Harvest Hunting (10 page)

My hair felt odd, and I shook my head, again wondering at how light and angular the new cut made me feel. And what would Chase think of it, when he had time to really look at me? What would he think of my tattoos?

Strangely enough, I realized I wasn’t too concerned. If he didn’t like them, it wasn’t the end of the world. My hair would grow back. And maybe I’d decide to keep it like this. Or maybe I’d grow it long again, like it had been when I was younger. And the tattoos were already a part of me, delineating my calling. They were here to stay and it felt like they’d always been there.

After awhile, I heard a car outside and caught my breath. I peeked out the window, and sure enough, there was Chase. He was staring up at the house, hands in pockets, standing next to his SUV. The look on his face was pensive.

After a good five minutes, he began to move toward the porch, and I backed away from the window. Iris was still up, making soup for the next day, and she’d let him in.

As I waited for the doorbell, I ran through the possible scenarios in my mind. Chase would come up, and everything would work out—the tension would melt away, and he’d take me in his arms and we’d make love.

Or maybe . . . he’d be too nervous and push me away. Or he’d find me unattractive, my hair and—oh gods, the skunk stench! I still smelled like skunk. I’d grown accustomed to it over the evening, but now, horrified, I realized that Chase was going to walk through that door, and I’d smell like rotten eggs. What the fuck to do?

And then there was a tap on my door, and it opened slightly. Chase peeked through, and I forgot everything—hair, skunk, all the tension of the past month, and rushed into his arms, crying.

“Delilah—what’s wrong? Why are you crying? What’s . . . what’s that
smell
?” Chase kissed my nose chastely, then pushed me back to stare in my eyes. We were the same height, which made it pretty nice when we needed to have heart-to-hearts. Though we hadn’t been doing much of that for the past month.

I stared at him. How to start? How to say,
What the fuck has been going on with you?
without sounding accusatory? I stepped back, and he gingerly sat on the edge of the bed.

“I smell like skunk. I got skunked. That’s what happened to my hair, too. Iris tried to wash me in tomato juice in cat form and the juice dyed it . . . bad. Then we tried a peroxide formula to get the scent out and it made it worse. So I told her to punk me. The cut will grow out faster, and we’ll be able to trim the bad color off easier. Do you hate it?”

For the first time in a long while, he laughed. “Oh Delilah, leave it to you. No, I don’t hate your hair—it’s different but kind of pretty. Edgy, I’d call it.” He stopped. “But what’s going on with your arms?”

“I had my first lesson with another Death Maiden tonight. These are the results. They’ll darken and change as I go along.”

“Then I was right,” he said softly.

“Right about what?”

Chase shook his head. “Never mind. Leave it for now. They’re pretty. Lovely, really. You are growing more and more into your father’s side of the family, aren’t you?” Before I could answer, he continued, “I’m sorry about the skunk, but the smell will go away, won’t it?”

“Luke—from the Wayfarer—has a deodorizer he’s going to give me, and that should take care of the problem. Won’t bring my hair back, but what the hell.” I flashed him a slow smile. Now that I’d gotten him to laugh, maybe the tension would back off. “So, do I smell bad enough that you don’t want to touch me?”

He frowned. “No . . . no . . . though I don’t dare get that scent on this suit. Too expensive.” He paused, then added, “Oh hell. I’m sorry, Delilah. You deserve an explanation for why I’ve been so aloof . . .”

My heart caught in my throat.
If he’s been lying to me again . . .

“Is Erika back?” I whispered.

He looked up at me slowly, then shook his head. “No, she’s not. And I haven’t been sleeping around. I wouldn’t lie to you again. But we need to talk. We promised to be honest with each other.”

The look in his eyes made me want to cry. Haunted, alone, nervous—I could read him like a book. But there was something else, something that I couldn’t pin down. And I had a strong feeling I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

“What is it? What’s going on?”

Fumbling with the hem of his jacket, he shook his head.

“You know I’ve been going through all this stuff, trying to sort out what’s happening to my life, right? But what you—and your sisters—don’t know is that the Nectar of Life opened me up. I’m feeling things, sensing things on such an intense level that I don’t know how to deal with them. It’s like a door opened up, and I stepped into a whole new world. Sharah says that the potion catalyzed my psychic senses and that I’m starting to evolve some sort of power. She thinks I’m going to end up a pretty strong psychic.”

Whoa. I hadn’t expected to hear this, and part of me was hurt that he hadn’t come to me with it first, but I pushed away the feeling. At least he’d gone to
somebody
with it instead of hiding it. Crossing to his side, I sat next to him and took his hand in mine.

“I don’t know what to say. Camille speculated this might happen—she’s sensed something in you over the years. A glimmer of power . . . we just have no idea where you got it from. Maybe your parents or grandparents?”

He nodded. “I’ve wondered now and then . . . and I don’t know where it comes from either. I guarantee you it wasn’t my mother, and I really don’t know any of our relatives—she saw to that. Can you understand that I’m just . . . there are so many things . . .”

“Shush . . . I understand. I really do. But maybe, if you’d let me help you, I could release some of that tension.” I reached for his shirt and begin to unbutton it, but he caught my hands in his, pulling them away from his chest.

“Delilah, there’s more. I thought it was too early to say anything, so I’ve been staying away, examining my feelings. I wanted to wait, wanted to see what if I was just afraid. But I guess I’d better just tell you.”

Puzzled, I stopped. More? Okay, so I knew that he’d been having a difficult time with the transition, but what else was hiding behind those limpid pools of chocolate that passed for eyes?

“What’s going on, Chase? Did you . . . are you . . . gay?” That was the only thing I could think of that might account for him putting distance between us.

“Gay?” He blinked. “No, sweetie. Trust me, I’m not. The thing is . . . here’s the thing . . . you see . . .”

“Just spit it out.” Whatever it was, knowing had to be better than facing uncertainty.

He let out a long sigh. “During the past month, I’ve been thinking about so many things. I need to take some time. Get to know myself now that this has happened. Now that I’ve got far longer than another forty or fifty years to spend with my own company. I need space and time to adjust to . . . well, my new life.”

I didn’t like where this was going. The expression drained off my face. “You want to break up? Are you sure there’s no one else?”

He stroked my cheek, smiling sadly. “I haven’t cheated on you; I haven’t lied to you. There’s no one else. I just honestly don’t think I can cope with
any
relationship right now
and
deal with everything else, too. For now, I need space.”

Boom.
Godzilla hit dead center, and I toppled like Tokyo.

I forced myself to stare at the floor. If I stared at the floor, then I’d be okay. “When you say
for now . . .
”

“I mean
for now
. For however long it takes me to come to grips with this. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and be okay. Maybe it will take twenty years. Forty. I don’t know. I’m so confused. I love you—please know that—but there’s so much . . .” He trailed off, and I held up my hand.

“No. Don’t say it. Don’t even try to explain right now. I need to process this.” I walked over to my closet, where I retrieved my favorite terrycloth robe. Not giving a damn about the scent of skunk, I slid it over the chemise, suddenly feeling shy. As I turned back to stare at Chase, the look in his eyes told me just how close he was to running scared. I could see it on his face; I could feel it in his silent plea for understanding.

“Delilah, please don’t walk away from me? Don’t hate me?” He fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, looking so forlorn that I wanted to race into his arms, to comfort him. But he didn’t want me. Or maybe he did, but felt too guilty over wanting space from the emotional side of us.

“You know,” I said slowly, “you have my permission to sleep with other women, if that’s what you need.” He had agreed to an open relationship; maybe we could still make this work.

But as he slowly sat up, I saw the flush creeping up his cheeks. “Can’t you understand? I don’t necessarily
want
to sleep with anybody else. It’s that I can’t handle thinking about anyone else’s feelings until I know what my own feelings are.”

He turned a bleak face to me and held out his arms. I sank into his embrace, gently kissing his eyes, his nose, his lips. He slid his arms around me and pulled me to him, parting my lips with his tongue as he kissed me deep and long and dark.

I slid my hands over his chest, and he let me unbutton his shirt. As he slipped out of his jacket, then his pants and shirt, I drank in the sight. Chase was my first love, but it was time to grow, to move on, to explore what waited for me in the future. And truly, if I was to bear the Autumn Lord’s child someday and Chase was still with me, how would he handle that? How could any man who hadn’t grown up in my world?

Chase pushed my robe back, and I let it slip to the ground. The scent of skunk seemed to fade, or perhaps I was growing used to it. Chase didn’t mention it, and as I stepped out of my chemise and stood there, naked in the dim light of the candle, he reached out and ran his fingertips over my body, over my breasts, over my stomach. I shivered, quickening to his touch.

His body still bore the scars of where he’d been injured—and they were fierce and still red, long gashes where the Tregarts had savaged him. I knelt by his side, kissed the markings, gently let my tears fall on them and bathe them.

I couldn’t help it. I blurted out, “If we could have only given you the Nectar of Life before you were hurt. If we could have gone through the ritual. Would it have made any difference?”

Chase knelt beside me and took me in his arms again. “Delilah, I love you—I do. But so many things have happened, and I feel like everything I believed or knew has been turned upside down. I have a thousand years to think about my mistakes now. Even with the proper rituals, I think we’d still be here, together in this moment, facing the same issue.”

I slid onto his lap, sitting there, feeling him press against me. He wanted me, that much I knew, but his expressions waged war on his face. I could feel it in the way he touched me.

“You’ve never talked about this, but when Karvanak held you captive, what happened to you, Chase? Could that have something to do with all of this?” I’d never broached the subject before, but as I gazed into his eyes, I thought it was time to tread on sacred ground.

Chase slowly said, “Karvanak tortured me, yes. He knows how to avoid leaving marks. No one would ever know if they were to examine my body. And I’ll never tell anybody what fully happened. Not even you. But he couldn’t break me. And you know why?”

“Why?”

“The thought that you and your sisters were so bravely facing an evil like him—and far worse—made me strong. I kept thinking,
If they can go through this, I can.
But my need for time and space comes from more than the Nectar of Life. More than Karvanak. Even more than the fact that I can’t stand the idea that you might get hurt. Or caught. Or killed. The mark you wear on your forehead . . .”

He gently reached out and ran his finger over the tattoo on my forehead, then gently traced the ones on my arms. “These mean you belong to someone else—someone who will always and forever come first. Someone I can’t ever hope to compare to or to stand up to. And now that my psychic side is opening up, I can feel him there. I can feel him in your aura, and I can’t compete with that. You belong to the gods, Delilah. You never belonged to me. I’ve only been borrowing you.”

His honesty—his brutal, gentle honesty—overwhelmed me, and I burst into tears. “I don’t want to let go, but I can hear it in your voice. You’re leaving me.”

“I’m leaving you before you have to leave me. I think it’s easier this way.” He kissed me then, kissed away my tears, kissed me into forgetting the pain, kissed me until I couldn’t stand the tension but slid onto his lap, straddling him. We made love with desperate urgency, but even as his warm flesh filled me, even as I tried to capture and hold every single feeling, I could feel him slipping away from me.