to run. He was caught about twenty miles from my school and taken back. Somewhere along the way, they beat him to death.”
He fell silent, and the violet in her eyes faded. “That’s why you hold yourself apart from the other talyan? As penance? But you weren’t responsible for Frederick’s running, or his death.”
He raked her with a scathing glance. “I know that.”
“If you won’t risk the pain of losing, you’ll never know the joy of holding, either.”
“I know that too. But it’s not just me at risk.”
They faced each other, the whisper of leaves overhead like a watchful crowd taking bets.
Whose wound bled more freely? Was this the twisted trail that had led them to each other across two realms, human and demon? But what hope had they of healing each other, the woman who’d been abandoned and the man with a penchant for losing everything?
She dropped her gaze first, and he knew he should feel like crowing with victory. Instead, he felt as if he’d lost—again.
Her voice was softer yet in defeat. “So how long are we hiding out?”
Corvus was going on two thousand years old. How much longer could he last? “Just a few days.”
By then, she’d be suspicious. And he’d need to find a safer place for her while he hunted Corvus. He’d never mentioned the greenhouse to the others, but he hadn’t hid the place either. Bookie could uncover his financial tracks easily enough. Good thing Bookie was on his side, at least as far as the Sera-baited trap went.
“A few days.” She walked on, leaving him a few steps behind. “Do you serve umbrella drinks out of that kitchen? I always wanted to take a tropical paradise vacation.” The meandering path brought them to the center of the garden. She lifted her head to stare at the daybed. “What will we do to fill the time?” She glanced over her shoulder at him.
He felt the dull heat in his face and tried to keep his voice level. “I have to run out.” Run away. “You’ll be hungry later, and green tea won’t hold us forever.”
“Forever?”
“A few days,” he amended. “I won’t be gone long. Will you stay here and wait for me?”
She looked at him.
This time he let the strain come through in his voice. “Please?”
Finally, she nodded. “I’ll stay.”
The crow shrilled, a high, thin shriek, and threw itself against the bars of the cage.
“Be still,” Corvus growled, and reached for it again.
Just one stinking feather was all he needed. If he could look at the subtle shades up close, he might finally capture the spirit of the creature. This would be his last chance.
The phone rang. The crow flapped into the peaked point of the cage. With a vicious curse, Corvus slammed the cage away, rocking it on its stand.