Phone, she suddenly remembered. Battery. And she slowed. No. It could wait. How could he have done that tattoo without her remembering it at all? How could he have faked it?
More random words slotted in. Fire fae. Maybe not karma after all. Could a fire fae walk through fire unscathed? This time she didn’t just slow in her running, she came to a stop with her hands on her knees, panting. Killer got excited at the change in pace and went in frantic circles around her legs, wrapping the dog lead about her knees. Fire fae? She shook her head. Where had that come from? She knew it was some sort of faerie who had an affinity with fire, and she had a feeling she’d learned this recently, but where? How?
Where did she draw the line between reality and dreaming?
All sorts of unconnected facts had been popping into her head on the run. Some of them she vaguely recalled their meaning, others baffled her. Aroha, she was sure was someone important, but who? The answer stayed hidden in the shadows at the edges, like a song without lyrics, like a joke for which you’d forgotten the punch line.
Heketoro was real. The sex was real. And how she’d felt. Oh yes, my God, real enough to make her quiver inside.
The wooden egg. She’d forgotten that. What had he called it? As if she’d stirred it to life, she grew aware of it inside her, felt the presence against her inner muscles. Right. First thing to do when she got home. Pull that thing out. Then, after that, she was going to the lake. There was something about the island drawing her to it, that said, here I am, your answer all wrapped up neatly waiting for you.
If ever anyone was less likely to be her Prince Charming, it was Heketoro. And yet all the while, as she ran the rest of the way home, his name went round and round in her head.
Chapter Twelve
After showering, she wrapped herself in a towel and went to her bedroom with one thing in mind. Then she lay down on the bed and checked.
Yes, the egg was still there, and it would take a determined gynecologist to get it out of her. She couldn’t move it, tucked as it was up at the very end. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. She shut her eyes at the memory. At the first touch of her fingertip, she’d been brought, gasping, to the brink of orgasm. Lying on the bed curled up seemed the wisest choice, at least until those sensations died away. Right now her legs were likely to collapse if she stood.
It was very odd, if delightful, and if they sold these over the Internet, every woman on earth would buy one.
At last she crawled out of the bed, pulled on black lace underwear, then a light pink knitted dress. As she tugged the dress down over her head, she spotted the newspaper where she’d tossed it at the end of the bed—the Sunday edition was the only one she bothered with lately. Death and despair seemed the major ingredients of most papers. At least on Sunday they added a bit of cheery stuff. The dress had bunched at the waist, so she smoothed it down.
“I wouldn’t bother.” Two hands—one slipped over the curve of her ass, the other roved up her spine and finished up at her neck, thumb toying with the hair at her nape, fingers resting easily across her throat as if taking her pulse. Heketoro. The murkiness, the doubts, gathering in her mind dissipated, like sunlight shining through fog.
“Oh, Heketoro,” she whispered, drawing in a shaky breath. The tremors spread until her whole body shook. “I…I almost forgot you. Not all of it, but some. Why?”
“The curse changes your memories. Not all of it?”
“No. Now you’re here, I remember us at the bridge, and after. I forgot how good you were to me.”
“Am I? Do good men do this?” His lower hand explored under her dress and found the wetness between her legs. Her plump labial lips were like a guide path. His fingers slid along her slit and inside, then his thumb found her anus. So wet, it snuggled into her with ease.
“Ahh.” She shut her eyes. The egg had made her body a receptacle for pleasure. Nerve endings aroused, she’d never known she possessed. If his finger contacted the egg…
“I meant only to reassure myself as to your safety. But now I’m here, I find I cannot resist you.”
God. Do something. She wanted to fall to her knees and beg him to take her. That last little bit of pride or self-consciousness held her back.
On the opposite side of his neck to where his fingers held her, his mouth took her. No small nibble; he must have opened his mouth as wide as it could go. Teeth sank into the long muscles at front and back. If they’d met, torn out a chunk of her, she’d surely have died. She felt as if she almost did. A tumult swept down her, strong, relentless. Could you die of passion? She wobbled. His fingers pressed farther up her vagina and touched the egg. She shuddered, exploding into climax, crying out and clutching at her stomach, while he whipped his hand from her neck to waist to catch her. Then her legs did fail.
He lowered her to the floor until she knelt. She leaned onto the bed, clutching at the quilt with elbows folded and resting her forehead in the softness. This time she couldn’t stop.
“Take me. Please.”
“Your wish is my command.” The way he growled made it clear he’d have taken her anyway.
She shuddered and waited, curving up her ass. When nothing happened, she turned her head and peeked. A flurry of pink petals rained inside her room.
Heketoro watched her steadily. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Do you like this? It’s mostly glamour.” As he spoke, he dragged her lace panties to her knees, pushed her dress up to her waist, baring her bottom. He leaned in, traced the line of her moist folds with his finger. Not entering this time, just trailing around her clit, along, past her anus and back. She quivered.
“Do you like the rose petals? I thought them an apt adornment for your home.”
She sucked in air through her mouth, eyed the petals. “Pretty, but, I like…” Every syllable stuck to her tongue. She swallowed. Damn, what was he doing? She wanted him, not flowers. “They’re nice, but I like what your fingers are doing more.” She bent her head until her face was submerged in the quilt, and she could only hear and feel. His fingers traced round and round. So wet, she heard the slick sounds.
“And?” he asked, as his hands came up and pulled the straps of her dress down to her elbows, trapping her upper arms against her body, then reached around the front and freed each breast from the bra. Her tight nipples throbbed as his finger brushed against them, pinching each lightly.
Heat speared to her groin. “Oh!” She bit the quilt, rocked her bottom back against him, trying to get his fingers inside. She whimpered. “God. I want you in me, now. Please.”
He set both hands at her hips and thrust into her in one long wet slide. Filling her, stretching her. The head of his cock reached the deepest part and stopped. She grunted at the small pain, felt her muscles shift around him, clenching, relaxing. The darkness as she hid her head in the quilt, made everything concentrate down to the essence. Only he existed and her, and the play of body on body. Flesh on flesh. He moved again, out to the entrance, that exquisite stretch, then in. Out. In. Out. The harsh cries and groans from her throat echoed in her darkness.
She arched more, lowering her belly, sliding down to the side of the bed, taking the quilt with her to the floor. Head on her forearms, tangled up, bottom as high as she could get it. He could do what he liked with her. Now, he planted his hands on the carpet at either side and pounded into her. Pleasure cascaded, poured, filling her tight, feeding her core until, taut and swollen, she strained open her mouth, and the maelstrom erupted into a blaze of white. Shuddering, coming down, with the last wave shaking her, he put a finger to her throbbing clit and squeezed it to the rhythm of his last slamming thrusts. Wailing, she came again, jerking her hips as his cock sank to the hilt and jetted inside her. Each throb of his cock set off another ripple in her cunt.
“Ahh. My. God.” Her muscles turned into water.
When she went to slump onto the carpet, he grabbed her around the waist, kissing the sweat trickling down her spine.
“No,” he gasped. “O
n the bed, my princess.”
Princess? He’d not called her that before. What was it with the pet names? Though, really, she did like it. She smiled languidly at the thought. Where’s your pride, girl? You’re not a toy doll. She blew a mental raspberry. Her pride could take a hike. He could call her princess every day if he wanted to.
They lay together, spooning, on the rumpled bed.
“I can’t stay much longer,” he whispered to her ear. “Remember, Danii. Don’t let Aroha in. I will see you again tonight. The island. Remember the island.” His fingers trailed across her cheek.
“Mmm. Aroha. Will remember.” She smelled the scent of lust on him and the clean fragrance of the pillows. Exhausted, satiated, she felt her eyelids sink lower as she succumbed to the temptation of sleep. They’d lain down the wrong way up on the bed. Before her was the newspaper, half-opened. Barely comprehending, she read the few lines visible.
ONE DEAD IN GANG VIOLENCE
Nick Wilmer, nineteen-year-old budding artist and reformed graffiti artist found dead after brawl between gang members. Police confirm that—
Fully alert again, she sat up and grabbed the paper—read just enough to convince herself she’d not been mistaken, then bowed her head with the paper crumpled up against her chest.
“God. You stupid, stupid boy.” He would’ve been visiting some old friend for sure and gotten caught up in the middle of whatever went down. “Such a damned waste.”
Heketoro sat up and caught her in the V of his legs, kissed her shoulder. “What is it?”
She shook her head. “A friend died. Senseless. He was just getting his life together.” Senseless, like so many deaths. She’d seen enough of them to imagine his end—another still voiceless figure lying in the middle of a street with blood pooling under him.
“What are you thinking?” he murmured.
She told him the truth. “That I’d like a drink—of my scotch.” He’d asked, and with him beside her she remembered it all—he was going back, without her. If he couldn’t handle the truth. Well, so be it.
Even so, the sudden hardness in his voice made her fear him, just a little. “You promised not to.”
Nick had died, and Heketoro got angry at her for feeling it? Lord. No. Wait. She had to show her strength. Sometimes logic sucked. Fury scorched through her—at Nick, at life itself, at Heketoro. Screw logic.
“Yes, I did, but you’re going back…going away after all this. I’m the one who has to be here! You have no right to criticize me. No right at all. Besides, I’ve not actually done it, have I?”
The silence itself seemed to crystallize after a while, until she felt it stiff and solid between them. She folded up her legs and hugged her knees so tightly her arms ached. He put his hand to her chin and turned her head so she had to look into his eyes.
“You’re right. I’m not staying here, though if you were in Rarohenga with me, I’d certainly not allow such defiance.”
“Oh?” His matter-of-fact assumption of authority was chilling, and yet as she stared back at his darkened eyes, it became somehow reassuring, the feelings mixing up together all at once, and she couldn’t help but wonder with a shiver what it would be like to utterly relinquish control to him.
His gaze softened. “When a friend dies, I like to hold a small ceremony to celebrate their life. Would you like to do this?”
The change unbalanced her. He’d said he had to leave. It must be costing him something to stay. It was clear the lake drew him in some way.
“A ceremony. Oh…sure.” She turned that over in her mind, dubious but willing to consider it. Funerals and wakes were the same sort of thing, only this sounded more personalized to her. “Where? What exactly do you do?”
“In your garden would be the best place, I think. Does that suit you?” He squeezed his legs together against hers.
He was trying to help. She blinked. “Sure. Sure.” If nothing else it meant she’d see more of him, maybe figure out why he’d gotten under her skin so easily. Her mind worked better with him around for some reason. Lately, without him she lost sight of where she should be going, doing—she forgot things. She hated feeling lost.
She recalled just about begging him to take her with him, and she was sure that wasn’t entirely logical. Just because he was a faerie with magic at his fingertips and she melted every time he touched her—
And that thought only made her too aware of how his legs enclosed her and of the heat of his chest and groin at her back. She laid her hand on his thigh and noted the soft hairs there and the way solid muscle curved into muscle.
A man with magic at his fingertips? Huh. Pick a handsome basketball player, and she’d get the same sort of ability.
“Danii? Do you want to do this?” he rumbled in her ear.
“Uh, yes, I do.” The idea had indeed percolated down into her and no longer sounded odd. Nick would like it—would have liked it—and so would Jacob. Suddenly this clicked in her mind. It would be her good-bye to Jacob as well. With the official statement still declaring him only missing, she hadn’t been able to mourn him as she should. She needed this—needed it so damn much her chest ached with the misery scrunched up inside it.
“What can you offer as a sacrifice? An object that would have significance to your friend is best. We’ll do a fire sacrifice, I think, considering your heritage.”
“Significance? My heritage? Where did you get your English?” For man who’d lived in a lake, he was well versed in the English language. She was babbling a bit, struggling with the unexpected grief, but, a fire sacrifice? She hoped the neighbors wouldn’t be looking.
“I’ve had a hundred years of listening to humans. I assure you, I know a lot about your language—and other things.”
“Hmph.” She raised an eyebrow at him, then squirmed off the bed. A sacrifice? She thought about that. Nick was an artist at heart. What did she have that would fit? There was something. It had been a present to her, but in a way, it would be more than fitting, for both of them. Yes.
Sitting cross-legged opposite Heketoro in the mock jasmine arbor with a small fire between them was strange, even if strange had become second nature these last few days. Though he’d said he couldn’t stay much longer, Heketoro no longer showed any real inclination to leave. He’d as much as said, being inside her house disturbed him in some way. Perhaps that was partly it.
She looked at him from under her eyebrows. This was a side to him she’d not seen. He’d carefully combed back his own hair and fastened it with a tie of plaited grass, then done the same with her hair. The washing of their hands had been equally as ritualistic, and she was positive her fingernails had never been this perfectly clean.
He was dressed in black, as always, while she had on the pale pink dress. Not really appropriate for a funeral, but then this wasn’t one, it was a celebration of life, and pink was ideal for that, being the color of newborn skin, or the very palest of flowers.
“Are you ready?” he asked quietly. The little fire of twigs and small gum tree branches crackled and smoked, giving off the captivating scent of eucalyptus oil.
She nodded, and her head felt wobbly, as if it were barely fastened on.
He’d gotten her to light the fire, watching entranced as she assembled the necessary fuel and struck a match. She always volunteered to light the barbecue or fire whenever she attended a party that needed them going. Now she knew why—she was a fire fae. Maybe she should’ve joined the fire department instead of the police? If only she’d known. The thought was so absurd, for a second, she felt on the brink of hysterical giggling.
“You can say some words out loud now, or simply think them. It will mean the same.”
She nodded, bowed her head, then chose to simply think them.
Nick, wherever you are, know that in my way, I loved you. You were one of the best. You overcame a bad start in life and were going ahead full steam toward something good. I’m sorry I won’t get to see where you could carry yourself, because I know it
would have been somewhere wonderful. Good-bye, my friend.
At that she stopped thinking, overcome by grief running through all the good and bad memories of both Nick and Jacob.
“Would you like to present the sacrifice?” Heketoro’s hand was on her elbow. He’d moved to sit next to her knee to knee at some time in her reverie, and she’d not noticed.
“Yes. Oh, wait.”
Shakily, she took up what she’d chosen. Jacob had sent this to her on her last birthday—a pen and paper set, the paper embossed with butterflies and flowers. She’d not used it though, for he’d gone missing soon after it arrived.
She tested the pen on the corner of the paper, then carefully wrote a verse from Jacob’s favorite poem by Christina Rossetti. Like most men, even a Special Forces soldier, he had his softer side, just as she was coming to understand Heketoro could be considerate and gentle.
He covered her hand with his, the larger size of his fingers and palm dwarfing hers. “Danii, might I use one piece of this paper? It’s important and to do with your safety. Do you mind?”
“Uh…no, guess not.” She watched as he slipped one sheet free and wrote something in large letters, then folded the sheet in half. She couldn’t quite read the ornate lettering.
“Please, continue.”
She swallowed past the thickness at the back of her throat, then read her verse out loud. Though Jacob’s verse, it was for Nick as much as for him.
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
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