Ceinwyn got close enough to give her rival a pat on the back. “I did try to explain it to you, Moira. They’re involved. No children to be seen. Adulthood: still undecided.”
“Waves,” Moira recalled. “You mentioned waves. Quoting the Lady to me . . . really . . . I should have slapped you.”
“I’ll try to have a private word with Heinrich and Victoria later, make sure they understand your motivations. It will take time, but they’ll come around eventually.”
“You can’t know, Ceinwyn . . . you can’t know. You try, but . . . saving a child isn’t the same as birthing one.”
“I suppose it’s not.”
“Either way . . . all we have left is to jump after them or let them go splat, as your little troublemaker said.”
“Tie them up on the way down, hope they don’t notice,” Ceinwyn whispered conspiratorially.
Moira von Welf grinned at that. “King Henry Price . . . Learning Council member. What have you done?”
“Wait until Mordecai hears.”
“Oh! You have to let me listen in!”
[CLICK]
Fair to say I collapsed into bed by the time evening was upon us.
Such a bed as it was.
Twin beds ain’t got much bed to them despite the name. About as much as I had in my room back home in Visalia. At least I got AC nowadays. No fan chained to the headboard. No piles of discarded, unwashed clothes surrounding it. Even bought the comics these days. Buy them and never sell any of them.
Room was smaller than the one I had back home, being it was just an office. Had a desk, a trashcan . . . desk used to have a computer on it with my accounts before T-Bone took all that over. I’m just the talent, he’s the business genius. Now the desk had old newspapers sitting out on it. Yeah, Fresno has a newspaper . . . kind of. It’s a shit one, trust me, but it still counts.
Had a bathroom with a crapper and a sink. Val used it to brush her teeth.
Everyone else was still out in the comic store, bunking down for the night, but we’d retreated in here. Small little slice of privacy that it was. Out the backdoor, bolted and locked triple, you could just barely make out the street traffic, noise cancelling fence running behind the shop or not.
Out the front door, kept hearing bursts of laughter, followed by Moira Welf scolding them with “Really! You’re acting like Singles!” and “Behave yourselves!” and “Stop encouraging them, Ceinwyn!” Bedtime story from Ceinwyn Dale . . . that would be a scary thing to close your eyes to.
Could’ve felt left out, but my company was pretty good.
Pretty special to me.
Even if she was taking her time with that toothbrushing.
She’s nervous, you dumbass. First time in a bed for months and months. Different than running through the Guild or the Geo Realm, ain’t it? Can blame that on the Crazy . . . this, about as mundane as you get sharing a bed with your boyfriend, no matter how much both of you need sleep and don’t have energy for nothing else. It’s often the most mundane of tasks that freaks out us mancers.
Here I was, all that behind me—sure you’re tired of the list by now—and tomorrow ahead of me, yet I’d taken so much of this day just . . . being a person. Watching one part of the team after another come together. Might have started just being about me and their relationships with me, but it was becoming something more. Why I was happy to hide away with Val for the night. Let Welf and Vicky catch up. Let T-Bone struggle through Moira’s continued scrutiny. Let Pocket and Jesus grow some backbone by keeping up under Miss Dale’s little jabs trying to get Paine’s hideout location out of them.
Gonna all need strings with each other to make it through this one.
Then, assuming we did get Susan . . .
Assuming we all survived . . .
What’s down the next turn of that Pit of No Return?
Sat back up on the bed. Slipped my shoes off. Belt next, wiggle the jeans to the floor. Socks. Too fucking hot to sleep in socks, especially if Val would be next to me. Told you before, girl’s like a furnace. Only thing hotter than her looks is her body pressed up against yours. And her spicy farts, but . . . well, still not perfect no matter how much I idolize her.
Took my geomancer’s coat off too.
One of them. Gone through dozens since I’d graduated. Blood, sweat, asphalt, mud. There was any type of dirty out there then I found it in the last couple years. Should see the tux I wore when Eresha went splat . . . chick working at the dry cleaning shop didn’t even look me in the eyes when I went to pick it up.
Two years almost . . . the Dirt King, Prophet of Meteyos, Wielder of a World-Breaker, the Maximus of the Earth, and I was still wearing that same symbol every Single gets handed day before the Asylum school year starts. Minus the Ultra pin and the name badge at least. Still . . . mostly the same. People still wear colors associated with their discipline, just like Ceinwyn and Val had during my trial, but never so literal. Not unless they were at the school for a reunion. Outside of that . . . just me.
Folded it up, put it down on my desk.
Ain’t a way most ever see me. Tightie whities and a simple cotton shirt. King Henry Price at his most mundane. Unless you counting me on the toilet and then . . . don’t matter how many mountains you’ve rearranged when the Taco Bell whatever-the-fucks work their magic on you.
Took me a minute to realize the bathroom door had opened. Glanced up to see Val smiling across the office. “You going to be as gentle with me as you are with that coat, King Henry?”
Wasn’t just toothbrushing apparently. Had her blond hair down, cascading around her shoulders. Shoulders not quite visible, but plenty of collarbone and throat on display, the oversized t-shirt she wore hanging low enough on her chest that . . . well . . . What little makeup she wore during the day was gone, skin plain and paler than I was used to. Val’s not crazy about the sun like some spectromancers, but she’s also not one to be stuffed into an office, not until Ceinwyn promoted her. Skin was so pale I noticed a few faint freckles along her cheeks that were usually hidden in her tan. Oversized t-shirt ended above her knees. As for what was under the shirt . . .
Well.
Not the kind of question you can answer with just some cuddling.
“Gentle never been my strong suit, Boomworm,” I reminded her.
Her nose wrinkled. “I should come up with a nickname for you.”
“Got plenty.”
“Mostly titles,” she complained.
“Foul Mouth.”
She chuckled, finally stepping all the way into the office. My eyes ate up every tall inch of her and damn if she didn’t know it. Damn if it didn’t make her confused, undecided if she was spooked or excited at what so much normal between us signaled. “I don’t think Heinrich came up with that one as a token of affection,” she distracted.
“Yeah, it’s a curse. Don’t think I can survive you calling me ‘hunny bunny’ or something similar though.”
She giggled some of her nervousness away, hand reaching out to touch my coat on the desk, feeling the Jinshin Ken hidden in the fabric. “Think we’re ready?”
“Need you in the bed first. Can do some stuff on a desk but cuddling ain’t one of them.” I earned a look, but I just gave her a canine grin back. Not a predator seeking a fight or bones to break here, predator seeking something else, something fleshier.
Her eyes-without-irises met my gaze and she smirked back at me. As always between us, there was a challenge, a dare, an exaltation in what we were, in what we could be, both apart and especially together. “No pretending it was just a moment of insanity brought on by adrenaline or your Crazy if I get in that bed with you.”
“Try Number Four,” I agreed.
She shook her head at this, sunshine hair swishing lightly across her skin. “Try Number Only. Those were all ruined by Isabel, by Ceinwyn even. They were the attempts of children, even last year. We made it a game, a play. Together then apart and how much fun could we have in such short spans? But . .
. no sacrifices. No willingness to give a bit of ourselves up to be together.”
“Don’t plan on any giving in, didn’t think you were either.”
“I’m not. Our relationship doesn’t have to be the kind where one of us consumes the other, but . . .” She finally sat on the edge of the bed, hand on me knee. “Maybe sacrifice isn’t the right word, King Henry, maybe joining is, or . . . I’m just trying to say I want this to be real. I don’t want a continuation of all our missteps and . . . whatever it’s been. I knew I cared about you and . . . I knew I liked you and I knew you made me trust myself like no one else did, but it wasn’t until you weren’t around that . . . I knew I loved you. Now, I want . . . I want you with me. I want to be with you.”
My hand came down on hers. Always be shorter than her, but my hands will always be bigger. “I get it, Val. Say we love each other, say we trust each other, but . . . give our all so many places maybe neither of us stopped to think we needed to give our all with each other to make it stick for more than a few days.”
She smirked again. “Something like that.”
“You’d probably say it with bigger words . . . if you could talk, cuz you’re so nervous right now you’re shaking that shirt off. Got to warn you: that shirt shakes off and we’ll be past cuddling really quick like.”
“Not too quickly I hope,” she whispered, voice husky and teasing.
“Make me consume myself, you keep this up,” I growled in frustration.
“You can barely sit up,” Val pointed out, hand slapping on my arm to send me back against the wall the bed was pushed against. “No consume or consummation for you.”
I grunted as my head thudded. “You make too many good points.”
“Added plus to this being Try Number Only: I care about you more than you care about yourself and will try my best to keep you alive,” she pointed some more as she stood to turn off the light.
“Guess I might see old age yet, since your best is usually ten times more than enough.”
“Last chance,” she whispered, glancing back at me, finger on the switch. “More than back together. Something new. Something better. One little flick.”
“Takes more than one little flick I’ve found . . . got to really work it—”
Her turn to growl in frustration.
Somehow I managed to shrug even as exhausted as I was. “Think the Asylum decides which house we’re gonna get, but I’ll let you decorate, okay? Still be doing experiments with artifacts, but I promise to try really hard not to blow our kitchen up.”
She smiled over the fantasy. “Won’t last forever.”
“Nah, one of us will fuck it up. Get a promotion. Have a blood god try to kill us. Something. Then we have to see if the whole adult thing is true. But until then? Get in the bed, Valentine Ward, cuz I love you.”
Off went the lights.
Another flick brought a flame to Val’s finger. Just a little thing to guide her back to me. Did something for me just as much as all that collarbone and bare throat had. Yeah, yeah, I got a thing for powerful women can kick my ass. Don’t I know it.
Flame disappeared as both of us slid in beside each other.
Too hot out for covers, even with the AC.
Too small a bed for us to be anywhere but on top of one another. Her feet went over the edge, leaning on the desk. My back pressed up against the wall. Our eyes, our eyes were only on each other. Shadows and outlines. Me so thick and solid, almost a block of flesh. Ain’t ever claimed to be pretty like her, but she sees something in me. Felt her legs on mine, longer than mine. So much leg they could’ve wrapped around me twice. Put my arm around her waist, pulled her close, kept her from falling out of bed.
Eyes . . . can’t escape that star. Too much fucking gravity.
Love her.
Love watching her mind at work in there.
Love the pride in her over me. What I ever do to deserve pride? Ain’t a hero. Barely not a monster. But here was this amazing woman trusted me with her life, with her family, now with her future.
“We are so doomed,” she whispered.
“If we are, Val . . . guess it will be together.”
Earned me a kiss. Always earned. Always know I have to. Know she’s so much better than me it’s the only way we’ll work. Do like me a kiss, but . . . found myself enjoying the cuddling more than I expected. Scent of strawberry shampoo from her hair. Peppermint from her mouth. Even the burnt ozone around her fingers where that flame had burst to life.
Another kiss snapped my eyes awake.
Hadn’t realized I was drifting off.
“Not yet, you don’t,” she told me, her voice with some heat to it this time. “Out with it, now.”
“I love you?” I tried.
“Found out how to use that as a shield rather quickly, didn’t you?” she said ruefully.
“Got to use all the weapons available to keep up with my Boomworm,” I pointed out.
“Flattery will not save you, Mr. Price. Out with it. What is it you want? You aren’t hiding plans, are you? So much regression . . . next thing you know you’ll be passed out drunk again.”
“Ain’t regression,” I complained, “just . . . Ceinwyn is more of a mess at the moment than I was after you broke up with me. She’ll want to be the one beside me at the trade and who knows what the fuck will happen then. Paine ain’t the same guy he was back when she dropped the mountain on him, Val. He wasn’t fighting back then and he wasn’t quite broken yet. Now . . .”
“You’re underestimating her.”
“I’m not. I’m not estimating her any way at all . . . cuz Ceinwyn’s got to lead everyone, got to stay at the back and be cerebral. I need the most badass woman I know next to me during the trade, while the others hang back. We have a decent plan. I worked hard on that fake. It will fool Paine for a bit. Still . . . truth is he could always kill me. Or decide to kill all of us. With me, shit hitting the fan ain’t much of a surprise. He does that I won’t have any choice but to fight him off. Put myself between all of you. What I need from you, what I’m asking from you ain’t to fight with me.”
“King Henry . . .”
“If something happens, I need you to protect Susan. I need you to get her back to the others. I know you’re the only person that can kick enough ass to get her out safe. A year ago, you put Christmas’ future in my hands, Val. I’m doing the same with you for Susan.”
She bit her lip. “You’re doing it again.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m going to get emotional.”
“Emotional enough you’ll lose control of the Mancy and fireballs might shoot out of your va-jay-jay?”
She smacked me in the stomach as she laughed. “It’s not funny.”
“Would be if we taped it . . . PornHub wouldn’t know what hit it.”
After the laughter finished, her expression got serious again. “I’m just supposed to let you go alone? Hold off Paine, Isabel, and the Three Queens alone?”
“I’ll have a World-Breaker.”
“King Henry . . .”
“I know, Val. Big ask. Unfair ask.”
She thought about it for a while. So long I almost nodded off again, dreaming about that knee of hers rubbing different parts of me. “Fine, I can do that,” she decided. “It will be our backup plan, but I think you’re wrong about Ceinwyn again. She could handle facing him down.”
“We’ll have to have one of our few disagreements on that,” I said, leaning forward to peck her lips.
My peck turned into quite a bit more when Val responded in kind. Wasn’t absentmindedness that moved her knee this time, was awareness of what she rubbed it against. Same with her hands, one in my hair, the other working its way down my spine to what I’ve always proudly called a fine bit of tushy.
“I feel the need to point out that this has progressed beyond mere cuddling, Miss Ward, and it’s all your fault,” I teased her, words grunting out of me as our need to touch and feel and please grew in intensity
.
“That it has, Mr. Price,” she agreed, dark eyes twinkling as brightly as I’d ever seen them. “If we die tomorrow from exhaustion, I’ll take all the blame.”
“Only half,” I grunt, hand reaching downward to find out what exactly was under that oversized t-shirt of hers.
She gasped as I found nothing at all. “See, you weren’t the only one with a secret plan.”
“Yours is better than mine,” I admitted, hand unsurprised to find one flick didn’t do the job and getting ready to play a symphony.
Underneath my latest kiss I felt her lips move into a satisfied smirk.
Try Number Only.
Valentine Ward: 1.
King Henry Price: 0.
Session 72
There was no one around to share my revelation.
Just me, little ol’ King Fucking Henry Fucking Price, all alone in my Asylum-issued jail cell. Standing there like I’d just made the greatest leap in human understanding since the creation of the crapper.
Pretty sure the universe as a whole was spectacularly unimpressed with me.
No shit, dumbass, welcome to the party.
Sure it still ain’t Catherine Hayes?
Might not be focusing on her enough.
Heard she was in Dallas during the Kennedy Assassination too.
Shut up, subconscious.
You asshole.
A million little mistakes that week, but that’s the big one. The Mistake. None of us saw the obvious until it was all over but the screaming. Maybe I’m just deflecting blame, but I’ve thought about that week quite a lot; ran it over in my head, done some ruminating if you will. More now talking to you kiddies than ever before.
It’s our culture as mancers that’s the problem. Never have been one for culture or for its big brother civilization. But mancer culture . . . at least mancer culture is broken enough that keeping it going is more important than how it looks or how it sounds to outsiders. Still, being broken—the odd angled, spinning car rim that it is—creates a breeding ground for this type of eruption. If not Isabel then someone else would’ve filled the spot. Has filled the spot just the same, over and over again, hushed up by mancers for hundreds and thousands of years; time and time again as the boiling point was eclipsed and the backlash left a handful dead.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 70
