by Jessa Slade
Archer shot her an acid look. “You meaning female talyan. The league banished you for a reason. And I think we’re getting a hint why.”
Sera’s hands fell slowly to her sides. “Don’t.” There were no demon harmonics in her voice, just one woman’s plea.
Archer scrubbed a hand down his face, over lines of strain the teshuva had been too busy to erase. “Damn it, Sera. Can you imagine how that looked, coming through the window and seeing . . .” A shudder racked him. “Not the ferales. But you, surrounded.”
Jonah bowed his head. The image blistered too fresh in his mind. “Can we go?”
Archer spun away. “Of course.” Sera didn’t follow.
Jonah climbed into the backseat with Nim. He couldn’t hold her, but he could let her lean against him, though her slack shoulder dug into his broken arm as they jolted over the railroad tracks.
“Not to the warehouse,” he told Archer. “Take us to the marina.”
“Jonah . . .”
“You saw that horde. If Nim wakes with the lure still engaged, I don’t think the energy sinks can contain the emanations. Until we have the anklet back—if the anklet is an on-off switch or a padlock or a fail-safe—she’s a danger.” He gave the other man a hard look in the rearview mirror. “And not an ancient-history, theoretical sort of danger either, as you might have noticed.”
“Then you being alone with her—”
“We’ll be safe on the boat once we’re beyond reach of shore. We won’t be carrying any tenebrae evil with us.”
Archer’s jaw worked. “Still, the isolation . . .”
“I suspect you’ll be taking some time with Sera.”
The other talya shrugged. “I see your point. But what about your arms?”
“Maybe I won’t wring her neck.”
With a hint of a smile, Archer said, “Then you’re a stronger man than I.”
In the pre-predawn stillness, the glassy water reflected the marina lights like a second world—dark and perfect. To sink beneath would upset the flawless skin.
Jonah dragged his gaze off the mysterious depths and gave Archer the code to get through the locked gate. He followed Archer, who held Nim in his arms, to the Shades of Gray. As Archer descended into the cabin, Jonah fired up the motors.
Archer returned a moment later. “I put her in the bunk. How are you going to—Oh.” He watched Jonah slip out of the bandage around his half arm and work the throttle with the end of his stump. “The teshuva’s gotten to work on the bone already?”
“Enough,” Jonah answered tersely. He figured the other man would understand what remained unsaid. He tried to force down the heat in his face. He never used the ugly knob of flesh where someone might see. “Although I’d appreciate if you cast off.”
“ ‘Go away’ is what you mean,” Archer said. “Don’t worry. No wise-old-man advice before I leave. I obviously suck.”
Jonah’s lips quirked. “Try that tack with Sera, and she might actually apologize to you.”
Archer snorted. “Check in when Nim wakes. When you bring her back, we’ll be onshore to make sure it’s safe.”
And if it wasn’t? For the briefest moment, Jonah thought of leaving the city behind, setting south for the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, or heading north to find the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Atlantic. A new adventure. One where he never set foot to land again.
Would Nim trade her stilettos for flip-flops?
He waited until Archer recoiled his lines and stood ready to jump to shore.
“Whatever happens,” Jonah said, “it’s too late to let her go.”
The boat was drifting, and he knew the other talya wanted to return to his mate, but Archer hesitated. “Too late for whom?” With the help of his demon, Archer launched himself to the dock. He turned and lifted his hand in a wry salute. Jonah answered with his stump, and Archer shook his head.
Jonah turned away and set his course.
CHAPTER 18
She came awake with her pulse racing in a disorienting double beat. Where was she, with this creak of wood and humid tang? Had she passed out in the bathroom with the sink faucet running again? That time, she’d roused with tap water halfway up her nose, which taught her to always pass out in bed. Now she was naked—that part she was used to—but she was wrapped in a bedsheet with a striped pattern she didn’t recognize. She sat up and hit her head on a ceiling that was much too low.
A boat. She took a calming breath and caught the scent that settled her heartbeat into a single, steady beat. Jonah’s boat.
She slumped back and hit her head on the wall behind her.
Jonah peered down through the open hatch, silhouetted against the bright sky behind him, his bare toes curled around the upper step. With his appearance, the scent of sun and water strengthened. “I thought I heard you moving around.”
“What . . . ?” Her voice cracked.
He stepped down into the cabin, and she forgot for a moment what she was going to ask. Had the missionary man been left behind? Here, instead, was the adventurer. Bare chested, with his sandy hair tousled by the wind, he looked like some dashing, carefree sailor, too cavalier to bother with piracy.
He rummaged through the mini fridge and returned with a can of lemonade. But he couldn’t hold it out because his good arm was strapped to his chest.
She sat up again, clutching the sheet to her chest. At least she remembered not to bonk her head this time. “You fell!”
“I got up again.” He ducked to sit down on the berth beside her.
“We both did.” She took the can, then extended her other hand out in front of her. Narrow white scars crisscrossed her palm, almost invisible except where the light hit just right. “I couldn’t make it let go.” Her words caught again in her throat.
“Drink. You need the sugar.”
“Got vodka to go with it?”
“Your head doesn’t hurt enough?”
She grimaced and touched her hair. The dreads were bound into one thick snarl where the feralis had grabbed hold. She popped the tab on the can and took a long swallow. The tart sweetness tasted like heaven. “Why are we out here?”
His hesitation was so minor, she almost missed it. “You need quiet to recover.” When she narrowed her eyes, he sighed and added, “By quiet, I mean no more hordes of tenebrae.”
Her fingers dented the can. “They’re still out there?”
“Maybe. Somewhere.” He hesitated again, longer this time. “I tried calling Archer for news, but we’re getting some etheric interference.” She took a breath, and he interrupted. “Don’t worry about the tenebrae. They might be out there, but we’re even farther out here.”
“If the demons can’t get to us, what’s interfering with your cell phone?” He didn’t answer, and she said flatly, “Me.”
He shrugged, awkward with the bandage.
“God, I almost killed you, Jonah. You should’ve thrown me over the rail while I was out.”
He tugged again at the constricting gauze. “You make it sound so easy with no hands. Plus, you woke up for a bit a while ago. Don’t you remember?”
She tipped her head against the wall. As if she’d knocked the memory loose, she vaguely recalled the weight of him beside her on the bed, the whisper of his breath against her cheek. No groping hands, though. Now she knew why. “You said everything was okay.”
“Since you weren’t unconscious anymore, I even believed it.”
How could he say that with even his good arm bound tight? She rolled her head against the wall to look at him. “I don’t remember how you got us out alive.”
“Don’t thank me. Our league brothers arrived to save the day just as we got free from the feralis.” He grimaced. “And by ‘free,’ I mean ‘plummeted to our uncertain death.’ That was thanks to me.”
The note of bitter self-censure in his voice made her wince. “Better a free and uncertain death than what that feralis had planned. I think it wanted my scalp for its collection.” Sh
e rubbed at her temple. “I remember falling, but not landing.”
“No doubt you knocked the teshuva offline for a moment when you hit the ground.”
“And now I’m back, broadcasting on all channels, calling all demons,” she said. “Maybe if you hit me in the head a few more times, we could change stations.”
“From bad to worse. That’s what happened to Corvus. We thought he died in a fight last winter, but he came back, his human half crippled and his djinni less inhibited than ever.”
She snorted. “Who would’ve thought humans could have a mitigating influence on evil.”
“And on good too.” He leaned back next to her. “Cyril Fane’s angel would have cast us back from whence we came, with extreme prejudice. Fane himself didn’t want to get guts spattered on his pretty car.”
Nim looked down at the can in her hand, twisting the tab in a circle until it broke off. “You haven’t yelled at me for that yet.”
“Hasn’t been time. And now, compared to this latest escapade, it hardly seems worth noting.” She mimed perking up in relief, but he didn’t smile. “Plus, I was just waiting until you were conscious so you could truly appreciate my rage.”
She slumped again. “Okay, well, go ahead, then. I can take it.”
“I don’t think I can. Not anymore.”
His words, low and distant, rattled her. “A good screaming match can really clear the air. Maybe a slap or two, to make up for me almost killing everybody in the league.” When he didn’t respond, she put the lemonade down and touched his leg. “I want to make it up to you, Jonah.”
“If you’re about to offer a blow job next, don’t.”
She withdrew her hand, wondering if she was actually on fire from her cheeks all the way down past the sheet around her breasts, or if it only felt that way.
“Your concept of this bond between us is fucked-up,” he said bluntly.
For the first time, a curse from him didn’t make her want to laugh. That she had pushed him so far beyond his boundaries didn’t seem funny anymore. “Jonah—”
But he didn’t let her continue. “And so was mine,” he admitted. “I wanted you for all the wrong reasons.”
“Saving the city from hell is a wrong reason?”
He shook his head. “I wanted you the same way the men at the Shimmy Shack did. For myself.”
She stared at him. Was it just another symptom of her fucked-up view of the bond that her heart stuttered in hope when he said that?
“I don’t know how,” he said, “but if there’s a way out of this, I’ll let you go.”
Her heart lurched to a standstill.
“Let me go?” The words fell from her lips, as cold as a malice sting.
“I’m not going to be another one of those men to you.”
“But you’re not. You’re—”
He waited, but nothing else would come from her mouth. “You wouldn’t dance without a bouncer.” His hand, trussed against his belly, tightened into a fist. “Without the anklet, I am not enough to be the anchor, the control you need.”
Hot denials tried to bubble up past her frozen throat. How could he be so wrong? She surged out of the bed, cracked her head on the low ceiling again, and spun to face him. She had to wait a minute for the spinning room to catch up with her spinning head. “I make one little—okay, one fairly substantial—mistake, but for a good cause—you know, saving the city—and I’m outcast.”
He frowned at her—probably because she was naked—and pushed himself upright, grimacing when he jostled his arm. “It’s not you—”
“Sure, that’s what they said when they caught me with the neighbor man—‘It wasn’t your fault, Elaine.’ And meanwhile, the horror and disgust is all over their faces when they turn away. Or when I took off my clothes for money that first time. ‘Oh, she’s damaged goods; it’s not her fault dollar bills are falling out of her panties.’ Hey, at least the lust was an improvement.”
“Nim—”
“What else is immortality good for? I get to make mistakes. I don’t have to be perfect, I don’t even have to be good, and I still get to try again. If I’m broken, I get another chance to fix myself.” She stopped, aghast at the way her chest was heaving with sobs. She’d decide when her chest heaved, thanks anyway, not her stupid hang-up on some holier-than-her jerk. “If you don’t want to take that chance, that’s your choice. But you can’t drag me down with you.”
He gave a sharp bark of laughter, but not in amusement. “That’s what I did, though, didn’t I? Dragged you out of the sky. I almost killed you. Your soul would have been lost at my hand.”
She stared at him. Her soul? He was worried about her soul? “That is so what I get for falling for a missionary man!” She whirled on her heel and stomped into the tiny bathroom. If only the door was heavier, she could have slammed it.
Splashing water on her face rinsed away any evidence of the sobbing. She stared down at her hands gripping the sink. While she was knocked out, someone—not someone; Jonah—had wiped away the grime. Even her fingernails were clean.
The thought of his handling her unconscious body . . . She wanted to slam him for that. But her hands were too clean to get dirty now. Plus, she was returning the favor for him not killing her while he had the chance.
Up on deck, under the high sun, the city was a hazy miniature on the horizon, with no other boats in view. The heat sank into her skin as she settled onto the cushions near the prow. The white vinyl burned the backs of her thighs, but she ignored it. Let the demon earn its keep.
Jonah’s steps thudded behind her. “The teshuva’s strength won’t last all the way to shore, if you were thinking of swimming. And in case you forgot, it can’t help you breathe underwater.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” she said testily. “I’ll add that to the list of things I can’t do.”
Stubbornly, she lounged on the deck cushions, letting the sun soak her skin.
Jonah stomped around somewhere in the middle of the boat, but she refused to look back. He’d made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her, but he’d stranded her out here. Let him deal with her buck-naked ass.
She startled when a long-sleeved oxford sailed over her head and landed in her lap. “I can’t get skin cancer anymore,” she snapped.
“You can still get arrested for indecent exposure.”
“By whom? You nixed the blow job, so what do you care?”
Between one blink and the next, he was looming over her, blocking the sun, his face dark as any cloud. “You are not going to provoke me.”
“Looks like I already have.” Her gaze drifted deliberately down to where his worn-thin cargo shorts gave him away.
He didn’t try to shield himself. “You’ve already demonstrated your power. And how it can destroy.”
Hurt flared like a struck match, still in the book and threatening to inflame the rest. “You still have all your parts after our night together. All the parts you had before it, anyway.” Then she winced and rubbed her fingertips over her lips. “You wanted to cast me off. At least I’m giving you good reasons now.”
He sank to his knees in front of her. “It’s not about what I want, Nim. It’s about what’s the right thing to do.”
When he was this close, the heat of him rivaled the August sun, and the scent of aroused male was spiked with the cool water and sharp diesel. Her wayward emotions tipped overboard, leaving only her desire for him. She trailed her fingers across her thighs where the reven curled. “We’re possessed by demons. Maybe it’s too late to worry about the right thing to do.”
His gaze traced the path her hands had led. “I thought you said we had a chance to make up for our mistakes.”
“Not till after we make them,” she whispered. “I used to do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. Now I’m doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. That’s progress, don’t you think?”
He leaned forward. Because she was a lure, after all. Made for sin. Made for him.
She met him halfway, maybe a little more than halfway, and tilted her head to take his kiss. Sun warmed, sweat tinged. A hint of anguish that gave her hope. Maybe he didn’t want to cast her off. Not that he wouldn’t still do it, of course. The downside of the moral man. But in the meantime . . .
The kiss went on and on until she gasped. She might not have made it to shore on that breath, but she would’ve been close. Not that she wanted to get away now.
She curled her fingers against his chest where vicious red slashes were smoothing into white scars. “They really got you good.”
“That was me. After I made you comfortable below, I didn’t want to lie beside you with the ferales’ stink still on me. So I cut my shirt off beneath the bandages to wash. Not easy without two hands.”
“And I was passed out, useless.” She pressed her lips gently to the wounds, as if her touch could speed the demon’s healing. As if the wounds hadn’t been her fault.
“You’re here now.” His voice roughened. “The demon removes the scar, but not the pain. Only you do that.”
Her fingers tripped up his abs, and his muscles tightened. “Mostly I seem to have made it worse.” She pulled herself onto her knees to wrap her hands behind his neck and kiss his throat. “But now’s my chance to atone.”
She worked her way down his chest again, skimming her fingers over the still, black lines of the reven on his back, until she reached his shorts. The snap sprang open under pressure from within. She smiled up at him as his ready erection surged into her hand.
“We should go down,” he said huskily.
“I already am.” She took him in her mouth.
He jerked so hard, she thought he might come right then. But he steadied himself, his bound hand centered on her skull.
“You don’t have to—” He broke off with a groan when she cupped his sack and gave a tug. His fingers tightened in her hair.
The gentlest suction brought him a step closer. A swirl of tongue, and he kicked out of his shorts and put his foot up on the cushion next to her thigh. The conquering-hero pose. She worked the length of him, the fingers of her free hand splayed through the line of hair low on his belly, and when she hummed, he shuddered, not just conquering, but conquered. She snaked her arm up around his leg, dancing her fingers along his inner thigh.
