by Megan Starks
Then again, maybe he was trying to get close to her on account of the Mardoll. She just didn’t know.
“Sorry,” she amended, softly. She helped him stand, supporting his weight on her uninjured shoulder, careful to avoid the cuts on his stomach—four long gashes, a sharp slash of dragon’s claws—an injury he’d earned protecting her. All of the injuries he’d gotten today, he’d gotten because of her. The guilt was almost stifling.
She noticed a sizable mark on his chest above the smattering of gunshot wounds, old and scarred, some sort of symbol drawn in the skin. A strange sensation tightened up her stomach at the sight of it, and she held her breath, worried she might slip into another hallucination. But thankfully none came.
She was almost afraid to ask him about it once they’d escaped the Office of the Paranormal. What if it was nothing?
Worse, what if it wasn’t?
They limped toward the door, and the attendant dumped Shade’s clothes onto the tile, his boots toppling over each other, then handed his phone, wallet, and keys to her in a plastic zip bag. She helped Shade pull on his pants, then his ruined shirt. It took several minutes, but he seemed to heal with the small amount of bodily contact, able to move more of his fingers and walk more steadily as they left the cell and made their way toward the stairs. There was no way she was taking an elevator, even if she had to carry him up the remaining flights to ground level.
“Do visit again soon,” Maisie called after them.
“It’ll be a cold day in Hell,” Gisele called back, hobbling with Shade into the stairwell, careful that the door didn’t hit them on their way past.
“Did you get the information you came for?” Shade asked, breathing hard when they rounded the fifth flight of stairs up. She paused, giving him the break he was probably hoping for. He sagged against her in relief.
“We’re almost there,” she encouraged, and he nodded once in reply, raking a shaky hand through his damp hair. She continued when the silence stretched to awkwardness, Shade leaning against her, muscles trembling. “The Stump is dead as a doornail and has been dissected by Maisie, herself—twice. Which means it wasn’t him I saw burn down my apartment. It had to have been the elghoul trying to scare me, but then why didn’t it attack me directly that night?”
Shade tensed against her. “Let’s keep going,” he said.
“Why, what is it?”
“It’s nothing. Look, unless you know how to drive my bike, we should probably give someone a call to pick us up.”
Gisele pursed her lips, thinking. She could reach Beast on her cell phone. Save Warrick the conniption. But the details of their transport weren’t what Shade had tensed about, she was sure. “At my apartment, the elghoul didn’t attack me directly. Not like it did at Samuel’s and here today,” she repeated, certain she was on the right track. “Both times it attacked me directly, you were there. It’s clear you two know each other.” She stiffened as the accusation tumbled from her mouth. “It came after me again—because you failed to steal the Mardoll for its master.”
“That’s not—Gigi, wait. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
She’d already pulled away from him, leaving him to sink onto the steps. Was he working for the people trying to kill her? Her head swam from the possibility. She backed away, clutching her throat in disbelief.
“Wait, don’t run off.” He reached for her leg, but she was quick to jerk out of the way, and he let his hand fall, stung. “I’m not helping the elghoul. You shouldn’t even have to ask. Please, Gigi, they might not let me go if you aren’t with me when I reach the top, and I’m in no shape to fight my way out right now. I’m not—I can’t heal like I used to.”
He gripped the metal rungs in the stairwell railing and stared out over the open-air drop as if she’d locked him behind bars.
“Because you abandoned your master? Or because you share a master with the elghoul, a master who’s currently unhappy with you?”
It wasn’t what he’d expected her to say. Shock was clear on his face when he looked back to her. Then that familiar mask of indifference slid across his features.
“You don’t know what you’re asking about.” He swallowed hard, fighting with himself before explaining, “I’m not a good guy.”
Not that stupid, bullshit line again. Disgusted, she took off.
“Gisele!” he called after her, but she was already a half flight up. She didn’t pause until she’d passed a full flight and another and a third. Finally, she slowed and stopped, chest heaving as she dropped to the steps to calm her racing heart.
He sure knew how to push her buttons, even when he didn’t seem to want to. After he’d protected her against the elghoul, she’d forgotten that she had very little reason to trust him, and a good bit of reason to suspect he was manipulating her to his own ends.
But none of that mattered now.
She’d done something horrible and rash. She’d bolted and left him to the wolves, knowing he was too hurt to fend them off. She’d known and hadn’t cared. What the hell kind of person was she? She might be a half-demon, but that was no excuse. Warrick was full blooded and he had more good in him, more love for the unworthy (namely her), than any other authority figure she knew.
Shit, she had to go back for Shade. All she needed to do was make sure they both made it out of the building. Then he could go back to Hell for all she cared.
She traipsed back down the three flights of stairs to find he’d dragged himself to his feet and had used the railing to climb half a flight on his own. Sweat dripped from his temples, his face flushed scarlet from the exertion.
“Thought you might catch up?” she asked him, one eyebrow raised.
“Hoped you might wait,” he answered, swaying on his feet. He forced a playful smile, but it faded too quickly, betrayed by his fatigue.
She slipped her arm around him, easing him from the railing as she nestled against the length of his body and accepted the brunt of his weight. Just the act of her acceptance seemed to relieve some of his tension and pain as he relaxed against her.
“The elghoul couldn’t attack you directly the night she burned down your apartment because she wasn’t strong enough. I’d fought and wounded her badly earlier that evening. I swear, I didn’t know she’d go after you again so soon. I thought if I took the Mardoll…but it’s too late for that now.” Shade winced as Gisele’s pace proved too fast for him. She was half-dragging him up the steps.
“Sorry,” Gisele said, slowing. “You knew it was the elghoul but didn’t tell me,” she accused. “We wouldn’t have had to come here. And if you’re not working together, how did you know it’d attack that first time? You followed me on my run because you knew it’d be there. Why would you fight it for me? Don’t you know by now I’m not interested in dating you?”
Shade laughed, then wheezed, clutching at his wounded stomach. “Ow. I’m not willing to risk my life just to get laid, thanks. Besides, I don’t recall having asked you out.”
Okay, maybe that was true. But still.
Gisele shot him a hot-tempered look. “Fine. Why won’t the elghoul stop trying to kill me, even if I unload the curio? And why are you trying to stop it?”
Shade was silent for several moments, thinking, or maybe just trying to get more steps in before Gisele abandoned him for a final time. “I can’t tell you that,” he answered at last, sounding irritated with himself. He scowled, as if daring her to challenge him.
“Why?” She gripped him tighter as they rounded the landing to the next level up, so he’d know she wasn’t going to let him go. His hand fisted in her leather jacket, a desperate move to keep her close.
“I can’t tell you that either.”
“If you say I’ll just have to trust you—” she threatened, but he didn’t say it.
“I’m not that stupid.”
“Are you in trouble?”
He considered her words, his face slipping from its arrogant mask. His swollen eye had already begun to open a little
, and his eyes were a breathtaking icy gray, cold and crisp as winter. “Would you care if I was?” he asked, sounding raw, exposed, but she didn’t have an answer, and they fell quiet for the rest of the climb.
11
“Stay in the car!” Gisele hollered to Beast when he pulled up to the curb in her battered and scratched blue Accord.
She didn’t want him anywhere near the building after what she and Shade had been through. They were a sad pair, huddled together at the far edge of the parking lot, Shade leaning against her heavily, listing to one side. She was sweating even though she’d wriggled out of her jacket, the leather unbearably hot in the July afternoon, and her muscles were beginning to ache. But she hadn’t wanted to set Shade down, hadn’t wanted to let go of him until they were both safe.
“It’s fine now,” he’d mumbled during their wait, head resting on her shoulder. “If something happens, I can fight.”
He’d started to slip, and she’d had to ratchet him up higher, holding him with a grip on his belt so she could keep one hand free to draw her gun.
When Beast pulled up, the back half of her bumper was crushed and dragging the ground. She didn’t comment on it as she opened the rear door and eased Shade inside. She would have gone for the passenger seat in the front, but he grabbed for her so she nodded, shutting him in before she went around to the other side.
“Just go.” She slid across the back seat to cradle Shade’s body against her own, tossing her leather jacket to the floor.
After what he’d just endured, she understood why he’d seek a comforting touch.
Beast tried to turn in the seat to look back at them, but his long horn scraped the roof and got caught in the torn fabric.
“Beast will drive Half-blood home,” he confirmed, jerking the car into motion.
She frowned, the wording wounding her. “I don’t have a home anymore.”
Shade leaned against her body, groaning as he popped two of his fingers, re-breaking them to set a cleaner heal. He bent and flexed the others, making sure he’d regained full range of motion.
“Know any healing spells?” she asked, but he shook his head.
“I wasn’t exactly trained to help people.”
What the hell did that mean? He’d been trained to hurt people instead?
She tensed against him but said nothing.
He looked at her sideways, not fully meeting her gaze. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got some charms in my desk. Plus, I’ve been through worse.”
She nodded, feeling as if she’d lost her voice. When had he been through worse, and why? She knew so little about him. And to add insult to literal injury, the whole thing had been pointless. She’d confirmed that Samuel hadn’t faked his murder and then burned down her apartment, but Shade could have told her that and avoided them the harrowing trip. Instead he was keeping secrets, and she wasn’t sure why—unless he was playing her.
He slouched in the seat and tipped his head to rest on her shoulder. The plastic bag she’d used to tape up the window whipped and rattled next to him as they drove, but he didn’t seem to notice the noise. He closed his eyes and breathed deep.
Then he shifted a hand to touch her thigh. She let him. The touch wasn’t sexual; it was more like he just needed the contact.
She didn’t know why—it was stupid, would probably hurt him more—but she couldn’t help herself from reaching up to brush the swollen, plum-red skin of his battered eye. He made a soft noise and turned his face to rest against her hand, but otherwise didn’t stir where he lay against her side, breathing deep as if swept with dreams. She cupped his face and rubbed her thumb over the bruise, back and forth, the lightest of caresses, touching him as they drove.
It might have been her imagination, but she was almost sure that the longer she touched him, the more his eye improved. By the end of the ride, the bruise had turned splotchy and he could fully open his eye, looking more like he’d been sucker-punched rather than pulverized with a meat tenderizer.
“Thanks,” he offered, brows raised, lips parted for the briefest of moments. He quickly covered the expression with one of suspicion, but kept whatever he was thinking to himself as he looked to Beast—then retracted his hand from her thigh as if they’d been caught necking by Warrick and Susanna.
She followed his gaze and realized Beast had been studying them in the rearview mirror.
“Keep your eyes on the road, buddy,” Gisele said.
Beast only snorted in response, teal side-slitted eyes shifting from the mirror back to the front windshield. “Little dragon did not expect healing. Feared Half-blood’s thoughts of him.”
“I can’t channel healing magic.” Gisele rubbed at her horns, confused. She wasn’t powerful enough to direct such an intricate spell, even if she could manage to weave and hold one. “I didn’t do anything.”
Beast shrugged, massive form shifting the seat under the weight of his movement. The steering wheel squeaked and groaned, and for a moment she worried it would break right off in his hands. “Healed. Showed favor,” he explained.
“No,” Shade interrupted. “Gisele didn’t do anything. I can heal fine on my own.”
Gisele felt it like the pulse in the back of her throat—he was lying. He’d told her earlier that he couldn’t heal like he used to. Now he was insisting the opposite.
There were so many secrets with him.
Maisie had implied his healing was impeded due to his master’s disapproval. Had she counteracted that somehow, by relaxing him maybe? Dragons of all Gates were notorious for their loyalty to those they accepted and treasured. But she didn’t know enough about his sub-sect to guess if someone Shade had—what, bonded to?—could affect something as personal as his regenerative rate. And she wasn’t sure she’d consider herself someone Shade felt particularly attached to, either way.
Besides, could Maisie’s information even be trusted?
Valahans were so rarely sighted outside of Eden that little was known about them. And so few demons and humans alike were permitted to enter the Sixth Gate that even less was known about the realm of boundless paradise. All she really knew was that dragons weren’t native to Eden, outside of valahans. But again, she didn’t know why.
“Beast, drop it,” she said, letting the subject and the growing tension in the car die. She slipped away, scooting to the other side of the back seat, and Shade didn’t try to stop her. “How did it go with your new lady friend?”
Beast hunched his shoulders further and snorted, a blush tingeing his dark cheeks. “Building is now Half-blood’s. But keys were not ready. Cyn says Beast will get keys during dinner date.”
“You mean appointment,” Shade said. “And how’d you find a new place so quickly?”
“No, he means date. Don’t you, you sly stud?” Gisele laughed despite herself, for a moment forgetting the soul-crushing stress of the last few days. “I knew she had the hots for you.”
She ignored Shade’s question. If he could keep secrets, then so could she.
“Tonight,” Beast boomed. “Kismet’s at eight.”
Shade’s eyebrows rose in a look that was partly skeptical, partly impressed. “She didn’t pick a steakhouse, so she must be halfway considerate. It’s new age-y enough to be down with demons. But, you know, Kismet’s isn’t cheap.”
Gisele had to agree, though what he implied about their financial situation irritated her. A week ago, yeah, she wouldn’t have been able to afford the place. Now was a different story. “I’ll give you cash before you go. It’s a dress-up kind of place, so pick out a suit from Demon’s Wearhouse.”
“Want me to chip in?” Shade asked.
The offer was unexpected, and she wondered if he was being sincere. But with the way he looked at her, serious and with a strange tinge of longing—like the space between them stretched for miles—she couldn’t doubt it.
“You don’t have that much in your bank account, right?” he added, and like that, the moment shattered.
He was pr
ying. Surely he suspected that she’d been paid for the shrunken head.
“Half-blood doesn’t like to be in debt to others,” Beast said, mercifully saving her from having to answer.
“He’s right. So thanks, but we’ll manage. And no offense, Beast, but you might want to meet Cynthia there. My car’s not looking so great.” She tapped the window pane next to her to indicate the state of their ride.
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Shade sighed and tipped his head back on the seat behind him, eyes closing to signal he was done with the conversation.
“Beast also knows.”
And with that, they fell silent for the remainder of the drive.
When they pulled up to the front of the office, Beast left the car idling while Gisele walked around to the other side. She opened the back door for Shade, but he needed no help climbing out. He shuffled to the sidewalk, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans and shoulders slouched. He could stand without swaying, which was a good sign.
It was true. The ride back had healed him significantly.
“I have to show up at the precinct before they send an escort car,” she apologized, handing him the keys to the front door along with the baggie containing his personal items. Her unspoken I’d stay with you otherwise hung heavy in the air. “Will you be okay on your own—I mean, do you think the elghoul will come after you tonight?”
He scratched a hand through his dark hair and ducked his head, uncomfortable under her scrutiny. “Depends on the shape she was in when she left the building. Either way, I’ll be fine.”
He lifted his bloodied shirt to show her the solid, unmarred expanse of his abs beneath. The deep cuts he’d borne earlier—from the dragon claws that had ripped through his flesh—they’d faded to nothing more than angry, jagged lines scrawled in red across his skin. He pulled his shirt back down, flexing his fingers to show her that they all worked.
