by Holley Trent
He certainly wasn’t going to complain. Few could say they’d had the hands of a goddess on them, for any purpose.
“His father was a means to an end,” she said. “He was not a good man. I knew how selfish and deceitful he was, but he had certain other qualities.”
“He was attractive, you mean.”
“Women thought so. As I said, for my purposes, he sufficed. He was strong and healthy, and his tribe knew of me. In the end, he boasted. That was to be expected. You cannot pick up a scorpion and believe it will not sting, no matter how gently you handle it. What I could not abide was him demeaning me amongst all the men who then whispered those disparagements to their women and children.”
Tarik pushed up onto his forearms. “What do you mean?”
“I should have let the insults pass.” Her voice was without intonation. Her hand still beneath his feathers. “I know that. Anger does not serve me well these days. I know the danger that can spring forth from my impulsive fits of revenge and it is better for me to maintain neutrality as much as I can.”
“But?”
“But I’d had a baby,” she said dryly. “And perhaps I did not expect that every insult would cut ten times more deeply. I was tired and raw, like any new mother would be.” She grimaced. “Emotions are…dangerous things.”
“Necessary things.”
Her scoff hinted at an incomplete belief of that.
“After I’d had Yaotl, I was weak. I’d devoted so much of my magic to hiding myself and my pregnancy that there was little left. I was many times weaker than you are now, if you can imagine. Many days, I could not keep my eyes open for more than an hour at a time. I cloistered myself for as long as I could. He was probably a year old before he heard a human voice.”
“His father’s?”
“Yes. I should not have bothered making the introduction, but in all of my millennia observing mankind, I found men to generally be eager to see their sons.”
“He wasn’t?” Tarik would have been proud if he could have a child. He didn’t know if he could. He’d never tried. He’d always held back at the right times. Nothing he ever made was by accident. So many of his kind were sterile, and he hadn’t wanted to know if he was or wasn’t. He didn’t like to think he didn’t have a choice.
“He was the sort of eager that goes with pompous braggadocio and self-congratulation,” Lola said in a tone dripping with annoyance. “His son was the son of a goddess. He had gotten The Fair One on her back. His seed had made magic.”
She scoffed.
Tarik didn’t want to hear any more. It didn’t do him any good to wish harm on people who’d been dead for centuries. He would have to do something with that anger when he had the energy. He needed her to talk, so all he could do for the moment was to sit quietly and listen.
“He told them all how weak I was and that the tales of me were obviously embellished. He said that he’d defeated me. He said I was toothless—powerless—and desperate for worship. He carried my Yaotl around and puffed up his chest as though he were the god. He made them all laugh. Call me petty if that suits you, but I could not abide the disrespect.”
He would never call her petty for that. He’d killed men for far milder insults than the ones Lola had endured.
“What did you do?” he asked, somehow managing to keep the edge of anger out of his tone.
“I snatched my son away. I took him back to our dwelling to nurse him, and while he ate, I cursed them. All the men who had mocked me. All the ones who had said that Coatl should take my boy and raise him into someone worthy of remembering.”
She said the words as though she were telling him about any other inconsequential chore she’d engaged in. Washing pots or mending fabric. Practical and deadly.
“I should not have reacted. I got what I wanted, did I not? I got my heir, and none of the rest should have mattered. I made myself small for no reason, and every time I look at a Cougar, I am reminded of what I did. I am reminded that Cougars were born of a curse and that the first of them were men I despised. I wonder if too much of what I am taints the women of the race now. Cooperating with the males is not so easy a thing for them.”
Her story struck him right between the ribs and made his heart stammer. She’d been all alone with no one to counsel her or distract her from the insult. A friend might have steered her otherwise, but she had no friends.
He would have been one.
“I think the Cougar women are quite pleasant,” he said, genuinely meaning it. “The ones I’ve met, anyway, here at the saloon. Any man, Cougar or otherwise, who cannot abide them for their abundance of caution does not deserve their company.”
“Oh.” Her voice was tinged with relief and something he couldn’t quite qualify. Something new from her, though, and that was probably why he couldn’t peg it.
She wasn’t a generous revealer, his butterfly.
The quiet between them stretched, and Tarik felt no urgent compulsion to fill it. It was comfortable. Cleansing. Much-needed like sleep, perhaps.
She’d likely said all she could, or would, say.
He had so much to say, but he could save some words for later. Time had never been a barrier for him. Only access was.
Now that she’d let him in in the small way that she had, he would be careful not to squander the opportunity. She’d already told him that she could hold a grudge for centuries.
He wasn’t going to do anything to land on that side of her regard.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When Lola’s focus drifted back to the present, she sat up, startled. Disoriented.
“Whoa, whoa! It’s just me!” Elizabeth hustled away from the table and went to the door. She’d set down a tray and picked up the remnants of the last one. “Brought up some coffee. Cook’s downstairs. Told her we’re off for a couple of days, but she wanted to work on the menus anyway.” She nudged her glasses up as her gaze fell.
So did Lola’s.
At some point during her unscheduled blackout, she’d taken Tarik’s hand, or he’d taken hers, and their fingers were twined together atop her lap. She’d evidently fallen asleep seated there on the edge of the bed and at some point during the night, he’d curled around her. She felt a bit as though she’d settled back into a deep throne and lacked legs long enough to wriggle down with any semblance of grace.
She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to get down. She wanted his heat—wanted the feeling of having her back minded for a change.
Still, she worked her hand free of his and cleared her throat.
Elizabeth cocked a brow.
Lola projected, “He was unwell. I sat with him. That was all.”
“You don’t have to make excuses to me.”
“Who said anything about excuses?”
Elizabeth shrugged.
Tarik hadn’t stirred. His hand was where she’d left it, fingers curled in approximately the same shape they had been before she’d let go.
She knew little of angels, but if a being of her ilk had behaved the same way, she would have suspected they were out of their body at the moment. She could shed her physical form if she needed to, but not without some cost. As tired as he’d been, she didn’t think he would do such a thing.
“My point is,” Elizabeth started, “if you want to have a friend, nobody’s gonna look at you sideways about it.”
Lola huffed. She was reasonably certain that everyone would look at her sideways about it. The Cougars. The sheriff. The various bigots in town who, when given sufficient air and opportunity, always outed themselves.
Yaotl.
She’d never been with anyone since having him. Had never wanted to.
Still didn’t.
At least, she didn’t think she did.
She didn’t know what she wanted or if she could even have it.
“I don’t need a friend,” she finally returned.
Elizabeth’s lips curled with skepticism.
“I do not,” Lola insisted.
/> “It’s okay if you do.”
“What would I want with him?” Lola looked down and behind at his face. Slack with sleep, full lips parted. Breaths quietly tumbling out.
She held her hand in front of it to catch the heat and felt the tickle of it on her palm. Little bits of magic escaped on each exhalation, spiraling out, seeking a landing place, and returning—all except the parts that clung to her hand. It was like hair finding wool to stick to. Or pollen on a damp bench.
She drew it experimentally into her palm. There were stars inside her skin. That was what it felt like—orbs of…something that warmed and energized their tiny kingdoms. She closed her fingers over them, fearing the new little worlds in her would dissolve.
“I’d imagine you’d want him for the things women usually want men for,” Elizabeth said.
“I do not do that,” Lola found herself confessing.
The furrow in Elizabeth’s brow creased deeply. “Ever?”
Lola grimaced. She didn’t speak of such things, and now Elizabeth would think she was a hypocrite. Lola was a madam who never put her own body at risk. “Not…since I made Yaotl.”
Elizabeth’s eyes went wide behind her thick lenses. “Goodness. That was ages ago. You haven’t wanted to? I mean, I guess not all women want to. Seemed like Lady Sophie could take it or leave it.”
“I think Lady Sophie would prefer to take it at her leisure and not be bound to the provider of it.”
Elizabeth giggled then clapped her hand over her mouth.
Lola glanced at Tarik again.
No movement. The magic on his breath was still seeking and searching.
Curious…
She waved in front of his mouth, wafting the magic back toward him, wondering if she could control that essence in the same way she could handle her own.
The unique energy curved back toward him and seemed to settle in deep.
Hmm.
She didn’t know what she could do with such information, but she held it in store, anyway.
“He is asleep,” Lola said. “Regenerating, perhaps. My kind does something similar when they feel safe enough to do so. His wing was bothering him a great deal. He would likely not be so exhausted if not for that. Pain has a way of slowing recovery.”
“You think he’s going to be like that all day?”
“I hope so. I believe he would find less trouble that way.”
“What if the sheriff comes back?”
“With the way he ran from the place last night, I do not think he would be so eager to pursue a repeat visit.”
“What did Tarik do to him, anyway?”
“I am not certain. I believed he changed his appearance enough to convince the sheriff that he was not whole enough to engage in any lawless activities.”
“If the sheriff wants to blame him for something, he’ll find a way, given time. He’ll do whatever he can to make himself relevant.”
“I will not let him.”
Lola was stunned at how much adamance she’d placed into the statement. Elizabeth must have been as well, because she’d taken on the same profoundly startled look she’d had the first time she’d done the math and figured out that Lola wasn’t who she thought she was.
Lola sighed and closed her eyes. She’d meant every word. Nothing bad was going to happen to Tarik as long as he was under her watch. It did seem strange that a creature of his might would need any such thing from her.
“Anyhow,” Elizabeth said. “Rachel wanted to go see her boy today. Takes so long to get out there and back that we figured we’d better get up and go early.”
“I do not like the idea of the two of you on the trail alone. I will accompany you.” Lola started to stand, but Elizabeth waved her off.
“We’ll be all right. We’ll go in our cougar forms and keep off the main trail. Hopefully, we should be back by supper.”
Lola turned her wrist over and studied her watch. Seven. “Back by four, you say?”
“Should be back way before then. We don’t mean to stay but for an hour or two.”
“If you are not back by then—”
Elizabeth lifted her hands. “I know. You’ll go looking.”
With a wave, Elizabeth took her leave.
Lola wondered if she was becoming far too attached to those Cougars. She didn’t play favorites. She wasn’t used to being so entrenched in the day-to-day lives of creatures she was patron of. Most didn’t know she still existed.
She could only hope her weakness wouldn’t backfire on her. Sentiment always prompted bad decisions…like that evening on the beach.
She wondered if she looked hard enough whether she’d still find traces of her Jaguars.
Carefully, she extricated herself from her warm throne and looked at him.
He drew in a deep breath but otherwise didn’t stir.
With him asleep, she could really look at him. She could sate her curiosity and kill all the I wonder… statements in her ever-churning mind.
Perhaps to humans, he would have seemed the same as them. In spite of his superior height and build, his proportions were familiar enough. Maybe to them, his skin looked normal and eyes didn’t have such an unsettling golden glint. But she’d seen him as light at first, and perhaps she would always see that through the flesh. The flesh simply made the light easier to behold.
She raked her fingers around the curve of his wing and pressed her palm against the throbbing pulse at the joint. She sensed a busy-ness within—his body trying to repair, but all the parts of him that should have been capable of doing the job were running themselves in circles instead of moving with focus. It was almost as if they were barred from getting too close to the ache.
But her magic could get closer.
Already, she was pushing past the pulsing power in his veins, disrupting the frigid and inefficient drifts of stagnant magic around the ache.
The injury was vast and deep. Through the bone, it felt like, and she wondered then if he really did choose to abandon his body on occasion just to flee the pain.
She withdrew her hand and rubbed the tingling palm. The ache followed like that lint she’d pictured—that pollen—and she shook it off. The owner didn’t attract it back. The annoyance dissipated. It wasn’t destroyed, because energy never could be, but simply freed.
“Hmm.”
She put her hand on the joint again and tried to get her fingers around the bulky thing. If she could get a strong enough hold and work enough of her magic into him, she might be able to lift all the taint out with all the tendrils of it intact.
She was concentrating so hard on moving energy around and trying to mend bone and muscle that she didn’t see that Tarik’s eyes had opened. She didn’t anticipate his forceful grip of her wrist.
“Stop.” Quiet, but insistent.
“I was curious,” she said shoving her hands into her dress’s pockets. “It seemed easy enough to repair.”
“It is not. As I have told you, many have tried.” He sat up slowly and rubbed a hand down his sleep-creased face. In that moment, he looked so human in his subtle confusion, but not.
“The injury responded to my magic,” she said. “Perhaps you do not wish to admit that I am capable, but I can repair it.”
“You can’t.” He hardly took his eyes off her as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “And you won’t.”
“Perhaps I should not be so stunned that you would refuse a gift freely given that the gift was not your idea.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“That is the only excuse I can fathom for you to not allow me to assist you. You do not wish to be in debt to me. You do not wish to have a favor that needs repaying.”
Her boons had never worked that way, though. She always gave without the expectation of receiving anything. She couldn’t be disappointed about things that she’d already exempted people from having to return.
“Or perhaps you simply do not want to witness proof that I have an ability you do not.”
<
br /> His eyes narrowed. “And what would that be?”
“You said yesterday that you do not have the gift of healing.” She stepped closer to him, hand drifting behind his shoulder, teasing the wing without touching it.
He leaned away from her with worry creasing his brow.
“I could, if I wanted to,” she whispered. “You know of fire, yes? How it can both scar and cleanse? It destroys but also renews. Life often springs forth from cold ash. Green things grow out of blackened char. So much depends on the skill of the creature who holds the fire.”
“What can fire do for fire, Butterfly? What can a sun do for a star?”
“Are you afraid of burning out, then, star?” She put her hand back in her pocket, dispersing more of his polluted energy before she did. “Or are you afraid I will stumble upon some way to douse you?”
“You couldn’t,” he said softly as he large hands encircled her waist and pulled her into the open vee of his legs. “You taunt me, and for what? Is that how you’ll drive me away? Is that how you’ll bring an end to your beloved Cougars’ thirst for adventure? Tease me so relentlessly that I fold up my wings and leave you?”
She clapped a hand over his mouth. She didn’t like those words.
“You talk too much,” she said. “Stop speaking.”
She didn’t like that he’d broken through her resistance and made her give a damn about him.
One of his eyebrows inched upward as his hand moved from her waist to her wrist. Slowly, he removed her hand from his mouth.
He didn’t say anything. He held her hand captive and cemented her body in place with his hypnotizing stare.
She had things to do. She could go assist her cook or follow her Cats. She could write a letter to Yaotl that might someday actually catch up to him. Or she could be proactive with the escalating confrontation with the sheriff and put a stopper in whatever trouble he was courting from her.
There was laundry to do.
Stairs to scrub.
Making contingency plans for the day the saloon was no longer profitable was an option.
