by Jessa Slade
“Yeah.” Jonah shut the phone with a snap.
In the kitchen, Nim was standing at the sink with a pair of fat-bladed kitchen shears in her hand. How big were those rats? “Are you sure you—Nim!”
She hacked off a huge handful of her hair.
A second handful of waist-length dreads hit the floor before he could speak. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Making sure nothing not of this earth grabs me by my hair again.”
He winced, glad for Mobi’s sake the snake was exploring the half tub of standing water in the sink. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”
“Extreme?” The next slice left a bare finger’s span of stubble at her nape. “Did you see what grabbed me?”
“Then at least let me—” He held up his hand, appeasing, when she turned with the scissors raised.
She lowered them immediately, but ire still snapped in her gaze, disguising some deeper shadow—not the demon—he couldn’t quite identify. “I’m not the Naughty Nymphette anymore.”
The same shadow was in her voice and twisted her tone upward, almost as if she were asking a question. He struggled to understand, but he was missing something, something as potentially hazardous as a rogue tenebrae.
He hadn’t felt this incompetent since he’d learned to brush his teeth left-handed.
“I’m glad you’re taking this seriously,” he said. “But you don’t have to maim yourself.”
“It’s just hair,” she snapped. “It’ll grow back.” Then she looked aghast, and her gaze slipped to his missing hand. “Won’t it?”
He knew he had better not smile. “We’re still alive, and human, for the most part.” He poked the toe of his boot into the mess she’d made. “That was a lot of weight you were carrying.”
Violet arced across the tight crescents of her narrowed eyes. “You said you liked my hair.”
“I did. . . . I do,” he added quickly as the violet brightened. “I’m not with you because of your hair.”
“We’re together because you still think you can turn me into a weapon for the light side.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.” The violet drowned in her murky gaze. “If I was good, how could I have been so wrong? The tenebrae I called could have killed everyone in the fight.”
“ ‘Good’ doesn’t always mean ‘right,’ or ‘not dangerous.’ ”
“I don’t want to be dangerous.” She let the scissors slip onto the counter. “Not to you.”
He stepped into her space, close enough that she’d have to consider the breadth of his shoulders and his hard weight. If she called his manhood into question again, he’d end up flexing for her. “For you, I’m willing to take the risk.”
“For the world, you mean. For the sake of goodness and light and kittens and—”
He touched the severed ends of her dreads. “For you.”
She swayed toward him until his knuckles bumped her cheek.
Then she closed her eyes, shutting him out, and pulled away. She grabbed an opaque plastic bag from the freezer and tossed the brick labeled RAT JUNE into his hovering hand. “I’ll get my bags. You carry Mobi.”
Now she was insulting him not by making him a beast of burden, but by burdening him with the beasts. “I can get the bags,” he snapped. He looped the gym bags over his shoulders and grabbed the handle of the rolling luggage bag. He tucked the rat brick under his abbreviated arm; it was that or grip the plastic with his teeth. “Anything else?” He thought he managed to ask the question without undue sarcasm.
Nim shook her head, the faintest color on her cheeks. Shame, he hoped. Not that she exhibited much of that. Or maybe she’d just always hidden it under all that hair.
If not for the teshuva’s etheric musculature and his own substantial annoyance, he might’ve made two trips. Nim offered once to help, but backed off with a single look from him.
She wasn’t going to redeem herself so easily.
When they got to the warehouse, she reached across the front seat of the cab with money in her fist. He growled under his breath, and she said, “I brought my purse this time.”
She was quick to take half the bags through the front door. In the quiet lobby, though, she paused. Without the weight of the dreads, her eyes looked larger. And, if he wasn’t lying to himself, more vulnerable.
He paused too, and they stared at each other.
“You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?” she murmured. “I thought, in your day, the man made all the moves.”
“In my day, we didn’t sleep together unless we were married.”
She chewed at her lower lip until the flesh burned dusky red. “This is kind of like that. I’m bound to you. Till death do us part, which could be a really long time. We’re converting sinners together. By sending them to hell, but I think that counts. And, yeah, I sleep with you. The least you could do is tell me if I’m sharing your room.”
“Since you asked so nicely.” He started forward again.
As they headed for his room, he wondered at their foolish dance, with him advancing and her retreating, only coming together in the demon realm and in bed—hell and heaven. Was there a middle ground they could share?
After they dropped off her bags, he said, “Come with me. Bring Mobi.”
“Kicking us out already?”
He led her to the warehouse top floor and clicked on the lights. Half the bare bulbs came on over the haphazard rows of antiques and junk. The smell of dust and horsehair stuffing thickened the air. The architectural salvage business had been a useful front for an organization that had been around for centuries and had an unfortunate habit of breaking things in the course of their missions.
Nim sneezed. “Is that a real sarcophagus?”
“Solid marble. But I figure Mobi wants a window.” He pointed to the far end of the row, just within reach of the functioning lightbulbs. “Would that fit him?”
The curio cabinet had been intricately carved, bottom to top, with sea stars, waving kelp, leaping swordfish, and, finally—as if the woodworker had grown more enthusiastic with his work—bare-breasted mermaids.
Nim trailed her hands over the teak. “Where did this come from?”
“An insane asylum for whittlers? Captain’s quarters on a ship bound for madness, maybe.”
“Mobi will love it.” Then she drew back. “Maybe it’s too valuable to toss dead rats in.”
“So it turns to sawdust up here? I’ll hold Mobi. You grab a hand truck.”
The old cabinet was solid and awkward. Even with her demon’s help, she was sweaty and smudged by the time she wrestled it onto the wheels. “Do you think this goes with the décor in your room?”
“No.”
She looked at him uncertainly, but followed him to his—their—room, lugging the cabinet. “Jonah, I think you should know. I’ve never been in a relationship that worked out.”
Like which one? he wondered. The one with the sly, older rapist? The nightly one with her customers? He held the door open for her. “I’ve never been in one that didn’t.”
He showered while she fussed with Mobi. By the time he’d dried and dressed, she’d cleaned the cabinet, oiled the hinges with his prosthetics lubricant, and found a lamp to position over one end and a water bowl wedged with a pile of decorative pebbles for the other. Mobi curled through an African ceremonial mask she must have filched somewhere along her journeys.
They were making it their home. His mate, in his space. With her underthings spilling out of the bags onto his floor. Satisfaction surged through his veins, as elemental as the wood and stone.
Elemental and terrifying.
He shied away from the knowledge it could all end tomorrow. Or in eighty years. Would forever be enough? Could he be enough?
Nim bustled up beside him. “What do you think?”
He straightened, tucking his scarred stump behind him. “I left you a little bit of hot water.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Are you saying
I’m filthy?”
He touched the smudge of attic dust across her forehead. “You need a shower before you’ll even qualify as filthy.”
She lowered her lashes. “And once we’re both fresh and pure again?”
“Then I have another surprise for you.”
She smiled, slow and wide. “I’ll just be a minute.”
When she emerged, she was naked. Which required another minute, while he indulged in a good, long stare.
The bruises had faded to shadows under her skin. Her butchered hair . . . well, that would take longer to recover. The drastically shortened dreads stuck out in all directions, already fraying into delicate strands, utterly at odds with her hard-set jaw.
She propped her hand on her hip. “You tricked me into asking before if I should stay. You’re gonna have to ask this time. Just so I know.”
“Know what?” He shook his head. “No, don’t distract me again. Get dressed.” He tossed her a shirt from her bag. His fingers seemed hypersensitized to the rough caress of the lace around the neckline. Well, of course all the clothes she’d bring would drive him mad. “I think you’ll like this.”
He took her down to the weapons room.
She gazed around at the walls of bladed and bashing paraphernalia of paranormal impairment. “Jonah, you have a fucked-up idea of what constitutes foreplay.”
He headed toward the closest display. “With the right weapon, you won’t be starting anything; you’ll be ending it.”
“Oh, that is sexy,” she said flatly.
He sized her up in a scathing toe-to-clipped-hair sweep. “Not everything is about that.”
“More’s the pity.”
“If you’d had a blade, you could have defended yourself.”
“I thought that’s why I have you.”
With some exasperation, his voice rose. “Remember how you sneaked out in the night to fight on your own? Now you can keep us all at arm’s length. No touching.”
She scowled. “You never listened.”
“I heard you. I just didn’t obey. And I’m sorry for that.”
She blanched and turned away from him. “Well, I’m sorry it was so awful for you.”
In one long step, he confronted her. “You know that’s not what I meant. No more twisting my words.”
She lifted her chin. “Then say what you mean.”
“I don’t want you to need me,” he said slowly, feeling his way. He lifted his hand to touch her cheek, and the flyaway strands of her hair tickled his knuckles. “I want you to want me.”
“Did you miss the part where I tried to get you into bed?”
He shook his head. “I want more than that.”
“You said you didn’t have any more to give.”
His lips quirked. “That’s the Naughty Nymphette; always haggling.” When she didn’t return the smile, he sighed. “I have no doubt many a man spent his entire rent check on a night of watching you. Why shouldn’t I mortgage what’s left of my soul?”
“And your earnest money is a shiny little knife.”
Her lack of enthusiasm made him shift from one foot to the other. “If you see one you like.” He heard his voice rising toward a question, and restrained a wince.
Her gaze shuttled from him to the wall and back again. “What would you recommend?”
Relief flooded him. “Perhaps, in antiquity, the female talyan had preferred weaponry. There’s no hint in league archives. Jilly and Sera both chose smaller weapons because they have Liam and Archer watching their backs.”
She took a step toward the rack of daggers.
He cleared his throat. “But maybe you’d want something bigger.”
She looked back with a lifted eyebrow. “You just said—”
“Liam and Archer are prime, unbroken talyan.” Heat rose in his face from the lump of charred coal in his chest that had once been his pride. “Their mates can afford to skimp on personal protection.”
“And I have you.”
“You have half a talya mate.”
She scowled. “Three-quarters, at least.”
“So you need to replace that missing quarter.”
“Why don’t you?”
The embarrassed heat evaporated, leaving him as chilled as that night when he’d lain pinned in the wreckage of battle with a guillotine of glass poised above his outstretched arm. “I’ve told you the teshuva can’t regenerate what’s gone.”
“They don’t see fit to give us claws or fangs to fight the ferales either, so we have these.” She swept a hand toward the assorted armaments.
This was her payback for making her ask to stay with him. “Perhaps you didn’t notice, but I’m missing a hand.”
She cast her gaze down the row of weapons. “Aren’t at least a few of these intended for one-handed use?”
He gritted his teeth. “You think I haven’t considered that? My balance with the teshuva is shot. I am not that warrior anymore.”
She walked away from him.
The abrupt separation almost staggered him.
It was worse than when he’d lost touch with the demon when he lost his hand.
She reached for an elaborate, triple-curved blade. “I saw one of these in a painting next to the mask I found for Mobi. It’s African, isn’t it?” She unhooked it from the wall and gave it an experimental whirl so the three open arcs of steel sang in harmonious descant.
“Be care—” He bit back the rest of the inadvertent exclamation. She wouldn’t be careful. Being careful wasn’t in her DNA, or in the etheric mutations the teshuva had given her. But the demon always had a feel for a good blade.
“I like it,” she said.
Of course she would. “The design is based on a Congolese executioner’s sword.”
She took a long step back and extended the armlength blade. Shaped like three linked sickles, the sword’s upper arc came to a point and was sharpened on both sides. The two lower arcs were smaller and sharpened only along the inner edge. She tilted it under the light. “It’s beautiful.”
Etched lines and indents reflected back the light in baubles that danced along her skin. “Looks good on you.”
Abruptly, she reversed her grip. Her fingers pressed precariously around the honed edges, to hand him the blade. “Obviously meant for you.”
Dull heat spread through his chest. “Without the demon’s balance—”
“I didn’t have any teshuva protection when I learned to do a backward walkover pole straddle with no panties.”
He choked.
“I mean,” she said patiently, “you don’t give up just because you can’t rely on the demon anymore. If I’d given up every time I was on my own . . .” She shook her head, the blade still held out to him, unwavering. Her stare was equally steady.
He reached out to take the hilt and eased the sharp edges away from her fingers.
With all the elaborate curves, the weight of the weapon seemed to drift, first balancing near his grip, then sidling away, mocking him. Within him, the teshuva shifted with the same restlessness.
She watched him. “So you used that to lop off the heads of marauding cannibal tribes?”
Absently, he frowned. “I’ve never held one before. I wielded Bible verses in those days.”
“What did you use after you joined the league, before your accident?”
In his mind’s eye, the guillotine of glass hung above him. He forced away the memory and angled up to the balls of his feet to steady himself, but his palm was slick with sweat. When he tightened his fingers, the strain made his grip even more precarious.
The blade wavered when he pointed across the room. “Like that. A two-handed, double-edged greatsword.”
Nim pulled her lips to one side in contemplation. “I see why. It’s very straight.” Her gaze slid slyly to him. “And big and long too.” She shrugged. “Still, I like the one you’ve got there now. It’s kind of . . . kinky.”
He almost laughed. In despair at her folly, but still. “You won�
�t let this go, will you?”
“We’re bonded, right? That seems to cancel out letting go.”
The sword weighed down his left, nondominant arm. The demon energy surged through his bones . . . and buckled to a halt in his missing extremity, just as it always did. His muscles cramped with the urge to toss the blade from one hand to the other.
Which, of course, he couldn’t. Bile burned in his throat. Bad enough to have struggled with tooth brushing. What she was asking now . . .
No. She had put her faith in him when he had taken everything else. The least he could do was have some in himself.
He took another step back and stretched, trying to resettle the demon’s energy. “This isn’t . . .”
Nim stepped into his space, her aura sparking along his skin. She set herself against his back, her breasts soft against his shoulder blades, her hands skimming down his arms to settle at his wrist and stump.
“What if . . .” she mused. The fingers of her left hand brushed the hilt nestled in his palm. “What if the sword was your hand? Like the cup of the spearhead wraps the shaft.” She pressed her arms together and transferred the sword from his left hand to her right.
He shifted, unbalanced. She counterweighted, and he settled into his dominant stance. It felt good. She felt good.
“You wouldn’t need me as your right hand if you had this,” she said.
His pulse thumped with anticipation. “Liam was a blacksmith. He could adapt the haft.”
“And we already have the pattern of the prosthetic arm in your room.”
“Going through my goods?”
“Naturally,” she said.
“Freaked you out, did it?”
“Like you would not believe.”
He took a deep breath, indulging in the caress of her flesh. “I thought I was arming you.”
She slid around to face him. The blade whispered against his thigh as she dropped it to her side. “Disarming me, you mean.”
“If that’s what you want.” He eased the sword from her hand and backed her to the wall, where he hung the blade on its hook.
The guilt of making love in the league’s weapons room while the rest of the talyan fought for their lives out in the dark city or alone with their wounds might once have given him pause, but Nim of the nimble fingers didn’t allow for any pauses. Or guilt.
