Unchained, the Dark Forgotten (2010) (26 page)

“Sure, yeah. And I shouldn’t be joking like that, anyway. But y’know, Grandma said he was great with Eden.”

“He was pure gold.”

Holly was silent for a moment, as if not sure where to take that thread of conversation. Then she jumped tracks altogether. “How’d the meeting with the lawyer go?”

Ashe filled her in on everything that had happened that afternoon. “He’s so fired.”

“Shouldn’t he be arrested?” Holly asked. “He’s doing business deals with a demon, and not a nice one like Mac!”

“I’m pretty sure his office partners are building a big legal fortress around him as we speak. But I’ve got a better idea. I’m going to tail him. Wherever Tony goes next, now that his bookstore is gone, Bannerman is sure to be at his beck and call. We’ll find him that way.”

“There’s a spell—”

Ashe heard Robin’s cry in the background.

“You need to go,” Ashe said. “That sounded hungry.”

“Yeah, catch you later.” Holly hung up.

Ashe disconnected, setting the phone back in its cradle. She wished Holly had left Reynard out of the conversation. There were a handful of people she’d do anything for: Eden, Grandma, Holly, a few of her hunter friends, and, on a good day, Alessandro. Reynard’s name was starting to creep onto that list, fading into view like invisible ink slowly revealed by the heat of a flame.

Reynard needed far more from her than a booty call. He needed someone willing to fight for him, to break the chains that bound him in darkness.

And when she was done fighting? That happy-ever-after thing always slipped through her grasp. She wasn’t Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. She was one of the knights, slapping the prince on the back and buying him a round after they ganked the dragon.

Awkward.

An interval of quiet followed, but it was short-lived. Ashe had barely pulled on fresh jeans and a tank top and started to make herself a sandwich when the burned-toast smell of a portal came drifting from the living room.

“Hello?” she called, holding the butter knife in one hand. She set it down and shoved open the window to clear the air before the fire alarm went off.

Reynard sauntered into the kitchen, clean, tidy, and looking around with a speculative air. He set the sunglasses on the pale yellow counter. Ashe looked at them, then at him.

“You can see okay?”

“I’m getting used to the light.” He looked around, still squinting a little. “You have a comfortable home.”

Ashe buttered bread. “It’s small, but it’s all right.”

“Where is Eden?”

“Still at Holly’s. She’s safest there, protected by the magic of the house. Caravelli should be up soon. And the hounds are still camped out in the yard, making like super-ugly garden gnomes. I phoned to check in.”

“Garden gnomes? I thought they lived farther south.”

Ashe put the lid back on the butter dish. “Imports.” He watched her open the fridge and bring out containers of leftover chicken, mayo, and salad. He pulled up one of the café stools and sat on it as she worked. It was all weirdly domestic, and it made her twitchy.

“So tell me something about yourself I don’t know,” she said.

“Such as?”

“We’re usually trying to kill something when we’re together. Or on the move. I’m not sure what to expect now that we’re just sitting in a kitchen.”

He gave a slight smile. “Once upon a time I was considered a skillful conversationalist. I used to have more talents than fighting.”

Ashe pulled the lid off the salad container and started searching for bits of lettuce that still looked more green than brown. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

“I was an excellent sportsman. I rode almost before I could walk. I have a keen interest in astronomy and navigation. Handy when you’ve traveled as much as I did.”

He leaned against the counter, the posture casual but the muscles in his body still coiled. A man doing an imitation of somebody relaxing. “It was part of a young man’s education to tour Europe. Then, when I took up my career with the military, I went to India with the Royal Regiments.”

“That must have been a culture shock.”

He tilted his head, his look far away. “It was an experience. Many of the officers weren’t interested in anything outside their own gentlemanly circle, but I wanted to learn whatever I could. The language. The life in the villages. How the common soldiers lived. That’s where I got the Brown Bess you so adore.”

Ashe returned his smirk. “That wasn’t your usual weapon?”

“Not exactly.” He warmed to the subject a little. “Officers didn’t do the actual shooting in battle, but I liked knowing how to use it. By understanding the arms, I had a better idea of what the men who used them were faced with.”

Ashe thought about that for a moment, and the sound of his voice. She had always become lost in the refined English accent, but she could hear the nuances of emotion now. Rough sadness, layers of irony, respect for the men under him. He wasn’t a stranger anymore. She liked that.

“How long were you there?”

“Four years. Then I was wounded and sent back to England to recover.”

“And then?”

Reynard looked down at the countertop. “My next trip led me to the Castle. There was no more traveling after that.”

Ashe waited for more, closing up the chicken sandwich and cutting it in two. She wanted details about the guardsmen and about how he ended up in an interdimensional prison. No more words came, however.

Would pushing be a mistake?
The wrong question at the wrong time might make him clam up, and she was tired of that closed-off look of his. It was like talking to the cardboard Legolas the bookstore guys had left outside the library. She wasn’t going to risk losing the rapport they had going.

The downstairs neighbor pulled up in front of the house, slamming the car door. Ashe closed the window, starting to feel cold.

“Well,” she said quietly, sitting on the other café stool. “What do we do next?” She bit into the sandwich, all the salt, pepper, and mayo doing a happy dance on her tongue. She was so hungry, it hurt.

Reynard picked up a stray twist tie, looking at it with furrowed concentration. He had apparently lost none of his taste for discovering new cultures. “The urn wasn’t in the bookshop. I would have felt it if it were.”

He said it casually, but she heard uneasiness buried under the sangfroid.

“Then we have to find the demon’s other hangouts,” she said after swallowing. “The bookstore burned down, anyway.”

He gave her a sharp look. “Pardon?”

“It was on the news. It might have been the spell I was doing, or something the demon did afterward.” She looked down, mourning again the loss of all those books. “It won’t kill the demon, just make it run someplace else. We find it, we find the next possible urn location.”

“The person you called before was able to find out that Bannerman sold the bookshop. Could he discover what other sales that firm handled recently?”

“Good idea.” She took another bite.

He was watching her eat, his eyelids half-closed. He reached out, stealing a cherry tomato from her plate, and put it in his mouth.

He was eating something.

Ashe stared, forgetting to chew. Reynard bit down, eyes closed in concentration. His eyelids fluttered, then opened, a look of shock tensing the muscles around his nose and mouth.

“You okay?” she asked around the bite of sandwich.

He gulped. “That tasted . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“Like a tomato?”

“Yes.” He ran his tongue over his teeth. “I’d forgotten what they were like.”

His gaze traveled back to her plate.

“Are you hungry?”

He shot her a wild look that he shuttered almost before she truly saw it. Something beastlike, driven by deprivation. She felt her heart stutter, filled with fear and pity, then shoved her plate across the counter toward him. “Go ahead. I’ll make myself another.”

The knowledge of what his hunger meant passed between them. He looked away, almost shamefaced, then picked up the sandwich and bit into it. She heard his sigh and wondered how long he had been denying the urge to eat. Her own appetite vanished at the thought.

She picked up the phone and walked into the living room to call her hacker contact. She stood in the semidarkness, glaring at the glowing screen of her cell phone.

She needed her vision to stop blurring so she could read the list of contacts.

The complex textures of the sandwich filled Reynard’s mind, blotting out everything else. Soft bread, the crunch of greens, the rich tearing of meat. He tasted butter. Holy God, he’d forgotten how good that was. Some things didn’t quite line up with memory. The bread was different, but that didn’t matter. It was food, that basic connective tissue that bound man to man, regardless of race or creed or culture. Hunger was their shared inheritance, relieving it a universal rite. After so long, he was part of that brotherhood again.

And it tasted so good.

He could feel his body seizing on the food, realizing he must have needed to eat long before he knew it. Dizziness swept over him as he crammed the last bite of chicken into his mouth. He wanted more, but he’d seen prisoners of war make that mistake when they were finally liberated and fed. Too much at once ended in sickness. He couldn’t risk that.

He slid off the stool, washed his hands, and filled a glass with water. He gulped it down, feeling the coolness slip over his throat. Even water suddenly tasted like heaven.

Ashe came into the kitchen behind him. “My contact’s going to call me back.”

Reynard set the glass in the sink. “Then we wait.”

He turned to face her. Her expression was horrified and dazed, much like he had felt when a piece of artillery had blown up too close for comfort, taking the gunner with it. He wanted to wipe that look from her eyes, but what could he say?
Yes, my dear, I’m perishing faster than a beached fish, but I feel marvelous.

And he did. There was the hollowness where his soul should be, but there was so much emotion. Bit by bit, his heart was unfreezing. Joy, liberty, and affection were his again. Instead of groping for memories, he was experiencing life. He pushed away from the sink and crossed over to her, his boots a slow tattoo on the tile floor.

She set the phone on the counter, finding the right place by touch. Her emerald gaze was glued to his face, filled with a mix of concern and something a lot less maternal. That look was worth everything. He’d walked out of the Castle into freedom, and a beautiful, fierce woman cared what became of him. As victories went, it was magnificent.

I wish I could make you understand.
He put his hands on her bare arms, feeling the soft skin and hard muscle beneath. She was exactly his height and every bit as talented a fighter as he was, but also oddly delicate. There was nothing heavy-boned about her. She was all speed and grace.

In a just world, he could have promised her everything. All he had was his body, but he could use that to take the sadness from Ashe’s eyes. She knew what was happening to him, but she couldn’t see the joy he felt. Where words failed, there were other means to make himself understood.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“About this,” he said, and brushed her lips with his, once, twice, and then took her mouth without holding back. She retreated a fraction, but then gave in to her response, as if coming to a decision. Her lips parted under his, letting him in.

She wound her fingers though his hair, pulling out the tie that held it back. Her teeth nipped at his bottom lip, not breaking skin but marking possession.

“I want you,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t, but I do.”

“Then I shall be your sinful pleasure.”

Reynard pulled Ashe into him, holding her hard against his chest. She felt so warm, so soft and strong at once. He grasped her shoulders, feeling the bones and muscles move as she wrapped her arms around his neck, then slipped her fingers down his shoulders. His own hands cupped her cheeks, running his thumbs along the fine ridge of her jaw. The pulse in her neck fluttered against his fingers, as if reaching for his caress.

Ashe was mortal, her life spent in an instant. Like him, she was more than human but she had none of the guardsmen’s indestructible power. The magic she had was all but destroyed. Or so she said. He could feel the remnants of it clinging to her, as ephemeral as cobwebs and yet curiously strong.

Her mouth found his neck, leaving nips as she tasted his flesh. Clean, silky hair brushed his cheek as she caressed him. The sunny softness of it reminded him of home—of meadow flowers and random feathers found by the banks of a wild creek. Ashe belonged there, in that land of freedom and instinct. The land where sensation weighed heavier than thought.