Black of Hearts, page 48
part #12 of Quentin Black Mystery Series
She smiled up at him in surprise, studying his gray eyes.
“Seriously,” she said, still smiling at him. “I’m emotional, too… but we don’t have to do anything crazy tonight.”
“Like get engaged?” he said, his voice innocent.
She laughed. “Yeah. Like that.”
“You think this is some spur-of-the-minute thing of mine?” he said. “You think it’s something I only just thought of now, seeing my lady-love stumble on the tarmac and getting to catch her before she fell… like Prince Charming?”
She smiled, but she found herself studying his face more closely now.
“You think I don’t maybe, say, have a ring hanging out somewhere, for just such a conversation?” he said, his voice a murmur again as he kissed her face. “Something I was maybe waiting for a good time to show you?”
He squeezed her waist tighter with his lean arm.
Now her jaw dropped slightly.
Meeting her gaze, he gauged her reaction cautiously.
“We’re good together, Ang,” he said. “Real good.”
She nodded, still a little blown away. “We are.”
“But not good enough?” he pressed. “For you, I mean? Not yet? Too soon?”
Something about the worry in his eyes snapped her out of her shock.
She shook her head, laughing. “I didn’t say that.”
He nodded, a smile creeping around the edges of his lips.
“Ayuh,” he said. “All right, then.”
She burst out in another laugh, even as he reached for the handle of the metal door.
“Do I even want to know what that means?” she teased.
“I don’t know,” he countered, lifting an eyebrow at her. “Do you?”
Seeing the seriousness in his eyes, she hesitated again.
She was about to answer––
When, right in front of her, four people abruptly appeared.
They didn’t walk through the door. They didn’t jump out at them.
They simply… appeared.
Angel blinked, staring.
Then she let out a shocked shriek.
ALL FOUR OF THEM were familiar.
All four of them were stark naked.
Angel stared down at their nakedness, her jaw loose on her face, although the screams in her throat died after the first one.
Cowboy froze, then stepped forward, half-shielding her from the four people who stood there.
By then, Angel had recognized all of them.
Nick. That psychotic seer who was obsessed with Miri. Dalejem…
Miri.
Something in Angel’s heart opened, filling with heat as she looked at her friend’s face. At the same time, she stared warily at Nick the Vampire, then that psychotic seer, then back at Miri. She found herself briefly disturbed by the full frontal on all three of them––Solonik, Dalejem, and Nick.
She couldn’t help but notice that both Nick and Jem were disturbingly large, in the guy department, or that both Dalejem and Solonik had those weird seer dicks.
Then she looked at Nick’s arms, and realized he held a puppy.
Right as she looked at it, the puppy barked.
It didn’t bark at Nick the Vampire, who was holding it.
It barked at her, and Cowboy.
It was the “Stranger!” bark.
As in, “Hey guys! Strangers! Who are these strangers? Are they cool?”
Angel burst out in an involuntary laugh.
Then Miri walked up to her, grabbing her by the arms.
“Angel!” she said.
Somehow, hearing Miri say her name snapped her out.
Something in her chest relaxed, releasing all the warmth that flooded there when she first saw Miri’s face. She exhaled a breath at the same time, not realizing she’d been holding it until she let it out.
“Miri.” Her eyes filled with tears.
She let go of Cowboy, letting her friend embrace her, not really thinking about the fact that Miri was naked too, or that Cowboy was standing there, seeing Miri naked, just like she was seeing the two male seers and one male vampire naked.
Miri squeezed her, tight, her arms freakishly strong, as always.
She released Angel a few seconds later, mostly anyway, taking a half-step back to meet her gaze. Her hazel, light-filled eyes were deathly serious.
“Ang,” she said. “Nick’s okay now.”
Angel blinked, staring at her.
Her eyes flickered up and past Miri then, looking at Nick, who was avoiding her gaze.
The puppy in his arms was licking his face, wriggling in his arms, obviously wanting to get down and greet the new people.
“Angel.”
Angel’s eyes flickered back to Miri’s. Her friend was still looking at her seriously, her mouth set in a faint frown.
“Angel… I’m okay. He hasn’t bitten me. He hasn’t bitten Jem.” Hesitating, she glanced over her shoulder at Dalejem. “Jem… fixed him. Somehow. I’ll let the two of them explain that part to you, and explain why Solonik is with us. But I need you to keep Nick safe, okay? That’s a fucking order. No one is to hurt Nick. No one. For any reason.”
Angel’s jaw grew even more slack.
She blinked into Miri’s serious, overly pale face, then turned, exchanging looks with Cowboy. Cowboy seemed to have recovered faster than Angel had. He frowned, his eyes openly skeptical as he looked at Nick, then at Jem, then at Solonik… measuring each one of them with his eyes as he took them in.
“Miri,” he said, frowning harder as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Dex is going to shit himself. Not to mention Kiko. We can’t have him in the same fucking building as Kiko. That’s a non-starter.”
He gave her a grim look, studiously avoiding looking down at her breasts, much less the rest of her, Angel noticed.
Her boyfriend’s politeness around her nakedness made her feel a bit ashamed of her open gawking at the three naked males.
“…That doesn’t even get into Black,” Cowboy added. “If you think I could stop Black from ripping this fucker’s head off, after what he did––”
“Let me handle Black,” Miri said, her voice warning.
“You know where he is?” Cowboy said, dubious. “You know what he is, Miri?”
She nodded, waving him off.
“I’m going there next,” she said. “I need you to promise me, though. About Nick. If you can’t promise me that… if you can’t acknowledge to me that it’s a fucking order, coming straight from me, or promise me you’ll follow it… I won’t leave him here. I’ll take Nick, Jem, and Solonik somewhere else until I get back here with Black.”
There was a silence.
Like last time, the silence felt dense.
Miri’s voice sharpened.
“Hey,” she said. “Both of you. Look at me.” She stepped back, holding up her arms. Once both of their eyes were on her, she turned around slowly, showing them every inch of her. “Do you see any bite marks on me? On Jem? Anything at all?”
Angel winced a little, but she looked dutifully.
“The back of your neck, Miri––”
“That’s from a sight-restraint collar,” Jem interrupted.
When Angel looked at the male seer, he held out his arms too, also turning around slowly. “Look at me, if the collar mark worries you,” he said. “I have no marks at all. I was with him for weeks, months. He never touched me.”
“You can lock him up,” Miri said, her voice urgent now. “Obviously… keep him away from the others. Keep him away from Kiko, and Dex. It would probably better if you don’t even tell them he’s here until I get back. Lock him in one of the suites on your floor. If it eases your minds, put someone on the door you trust… someone who won’t overreact. You can keep the other two with him. You only need to watch them until I get back.”
Angel hesitated, fighting confusion as she looked between the four of them.
Then she looked at Nick.
Nick was watching her now, with those weird, glass-like, vampire eyes, although he was trying hard to pretend he wasn’t watching her.
There was no red in those eyes.
The black puppy, what looked like a baby Irish wolfhound, was still licking his neck. Nick was holding the wriggling thing as best he could, his hands gentle, without letting it jump down on the cement-coated roof.
Angel stared at his face.
She watched him avoid her gaze, watched him avoid looking at her directly, his jaw clenched as he watched her look at him out of the corner of his eyes.
She saw the shame there.
She saw the grief there, too.
Her throat closed.
Without looking at Cowboy, she nodded, making up her mind.
“Okay,” she said, decisive. “He’ll be safe with us.”
Miri gripped her arms, and Angel could practically feel the relief through her friend’s skin.
“Really?” she said. “You’re okay with this?”
Angel barely hesitated that time.
“We’ll be okay.”
“Ang––” Cowboy said, his voice a low mutter.
She turned, looking at him.
“Look at them,” she said, motioning towards the four of them. “Do they look ‘coerced’ to you? Any of them?” She paused then, staring at the seer, Solonik. “…Well, maybe that guy does.”
“He is,” Nick said, blunt.
It was the first time he’d spoken, and Angel jumped.
She blinked at him, but, seeing the look on his face only made her more resolved.
“We’ll be okay, Miri,” she said, her voice even more sure. “What’s the dog’s name?”
“Panther,” Miri said, relief once more audible in her voice. “It’s my dog, but he’s more or less adopted Nick. You can leave the dog with him. In fact, Panther might freak out if you separate them without me here. Probably best to let him adjust to this freakshow in stages.”
Angel nodded, smiling in spite of herself. “Okay.”
Miri looked at Cowboy, worry in her eyes, then back at Angel.
“Cowboy will be okay,” Angel assured her. “Go get Black, Miri.”
“Are you sure?”
Hearing the anxiety in the other’s voice, it hit Angel that it wasn’t even mostly for Nick, not anymore. She was worried about Black. It was taking every ounce of her friend’s willpower to stay here, to make sure Nick was okay, before she went after her husband.
“Go,” Angel insisted. “We’ll be fine.”
Cowboy grumbled something under his breath, but when Angel looked up at him, he sighed, nodding, right before he motioned towards Miri with a hand.
“Go,” he agreed, his voice holding a faint resentment. “But I don’t like this fucker’s chances when you bring the boss back here.”
Miri hesitated another beat, looking over her shoulder at Nick, then at Dalejem.
She looked back at Angel and Cowboy, gripping one of each of their hands.
“Thank you,” she said.
She released them, all at once…
…and abruptly vanished.
There wasn’t a sound when she left.
She just… vanished.
Where she’d been, an empty space appeared on the tarmac.
It was filled at once with a cold gust of San Francisco wind.
It was cold enough to remind Angel it was December.
Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself.
She stared around at three naked men, that time keeping her eyes on their faces, at least as much as she could. She studied them in a single sweeping glance, all of them pale, one of them covered in vampire bites and staring at her with a thinly-veiled hostility as he hovered protectively by Nick.
Looking between their faces, she frowned a little, still squeezing her arms around her chest for warmth as she glanced at Cowboy.
“Now what?” she said.
Her boyfriend quirked an eyebrow, a faint irritation in his eyes as he gestured at the naked men.
He spoke almost like they couldn’t hear him, or see him.
“Don’t look at me, darlin’,” he said grumpily. “I’m not the one who just ruined our damned night, making us vampire babysitters.”
Angel grunted.
That time, it didn’t contain a lot of humor.
“You’re not wrong,” she said dourly.
The puppy barked then, wriggling harder in Nick’s arms.
Looking over at him, then at Solonik’s sulky expression, then at Jem, who was standing there, obviously trying to look causal as he waited for what they were about to decide, stark naked and probably freezing his ass off in the cold wind, Angel felt another wave of disbelief. Looking at each of those faces, at the writhing and licking dog… she couldn’t help it.
She burst out in a laugh.
When they all blinked at her, looking startled, she laughed again.
Fuck if this wasn’t turning out to be the weirdest damned night yet.
36
Love
I DIDN’T THINK.
I just felt for him.
I felt for him like I’d felt for Angel, when I took all of us from that dark mafioso castle in Moscow and back to San Francisco.
The similarities ended there.
I felt him so strongly, so intensely, once I opened my light, it was like being yanked through time and space by a thick cord attached to my belly. I felt the urgency on me, on my light, on him. I felt him scream for me in the space once he felt me there…
I felt him roar.
It shook the Barrier space, throwing me into lava and stars.
A black ocean reflected both things, still as glass under a perfect, snow-white moon.
Giant wings beat into the sky, a black and blood-red vortex opened up before me, and it felt like entering his heart. It felt like being enveloped by black scales and claws, being engulfed in his flames… being wrapped in his wings.
I felt him so intensely, I could only hold on while that magnetic pull yanked me through the remaining distance between us.
I might have blacked out.
Everything tilted.
I lost all sense of up and down, back and forwards, night and day…
Then I was there.
My feet were on red sand.
I was in the dark, and the air was filled with smoke.
I felt a heavy wind over me, like I’d fallen into the middle of a tornado. All around me whipped a blood-red, desert vortex, filled with fire and stars and onyx-black scales, like the scales of a cobra’s back, perfect and glass-like and beautiful where they glinted in fire…
I stared up at him, somehow seeing him above me, in all that smoke.
I watched him beat his wings. His roar trembled the sky, and I could only stare up at him, tears coming to my eyes at how beautiful he was.
God, he was so beautiful.
He could see me, too.
I saw his gold eyes flicker and turn, a raptor’s eyes as he tilted his head to look at me, beating his great wings, once, twice… right before he changed their angles, folding them in. He let that long, lithe, graceful body land with a dense impact on the desert floor.
I felt it through my whole body.
I looked up at him, seeing his black form, surrounded by smoke and burning vehicles.
I heard screams behind me, panicked shouts.
I heard gunfire…
But Black was already changing.
I just stood there, waiting, as he morphed in front of me, the black scales turning to liquid as I watched, his outline morphing like the ocean, like the night filled with stars… like molten lava… right before it turned into smoke. I watched that smoke swirl and recombine, feeling nothing but him in that heat and fire.
I watched it all in wonder, feeling like this must be a dream.
Then he was standing there, right in front of me.
Chest heaving, his skin bright red, his gold eyes glowing from that breathtakingly beautiful face, his eyes drinking me in, disbelief in them as he stared at me.
I heard his voice, hoarse, filled with relief, with fear, with disbelief.
“Miri?” he said. “Miri? Is that you?”
I walked up to him, without thought.
I walked up to him, wrapping my arms around his hot, fire-like skin, squeezing him against me as hard as I could. I don’t think I’d ever felt so much love for anyone or anything in my entire life. I held him desperately, tears choking me, even as I squeezed my eyes shut.
I hadn’t just missed him.
I’d been ripped in half without him.
The bottom part of me had been cut off from the top part, and not only from the collar.
I don’t think I’d ever felt so much relief in all my life.
I felt it sink in for him that I was really there.
I felt him realize I was really there, that it wasn’t a dream, that I was really holding him.
Then his arms tightened abruptly, squeezing me so tightly to his body and chest, I couldn’t breathe. I let him do it anyway, feeling the wonder and relief and grief cascade over him, love and more relief and terror and reaction as it sank in that I was real, that I was holding him, that I was real.
I felt him realize then, that I wasn’t breathing, that my heart was beating too fast, that he was holding me too tight…
…and he loosened his hold.
Once he did, I looked up, smiling.
“You ready, baby?” I asked, soft.
It was barely a murmur.
It was so quiet, I’m amazed he heard it at all.
He did hear it, though.
His eyes filled with tears––those gold, jewel-flecked eyes that had mesmerized me from the first time I’d seen them.
They’d changed so much since then.
We’d changed so much since then.
Meeting my gaze, he nodded, tears running down his face. He returned my smile, squeezing me again, less roughly that time, and nodded a second time.
…and I found that knot in my chest, the thing that felt like a clenched fist, the only thing keeping us here, keeping us in this part of the world, in this dimension…
…and I let it go.
Epilogue
Final Business
