“Night,” she said. “Do you think they were right, getting this place together? The reason they did it?”
I’d already said as much—or that I understood, anyway. She’d heard me. She knew I meant it. “You’re asking whether they’re right to be worried that I’d hurt you. Or that the Angel would.”
She fidgeted. “I don’t even want to—it feels awful to ask that.”
How had she made it through the day without breaking down? She’d been on the verge at the gym. Now, she seemed to be holding it together. It didn’t seem like normal young person resilience, or even magical young person resilience. It couldn’t be shock—she’d have gone down by now. Adrenaline? Maybe.
It scared me more than a little.
I didn’t want to lie to Faith, or make promises I couldn’t keep. I didn’t want to treat Faith like a child. Yes, she was my kid. But she was growing up, and doing it much faster than anyone should have to.
“I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen,” I said.
“It might not be in your power,” she said.
I mulled that over. “I know. It feels awful to say that.”
She leaned into me. “What’s the rest of the plan?”
“For tonight? Sunday and I will take turns keeping watch. Everyone eats. Everyone sleeps.”
“What about Miguel?” she asked.
Good question. “We won’t let him run free around here.”
“I know,” she said. “But what are you gonna do with him?”
The whole “enemy of my enemy” thing would only take us so far. “That depends on him.”
She pushed to standing, all awkward knees and elbows. “Pizza’s calling.”
Out she went, and before I could follow, Sunday and Miguel marched in with paper plates piled high with as many steaming-hot slices as they would hold. Sunday handed me the slices with extra olives.
“Veggies,” she said.
I stared at the plate I held, then set it down on the mattress beside me. “Is this where we have that talk about how if Miguel gives his solemn oath that he’ll help us, we’ll treat him like a friend?”
He kicked the door shut and leaned against it. “Like I’d swear to that.”
He downed half of his first slice in one swallow. I wasn’t sure he’d even tried to chew it.
“What then?” I asked.
“I will swear to protect you, Night,” he said. “I know you’ll believe that.”
“Because of the Angel.” Every goddamn thing that had happened today came down to that.
He saluted me with the remainder of his slice, then took a huge bite.
“And the rest of us?” I asked.
“I’m on board. Besides, the kids remind me of us when we were little.”
“They’re not us,” I said.
He wiped his greasy fingers on his pants. “What are you protecting them from?”
Isn’t that obvious?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Becoming us,” I said.
His mouth fell open for a moment. Then he snapped it shut.
“That’s more like it,” Sunday said. “Shut up and eat. Night, you want to eat in here with us?”
“Hell, no.” I stood up, knees cracking, and picked up my cooling pizza.
“We’ll take first watch,” she said.
We. Not a word I wanted to get used to including a chameleon, or any other Order operative. “Wake me at—”
I stopped the sentence in its tracks. I had no idea what time it was.
“It’s six-thirty,” Miguel said.
Might as well have been midnight, the way I felt. “Wake me at one.”
I left them in the kids’ room, stepping into the hall, which ought to have been filled with voices and laughter and inappropriate jokes, with some top-secret planning as the cherry on top. But the kids had gathered in front of a computer screen in the far corner of the living room, watching something with explosions, leaving Red alone in the kitchen amid denuded cheese-dotted, grease-spotted aluminum pans and stained and wadded white paper napkins. Someone had spilled a packet of crushed red pepper on the floor. Someone was going to have spicy feet if they weren’t careful.
Red cocked his head, inviting me to join him. He eyed the mostly intact dinner on my plate. “You gonna eat that, or just carry it around?”
I made a clear spot on the counter and set down my plate. “Jesus, Red.”
“I know,” he said. “You don’t eat, it’s gonna start affecting how you respond.”
I shot him a side-eye glance. “You always know just what to say to a woman.”
“I don’t know from women,” he said. “I know you.”
And what mattered to me. I picked up a slice and bit in. The salty sausage and olive combination tasted like heaven. I didn’t need any encouragement after that to polish off the contents of my plate, or to pluck leftover bits of cheese and olives from the nearest pan.
He let me be while I ate, not watching me so much as keeping company with his own thoughts.
I licked my fingers. “Not what you signed up for, is it?”
“I had no idea what I was signing up for other than staying with you.” He leaned back further, planting his elbows on the counter. “You know, I never stopped thinking about you after the night your parents were killed. I always wondered whether you were alive, where you were, whether you were okay. And then you showed up on my doorstep and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how or why. I know it was an accident, or a coincidence—at least, that’s what a lot of people would call it. But I don’t believe in those things with the important stuff. So you showed up, and trouble followed, just like the first time. And I didn’t care. Foremost thing in my mind was that I didn’t want to lose you again, and I’d do whatever it took.”
“My past aside?”
“Everyone has a past. Yours is hard to get over—I’ll give you that. I hoped we’d have more time before trouble came calling again.”
Me, too. I opened my mouth to say so, but he shook his head.
“Let me get all this out first, Night. Like I said, this started out with my not wanting to lose you. But then there’s the kids. I love those kids. I can’t stand to think about what would happen to them if I tapped out. I know I’m not their savior, and that you and Sunday would do your best, and that those kids are anything but defenseless. But that’s not the point. I’ve never been able to walk away when I’m needed.”
We did need him. Could we take on the Order and the Angel—whatever else came—without him? Maybe. Would we be able to win without him? Maybe.
I knew exactly who I was, regardless of my attempts to leave the Order behind. I was an assassin. It was in my blood. Trained into my every muscle. The fact that I had a soul was down to a miracle. That fragments of the souls of my targets had knitted together to form that soul—there was no force in the universe that could explain that. Because of them, I understood the value of life. I understood that the stakes were much bigger than me.
Sunday? Well, Sunday had fewer qualms and greater skills than I did. Her moral compass was seriously bent.
Red had what we didn’t and couldn’t hope to. He held the center together. He was a do-the-right-thing anchor. He made sure the means justified the end. He was everything we weren’t. Everything I wasn’t.
I stepped in front of him so neither of us had to look far to meet the other’s gaze. “So you’re staying.”
“It’s a little more than that,” he said. “This—whatever this is—it’s a long haul. Now that I’ve seen what’s going on, I can’t close my eyes and pretend that it’s all a dream. I’m not wired that way. I’m saying that I’m in, Night. All in.”
“With the fight.” That was good. Important. Necessary. I nodded.
He bent toward me, close enough that I could feel his breath on my skin. He gripped the edge of the counter with his fingers. “Not just the fight.”
I clos
ed my eyes. A shiver started in the soles of my feet, traveling up through my spine all the way to the top of my head. We’d had hardly any time to know each other, to learn each other in the day-to-day. I understood better how he moved through crisis. How he dealt with life-and-death risk. I trusted him without reservation. That was rare enough.
But now he was talking about the thing we’d agreed not to discuss.
“I didn’t think you’d go there,” I said.
“Is it a problem?”
I looked at him. “No. Just…why now?”
“Because between the time the kids and I ran from Addie’s house and the time you showed up here, I felt fucking terrified. Afraid that you were hurt or dead or taken. I worried about it for Faith’s sake. That’s not what I’m talking about now, though. I’m talking about the thought of losing you. I felt like a coward, not telling you sooner what’s on my mind and in my heart.”
His words slipped right past the defenses I’d put up against them. I wanted to feel angry. With everything that had happened today, and what could happen tomorrow, I didn’t want to talk about how we felt. I didn’t want to acknowledge that there was one more thing at stake. One more crucial thing.
What I needed to say felt like a fire inside—the same fire I’d felt this morning, before Red and I had climbed out of bed. I’d wanted him then, but it’d been more than that. So I spoke slowly. I feared that if I didn’t, the fire would burn me from the inside out.
Chapter 6
“THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE,” I said.
Red held my gaze. His eyes filled with hurt that he masked so quickly, I’d have missed it if I hadn’t been looking right at him. He tightened his grip on the edge of the kitchen counter until his knuckles bleached.
The mess of emptied pizza pans and spilled condiments seemed to fade. I could hear the crackling of flames in the living room fireplace, along with an explosion and the squeal of tires from the movie the kids were watching out there, but that faded away as well.
Red was all I could see, his grass green and earth. His breath on my face was all I felt. The thump of my own heartbeat and the rush of my blood in my veins were all I heard.
“It’s impossible because of the situation, what we’re facing. All I wanted was time, which clearly we’re not gonna get. I only wanted to figure things out slowly, to understand what I’m feeling.”
“Is it about Sunday?” he asked. “The thing you have to sort out?”
I blinked at him.
He knew Sunday and I had been together before. He knew she’d cleaned up my mess the night I’d chosen not to kill Faith, after I’d taken Faith and run. She’d taken out the follow-up team the Order had sent. She’d made sure we were safe.
She’d left the Order and followed me to Portland. She’d done all of it because she loved me.
“No,” I said. “Not the way you think. Just listen. Can you do that?”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t look away either.
“Sunday is the only person I was ever with before. I loved her the way someone with nothing to lose loves—completely and utterly. She loved me the same way. Somewhere along the line, it wasn’t enough. Sunday and I are friends now. We still love each other. Would still do anything for each other.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “This isn’t helping.”
“She stayed here to fight with us even though there’s no chance of rekindling what we had. She did that for love, and if she ever needed me for any reason, no matter how far around the world she was, I’d go. Understand?”
He let out a breath he’d been holding.
My voice trembled. “The reason I’ve been avoiding talking about us isn’t because I don’t care enough,” I said. “It’s because I care too much. I’m no longer the person I used to be—someone with nothing to lose. Now, I have everything to lose, and it scares me to death.”
The fire inside of me still burned. I could hardly believe it hadn’t scorched me. Surely it would. Any second now.
Red peeled his fingers from the counter’s edge and reached up to cup my face in his hands. “You want to run from this?”
“I don’t think I can,” I said. “It would follow me wherever I’d go.”
The wonder I’d seen in his eyes early this morning bloomed again. “Sunday told me she’s taking first watch.”
I nodded.
“There’s an empty bedroom in the back,” he said.
The house was full of people in hiding. We weren’t yet under siege. We could breathe now, even if it was just for a little while.
I pulled his hands away from my face. I kissed one palm, and then the other.
He slid away from the counter, leading me down the hall, away from the crackling hearth and the movie explosions. We passed Miguel and Sunday on our way as they headed toward the front of the house. Miguel didn’t say a word, nor did he do more than glance at either of us.
Sunday hung back—not to talk to me, though she flashed me a quick grin. I left her with Red for a moment, which was all the time she needed to lean into him and pass on a message. She pitched her voice low, but I overheard anyway.
“Don’t fuck it up,” she said.
And then she moved on her way, leaving Red to catch up with me at the door to the spare room.
I’d expected a bare floor and darkness, but instead saw that someone had left a camping lantern in the corner, and laid out a red blanket on top of the carpet. They’d left us a couple of pillows as well.
“Did you do this?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
It had to have been Sunday and Miguel. If that didn’t make me feel an awful combination of embarrassed and out of my depth—I didn’t want to waste time feeling those things.
I turned into him as he shut the door and turned the tiny lock in the knob. The words I’d meant to say fled the second he gripped my hips and pulled me closer. I wrapped my arms around his neck and drew his lips down to meet mine.
I kissed him with all the urgency I felt inside, tasting salt and green and earth and a tenderness he’d been holding back. He skimmed the sides of my body with his knuckles, moving up and along the curves of my breasts, thumbs sliding across my nipples. I moaned, the sound born deep in my belly.
Then Red’s hands moved again, this time pulling at the hem of my shirt, lifting it over my head, and at the clasp of my bra, unhooking and drawing it away, dropping it to the floor. He danced me toward the blanket and lowered us down. He kissed my neck and my breasts, and I melted under his lips and his touch until all I could do was feel.
He made me naked, and I let myself become naked—not only my body, but my heart as well.
The cotton of Red’s T-shirt, soft as it was, chafed. I needed to feel his skin on mine. He pulled away long enough to grant my wish, tossing the shirt aside, giving me room to trail a hand from the beautiful sacred heart tattoo that covered his chest down the hard muscle of his stomach, hooking my fingers in the waistband of his jeans.
He looked into my eyes and he saw the fire there. He saw me.
He let me see into him, too, pulling back the curtain of his own defenses, and even the curtain of his magic. As the green and earth parted, something else took its place: the fiery crown of the sacred heart on his chest became a magical fire—a golden flame of devotion and compassion. A fire of the soul.
I met his gaze and held it. He slid off his jeans and boxers, never once glancing away. I opened my legs as he drew close again. He pressed against the wetness between my thighs, teasing. He lowered the rest of his body until there was no space between us, until we lay heart to heart.
He whispered in my ear. “You understand me?”
I thought I did. I wanted to be sure.
I reached for him with my magic. He opened to me, inviting me into his mind. I read in him everything I needed to know.
This wasn’t like any other time before. This was lust, but more than that. He was giving all, and hoped for the same in return.
I didn’t know how to do what he’d done, how to let him see as deeply into me. I closed my eyes, feeling my way into my own magic, into the moon-glow and tidal pull on the waters of my own halo. I let the soft glow shine forth, and the waves flow and ebb. I opened the depths of the sea beneath. The glitter of the light on the surface. The velvet depths of the dark water beneath.
He gasped.
I opened my eyes just barely and gazed at him through my lashes, afraid of what I would see on his face. What I saw took my breath away.
Love.
He slid inside me then, and we were one in body, mind, and magic. He matched his thrusts to the rhythm of my waves. I fisted my hands in his hair and rode with him in a dance of fire and water. Every move—every breath—made us stronger. Every moment, the magic built between us and around us, the firestorm and the hurricane. I surrendered to the power of it, becoming the water as it rose to meet the sky—and fell.
He closed his mouth over mine as I exploded into a million glittering shards. A heartbeat later, he followed.
I came back slowly, consciousness returning along with the feel of Red’s weight on top of me, and the slickness of his sweat, and the pulse of his heart. Steam rose from his skin—and mine. It was more than heat rising into a chilled room. It was power. It was what we’d built together.
He searched my eyes, his voice soft. “You with me here?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I am.”
“How did we do that?” he asked.
“The way our magic wove together,” I said. “I don’t know.”
He nodded. “Has that ever happened to you before?”
“No. You?”
“Never,” he said.
“I never thought something like that was even possible.”
“We should try again.” He gave me a lopsided grin.
I brushed the shaggy, damp hair away from his face. “You know, when you smile like that, your mustache smiles, too.”
He laughed.
I laughed, too. It started out gentle. I didn’t mean for it to go on, and what I’d said wasn’t all that funny, but the sound sang inside of me and something I’d held together with pain and fear broke open. I laughed until my belly hurt. Until I could hardly breathe, and tears streamed from the corners of my eyes.
Night Rises: The Awakened Magic Saga (Soul Forge Book 2) Page 10
