Eddie slid his arm through hers. She tried to pull away, but even with her inhuman edge of strength, he didn’t budge.
“Lean on me,” he said.
“I don’t want to.” I’m afraid to. You’ll let me down.
He didn’t say anything or let go. Lyssa had no choice but to keep up, but it was easier than she expected to fall in at his side. Natural, as though she’d been doing it all her life. Heat flowed between them. Her heart began to slow. Breathing was easier.
Don’t be tricked, she told herself. This doesn’t mean anything.
Of course it does, replied the dragon, as the muscles of her right arm twitched. What would you say? Oh, yes. Loosen up.
Loosen up. She hadn’t been loose in ten years. She hadn’t even been flexible. Her heart was so stiff and brittle, it would break if anyone touched it.
Especially him.
They stopped in front of a narrow metal door crammed beneath the awning of a magazine store. Teen girls filled the small, well-lit clothing shop next door. One of them looked up, saw Eddie, and began nudging the others. She didn’t think he noticed until he turned slightly to put his back to them.
Lyssa peered around his shoulder. The girls were giggling, biting their bottom lips as they checked out his ass.
“They think you’re cute,” she told him. “Not a criminal.”
“It’s amazing how fine a line that can be,” he replied, unlocking the door.
They entered a dark corridor. The cracks in the walls were wide enough to stick her fingers into, and the pea green linoleum on the floor had been spray-painted with obscenities—as well as one giant heart decorated with a skull and crossbones.
Mold tickled her nose, but so did the dry, salt-breeze scent of the gargoyle—accompanied by notes of jasmine, vanilla.
“Lannes and Lethe are here,” she said.
They began climbing a narrow staircase so steep it was almost a ladder. Lyssa had to stop halfway up, breathless. Worn-out.
For the briefest, most terrible moment—she thought about cutting herself again. Just a little cut, a little blood, to give herself energy. Enough to get through this day.
Or I could cut Eddie.
Revulsion filled her. Lyssa leaned hard on the cracked wall and pressed her fist against her mouth. Memories trickled—memories of power, and being inside the Cruor Venator’s rotting mind.
Other memories strained: her mother’s smiling eyes, a splash of blood on snow. Her father’s scream of rage.
Both of them murdered. Estefan killed, and many others. All because power had become someone else’s addiction. Power and revenge. What had she said to those guys studying Macbeth?
Once you decide to use violence to get power, it’s difficult to stop.
Eddie hung back, two steps down—and leaned on the wall opposite her.
Silence fell. Just their breathing and the creak of the building. Muffled voices from outside, and the honk of a car horn. Her heartbeat. Her terrible thoughts.
Lyssa closed her eyes. “Something you want to say to me?”
She heard him climb the steps separating them. The stairwell was barely wide enough for her shoulders, let alone two people. His leg touched hers, and his hand slid past her arm to rest against the wall. Heat poured off him. Fire. Fire in her own skin, licking down to bone, and blood.
“Is it easier not to look at me?” he asked, in a soft voice.
“Yes,” said Lyssa.
“Okay,” he replied. “It’s about what you said in the cab.”
“I didn’t think you heard me.”
“I was listening.” His thumb brushed against her mouth, and she flinched, opening her eyes . . . and meeting his. “I understand fighting. I understand the choice to run . . . or hold your ground. I respect you for it.”
“So what’s the problem?”
His expression was so severe. “Lyssa. Don’t play dumb.”
She pushed against his chest. “Fine. Of course I’ll get hurt. There’s no win in this situation. I’m already hurt. I’m just not dead.”
“That’s not good enough. I want you safe, alive, and happy.” He caught her hand and held it against him, unmoving. “Is it such a bad thing for someone to care what the hell happens to you?”
Yes, she thought, suddenly exhausted. Yes, if I lose them.
Heavy footsteps on the landing. Heavy as a gargoyle. Lyssa sagged against the wall, heart sinking into her stomach as she looked away from Lannes and Eddie—staring down the stairs, desperately fighting for control over her memories, and grief.
Eddie said, in a rough voice, “Give us a minute.”
Silence. Then, Lannes replied, mildly, “Is everything okay?”
Lyssa closed her eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. Eddie made a small sound, deep in his throat, and moved so that he blocked her from Lannes.
“We’re fine,” he said, in a gentler tone. “We’ll be right there.”
She couldn’t see their faces, but the hush that fell in that stairwell was immense, and charged.
Until, finally, she heard the rustle of wings and the groan of stairs.
Eddie let out his breath. Lyssa chanced a look and found his back turned to her. He stood one step above her, staring up at the landing. His hands curled in loose fists. Strong, broad, steady.
“I’ll be honest,” she murmured, closing her eyes again. “I didn’t like it when you were angry with me, back at the apartment building. And I don’t like it that I even cared.”
Eddie turned and sat on the steps. Then he held out his hand to her.
His hand looked so large and warm. Lyssa couldn’t help herself, and let him draw her down to the same step: crammed together, side by side, in that narrow space, cocooned in cracking walls and heat, and shadow.
He held her hand in a loose grip. “You know my worst nightmare? Losing my temper. I did that once, and it ended . . . so badly. And, oddly, not as bad as I wanted it to.”
The wounds in her heart bled a little more. “Is that why you ran from home?”
“Yes.” Eddie looked down at their hands, turning them over so his scars were hidden. “And I wasn’t mad at you.”
“Yes, you were.”
He closed his eyes. “I’ll go insane if I can’t protect you. But . . . I’m afraid I won’t be strong enough. I hesitated, with Betty, at the end. I knew what I had to do, but taking that last step . . .”
“I know,” she said softly. “Part of the reason I’ve been running all these years is that I don’t want to kill.” Lyssa held up her right hand, oddly shaped inside the glove. “I was so close to taking Betty’s life. And then, when Lannes finished her . . .”
“I felt relieved,” he said, and they shared a long look.
“Well,” Lyssa told him, finally. “I’m glad.”
The corner of his mouth softened. “That so?”
“I hate movies where the heroes just go around shooting people like it’s nothing. You know, bang-bang, right in the face—and then they get off some funny line and keep on going like it’s just another day, and oh—it’s time for lunch.”
His smile grew a fraction more. “But some people find that sexy.”
Lyssa struck a pose, aiming a gun with her fingers. “Pew-pew.”
A snort escaped him, and his eyes warmed.
“You’re right,” she said, blowing on her finger, concentrating on making actual smoke trickle from the tip of her glove. “It’s totally hot.”
Eddie laughed outright and covered her hand with his. His smile faded, though, and he bowed his head . . . drawing her hand close to his chest, holding it with heart-stopping gentleness. Lyssa leaned in and kissed the top of his head.
Above them, the ceiling creaked. Someone big was pacing.
“Your friends are waiting,” she said.
�
��You’re my friend, too.” Eddie glanced up at the ceiling. “You saved Lannes and Lethe today.”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“You saved them,” he said firmly. “You didn’t have to come with me, and you didn’t have to help them, but you did. I know it cost you something.”
Lyssa remembered the taste of Lethe’s blood . . . and how good it had felt when she frightened those witches. Knowing she could own them, if she really wanted it.
She sighed. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“But?”
“You’re right. It cost me.”
Maybe my soul, she thought.
Chapter Fourteen
Dirk & Steele owned the entire building—five stories filled with a handful of individual apartments that remained locked and unused, except for times like these, when people needed a place to go.
Eddie found Lannes on the second floor, inside the first apartment on the left. Hardly any furniture: two chairs and a battered folding table, and a small dingy lamp on the floor in the corner. Illusion-clad, he stood in the middle of the apartment with his arms folded over his massive chest. Unhappiness and unease were written all over his face, and his frown only deepened when he saw Lyssa.
“We shouldn’t have left you,” Lannes said, when they walked in. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You did the right thing,” Eddie told him. “Don’t doubt it for a minute.”
“The woman . . .” He looked down, staring at his big hands. “Is she really dead?”
“She was only the servant of a Cruor Venator,” Lyssa said, quietly. “So yes, she’s dead.”
“Just a servant?” Lannes gave her a haunted look. “The way she made me feel . . . the fear . . . I was certain she was one of them.”
“Close enough. If you hadn’t killed her, she would have reported your existence to the witch. The Cruor Venator would have certainly hunted you and your family.”
Eddie thought of the gleam in Betty’s eye and the blood that had dripped from her knife. Estefan had been skinned alive, drained, partially eaten . . . what would they do to a gargoyle, who would be even harder to kill?
He swallowed hard. “Lethe’s people will . . . get rid of the body. We didn’t ask how.”
“I don’t want to know.” Lannes raked his hands through his illusory hair though his hands hitched upward—as though hitting his horns. “What a day.”
No kidding. Eddie fought to keep his feelings in check: more anger and fear, and something deeper, more disturbing. “You both have to leave the city.”
“Obviously.” For a moment, pain eased in the gargoyle’s face . . . and his mouth twitched into a smile that was wild and tremulous. “I’m going to be a father.”
Warmth spread through Eddie’s chest, accompanied by an odd longing that made him glance at Lyssa. She was looking at him, too, though her gaze flew instantly away. Her cheeks reddened.
He cleared his throat. “Congratulations.”
“It’s impossible,” whispered the gargoyle, as if he didn’t hear him. “I’m terrified. What if her mother was right? I’m not human. The baby could be . . . deformed, or sick . . .”
“Lannes,” he said quietly. “It’s a miracle. Don’t overthink it.”
“I know.” He flexed his fingers and looked at Lyssa. “You and I need to talk.”
She gave him wary look. “Okay.”
Lannes fidgeted. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you did today. You saved my wife and me. You saved my child.”
She was silent a moment. “But?”
But nothing, thought Eddie, disturbed at the regret that filled Lannes’s eyes . . . as though bad news was coming . . . and he was the bearer. Suspicious, already feeling defensive, he stepped closer.
Lannes gave him a slight frown but focused in on Lyssa . . . and in a voice so low, so quiet it was difficult to hear him, he said, “I know what you are now. So forgive me . . . but I don’t feel comfortable with your presence. I respectfully ask that you stay away.” His gaze flickered back to Eddie. “From all of us.”
Eddie felt stunned. Lyssa’s shoulders sank, but she showed no surprise. Just acceptance. As if she expected nothing less.
Seeing that was almost as terrible as hearing Lannes reject her.
Anger settled hard in his chest like a cold, iron ball. “How can you say that, Lannes? After everything she did for you and Lethe? She saved you both.”
Lyssa wrapped her hands around his arm. “He’s trying to be your friend. It’s not personal.”
“Of course it’s personal.”
“No, he’s right.”
“Listen to her,” Lannes said. “You don’t understand what she is.”
“I know what matters.”
“No,” he said, grim. “And what you don’t know might kill you.”
Lyssa flinched. Eddie stepped in front of her. “We’re not having this conversation.”
“We have to.”
“You can go to hell.”
“Stop,” Lyssa cried, and the strangled grief in her voice made both men go quiet and stare.
“Stop,” she said again, and looked at Eddie, then Lannes, with tortured eyes. “Please, stop this. I’ll go. I promise, I’ll go . . . and I will never come near your family again. Just don’t . . . don’t lose your friendship over this. I’m not worth it.”
But it was too late. He remembered what the old woman, Ursula, had said to Lyssa about her mother—how she had been treated unfairly. He recalled her bitterness about Long Nu, her confession that friends and family had rejected her parents.
He had the horrible suspicion that this was how she had lived her life—pushed away, for no reason. Pushed away for some reason that couldn’t possibly matter.
Every protective instinct railed against that—everything in him, battling the urge to sink his fist in Lannes’s face.
That wasn’t him, though. Fighting was not him. But being with Lyssa, seeing her pain, turned his entire sense of self upside down.
He wasn’t sure he could trust his own heart or the blood in his veins, or his instincts—but he also knew he didn’t have a choice. Everything in him was pulling toward her. Even now, all he wanted to do was put her behind him, against him, and protect her. With his last breath.
Eddie covered her hand, and squeezed. Lyssa stared at him, still and pale, lost in his jacket.
“You’re worth it,” he told her. “You’re worth it to me.”
A hush fell between them. Nothing else mattered but the way she looked at him, but there were no words for what he saw in her eyes. Maybe grief. Maybe joy. Maybe anguish. He felt as though he were dangling from a cliff by his fingertips, ready to fall—or be caught.
Lyssa pulled her hand from his arm and stepped back. Eddie didn’t move a muscle or breathe, though his heart felt as though needles were jabbing and cutting it free of its moorings.
Falling. He was falling, and no one was going to catch him.
He watched her turn and face Lannes, who observed her with unease.
“I never asked to be found,” she told him. “And while I know exactly why I make you uneasy . . . don’t you dare take that out on him. Don’t be that small-hearted. He doesn’t deserve it.” Her voice broke a little. “You’re lucky he cares about you. If you throw that away, because of me . . .”
Warmth pooled in Eddie’s chest. Suddenly, he could breathe again.
Lannes unfolded his arms and made a slashing motion with his hand. The illusion surrounding him flowed away in tendrils of light, revealing silver skin and hard muscle, and folds of wings that fell around his massive arms.
“I don’t toss out friends,” he rumbled. “But I do protect them. You know why he’s not safe with you.”
Fire rolled off Eddie’s hands. Actual flames, throwing
off sparks that hissed and crackled in the air.
“Lannes,” he warned, just as someone else said the gargoyle’s name—even more sharply, with real annoyance.
Lethe emerged from the hall, pale, hair mussed, with shadows under her eyes. Maybe she had been resting, or making a call . . . but she walked up to her husband and craned her neck to stare at him. Then, she poked his chest.
“This isn’t you,” she said. “Lyssa Andreanos saved our lives. You owe her more than the benefit of the doubt. And if you won’t bend on this, I will.”
Lannes looked away. “Call me a hypocrite if you want, but—”
“You’re a hypocrite. My family called you a monster and told you to get lost. Now you’re going to do the same thing? You’re going to be a father. Not a maniac.”
“Is there a difference?” he asked, with some exasperation.
Lethe walked to Lyssa, and before anyone could react, reached out and hugged her, hard. Lannes cursed to himself. Lyssa tensed, surprise flickering over her face. But finally, she patted the other woman’s back, awkwardly.
“I’m not a hugger, just so you know,” Lethe told her, pulling back. “You’re welcome in our home, anytime you want.”
“Er,” said Lyssa, glancing at the gargoyle. “I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”
Lethe set her jaw. “I mean it. I just spoke with Ursula.”
“What?” Lannes said.
His wife ignored him. “Thank you. For everything.”
Lyssa looked uncomfortable. “It was nothing.”
Lethe’s smile held real warmth, and compassion. “We both know that’s not true.” She glanced at Eddie, then Lannes. “Both of you, out. I want to speak with Lyssa alone.”
“No,” Lannes said. “She’s—”
“Get over it,” Eddie interrupted, and shot Lyssa a quick look. “You okay with this?”
She hesitated a heartbeat too long. “Yes.”
Eddie stepped in front of her, blocking the others from sight. Making it just the two of them. Searching her gaze. Letting her search his. Waiting.
Lyssa relaxed a little and gave him a faint smile.
“I’m sure,” she said, to his unasked question.
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