Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows)

by C. V. Larkin

  Except the only thing that came to mind was how unbelievably good the metallic sparklers in his veins had felt when he touched her, how badly he wanted her to touch him, and how much he resented the near overpowering urges he felt whenever she was close.

  Stop thinking about her.

  Reprieve came by way of a dense layer of arctic cold. Sio made a sluggish grab for Loren to reassure himself that the guy hadn't been swallowed by the bad. He glanced at Tian who still had hold of his shirt. Shadows spun in lazy patterns across her skin with a sheen that mimicked the way light reflected off an oil slick. She wasn't looking at him, but the profile of her face under all of that otherworldly sent a disturbing ripple lurching through his chest.

  What did you do to me?

  He opened his mouth with the question poised, when they punched crash test dummy style into an impossibly black ocean of ice. The cold permeated everything. It crawled in through his pores, sapped the heat from his nerves, and settled in his bone marrow. Sio screamed, but no sound came out. With another agonizing sensory jolt, they broke through the liquid nitrogen terror and felt a half a second of free fall acceleration before landing hard on a surface with a surprising amount of give. It still hurt.

  A loud metal clang was smothered by a sharp curse and then there was light. It was murky at best and his vision was obscured as if they were under water, but he could see. The space they'd landed in was the size of a mausoleum. He wasn't having any trouble breathing, though. He attributed that meager comfort to the pressure surrounding them which was dead set on forcing thick lungfuls of glacial cold hand over fist into his chest.

  Through the buttery flashlight haze he watched Tian slide off the tilted surface of a rectangular interrogation table. Metal chairs protruded from the walls at odd angles. She moved slowly, working to lever herself up with one hand, fighting the cold or the random battery of muscle aches associated with taking a swan dive into a steel table.

  He settled Loren on the ground, took two steps closer, and wrapped his hand around her jacket clad bicep, tugging her upward. There was a pregnant silence before she disengaged, sliding her arm out of his grip, and stepping out of reach.

  "He's sinking," Tian said. She wouldn't meet his eyes.

  Sio rubbed the center of his chest, which felt like the cold had congealed and exploded into shrapnel. The irritation came on the heels of the ache, it crawled along the skin of his back like an itch, a mangy angry creature that held on for dear life. He stared at her, telling himself that he wasn't searching her features for a telltale flicker of emotion.

  He's sinking. Sinking? What was wrong with him? Aww, hell.

  Sio lunged for Loren, who was being consumed by some unidentifiable goo underfoot. It had latched on in congealed blobs of gummy dark paste like oatmeal. The harder he pulled the less the unconscious body moved.

  "You have to jiggle him."

  "That's usually my line," he said as he shook the body.

  Tian's low chuckle preceded a sickening pop as he loosed the guy from the clutching quicksand science project mush.

  "Where would you suggest I put him, princess?"

  "Try the table. The dead sea eats immobile organic matter."

  "Why didn't you say something when I put him down?"

  She shoved the flashlight halfway into the muck with a violent thrust. The batteries rattled with reproach and a thin film of frost crept up toward the lens. "I was popping my shoulder back into the socket."

  When you put it that way...

  "Is there something I can do?"

  "I heal fast," she said, palming the gun in Loren's waistband and hitting Sio with an annoyingly neutral expression. At least she was looking at him again.

  Sio popped his jaw, nerves humming like a live wire. "That's not what I asked."

  "What, you wanna kiss it and make it better?" She winced and re-holstered.

  Sio's heart got away from him, banging around under his ribs, desperate to escape the furnace that had ignited in his skin. He cursed his salivary glands for their sudden and wholly inconvenient confusion.

  "No."

  Liar.

  He waited for her to call him on it, but she didn't. Tian held up a hand and shook her head. "Great. I'll tell you what, I won't touch you and in return you can ease off the twenty questions, okay?"

  "No. Hell, no." He was immediately angry. Sio didn't pick apart the response. He embraced the familiar territory with open arms and a wave of relief. "You owe me an explanation, and now that we've hit a lull in the unfathomable freak show that's become my night, you should start talking."

  Tian's nostrils flared. "I owe you?"

  He leaned into her, making a mockery of her personal space; trying to retain some of his initial fury in order to avoid thinking about sex. He wasn't successful. The resulting nervous energy spun up from his toes, smacking against every possible erogenous zone on the way to his brain. He was half a second and one short inch away from kissing her when he reigned himself in and hissed through clenched teeth. "Right. Now."

  His skin was filled with electric blue flame, on fire, in some bizarre physiological response to the myriad of ways he was overly worked up.

  "Here I thought you were taking this well," she said.

  "I am. I'm also not stupid."

  Sio took half a step back, not trusting his reaction if he got anymore spun. That he still couldn't get over how beautiful she was, was a slap in the face. They had one of those intimate moments where the sound of thought was infinite, traveling farther faster than the spoken word. He inhaled the rain washed scent of her skin; she studied his eyes, and the current between them snapped tight.

  Would were that the case.

  The thought hadn't felt like one of his. Sio balked. "Why are you doing this?"

  "I'm not," she said.

  "Bullshit."

  "You won't like the answers I have. Do you still want them?"

  "I want a lot of things."

  It was a dickhead thing to say, he knew it, but he'd tripped his default setting to bastard. The resentment and panic were suffocating him.

  "Don't look at me like that."

  "Are you going to lie to me and tell me you don't like it?" he asked.

  "I don't lie. Do you want an explanation or not?"

  "You didn't answer my question, but by all means explain." He was stewing in it now. His teeth hurt with want.

  "You're not human, and mostly neither am I. I'm not sure what you are yet or if you're brackish, but if we had to hazard a guess it would be Sidhe based."

  He could feel his upper lip curling. "If you were speaking English, what you just said could have been helpful. Thanks for that."

  He was needling her and he knew it, knew he wouldn't be able to stop until she was as heated as he was.

  Self-destructive? Check.

  Impending train wreck? Full speed ahead.

  Fear and sexual frustration dripped in the form of biting sarcasm from his face. He watched the heat spark under her tan, burning away the careful neutrality, and felt a perverse satisfaction. If she was screwing with his emotions, she wasn't going to get out of this without a little irritation on the flip side.

  "That means...you're...a faerie, you fuck."

  "Watch your mouth, Tian."

  Her lips twitched with dark humor. His emotions vacillated between wanting her so badly he couldn't think straight and wanting to throttle her to make the desperate need go away.

  "Or what, Sio, you gonna stab me again?"

  Sio's stomach soured, clenching into an angry fist. His eyes narrowed to slivers that all but obscured her from view as he glared daggers from under the thick forest of his own lashes. He was amazed with how level his voice sounded, even if it was two octaves lower than usual. "If I do, will you come for me like last time?"

  Tian's expression closed in on itself, and she held his gaze with cold empty eyes. "Did you hear me ask for it?"

 
His righteous fury turned to ash in his throat. He couldn't breathe. He looked at her blood-caked hand and the gorge burned its way up his trachea. He would have run, only there was nowhere to go.

  "Sio..."

  He shook his head as if the movement could ward off the silken sound of her voice.

  Tian sighed. "I shouldn't have said that. I'm not good with emotion and I'm having them in all the wrong places. What happened...was a blessing and I'm an asshole using it like that."

  "I put the knife you gave me through your hand," he said.

  "You put it through yours too."

  Now that she brought it up, his hand did hurt. Sio sat and flexed his palm until it burned and began to bleed fresh. He sat and leaned against the table. Loren's foot dangled next to his shoulder.

  "I'm not careful with myself," he said. "I fight and my sex life is disgusting. I've been slowly killing myself with both for years. I could have given you something."

  God, he hated himself right now.

  "I couldn't catch anything, even if you were human enough to be a carrier. You're not."

  "I'm sorry."

  "We both know that it didn't hurt," she said.

  "That makes it worse."

  "What you did was out of love...we felt it in your soul. Blood has meaning, old magic you don't know about yet. It was a good thing."

  An electric shiver climbed his pulse points as she spoke, reminding him of the wild energy that had existed in the circle.

  "Tian, why did you use the word 'we'?"

  She sighed and sat down, leaning against the other leg of the table next to him. She fiddled with one of the laces on her steel toes in a nervous gesture.

  "I'm possessed."

  "Jesus... Like that thing in the bathroom?"

  "She was a demon, so no not really."

  "Anyone ever tell you that you're not forthcoming with information?"

  She snorted and tried to suppress a smile. Something warm expanded in his stomach.

  "Once or twice," she said.

  They sat in comfortable silence for a long time before she spoke. "I'm possessed by a God. Our Goddess if you'd prefer, though one is all and she is we, but I'm not her, not that that'll make much sense."

  A liquid warmth spread outward toward his limbs, thawing the brittle cold deep in his bones. "I can see why you might avoid bringing it up at dinner parties."

  "Must be disturbing to find yourself toted through the nightmares by some schitzo half-breed. Truth, I'm not sure what to say for that." She let out a self-deprecating chuckle and looked up toward the blackness, baring the slender column of her throat.

  "If the attraction to you didn't feel so rabid I might resent it less," Sio said.

  She dropped her head, the streaks of scar tissue near her eye stood out in shocking contrast to the warm radiance of her skin as she studied him.

  "That's not something I would force, even if I could. Especially not to me. You should find someone else."

  She leaned away and sat back against the table leg, closing her eyes. Sio thought about what she'd said and felt a golden flutter of fear behind his eyes. The idea of anyone else was appalling.

  "You think it's that easy?"

  She didn't move save for the steady tapping of her left foot. "I don't. I think you need to know that you have some pretty extensive bindings on you. They're making it difficult for the Goddess to taste your gifts and close to impossible for you to use them." She'd switched subjects so fast she'd practically given him whiplash.

  "My fairy gifts," he qualified.

  "Some things are taken before you realize what you've lost. And if it exists at all, the road to redemption is a long one."

  An earnest element in her voice spoke volumes in painful personal experience. An image of the Slaugh, and all of those up turned tear stained faces, came to mind.

  "It wasn't just them," he said.

  "No."

  Sio was unsettled for about the hundredth time since he'd decided to go out. "Can you take the bindings off?" he asked.

  Loren writhed on the table, picking that moment to regain consciousness. The guy grated out a few choice words before stumbling on to some form of coherent speech. He trailed off and started screaming as if he were being ripped apart. Tian cringed. She scrambled around the table and popped Loren in the temple with the outside edge of a closed fist. The guy went silent, eyes rolling back in his head. It hadn't looked like she'd hit him that hard.

  Sio cleared his throat. "So is this something he's going to get over or have we reached a high point for him?"

  "Humans are fragile," Tian said. "They break, and that was the equivalent of about twenty years of torture."

  "Where do the Slaugh fit in the faerie food chain then?"

  "Not Sidhe, but powerful, wild, nightmare flavor fae."

  "That's a thing, huh? Do you think I'm a nightmare?"

  He was so focused on the answer that the question hadn't come out right. Tian laughed.

  "Sometimes, but if you mean Slaugh, then no. I already told you I think you're Sidhe. They're what human lore used to refer to as the fair folk, Tuatha de Dannan, only it's not a myth. The Sidhe are metaphysical heavyweights, the kings and queens of the Fae."

  She stood up and stretched, commandeering his undivided attention with the sleek lines of her figure.

  "How many types of fae are there?" God, he wanted to touch her. The desire was so strong that he realized he'd gotten to his feet without intending to.

  "A lot. Too many to go into right now. It'll only be confusing."

  She rolled her head on her shoulders as he watched in rapt attention. Her eyes widened when she realized how close he was. They traveled appreciatively down his body. He'd seen that look plenty of times before, but it had never worked him over like this. He responded as if that gaze was a touch.

  "As much fun as your revelations have been, we could find other ways to occupy our time. Maybe I could teach you a few things you could take back to your boyfriend."

  He was playing...mostly, though if she wanted to take him up on the offer he'd fall to his knees and thank the baby Jesus. Still, he regretted that last part the second it had come out of his mouth. He didn't know how he'd react if she actually had someone. Not well, that was obvious.

  Tian's eyes narrowed and her demeanor shifted. There was a shadow in the look she gave him that amped the heat under his skin until he felt like it was about to split him apart. His body went berserk, ice cold chills skating against the surface of the searing hot flashes. She made a move towards him. Sio expected her to stop shy of touching. He knew from experience that the tease was the best part of the reality. She didn't stop though. She hit that hot zone gap and closed the distance until they were pressed against one another from knee to shoulder.

  He wanted to touch her where she stood breathing his air. He wanted to hear that soft low voice beg for him. He didn't move. The flashlight flickered where it was mired in the floor. Up close Tian was stunning, from those odd burning eyes to the harsh scars that traced elegant bone structure. He watched her mouth, liked the way her lips were lush without being freakish. He wanted to taste them. She tilted her face back, as if she could hear his thoughts.

  Tian pressed down on the balls of her feet, lifting herself against him on the up stroke without using him for balance or adding pressure to the connection. The friction was phenomenal. His cock throbbed. He was so hard up his brain was hitting a rolling boil in his skull. His pecs pumped up and down with the frenetic pace of each shallow breath. Sio angled his head forward to give her better access to his mouth while trying not to seem over eager.

  "First, what makes you think you could teach me anything I haven't already mastered?" Her breath was hot and sweet, clean against his skin. He bit back a groan. "And second, what gave you the impression I had no honor?"

  She broke contact and went to turn around. His hand shot out of its own volition, catching her aro
und the neck and tugging her back into him.

  "That is not what I meant and you know it," he said.

  If she was going to call him on his bullshit he damn well was going to call her out on hers. Tian's eyes widened in shock. An incredulous half smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.

  "Yeah? Next time, think before you speak."

  He released a short bark of laughter and let her go, willing his pulse to return to normal. No doubt about it, the bastard hormones were right, Tian was definitely his kind of chick.

  The flashlight flickered again, distorting the shadows, which was odd considering the light outside the space seemed to be getting brighter.

  Chapter 14

  The In-Between

  Tian turned to face the gloom obscured depths. The cold radiating from the pitch was ice against the burning in her skin. A faint light flickered like a projection reel in the distance. The fractured glow illuminated bits and pieces of what she could only assume were the Slaugh hunting grounds. Tian moved back, eyes locked on the warped form that jumped closer to the cell she shared with Sio and the human. She could feel it watching her.

  "They're coming," she said.

  Sio stepped closer to her body. His voice was a low rumble in her ear. "The coin toss ran a little long don't you think?"

  "The Slaugh throw bones."

  He snorted as if she'd made a joke, gripping her shoulder as he noticed the darkling that projected itself forward in the wavering light. If the human had been conscious this would not have gone well for him. And who'd have thought, a permanent in-flight movie wasn't the worst option after all.

  "You ok, back there?"

  "Not even close," Sio said. "Would it make a difference?"

  "No."

  "That is one ugly little bastard."

  "Not one," she answered. "Two, two ugly little bastards. That is the Lulo, otherwise known as "The Two", Uthboada and Gerganara."

  "I'm only looking at one flickering monstrosity, Tian."

  Her nerves were strung too tight and vibrating. She flashed teeth in spite of their predicament. "That, Sio, is clearly a challenge. I'm gonna want something good when I win."