Black Heart (15 page)

“Right,” I said, and did so.

J.B. aimed for a shadowy spot on the street, away from foot traffic, which was fairly sparse this time of night.

“I could eat a horse,” Beezle said as we touched the sidewalk.

“You just
ate
,” I said. “You haven’t even given your body a chance to digest that pizza yet.”

“Yeah, but Hackney’s is right over there,” Beezle said, pointing toward the next street. “I can smell the burgers.”

J.B. punched a key code in at the front door of his building and held the door open for us. He automatically checked his mailbox on the way in, collecting a couple of envelopes and throwing the catalogs into a small wastebasket underneath the boxes.

He started up the stairs to the fourth floor.

“Stairs?” Beezle said. “No elevator?”

“I don’t know why you’re complaining,” I said. “You’ve never walked up a set of stairs in your life. You’ve always been carried.”

“It’s psychological pain,” Beezle said. “It’s hard for me to watch you expend that much energy.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

J.B. paused when he reached the door. “I wonder if I should send you outside, and then send him out.”

I cocked my head to one side. “Why?” I asked.

“Because I don’t know how he’s going to react, and I would hate for my condo to be destroyed.”

It was kind of weird standing there with J.B. like this, with him more or less acknowledging that Nathaniel was my boyfriend. Which he was, and he wasn’t. And it was even weirder that the two romantic rivals had been sharing the same living quarters for the last few months.

I started to speak, to tell J.B. that maybe it was best if Nathaniel and I went outside anyway, as I wasn’t particularly interested in an audience for our reunion. But the front door flew open, and Nathaniel stood there.

I remembered the first time I met Nathaniel, standing in the doorway of my father’s ballroom. He was golden and arrogant and perfect, and I’d hated him on sight.

Now he was silhouetted in another doorway, his hair dark instead of gold, his eyes no longer icy blue but the same jewel-bright shade as Puck’s. Instead of looking polished and tailored, he wore a flannel shirt and jeans that looked like they were falling off his frame.

I didn’t hate him anymore. I wasn’t sure what I felt for Nathaniel. That had been the problem we’d had before I left, before he thought I died. But I was happy to see him. That, I couldn’t deny.

He was thinner, a lot thinner, and he looked tired. But he saw me, and his eyes blazed.

Beezle flew off my shoulder to J.B.’s. “Umm, we’ll just . . . get out of your way.”

Nathaniel stepped into the hallway. His feet were bare, but he never hesitated, his eyes never leaving my face. J.B. and Beezle slipped into the apartment behind Nathaniel and quietly closed the door.

I stood still, and I waited. My insides were all jumbled up, in need and confusion. This was what he did to me.

He put his hands on my face, like a blind man, feeling my cheeks, my nose, my eyebrows.

“You’re alive,” he said.

I nodded. I wanted to crack a joke to lighten the tension, but I couldn’t be flippant in the face of his emotion. He’d thought I died, and it was just sinking in now that I hadn’t, that the last few months of grief need never have been.

“You’re alive,” he repeated.

And then his mouth was on mine, devouring, almost punishing. It was like he was trying to crawl inside me, trying to breathe the same air I was breathing. He was marking me, claiming me as his.

I was breathless, and he was relentless, and I welcomed it. And then I remembered Gabriel. My lust turned to confusion. Gabriel was dead. I was alive.

But he was watching me. He’d said so.

“Nathaniel,” I tried to say, but it came out a jumble of syllables.

He kept kissing me, like he couldn’t stop, like an addict reunited with his drug of choice.

I pushed at his shoulders, and he finally got the message. He pulled away from my mouth, leaned his forehead against mine, looking into my eyes.

“I thought you were dead,” he said. “Sokolov told J.B. you were dead.”

“I know,” I said soothingly, taking his hands in mine. This wasn’t the time for a heart-to-heart about Gabriel, or the future of my relationship with Nathaniel.

But I was going to have to make some kind of decision soon. Would I continue to live in the past, with the memory of Gabriel? Or would I let Nathaniel in?

“Sokolov told us you were dead,” Nathaniel repeated.

The air around him seemed to change, to crackle with electricity. His hands dropped away from mine and curled into fists.

“I will tear him to pieces,” Nathaniel said, and when he spoke he didn’t sound like Nathaniel anymore.

He sounded like Lucifer when he was in Prince of Darkness mode. He sounded like something not of this earth, something not human at all—which he wasn’t. He was the son of Puck and an angel of the host, and there wasn’t a drop of humanity inside to temper his rage.

“Nathaniel, don’t,” I said, grabbing his shoulders. His fury was a palpable thing, heat pouring from his body. “Don’t make it worse than it already is. If you kill Sokolov, the Agency will not be able to ignore you anymore. They’ll come for you.”

“Let them come,” Nathaniel said. “I will destroy them all.”

“Nathaniel,” I said, my hands on his face, trying to draw him back to me. “Don’t bring grief upon yourself for my sake. I’m here. I’m alive.”

“I would do anything for your sake, Madeline,” Nathaniel said. His jewel-blue eyes burned. “I would slaughter a thousand enemies for you. I would tear the sun from the sky for you. I would defy the laws of the universe, reorder the galaxies, stand against Lucifer and his brothers in defiance, if that was what it took to keep you safe. I will not lose you again. I will not.”

“You won’t,” I said. “You won’t.”

“You cannot make such a guarantee,” Nathaniel said.

“Neither can you,” I said softly. “Death comes for us all.”

I kept my hands on his face, my eyes on his eyes. “Nathaniel. For me. Do not do this, because I am asking you not to.”

“Madeline,” he said, and his voice broke. The heat of his anger receded a little. “Do not ask me to lay aside my vengeance. They deserve to suffer. They hounded you and harried you and sent the Retrievers to take you.”

“But you saved me,” I said, and kissed him very gently. “You sent me away. You saved me.”

“I thought I had killed you,” he said, and one single tear fell. “I wanted only to keep you safe, and I thought I had sent you to your doom.”

“You didn’t,” I said. “I survived. I always do.”

“And you truly do not wish me to take vengeance upon Sokolov for your suffering? He is responsible. He should pay.”

His eyes searched mine. I knew he wanted me to let him loose upon the Agency, but I couldn’t do it.

“Someday someone might have to take care of Sokolov,” I acknowledged. “But not today.”

“I would feel better if you would let me smite him,” Nathaniel said sulkily.

I laughed. He looked like a toddler who’d just been denied a trip to the candy store. “I know it would be satisfying to break him into little pieces, but no.”

“I will respect your wishes, Madeline,” Nathaniel said. “For now. But know this—Sokolov will receive no more chances from me.”

I understood what Nathaniel was saying. The next time Sokolov tried anything, Nathaniel
would
grind him up and spit him out.

And no amount of affection for me would stop Nathaniel again.

I HAD TO MAKE PEACE WITH THIS. IT WASN’T THAT I
necessarily objected to removing Sokolov. He had tortured J.B. He had sent Bryson after me and Nathaniel, and we’d been shot out of the sky and nearly killed. He’d sicced the Retrievers on me and caused me a lot of grief generally.

And I wasn’t that bothered by one more death. Maybe that was a dark-side thought, but it was true. Especially the death of someone who had worked very hard to make himself my enemy.

I didn’t want Nathaniel to incur the wrath of the Agency. I didn’t want him to be hunted as I was.

But I also couldn’t ask him to sit by over and over and watch the woman he cared about suffer at Sokolov’s hands.

So I had to make peace with this. Nathaniel would not be leashed by me again, and I couldn’t ask him to be.

He watched me expectantly, waiting for my answer.

“I understand,” I said finally.

“Good,” he said, and kissed me again. It was a warmer kiss, full of promise, and when it was over he took my hand. “Now you can come inside and tell me what has happened to you.”

“And you can tell me what’s happened to you,” I said. “You look like you haven’t eaten a thing since I left.”

“You are also thinner,” Nathaniel said.

“But I was on an alien planet and I didn’t know what food was edible,” I said.

Nathaniel shrugged. “Eating was not a priority.”

“It was for me,” I said. “But I thought I was only gone for a few days, not three months.”

Nathaniel pushed open the front door. Bendith, J.B. and Beezle were seated around a coffee table, arguing over something. I realized in that moment that I had never been inside J.B.’s condo. He had been in my house a ton of times, but I’d never seen his living space.

It was more or less what I would have expected of J.B. Color was pretty much nonexistent—everything was gray or black. Wall-to-wall carpeting was gray. A galley kitchen opened into a wide living/dining area, with a hallway leading off behind the living room, presumably toward bedrooms. The kitchen was pristine, and looked like it had never been used.

Tall windows on the opposite side of the front door were covered by dark gray shades that completely blocked out any ambient light from the street. There were tall lamps set at intervals around the room. The dining room had a square table made of something shiny and black, surrounded by four chairs.

The living area was arranged in a perfect rectangle, with a sofa on one side, two chairs divided by an end table on the other and the coffee table in the center.

There were no photographs, throw blankets, flowers, books, or anything personal of any kind. It looked like a show floor at Crate and Barrel, except with less warmth.

It was kind of shocking to think that three men had been living in the space. I would have expected a spare sock on the floor or a dirty cereal bowl in the sink, at least. There was nothing. Just a perfectly perfect, almost inhuman space.

Bendith and J.B. sat on the couch a few feet apart, and Beezle was perched on the coffee table, which looked like it was made of the same stuff as the shiny laptops in the window at the Apple store. I realized that Beezle was standing in front of a stack of take-out menus, and that the argument was about whether or not to order food.

“Maddy said you just ate,” J.B. said. “You’re not going to get me in trouble.”

Bendith had looked up when we walked in. I saw his eyes lock on Nathaniel, like a child who was waiting for his parent to come home. He glanced at our joined hands uncertainly.

I knew that Bendith was very attached to Nathaniel. Bendith and I had not had positive interactions in the past. He, like so many people I knew, had tried to kill me. He had to be wondering about his welcome now that I’d returned. But I wasn’t going to bring it up unless he did. I had enough uncomfortable personal conversations looming on my horizon.

Nathaniel shut the door quietly behind us. I dropped his hand and crossed my arms, glaring at Beezle.

“I told you that you don’t need any more food. You just had pizza. We are not getting takeout.”

“Other people might be hungry,” Beezle said. “Bendith said he would eat if we ordered Chinese.”

I looked at Bendith, who shrugged. “Fae have large appetites.”

“If Bendith wants food, he can have some,” I said to Beezle. “But you’re not getting any.”

I rubbed my forehead, abruptly tired. I’d been through the wringer today. “Look, J.B., is there somewhere I can lie down?”

He got to his feet, immediately solicitous. “I’ll put you in the spare bedroom. Just give me a second to change the sheets.”

Nathaniel led me to one of the empty chairs. “Have you overexerted yourself again today?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking,” I said.

But I had been reunited with my dead husband, and then taken away from him again. And then I’d returned home to find out three months had passed and my house was gone.

All in all, it had been an emotionally stressful day, if not a physical one.

“Where shall we sleep if Madeline is going in the spare bedroom?” Bendith asked.

Nathaniel looked surprised that Bendith would show such poor manners by asking the question in front of me. He frowned at his brother.

“I am certain that appropriate arrangements will be made for everyone,” Nathaniel said with a finality that indicated the subject was closed.

Bendith muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear, but Nathaniel could. He’d gotten super hearing when he had come into his legacy from Puck.

His disapproving frown changed to thunderous anger in an instant. “Apologize to Madeline.”

Bendith gave his brother a truculent look. “She didn’t hear me.”

“But I did,” Nathaniel said.

“Sorry,” Bendith said to me. He didn’t sound like he was sorry at all.

“Accepted,” I said quickly, before Nathaniel could make a bigger deal out of the situation.

Bendith was acting like a brat, but it wasn’t surprising. He was the only son of a Faerie queen who had likely cherished him beyond belief, and therefore spoiled him. And the fae, despite their endless age, seem more immature than most supernatural folk. Except for J.B., but then, he was half-human.

J.B. emerged from the hallway and beckoned me toward him. Nathaniel helped me to my feet.

“I’m okay,” I said gently.

He kissed my forehead and sent me on my way. I’d half expected he would follow me, or at least help me to the room. But he apparently wanted a further word with Bendith out of my hearing.

J.B. raised a brow questioningly as I joined him. I shook my head.

Not now,
I mouthed.

I followed him down the gray-carpeted hallway. There were two closed doors on either side.

“That one’s mine,” he said, pointing to the right.

He opened the other door and showed me into another drab room. The comforter was black; the sheets were gray. More gray window shades covered the windows.

“Jeez, J.B. Who decorated this place? A prison warden?”

“I like black and gray,” he said.

“Can’t you at least open the window shades? It would be nice to have some ambient light,” I said, sitting on the bed.

“Not unless you want to see Amarantha looming over you all night long,” J.B. said. “She has a horrible habit of hanging outside the window and screaming like a banshee if she can see you asleep inside.”

“She’s still hanging around doing that?” I asked. “I’d have thought she’d have run off with her tail between her legs after I blasted her out of your bloodstream.”

It was the wrong thing to say. It reminded both of us that things weren’t exactly right. Amarantha had possessed J.B., had nearly stopped his heart from the inside. I’d saved him, but in the aftermath we’d argued. And he’d left.

“Uh, yeah,” J.B. said, trying to cover the awkward silence. “She disappeared for a while, but now she’s back again.”

“Has she seen Bendith?” I asked.

If she had, then no amount of magic could hide Titania’s son from his enemies. Amarantha would report straight to whoever would listen. They wouldn’t need a spell to track Bendith down. They could just lie in wait outside J.B.’s front door.

J.B. shook his head. “We’ve been careful. Bendith’s been veiled whenever he leaves the building, and the shades are drawn whenever we’re inside.”

“Are you sure?” I persisted.

“Nobody suspects he’s here,” J.B. said reassuringly.

“But she might have seen me arrive,” I said. I stood up and swayed a little as blood rushed to my head. “I can’t stay here. I’m putting you in danger.”

“Maddy, you’re practically dead on your feet. You have nowhere else to go. Just calm down,” J.B. said. “I’m sure you’ll be safe here for one night.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. “Fine,” I said. “One night.”

J.B. looked like he wanted to argue further, to ask where I was going to go tomorrow. But he didn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said instead, and left the room.

I undressed down to my T-shirt and underpants and crawled under the sheets. It felt unbelievably luxurious to be in a real bed, with real pillows and a real mattress, especially after sleeping in a tree branch, on a platform exposed to the elements, on a beach, and in a sling while flying through the air carried by a dragon.

I passed out immediately. At some point in the night another warm body slid in beside me. I woke briefly as Nathaniel put his arm around my waist and spooned up against me, his breath in my hair. Then I slept again.

I was dreaming. In my dream, something exploded. It seemed muffled and far away. A woman was screaming. I could smell smoke. Nathaniel was shaking me, his voice urgent.

“Wake up!” he said.

I was in his arms, the air cold on my bare legs, and he was carrying me to the window.

“What’s happening?” I asked, still groggy.

“Somebody bombed the building. It could come crashing down anytime,” Nathaniel shouted. As if to illustrate his point, several chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling.

“Beezle,” I said. “I won’t go without him.”

“He’s with J.B.,” Nathaniel said. “They had to get Bendith. He can’t fly.”

Nathaniel gave the window a good hard glare. The shade flew up, the glass exploded outward and the warm spring air came in. Nathaniel flew outside just in time. I could hear the building shaking on its foundation. I was reminded of the mountain crashing down on the Cimice, burying the evidence of the massacre I’d created.

It was still dark out. I was surprised. It seemed like I’d slept for a long time. But the clock on the bank down the street told me I’d been out for only a couple of hours.

Nathaniel stopped in the air and turned around. J.B. was right behind us, carrying Bendith under the shoulders. Beezle was perched on J.B.’s shoulder.

Nathaniel muttered something. I felt a veil drop over all of us. In that small spell I could feel the strength of Nathaniel’s power now, how much he’d changed in the time that had passed. J.B. was right. Nathaniel could level the city with a look if he wanted.

And that meant that if he decided to do something like that, I was the only person around with power enough to try to stop him. Emphasis here on “try,” because while I had a pretty big repository of power, I had only the smallest fraction of Nathaniel’s skill. I had a lot of magic, but I couldn’t access it with ease the way he could.

We floated down to the street. It was a good thing we were under a veil. Nathaniel was wearing nothing but pajama pants, and I was the next-best thing to naked. Bendith looked like his pride was smarting from being carried. He pulled away from J.B. as soon as his feet touched the ground.

The window Nathaniel had broken for our escape was on the back of the building, so we were standing in the alley and had no way of knowing what was happening in front. Smoke poured from the lower windows, and I could hear things crashing inside. Sirens blared, approaching fast.

“Do you think everyone got out of the building?” I asked. Nathaniel was still holding me. Normally I would feel resentful of this, but at the moment I was happy that I wasn’t walking in the alley muck in my bare feet, as he was.

“We have to check,” I said.

“No,” Nathaniel said. “We have to get you away from here as quickly as possible.”

“So you think this is because of me?” I asked.

“No one tried to blow up the building until you were in it,” J.B. said.

“I told you that it wasn’t safe for me to be there,” I said.

“I thought we could get through one night,” J.B. said. “But someone must have seen you go into the building with me.”

“Who, though?” I asked. “And where are they?”

Nathaniel frowned. “You’re right. If this was a plot to drive you out into the open, where you would be vulnerable, then the enemy should be lying in wait. But they are not.”

“Anyone coming after you would have to know that just setting off some charges in a building wouldn’t take you down,” J.B. said. His gaze took on a faraway look, a sure sign that he was thinking hard. “Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“You’re taking this awfully well,” I said. “Your home is probably going to be destroyed.”

J.B. shrugged. “You’re out of there. Other than that, there wasn’t anything special inside that I cared about.”

“We still have to make sure that everyone is okay,” I said. “Even if this isn’t about me, the chances are good that the explosion was meant for one of us. We can’t let innocents die just because they’re caught in the cross fire.”

“You’re not going back in there,” J.B. said.

“She does not have to,” Nathaniel said.

He held me out to J.B. like I was a baby being passed to a relative. This time I did resent his high-handedness.

“Put me down,” I said.

Nathaniel complied without argument. I shivered as my bare feet touched the concrete. J.B. looked disappointed that he wouldn’t have a chance to carry me around while I wasn’t wearing any pants. I may not have had a lot of dignity at that moment, but I wanted to preserve what little I had. I would stand on my own two feet. Even if I was standing in rat poison and the remains of last week’s garbage.