by Kallysten
Kate’s arms tightened around him, and she couldn’t stop her fingers from digging into his sides. She never wanted to let go.
“And I missed you,” she said, choking up a little and burying the words against his chest. “I missed you so, so much.”
He pressed a tentative kiss to her temple—and they both gasped when the water suddenly turned icy. Kate scrambled back, immediately regretting breaking contact with Blake. He shut off the water hurriedly before turning an apologetic look to her.
“I’m sorry, I—”
She reached out to him and laid two fingers across his lips, stopping him mid-apology.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she assured him, and she wasn’t only talking about the water.
Whether he understood or not, he nodded once and didn’t say another word. He stepped out of the shower first and picked up a large towel from the metal rack on the wall. He draped it around Kate when she joined him, and she thanked him with a smile.
They dried themselves and each other in silence. Kate slipped her sleep clothes back on, while Blake strode out of the bathroom in the nude. Part of her had hoped he would go to bed like that, but when she followed him, she found him pulling on a pair of boxers. Marc’s, she was sure of it. Like the ones she wore.
The realization made her think about Marc for the first time since Blake had returned to the room. Where was he? Was he still talking to Jen? What could he possibly have to say to her? She had half a mind to ask Blake if he knew what it could be about, but in the end she climbed into bed and didn’t say anything. Blake seemed calm, relaxed, and she was loath to break this moment of peace—especially when he joined her and, slowly but without prompting, rested a hand on her stomach.
She rolled toward him, and his hand slid up to rest at her waist. The room was dark, the only source of light coming from the bathroom, but it was enough for Kate to distinguish Blake’s features. His head rested on the pillow just inches from hers, and while his eyes were closed already, she doubted he was asleep.
“I’d like to kiss you,” she whispered. “Just…just a little kiss. Would that be all right?”
A few long, interminable seconds passed before Blake finally answered. “Just a little kiss,” he repeated.
Kate moved closer to him. His fingers flexed on her waist, clutching her tightly for a moment before relaxing. She pressed her lips to his mouth and took exactly what she had asked for: a small, innocent kiss. She wanted a lot more than that, but for now, it would be enough.
“Thank you,” she whispered when she pulled back.
Blake echoed the words back at her. Slipping into dreams hadn’t been so easy in a long time.
Chapter 13
Jen agreeing to guide Marc into the demon dimension was only the first step. Marc needed to know everything she did about the prison, and he grilled her on it for hours, sometimes asking the same question in different ways to see if she would give a different answer or more detail. He didn’t know whether she was still under the influence of the truth spell Simon had performed on her, but he wasn’t worried about that anymore. Now that he understood what had happened to her and how she had come to work for the demons—now that he knew she wanted nothing more than to find a way out—he trusted her to tell the truth. And if she lied… Well, she would be right by his side when they went through. If she lied, he’d make sure it was the last time she betrayed anyone.
“You already asked that,” she sighed when he asked again about the number of demons that protected the prison.
He had moved the cot he had brought in for her to the center of the room so that she could lie down, although her shackled feet were still on the floor. She looked at him impatiently from under the arm curled over her eyes.
“Once you make it past the guards outside, the protection inside is minimal. They’re not afraid of prisoners breaking out.” She snorted and covered her eyes again. “I doubt anyone ever has broken out,” she finished, muttering darkly. “Can I sleep now? It has to be almost morning. If we’re going to the other side tonight, we both need to get some rest.”
As much as Marc hated to admit it, she was right. He was tired too, both physically and mentally, worn out by a night of physical fighting and emotional upheaval.
After Marc left Jen, however, he felt reluctant to return to the room he shared with Kate and Blake. Part of him was afraid he’d only get there to discover that Blake had had another meltdown that Marc hadn’t been able to prevent and had probably caused. And yet again he’d be at a loss for how to soothe Blake.
Still, with nowhere else to go, Marc made his way back up to their floor and descended the hallway as quietly as he could. As far as Marc knew, the squad had quarters on this floor, while the rest of the hotel was inhabited by the town’s soldiers. Simon’s room was somewhere at the end of the hallway, and Daniel’s at the opposite end.
He realized that he didn’t have a key card for his room when he saw that the door was propped open with a shoe. The bathroom light was even left on for him. He was grateful that they had remembered him. The feeling lasted until he quietly entered the room and found Kate and Blake in bed, asleep, wrapped around each other.
So maybe they hadn’t been waiting for him. Maybe they hadn’t missed him at all. They certainly looked cozy enough.
A small question at the back of his mind nagged at him until he had to know. He took a deep breath in through his nose, already bracing himself for what he would find. The scents of lust and sex he had expected weren’t there, however, and all he could smell was the lavender soap Kate liked so much.
Standing by one wall, he watched them for a long moment, wishing he were with them, yet at the same time unable to take the first step and join them. Blake had been all but unable to touch Kate of his own accord the past few months, but that was hard to remember when Blake held her against him, his tenderness obvious even in his unconscious state.
It hurt. It hurt more than Marc wanted to admit to himself. He wasn’t used to standing on the outside, looking in.
Earlier, he had tried to comfort Blake and been rejected—twice. To see his Childe find comfort in someone else was like a knife pushing into his gut, even if that someone was Kate.
He knew why Blake had turned to her, of course. He understood that in Blake’s mind, Marc’s face was still the face of his jailer; it would always be. Blake had progressed a lot, and he could see more in Marc than the creature who had tortured him for countless years, but Marc knew that a monster was still the first thing Blake saw in him.
It hurt because Blake was his Childe. It was Marc’s job—his responsibility, his reason for being, or at least one of them—to take care of him.
It hurt for other reasons, too; there were words Marc had never said to Blake, words he would never say, but that didn’t mean that the feelings behind these unspoken words didn’t exist.
Marc could have joined them. He should have, maybe. After all, that propped door testified to the fact that they had been expecting him. They looked too peaceful, however. He didn’t want to break such a quiet moment. Also, Blake’s and Kate’s words from earlier were still ringing through his head. Blake had reproached him for not coming to free him and had forgotten for a moment where he was when he had struck Marc as if Marc were his jailer; Kate had been adamant that they had to do something about the prison, physically sick at the thought that more people were trapped like Blake had been.
They were right. Both of them. And Marc would prove himself worthy of them.
One slow step after the other, he retreated back to the door, turning away only when he couldn’t see them anymore.
He left the shoe in the door, giving himself a way to come back later if he needed it, and started down the hallway again, not knowing where exactly he was going. He reached the elevator and was waiting for it when soft steps on the once-plush carpet drew his attention. He turned to see Daniel. His hair was damp, and he was wearing a crisp, white shirt.
“Coul
dn’t sleep either?” Daniel asked with the flicker of a smile. “I was on my way down to the kitchen. Hungry?”
Marc wasn’t, but he didn’t have anything better to do. He entered the elevator with Daniel and observed him from the corner of his eye. It was the first time they had been alone since Daniel had left Riverton—and the first time that Marc felt he could talk to Daniel as his Childe rather than as the leader of the squad.
“You look much better,” he remarked, striving for a casual tone. “No issues finding blood in this town?”
Daniel threw a wry look at him. “If you’re asking whether I’ve been feeding enough, the answer is yes. I’ve learned my lesson. So you can stop worrying about me.”
Marc nodded, but what came out of his mouth was, “That’s not going to happen. You’re my Childe, you’ll always be my Childe, and I’ll always worry about you. That’s all there is to it.”
They had reached the first floor, and as he stepped out of the elevator Daniel rolled his eyes at Marc. “You make it sound like I’m a kid. I can take care of myself. I managed just fine long before we ever met.”
Daniel led the way past the lobby and toward the hotel kitchen. It was late, but voices could be heard coming from the courtyard beyond the lobby door; soldiers on duty, no doubt.
“It’s not that I think you need supervision,” Marc tried to explain. “It’s just—”
“It’s just that you couldn’t do a thing for Blake and you don’t want it to happen again?” Daniel cut in.
Despite Daniel’s lopsided smile, the words tore into Marc’s heart like a knife, reopening wounds that had been self-inflicted only minutes earlier. He didn’t reply and merely watched Daniel warm up two bags of refrigerated blood. He still didn’t say anything when Daniel handed him a warm mug, opting for a nod of thanks.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Daniel said with a sigh. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. All I meant was that I’m fine, and Blake needs you a hell of a lot more than I do.”
Marc drank a mouthful of blood, but it did little to chase the bitter taste of failure that lingered on his tongue. “I know,” he said at last, and changed the subject. “Have you told your superiors about the prison yet?”
Daniel grimaced over the rim of his mug. “Not yet. I was going to make that call now, actually. Do you want to listen in?”
Moments later, they were sitting in Daniel’s office, but Daniel seemed reluctant to pick up the phone.
“Will they still be up?” Marc asked, wondering what the hold up was.
Daniel barely threw a glance at the clock on the wall before he answered. “Yes, it’s morning for them already.”
“So, what are you waiting for?”
Daniel’s hand lingered over the phone, and he shrugged—but still didn’t pick it up. “I’m trying to think of the best way to present the news. They’ve always been dead set against any attempts at going to the other side, and I don’t want them to say no before I can even explain.”
“You think they’ll say no even with all those lives hanging in the balance?” If Marc was fully honest with himself, he could admit that he had expected as much—maybe even counted on it.
Daniel didn’t reply and dialed. It took less than five minutes for him to explain the situation and for his superiors, two men and a woman on conference call, to agree unanimously.
“The risk is too great,” one of the men said, Commander something-or-other.
“We’re talking about dozens of lives,” Daniel insisted. “We can help; it’s only a matter of trying.”
“Your job is to close breaches,” the woman said sternly. “Not all mages are strong enough to do so, and you have one of the strongest in your unit. Close the breach and move on to the next. Every day you delay, people in another town die under demon steel because their breach wasn’t closed yet. Twenty prisoners is a small price to pay for thousands of people not living in fear anymore.”
Daniel clearly disagreed. He leaned over the desk and stared intently at the phone when he started arguing. Marc had heard enough. He stood and started for the door. Daniel didn’t seem to notice.
It was better this way, Marc thought as he returned to the kitchen. It was a dangerous mission. The fewer people, the better. With a mug full of hot insta-coffee in hand, Marc returned to the squad’s floor and followed his nose to Simon’s room. He found it easily enough. Before he knocked, he looked down the hallway toward his, Blake, and Kate’s room. He hoped they were still asleep. They both needed the rest. Finally, Marc knocked with two brief rasps of his knuckles on the wood. The light snoring inside ceased abruptly, but when a few seconds had passed without the tell-tale sound of steps, Marc knocked again, a little louder this time. After another moment, the door opened to reveal a bleary-eyed Simon. He frowned when he saw Marc standing there and closed his robe a little more tightly around him, as though he were feeling self-conscious.
“Marc?” He blinked several times. “What’s wrong?”
Marc gave him a tight smile. “Nothing. I just need to talk to you. Can I come in?”
He held the mug of insta-coffee in front of him like an offering. After another beat, Simon reached for it, thanking Marc as he took it. He cradled the mug between his hands as he stepped aside and asked, “Do you… I mean, do I have to actually invite you in?”
Marc shook his head as he passed the threshold. “Not to enter a hotel room, no. Can we sit down?”
Simon allowed the door to swing shut and led the way into the room proper. The bed sheets were rumpled, which was no surprise at this hour of the morning. Simon sat at the foot of the bed, tilting his head toward the chair to invite Marc to sit.
“What was it you wanted to talk about?” Simon asked before taking a slow sip of coffee.
“The breach,” Marc said without preamble. “Yesterday you said the news was grim?”
Simon drank again, this time with a grimace. “Not so much grim as nonexistent. I couldn’t figure out anything other than the obvious, which is that some kind of magic is keeping it open.”
Marc nodded. “Jen said they’re maintaining a shield over it to deflect magic from the inside out. She can show us where from.”
Simon’s hand trembled when he lowered the mug. He stared at Marc for a long moment, and finally licked his lips before he asked, “Show us? You mean…in the demon dimension? You actually want to go there?” He gulped and added, even more quietly now, “You want me to go there?”
The fear in Simon’s voice wasn’t unexpected. Marc only hoped he could find a way to get past it.
“I need you to go there,” he said calmly. “I could storm there with an entire army and we still might not be able to break the spell that holds the breach open. I need a mage. And there’s none better than you.”
Simon had always been proud of what he could do with magic, and even now, he perked up a little at the praise. He still sounded wary, however, when he asked, “Why are you telling me this? Why not Daniel? He’s the leader of the squad and…” His voice trailed off, and his eyes widened when he figured it out. “He doesn’t know, does he? Does anyone know?”
It was clear that, by ‘anyone,’ Simon meant ‘Blake and Kate.’ Marc had anticipated this question, too, and he had his answer ready. Knowing how to reply, however, didn’t make the words any easier to say. “Blake…my Childe was trapped in that place for decades. He is not setting foot there again. Neither are Kate and Daniel. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Simon’s lips twitched, then settled into a weak grin. “So…you won’t let the people you care about go, but you’ll take me? Is that supposed to reassure me?”
“That’s not…” Marc smiled wryly. “Listen, I’m not going to say everything will go fine, because I don’t know that. What I know is this. You are the best at what you do. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. And we’ll have better chances of success if it’s just the three of us.”
Simon dropped his gaze to the mug in his hands and wa
s silent for a while, his face screwed up in concentration. Marc wasn’t sure whether to push any further or wait to see what conclusion Simon came to. In the end, the truth was that it had to be Simon’s choice. Marc couldn’t force him to come along, not when so many things could go wrong.
“I could do a glamour,” Simon said at last, sotto voce, and he might just as well have been thinking aloud as talking to Marc. “With just three people to cover, I could make it a pretty good one, too. Enough to get past the demons.” He looked up again, frowning. “It’d be too much to hope that there won’t be demons, right?”
Marc barely suppressed a sigh of relief. There were still a lot of details to iron out, but Simon was in, and that was an important first step.
Chapter 14
The smell of insta-coffee in the morning would always be Kate’s favorite way to wake up. She drifted out of sleep slowly, smiling before she even opened her eyes. It had been a long time since Blake had surprised her with breakfast in bed. And a long time since he had curled around her like this, spooned tightly against her back, his arm wrapped around her middle.
Except… She frowned and finally tried to open her eyes. If Blake was still in bed, still sleeping against her, he couldn’t have gone to get insta-coffee or anything else, for that matter.
Her smile returned when her gaze found Marc, seated by the desk. He was watching them sleep, and she wished he would have joined them instead of sitting so far away. She raised a hand toward him to invite him closer, but her gesture had the unintended consequence of making Blake jerk against her and draw away.
“What?” he mumbled, sounding more than half asleep.
Kate rolled onto her back to offer him a contrite look. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. You can go back to sleep if you want.”
Blake yawned and started to shake his head, then frowned and sat up when he saw Marc.
