by Mary Calmes
“Oh for crissakes, Jacks, we need to call the—”
“It’s done, Marcus. I had no idea I was scarier than Malic, though.”
“You have been lately.”
I grunted. “I’ll see ya later.”
“No, wait. Where—”
“Gun. I need to ditch the gun, Marcus.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll talk to you later. Who’s patrolling tonight?”
“Leith and Ry.”
“Okay,” I said and hung up. As I slipped from the side of the building to the sidewalk, I wondered what I was going to do with the gun. If I went over to Rene Favreau’s house and shot him and then Frank, everyone would blame Eric Donovan. Or his father. The idea had merit.
II
THE NIGHT I had found out that my hearth, the man I loved more than my own life, was sleeping with one of Malic’s friends, I had gone home and sat up, waiting. When he came home at three in the morning, he had been startled to find me sitting in the dark in the living room. He flipped on the light, and I squinted, his appearance, not the light, hurting my eyes.
He had gasped. “Jesus Christ, Jackson, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry.”
“What are you doing here?” He cleared his throat.
“Where else would I be but at home?” I asked, staring at his flushed face, swollen lips, tousled hair, and wrinkled clothes.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?”
What to say.
“I thought you were patrolling tonight.”
“I was,” I told him. “Downtown, close to Union Square.”
He turned from hanging up his topcoat and suit jacket to look at me.
I stared back.
“Okay,” he said, laying his gloves and scarf on the back of the couch, lining them up.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning”—his voice was so controlled, so steady—“are you going to move out, or should I?”
My life imploded.
I yelled, I screamed, I tore the apartment apart until Frank threatened to walk out if I didn’t calm down. When I did, making myself stand by the window and not move, he talked.
He loved me, but he couldn’t live with me. I was a selfish bastard and I only cared about him for what he could give to me. I gave nothing in return. I was possessive and jealous and smothering, and how I could live every day in a black-and-white world without any gray, without any room for liking things, not simply loving them or hating them, was too much for him to handle anymore.
He could not be somebody else’s everything; he needed a break. I loved too hard; I did everything too damn hard. I needed to throttle back on the passion; I was going to burn out on life if I wasn’t careful.
It was exhausting being in a relationship with me where he had to give so much, was expected to be there for me, on for me, all the time. He wanted a friend; he wanted a lover who would cuddle and be gentle, not constantly maul him, manhandle him. Why did he have to be held down or fucked up against the wall in the kitchen? Why couldn’t there be dinner and wine and snuggling on the couch? Why was all my communication done through sex? Why couldn’t I use my goddamn words once in a while?
He said he needed normal. He told me he was tired of demons and fighting and seeing me come home covered in dirt and bruises. Watching blood run down the drain in the shower was not his idea of fun. It had been thrilling at first, had been a rush to be the man who created a sanctuary for a champion, but now, after two years, now it was too much to ask. He wanted a dog and a house and a yard and kids. He wanted his life to start, and Rene Favreau, with his kind heart and brilliant career, was just the man to give it to him.
I threatened to kill his new lover, and he was terrified enough to call Malic and tell him to protect his friend. And while I was warned not to go near Rene, my fellow warder severed all ties with his friend. I told him later, weeks later, when I could breathe, when I could think, when I could speak again, that he didn’t need to lose Rene because of me, but Malic, being Malic, said that no friend of his would ever fuck the mate of another. The hearth of a warder was a sacred thing, and even though Rene did not know the magnitude of his trespass, he would still not be forgiven. He had still screwed someone who he knew belonged to another. Malic had no respect for a man like that.
“Malic should forgive Rene,” I had told Ryan when we were patrolling together.
Ryan had turned and looked at me hard. “If it was me, and Julian had slept with Rene, I can’t say what I would have done. Your constraint is admirable.”
I was stunned because I thought the way I was calling Frank and e-mailing him and stopping by his office verged on psychosis. “I’ve been stalking him.”
“But you haven’t killed him or Rene,” he said flatly. “Like I said, it’s admirable.”
I took a shaky breath. “You would never do that, you have too much pride. If Julian ever cheated on you I know that––”
“I don’t know what I would do and I prefer not to guess. Let Malic do what he wants.”
I never said another word about it.
One night I was standing out in the rain on Rene’s balcony, not even realizing that I was soaked to the skin, my shoes filled with water, when Frank came out to see me in galoshes, under an umbrella.
“You’re lucky he’s not here,” he told me.
“He can’t hurt me,” I told him through chattering teeth. “I’m a goddamn warder. I’ll throw him off his own fuckin’ balcony.”
Frank nodded. “But what are you doing out here? How did you get here without me letting you in? That would be the question.”
“Like I give a shit.”
“I’m going to call Jael,” he told me. “You’re jeopardizing the rest of the warders with this behavior. You get that, right?”
I was shivering really hard.
“I’m sorry, Jackson,” he told me. “I really am, but I don’t love you anymore. I haven’t in a really long time and I’m sorry I lied when I said I did. I was just too tired to make a change. Even though it was draining, even though it was like having a second job, I just—I was addicted to the rush of you needing me. I thought if I left you, you would fall apart, and then you’d make a mistake and maybe die. It just….” He exhaled sharply. “It was so stupid.”
“No, it’s not. I have fallen apart. You are my whole—”
“I’m not! My ego would not let me think that you could live without me, but that is such bullshit! I mean Jackson, c’mon, if you decide to go run in front of a bus, that is not my problem. And I don’t want to hurt you, but that’s the God’s honest truth!”
“Frank, baby….” My voice cracked as I reached for him.
He stepped back, and I saw the disgust all over his face. It ripped through me, tore out my heart, and left me gutted and breathless. That he could look at me like that, like I was a pathetic loser, after looking at me like I was a god so many times before, was crippling.
“Listen to me,” he demanded, his voice rising, roaring over the pouring, driving rain. “I can’t make you do anything. I can’t make you kill yourself or be happy, I can’t make you the kind of man I need, and I definitely can’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do. I don’t have that kind of power. You make the choices for you, Jackson, and you have to choose now to leave me the fuck alone, because my life that I shared with you, that I had with you, is over.”
Two years gone because he fell out of love.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, and I’m so sorry for how it ended, but I had a chance to be happy and I took it. I wish you all the best, Jackson, but I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t want to talk to you or go to bed with you; I just want you to be gone.”
I looked at his soft blue eyes, saw the pleading, and finally heard the beseeching words.
“Go away. Please go away.”
I shuddered, freezing, in the rain.
“There’s nothing he
re for you anymore.”
I turned and ran toward the edge of the balcony. There was no call of caution, no concern at all. If I died, I died. He had moved beyond me. And he said he was a prick because he had stayed with me even as he fell out of love, so that when he left, he didn’t give a damn anymore. He didn’t crave my touch—he abhorred it. He didn’t miss my voice—just the thought grated. He had taken all he could. He was finished with me in every way. I had nothing to give him, and he wanted nothing from me.
As I soared through the downpour, flying from one rooftop to the next, I realized that I had never been so cold. I didn’t even hurt anymore; there was only the lingering numbness. The next night I followed him but stayed out of sight. I saw him at dinner with Rene and their friends, his new circle. I watched him laugh and wipe crumbs from his new boyfriend’s lips with his thumb, saw him lean in, press a kiss to the side of the man’s throat, watched Rene throw an arm around him and tuck him against his side. They were all over each other on the way out of the restaurant. The catcalls and whistles from friends made them smile, and then they fell into a cab and were gone. I stood on a ledge above the building, like some psychotic Batman, and put my head back to howl.
Days passed, weeks, and I realized, finally, that there was nothing left to vent. I was cried out, screamed out, and just plain wrung out. The rage was gone; all that was left was a horrible hole where my heart used to be. I was empty. I felt nothing at all.
I went on patrol, and when I was attacked, I killed. I didn’t think anymore, I didn’t judge, didn’t wonder about the meaning in the act of destruction. I just did it. I had always had an image of myself as a good man, a righteous man, but now I was simply dealing out death because it was my job.
“You’re acting like this,” Ryan had said as he hosed me off on Malic’s back porch, “because there’s no one to tell you when the end is.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked as I stood there, letting him blast blood and flesh and muscle off my body.
The carnage of the night was all over me, in my hair, on my clothes, and Malic would not let me traipse gore through the home he shared with Dylan. I had to be rinsed off first. It felt like a riot hose had been turned on me.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I yelled back. “I just don’t get what you mean.”
He released the sprayer for a second and looked at me. “When I get home after I’ve been hunting, Julian feeds me or puts me in the shower or fucks me.”
“Oh God,” I groaned. This was not what I needed to hear.
He sprayed me in the face.
“Fuck, Ry!”
“You have nobody who loves you anymore, you stupid prick. There’s nobody at home waiting, and so that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
He ignored me. “Think about Malic before Dylan showed up, and think about Malic now—night-and-day difference, right? A warder needs a hearth or their moral compass gets all fucked up, and that’s why you’re doing this.”
“Doing what?” I asked again.
“Trying to get yourself killed!”
“I am not! I’m fine and—”
“You’re not fine! You haven’t been fine since you caught Frank and Rene together. Do you have any idea what you did tonight, Jacks?”
“I—”
“You leaped into the middle of a nest! Malic and I had to fight our way in there just to reach you!”
“And I was fine.”
“You have the same death wish that Malic used to have, but with you it’s worse because he was careless but you’re suicidal.”
“I am not! I—”
He shot me in the face again with the hose.
“Fuck!”
“I know you’re not sure if you’re a good man anymore, Jacks, because there’s nobody you trust anymore to tell you.”
And the last guy I had actually trusted to tell me what I was or wasn’t had left me with the thought that I was a selfish prick.
“All you can see is the bad right now in everything.”
Especially in myself.
“You gotta stop this.”
I put my head back, starting to freeze with the water blasting away at me.
“That was insane tonight, Jacks. You just—you killed so many demons, and you were unstoppable, and that scared the fuckin’ shit out of me.”
I had not meant to scare him. I didn’t mean to scare anyone, but it seemed to be all I was doing lately.
“Warder.”
I snapped out of my thoughts, having drifted far afield as I strolled, and realized that I had taken a wrong turn and was walking in the Tenderloin district at night, close to Folsom. Not the best neighborhood, not that I was worried. I did have supernatural powers I could use if things got dicey.
“Warder,” the voice called again.
Looking around, I saw no one.
“You would make a terrible ninja.”
I looked up then and saw him, crouching above me on a window ledge, dark eyes glittering in the moonlight like the predator he was.
“What do you want?”
His smile, the one that showed off his fangs, made my stomach tighten. He was dangerous, and fighting with him, just to see what would happen, was the only thing lately that held any sort of interest for me.
“You wanna play?”
I stopped moving and stared up at him. “What are you wearing?”
It was not, apparently, the question he was expecting. He leaped down, falling the twenty feet to the ground, hitting hard, on stiff legs like I never could. I had to bend at the knee to take the impact.
I rolled my eyes and got a waggle of eyebrows in return.
“You don’t like the leather trench?” he asked.
“It’s stupid and very Hollywood and makes you look like a douche.”
“Huh.”
“Just sayin’.” I yawned.
He squinted. “I should take fashion advice from a man who doesn’t shave and who dresses like an out-of-work house painter.”
I shrugged because he was right and turned away from him as it started to drizzle.
“Since when do warders carry guns?” he inquired, catching up with me easily, falling into step beside me.
“How do you know I’m carrying a gun?”
“I can smell the metal.”
“Impressive.”
“Kyries have good noses.”
“I guess,” I agreed, hands shoved into my pockets.
“Tell me about the gun.”
It didn’t matter, so I told him. And it was odd, would have been odd to other people, but I saw the kyrie a lot; our paths crossed constantly now when I was patrolling and he was hunting. We had developed a prickly, cautious ceasefire. Because I really had no interest in killing him anymore, and when we did fight, it was to injure, not kill. We stopped at blood being drawn. I knew the reason, and it was simply that after having my heart wrenched from my chest, not much else mattered. And he was not, contrary to my sentinel’s belief, really dangerous. He was not a demon, either. His kind, kyries, had never done anything to me or anyone I knew, and honestly the man, creature, had saved one friend of mine, Malic, and had rescued another friend’s hearth, Simon. Trying to separate his head from his body seemed like a big waste of time. Although, if he was going to start dressing like he belonged in The Matrix… it might be time to reconsider.
“Stop,” he said suddenly.
I stilled and turned my head to see him.
“Aren’t you going to attack me?”
“Why?” I asked. “Are you gonna attack me?”
“Perhaps.”
I shrugged. “Lemme get rid of this gun first, and then I gotta go home and get my sword, and I’ll meet you somewhere if you want and we can go at it.”
He frowned. “You don’t have a sword on you?”
“You can see I don’t,” I said irritably. “Can’t you smell the metal or lack thereof?”
> “That was snide.”
I scoffed.
“Why not?”
“Why not what?”
“Why aren’t you armed?
“I was drinkin’.”
He made a face as my phone rang.
“Hold that thought,” I said, darting under some scaffolding to get out of the rain that was coming down a little harder. “Hello.”
“Jackson, this is Cal Thompson, how are you?”
Client. “Oh I’m good. Thank you for asking, sir. What can I do for you?”
He cleared his throat. “Jackson, I have a matter, a very personal matter, that I need your help with. I’m in Zurich on business until the end of the month, but I have a situation there in California, down in Malibu, that requires immediate attention.”
“Of course, how can I be of help?”
“It must be handled with the utmost discretion.”
“Always.”
He sighed deeply. “I know, you’ve never failed me in the past, even with the scandal with Southland and the little misunderstanding there.”
Misunderstanding my ass, it was corporate espionage. I had stolen back what had been stolen from him, but two wrongs did not make a right. I was still in deep shit if anyone ever figured out who had broken into a million-dollar facility. The security had been impressive, but I had gifts others didn’t have. I didn’t tell my sentinel about my nefarious activity. He would not have been pleased. We were always supposed to use our power for good. I didn’t always adhere to the warder code of conduct; it just wasn’t in me to be good all the time. It was exhausting.
“Jackson.” He sighed deeply. “I will pay you double your usual fee as well as all expenses and a bonus commission that you can set yourself if you and your team can be at my son’s home in Malibu by tomorrow afternoon.”
It was already nine at night, but really, what else did I have to do? “Absolutely,” I agreed, watching the kyrie come toward me.
The walk was a strut, fluid, graceful but with obvious confidence. Not the swagger that I had that pissed people off, this came from years of people staring, stepping aside for him, and reaching out to touch him. He was amazing-looking, and he knew it because he didn’t have a modest bone in his beautiful, sculpted body.
