“We’re supposed to be together.”
“You righteous males left us here while you went out hunting Corvus,” she shot back. “You would’ve locked us in our rooms if you thought the walls would hold us. How is that together?”
“We needed to know you’d be safe—”
“Safe?” she snapped. “You can’t save us any more than you could stop time from taking your wife.”
He recoiled, not a glimmer of violet in his eyes.
She bit her lip, but it was too late to hold back the words. He’d stayed with Carine despite the demon and the years that had come between them. Had he forgotten what that meant? “We sleep together, we fight together, we are together—for all of it. Or what’s the point of saying you love me?”
“You could tell me.” His eyes glittered now with pure male fury. “But then you might have to say the word back to me.”
She took the hit without flinching. She couldn’t have hoped he hadn’t noticed her lack of response to his declaration. But how could she answer when she knew she wasn’t what he’d hoped for?
When once again she didn’t answer, his tone dropped coldly. “Then I suppose,” he said, “the point is to rip Corvus’s djinni from his mummy husk and consign both of them to hell, where his soul is waiting.”
Oh, ouch. If only she’d put on the bustier while she’d had the chance. The black leather would have kept her guts from spilling out.
She lifted her chin. “You’ll be psyched to know I returned with a little souvenir. A hint to where Corvus is making his monsters. Now, aren’t you glad I broke curfew and got you what you really wanted?”
His jaw worked and he clenched the bed post as if he were holding himself back from arguing. She wished he would just let go and shout at her, because then she’d know he didn’t care about what she’d found.
Instead, he turned away to jerk on his clothes, not even bothering to tuck in his shirt. “Show me.”
A chill spiked inward, like an iron maiden closing around her. She rolled over on the sheet to gather the folds around her. The shopping bag spilled to the floor. “Your surprise is down in the lab. I hope you like it.”
He moved so quietly, she didn’t hear him leave. Only the quiet click of the door latch and the emptiness of the room told her he’d gone.
Had he noticed how much he’d changed from the awkward, stiff recluse he’d considered himself? She buried her face in the pillow, where the scent of him—salt and sun and maleness—lingered. She thought she would’ve appreciated it more if he wasn’t using his quiet steps to walk out on her.
She’d changed too, unfortunately, or she wouldn’t have cried.
CHAPTER 22
Jonah sucked in a long breath and almost gagged on the miasma of hot dust and ancient wood varnish. He’d gone to the stairwell, stomping headlong toward the basement, only to find himself on the top floor amidst the salvaged @1 junk.
That’s what he’d been. Junk in the attic. Except he wasn’t even useful for spare parts.
With Nim, though, he’d become more than that, just as he’d intended. Even without her twice-damned anklet, she was a force to be reckoned with.
And there was always a reckoning. Apparently, this was it.
He slumped against the window. The smudged panes obscured most of the city beyond, letting in only the white afternoon light that burned his tightly clenched lids when he closed his eyes.
Given the first chance, she’d crept away from him, back to her life of before, even though that life lay in blood-soaked, birnenston-stained ruins. She hadn’t seen a reason to take him with her because the bond between them wasn’t strong enough. His body and soul weren’t enough. As for his heart . . .
His harsh laugh, tinged with demon, cracked the pane.
He was going to lose her. She would find that damned anklet and become twice the warrior he’d ever been. And the loss would hurt worse than his maiming ever had. Not because he’d lost his weapon hand—again—but because this time he’d lost his heart.
But how could he force her to love him back? The demon’s unholy power hadn’t kept him whole before. Why should that change now?
Reluctantly, he made his way downstairs. At the last minute, he turned aside on the main floor and stepped outside.
At first he thought the clanging was his headache, but he followed the noise to the far docking bay, where Liam had set up his forge.
The league leader had stripped to nothing more than a leather apron over his jeans, but sweat poured down his shoulders as he guided a hammer along the metal cuff he was molding. He nodded at Jonah and continued the rhythmic blows. Ecco worked the bellows. The big talya hadn’t deigned to remove his shirt, and he was almost as soaked as Liam.
Jonah went to the doorway to stare blindly out at the chain link, bleached to floss under the sun’s glare. At a hiss behind him, he turned to see Liam plunge the cuff into the galvanized-steel washtub beside the anvil.
Liam lifted the cuff, grunted to himself, and dunked his head. He came up sputtering, and joined Jonah in the doorway. “I just need to attach the cuff to the blade you gave me. When I’m done, the only weak spot will be where the weapon attaches to you.”
“That’s the way it always is,” Jonah said.
The league leader stood dripping for a moment, swinging the hammer idly, then hazarded a guess. “Trouble in paradise?”
“Never been there.”
Ecco snorted. “Well, then, you gotta get back on the whore . . . horse,” he said hurriedly when the other two talyan rounded on him. “Whoa, take it easy.”
“Ecco.” Demon harmonics shivered in Liam’s voice, and he shoved Jonah back a couple yards. “I thought putting you to slave work down here would remind you why you don’t run off with our women.”
“I would’ve brought them back.” Ecco hunched his shoulders at the reprimand. “And can I remind you—again—that calling all tenebrae was their idea?”
“I don’t care—Damn it, Jonah!” Liam raised the hammer to ward off the downward slice of the executioner’s blade aimed at Ecco’s head. The big talya yelped and ducked.
Jonah gritted his teeth. Liam had removed the grip from the African blade to ready it for the cuff, so the sword lacked all balance and strength. Not unlike him. But the gleaming edge drew sparks from the hammer as it sheared through the metal.
Jonah pulled up the strike before he hit Liam.
The league leader narrowed his gaze, first on the blade hovering a handsbreadth from his face, then on Jonah. “I’m not done with that yet.”
“With the sword or with Ecco?”
“Either.”
“It’ll be a fine sword once the teshuva’s ether sinks in,” Jonah said. He cut a glance at Ecco. “I’ll wait.”
Ecco scowled. “You boys take this chick thing far too seriously.” He stalked away.
“Let it go,” Liam murmured.
Jonah shrugged. “I don’t think I ever have a choice, do I?”
The league leader gave him a look, as if Liam suspected there was more to the comment. And Jonah didn’t want the perceptive man to delve any deeper, so he said, “Nim found a clue to Corvus’s lair.”
Liam stiffened. “Then why are we still standing here? What is it?”
Jonah shrugged again. “She said she left it in Sera’s lab.”
Instead of racing away, Liam tossed the shattered hammer on the anvil. “Is Nim down there?”
“No.”
“Ah.” There was weight in the understanding exhalation. “How badly do we want this?”
“Badly.” Jonah studied the edge of the blade. Not a nick.
“Then let’s go see what she brought us.”
Jonah hesitated, the ill-weighted weapon wavering in his hand. He could send Liam alone and go to his room to confront his temptress. But the sword wasn’t ready yet.