Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows) (24 page)

She didn't respond. She just sat there with her arms wrapped around her legs, looking heartbreaking and empty. Sio grabbed a towel off the nearest shelf and shook it out. He shut off the water, which had long since run cold, and knelt down to collect her off the ground.

He carried Tian into the darkened bedroom and placed her on the bed. Then he grabbed a blanket from the chaise against the wall and returned so he could drape it around her body. He wanted to hold her, wrap his arms around her the way he had in the alleyway, but the desert rain smell of her, naked and fresh from the shower, forced him to beat a hasty retreat across the room. He slid down the front of her wardrobe, arranged his big ass on the floor, and leaned his head back.

His skin hurt, as if the nerves were trying to push themselves up and out through his pores. Sio thought about the Between, about what she had done for him, and about everything she'd been forced to share. He couldn't take it back, couldn't keep it from happening, but he could give her a pale shadow of what she'd given him. He thought about his life, and the parts he'd buried over the years. He was silent for a long time before he started speaking; all the while his heart pumped fear and adrenaline through his system.

"They adopted me when I was six. Then I stayed with her," he said, noting how gravely the sentence came out before he swallowed back the bile and continued. "After she shot him, killed him for what he... I stayed and everyone treated her like a fucking hero." His voice cracked and he could hear the bitterness under the strain, but he pressed on, rambling into the darkness about things he wanted to forget; all the things he'd never thought he'd be telling anyone. "She beat the shit out of me every time I couldn't get it up for her after that...she'd cry and throw things and kick my ass every, single, time until I hit puberty."

It all came out in a flood. The bad compounded the bad. He'd trusted once, and had been betrayed in every way that had counted. His skin itched with every word. He kept talking until he couldn't stand it anymore and drifted into silence.

"Never scrubs clean, does it." Tian's voice rescued him from drowning in his own unwanted memories. It was a statement, not a question, and if she pitied him there was no trace of it in her tone.

"No." He looked at her and felt like crying. "Tian, I've done a lot of things that I'm ashamed of...probably too many."

Too many for forgiveness
, he thought, but he left it unsaid.

"You and me both."

Tian sat down next to him on the floor, adjusting the blanket around herself and tucking it over her breasts. She leaned her head against his cotton clad shoulder. The weight of it was reassuring. The water from her hair soaked through his shirt. Sio couldn't tell how long they sat there together. Neither of them spoke and the silence and the darkness were peaceful.

He slipped an arm around her body. The fluttering charge the contact produced was, for once, blessedly more soothing than searing. The current flowed in and out through his fingertips like the rhythmic lapping of the ocean as he stroked her hair. Somehow he knew the second she fell asleep against him. Sio sat and waited, barely breathing, while the tension in her limbs loosened as she relaxed, sinking deeper into dreaming.

When her breathing had smoothed out, becoming soft and even, he scooped her up and took her back to the bed, pulling back the covers and then tucking them around her sleeping form. He went back to his position by the dresser because it was less comfortable than the chair and he wasn't ready to sleep. He didn't sleep. He just sat there keeping watch over her, holding his own private vigil as they passed through the night.

The sky began to brighten, illuminating the picture window behind her bed as she stirred. Watching the disheveled halo of her hair greet the day made him anxious in a way he would have liked to mistake for lust. For a panicked second, he thought he'd nodded off sometime during those long hours of darkness. She cursed when she saw that he was still awake, shattering the illusion.

"You didn't sleep," she said. He shook his head confirming her suspicions. "You should have slept," she said.

Tian climbed out of bed, walked over to him, and held out her hand. He took it and the sensation of metallic wings was back, fluttering against his spine and spilling through his exhaustion. She led him over to the bed where she pushed him down onto it. His bastard hormones gave a startling jerk, causing his pulse to trip around erratically. She leaned down until they were nose to nose and he was staring into those exotic eyes of hers.

"Thank you," she said, pressing him back onto the mattress.

Her image blurred under the strain of his own exhaustion. Sio slid all the way into her bed feeling like he was falling, feeling like his cells were too heavy and he couldn't hold them up anymore. Her scent lingered, desert rain and electric ozone, on her sheets, on the pillow under his head. He caught a glimpse of her as she knelt by the bedside before the world was swallowed by darkness and he went down for the count.

Asleep Sio looked almost innocent.

Almost.

Tian rubbed the spot in her chest that had been in constant meltdown since she'd first seen him at The Gates. Exhausted, disheveled, and unconscious in her bed he was damn near irresistible, not that the fallen angel thing he normally had going on wasn't enough to send all vital systems into alternating bouts of acceleration and shutdown. His lips were full and soft; relaxed with the barest hint of that crash cart smile curling the corners.

What are you dreaming about?

She didn't want to know. It was easier to avoid thinking about what had happened last night altogether. She stumbled backward. The wave of relief that came on the heels of the ability to generate enough momentum to back away from her own bedside nearly put her back down on her knees. She grabbed one of the ornate handles on the wardrobe for balance and proceeded to dig around looking for clothes. Tian got dressed in a hurry, ignoring the persistent desire to turn around and crawl into bed with him, to feel the warmth of his skin against her own and be still.

That is not a luxury that was ever meant to be yours.

The second she was decent she bolted. If she couldn't get him off the brain at least she could get out of the danger zone. Baby steps. She found Avery in the kitchen mixing up a putrid ground meat concoction in the kind of large steel bowl TV sitcom families used for chocolate chip cookies. When he saw her, his boxy mug lit up and his eyebrows began to twitch in overdrive. Avery was smart enough not to start grinning right off, but barely, and he was working as hard as she'd ever seen to suppress it.

"You look like your head is about to explode," she said.

The dam broke, and his shit-eating grin spread from ear to ear like an infection. "I don't know what you're smiling for," Tian continued, staring into the bowl and wrinkling her nose, "your second breakfast smells like death." Her comment did less than nothing to put a damper on his glee.

"It's the capers. I'm shifting Cu Sithe to check out reports of increased goblin activity in the SOMA."

"What's the peanut butter in there for then?" Tian asked, leaning forward and poking the furry mass with a spatula out of the jar on the counter.

Avery cleared his throat with as much dignity as he could muster before responding. "It masks the taste of the dog fur."

"Good times." Tian tossed the spatula into the sink with a loud clatter.

"Speaking of..."

"We are not having this conversation."

Avery's face took on a stubborn cast that said he was in no way satisfied with her response. He set his bowl of yuck onto the counter with an emphasis that made the gesture seem more important than it was, and walked over to the fridge. He rummaged and brought out two small bottles of juice before returning to his position at the counter and handing her one. When she took it, their eyes met and he held on while he spoke. "You do realize that your shirt's on inside out." He grinned wider as she yanked the bottle from his grip.

"I think Virgil can fix Loren. I had a dream about him last night," she said, ignoring the gibe.

Avery looked startled, but he busied himself adding the grapefruit juice from his other hand into the bowl. He shook his head, tossed the empty container in the recycling, and began folding the liquid into the ground meat concoction, working it towards the consistency of vomit.

"There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don't even know where you want me to start," he said eventually.

"How about the section where you don't sound like an asshole."

He gave her an indignant snort before stuffing a giant spoonful of rancid furry upchuck into his face with a grimace. "The Myan is a vet..." he began with his mouth full.

"He's fae and a healer."

Avery swallowed and waved his spoon at her while continuing, "Who hates humans, hence the vet part. I mean, don't get me wrong, the Mayan's a hot piece, but I'm about as persuasive as it gets for us and he don't swing that way, mm'kay." He ladled another soupy pile onto his spoon and shoveled it into his mouth.

"So I'll go and ask him nicely."

Avery choked and Tian hoped nothing he was chewing on was about to come out of his nose. He sputtered for another minute before getting himself under control. "Threatening to shoot him in the face isn't considered 'nice' in polite circles."

"And what would you suggest then?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

Avery shrugged, polishing off the bowl of doom with a pained long suffering look. "Send Sio."

"Hell motherfucking no. What? Did you not point out that Virgil doesn't bat for the blue team or have you gone senile in the last seven seconds?"

Hello hostility, thy name is Tian.

Avery shook his head and fought down another smile. He went to the sink, dropped his bowl in and turned on the water before addressing her.

"You don't have to be gay to get hard for any male that looks like that. He's also got some seriously planetary pull that has nothing to do with the fact he's so fine he should be charging admission." She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand to shush her before continuing. "I swear if you sit there and try to deny it I'm gonna punch you open fist like. Besides, he's smart, charming, and he can handle you so Virgil should be a cake walk. He'd do it if you asked him."

Damned if he didn't have a point. She couldn't argue with any of it. Tian got up and walked over to the fridge and started looking for food she wouldn't screw up.

"You got a crush, sweetheart?" she asked. She tossed a bunch of items on the marble countertop and shut the door. If Avery was at all mortified by her reaction he covered it well.

"Nope, I've got a dick," he said, taking a slow sip from a Boston Red Sox mug the size of a split cantaloupe. "And dick and I, we notice these kinds of helpful tidbits."

Tian didn't bother to hide her amusement. "How could you not notice? I get it...you know I do," she paused, shoving a couple of bagels in the toaster and wondering what'd prompted her to cop to that. "Be that as it may," she continued, "we are not
using
Sio for shit. You get me? He doesn't owe us anything."

"Eamon might feel differently."

Avery watched as she loaded down a plate with bagels, smoked salmon, cream cheese, dill, lemon wedges, the leftover capers, tomato, and a couple of slabs of red onion.

"Forget the goblins," she said ignoring his last comment. "Why not play dog for a couple of hours in the Mission with me. If the Mayan gets stubborn you can shift back and we'll kidnap him. No harm no foul."

She got out a platinum tray with a lip and covered it in crushed ice from the freezer.

"Developed a taste for abduction, have we?"

"How the hell else is a girl supposed to get a date?" Tian took the overburdened plate, settled it over the bed of ice and covered the whole thing with the corresponding domed platinum lid. She thought better of it and collected a San Pellegrino plus another bottle of juice to add to the pile.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Avery said, resuming the incredulous look of ecstatic entertainment he'd had when she entered the kitchen. "You're not eating that?"

"Does it look like I'm eating it?"

He started laughing. It was a deep resounding chuckle laced with mirth, but he moved out of her way. She was about to round the corner to the hallway before he pulled himself together enough to comment. "That motherfucker's cock must be solid gold."

"Avery, you have a big mouth."

Tian brought the tray back to her room and slipped inside, trying to ignore the thrill of anticipation that quickened in her veins. Sio hadn't moved from where he'd fallen asleep. She set the tray down, and walked over to the bedside as if she'd been compelled. She hadn't, and it was on her that she didn't have enough willpower to leave. His breath was gentle and warm, sliding against her fingertips as they hovered a scandalous inch from his lips.

She snatched her hand away, and backed up. Tian was torn between giving in to the pull to get it out of her system and the fear that if she touched him, really touched him, he'd be an addiction she couldn't shake. It took every ounce of willpower to turn around and walk out the door instead of waking him up and giving him what he'd asked for in the portal and then some. The idea sent electric shivers snaking across the surface of her skin.

After escaping her room, Tian made a quick pit stop at her workshop to pick up a couple of firearms and un-fuck her wardrobe. She could hear the whistled broken melody to "Sweet Caroline" echoing down the hall as Avery started his shift. After years of living with it, she could tell by the regulation of breathing that it was going to be a smooth transition even before she turned the corner to the kitchen. In all of the books and movies, shifting was rarely described as a concentrated effort that required frequent bizarre dieting and careful planning. Then again, Avery wasn't a Were and being part Pooka meant skin-walking was different. For Avery, it was an act so well prepared he'd mentioned on multiple occasions that he considered it a small, but important step up from contortion.