Wildcat Fireflies (31 page)

He snapped his fingers. “From the paintings? That window?”

“That’s what the dying see. What I see.” I think the
alcohol loosened my tongue, but partly it was also because I hated hiding. I hated lying. If Rumi wanted to, he could have ambushed us with the Nocti. I was finished making him prove his allegiance.

Tens frowned at me and said to Rumi, “I’m her Protector, but we’re still learning what that means exactly.”

“I see. There’s more.” Rumi sipped his coffee.

Tens nodded. “There always is.”

“This Nocti, she asked how I preferred to die.”

I gasped. She would gain nothing by harming Rumi. Unless our strength was in numbers? Alone we were more vulnerable.

He heaved an exhale of defeat. “Unless, she never saw me again. Never heard my name around one of her kids. Never saw my shadow fall anywhere near that of Juliet’s. She hinted that I might like to retire to a warmer clime.”

“Her kids? What’s her connection to Juliet?”

“She’s not the guardian, is she?”

“Are there two?”

“Rumi, she means it. If she’s Nocti she’ll kill you and suck up your soul.”

“What a dire way to kick off the Feast festivities.” Rumi frowned. “I’m sorry.”

It was too much to ask of him. I should have known he’d bail. “We understand.” I stood. “Thank you for warning us. For your help.”

“Where are you going, lassie?” Rumi asked.

“Leaving?” I queried.

“I didn’t say I was easily cowed, now, did I?” Rumi motioned me to sit back down.

“But—”

“It shakes a fusty man to come face to face with malevolence. But it only cements something for me.”

“What?” I asked.

“We must save that girl. How do we go about that?”

Good question
. We bantered plans and ideas until all of us were too tired to think straight.

Hours later, staring up at the ceiling of our cottage, I wished I had a solid idea of how to proceed.

“Merry?” Tens whispered. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

I listened as Tens rustled off the couch. His footfalls were so quiet that I had no idea where he was in the room until the bed dipped under him. I scooted over into crisp, cold sheets, making room. I’d inadvertently started sleeping in the middle of the bed. That wasn’t how I wanted this to work.

I rolled toward his warmth and tucked my legs between his. His arms wrapped around me and we settled into cuddling like we’d been doing it forever, rather than only a month. But it was all we’d been doing, so I guessed being good at it came from practice. My breath matched his.

I ran my fingertips up and down his arm. The solid smoothness of his shoulder dipped and curved around his biceps, then gave way to crisp hair along his forearms. I twirled my fingers across his skin, enjoying the play of
textures. His T-shirt and sweats were ones we’d brought with us from Colorado; they were the soft material of beloved, often-washed clothing. Like warm butter they absorbed his body heat and seemed to melt between us.

When the lights were on, I knew these were clothes he’d worn while he was so sick. So close to death. There was nothing romantic about that time in the caves except the solitude we shared. But with the lights out, as we pressed against each other, the clothes were two layers too many.

I knew I should be thinking about Juliet and the Nocti and how we were going to keep Rumi safe too, but all I wanted was to lose myself in the night, get as close to Tens as I could. I wanted to explore, enjoy, and act on all this crazy electricity I felt building around us. Each exhale of his stirred my hair with warm breath, and left an intangible feeling crawling along my skin, like the tingle right before being zapped by static electricity. I didn’t want to think, I wanted … Was sex like in the movies? Was I going to regret anything? No. Would he? I hoped to hell not. I tried to keep my breath matched to his, but his seemed to pick up speed too.

He tucked his arm more firmly along my ribs, right under my newish breasts. I wanted him to slide his palm up and cup my breast. I wanted to know what it felt like to have his fingers on my nipple. My heart galloped.

“Okay?” Tens’s voice growled from his chest through mine.

Am I okay? Is your arm near my breast okay? Is
pretending I don’t want to get naked with you because you’re afraid to hurt me okay?
“Fine.”

His thumb swept a crescent shape from the side of my breast to my ribs and back. He shifted his head and kissed the side of my neck, and up beneath my ear. Lightly, so lightly, they could have been sighs instead of kisses.

I turned my head, my lips toward his.

Tentatively, as if this were the first time we’d ever kissed, our mouths met. We learned each other again in that moment.

I opened my mouth to mirror him and our tongues touched. He tasted of toothpaste and something rich, forbidden. Our legs brushed against each other’s. My breathing ragged, I turned toward him; he moved up and over me.

The weight of him on top of me gave me a feeling of complete security. I’d never felt more vulnerable in my life, or more safe. Two opposites that should have been completely repellent melded seamlessly.

His erection pressed against my thigh. I felt strangely powerful, exhilarated to feel his passion and response so blatantly. I didn’t need to ask if he was enjoying this. He buried his face in my neck and asked, “Are you okay?” He held his breath, waiting for my reply—his whole body tensed, strung tight.

I licked my lips and contemplated how to answer. This was right. This was perfect. And I’d been waiting for weeks to feel like he might want the same thing. I opened my mouth to answer and couldn’t articulate all that I was feeling. Instead, I dragged his hand from my side, sliding
it under my nightshirt until his palm cradled my breast. He dragged in a ragged breath, his penis jerked in reaction, and his fingers gently squeezed.

I hadn’t realized how sensitive my nipple was until someone else’s fingers touched it. My back arched toward his touch. The calluses on his fingers and palm, from all the manual labor and whittling, created delicious friction.

I wanted to return the favor and tugged on his T-shirt. “Off,” I demanded.

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled, moved aside, leaving me cold while he peeled off his shirt. His sweats rode low on his hips, and a V of muscle disappeared below the drawstring. Before I could engage my brain enough to think about the bulge against the elastic, he returned to me.

When he came back, his skin was on fire, so hot I thought the temperature in the room must have climbed in response. He caught his weight on his elbows, bracketing me between his arms, my legs on either side of his hips. I ran the soles of my feet along the crisp hairs on his lower legs. They tickled.

My hands roamed his back and ribs, learning each indent, each rolling hill of lean muscle, sinew, and bone.

We kissed again, this time with more pressure, more urgency. My eyes closed while my other senses grappled for their bearings. My sense of touch set every nerve ending electrified, engorged. My nose picked up nuances of aroma clouding us: musky heat, soap, and fabric softener. I heard each hitch of his breath, the rub of our skin together and against the sheets, our heartbeats syncopating.
I ran my tongue around the sharp edges of his teeth, the warm satin of his inner lips. I’d never felt so desired, so powerful and wanted.

He leaned to his side, towing me with him so he could better reach my breast. He tugged and played, until I wanted the same treatment to the other one. I couldn’t hold still, couldn’t form sentences, never wanted to stop.

Pressure built inside me. An urgency I couldn’t name. A want I couldn’t ask for by name.

His hand left my breast bereft and roamed lower across my stomach. His fingers dancing, massaging, testing my flesh in a way I’d never been touched.
Don’t stop
. He paused when he came in contact with the elastic band of my panties.

I bit his bottom lip, opened my eyes. I kept him captured until he opened his eyes and met mine. I smiled against his mouth and lifted my hips, nudging his hand in the process.

I lost myself in his midnight gaze. He didn’t close his eyes; they were stormy, as if the black of his irises swirled and pooled like India ink.

His face was as open and vulnerable as I felt. And completely mine.

He let his hand rest between my legs. I wanted pressure, friction.
More
. I moved against his palm.

I reached for the drawstring on his sweats. I wanted to feel him, to know the difference between his secret places and my own. Above all, I wanted to feel him inside of me. He dragged in a breath, catching my hands.

Outside, Custos barked and growled. Tens froze and
listened. She barked rapid-fire warnings; her growl was a low rumble that broke the spell around us.

Tens pulled away, untangling our limbs, his chest heaving with the exertion.

I felt sweat cooling against my skin. “It’s just a raccoon or a possum,” I said.

“Maybe.” He sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me. “Maybe not. I’ll check.”

I leaned up and kissed between his shoulder blades. “It’s nothing.” I wanted to beg. I wanted to curse Custos. For a moment, we were just two people in love and into each other. We weren’t the cosmic destinies of Fenestra and Protector. “Please come back.”

“Merry, I don’t have any—”

I interrupted him. “I don’t care.”

“I do.”

The mantle of responsibility fell hard back onto my shoulders. The stony expression on Tens’s face as he picked up his T-shirt and shrugged it back on told me this night was over.

“I’m going to run.” He grabbed his sneakers and didn’t look back as the front door closed behind him.

Is he running from me? Or something else?

And then the truck started and he peeled out. When I got to the window I saw the taillights as he turned onto Main Street.

T
he little alarm that used to belong to Mr. Franklin was set to buzz at four a.m. I turned it off at 3:31, deciding a day of work without sleep was better than trying to function after getting only a few minutes. As if I could fall asleep anyway. I dragged on woolly socks that had originally belonged to a guest I couldn’t remember, one from months ago. A thick sweater and yesterday’s jeans were the only relatively clean clothing options. Doing my own laundry took a backseat to everyone else’s.

The walls of DG closed in on me and claustrophobia clawed at my gut. I needed a sliver of nature, a space of oxygen. I snuck out the back door and ran down the sloping lawn, toward the back fence. Using branches and an old stump, I climbed the fence and hopped to the other side. The cold chased wishes of sleep from my head and battled the exhaustion back to the periphery of my mind.

I shimmied out onto my favorite leaning tree, which dangled above the creek. I straddled it like I was riding a horse, lying forward with my cheek pressed against the rough bark. The stars shone brightly and a full moon spotlit the shadows and shades of vegetation. Grays, blacks, blues, and browns competed with whites and ecrus, a battle of light and dark around me.

Movement made me glance above. A great horned owl glided past using the creek as a byway, Interstate Wildcat. Her wings flapped once, silently, to guide her up and over the treetops. In the distance, I heard her mate call greeting and even the shriek of owlets.

From under my bra strap I dragged the piece of paper Nicole had copied, and pulled a flashlight from my back pocket. I needed to see what this piece of my file said.
What if Mistress is wrong and my mother didn’t abandon me? What if she wanted me and loved me? More frightening still, what if Mistress is right?

It was a handwritten note; I didn’t recognize the scrawl. I held it closer to my face trying to read it. Words wrapped around each other, and smeared ink made it nearly impossible to decipher other ones.

I didn’t recognize the name of the children’s home; none of this information made even a little sense. February tenth was my birthday, but I remembered nothing of my life before arriving at DG.

A twig cracked in the woods behind me. I slung a look over my shoulder at Mini, who meowed at me from the bank. “Don’t want to get wet, do you?” I asked her.

She answered with a disdainful yowl that critiqued my sanity. I watched as she twitched her tail and wandered off along the path. I turned back to the paper, trying to make sense of what I read. When I next looked up for Mini, a dog—a wolf—had its nose pressed against her head. Their exchange was so unexpected I nearly lost my balance. I tightened my thighs around the tree to catch myself. They seemed like friends.

It was only then I realized a man stalked deeper in the
forest behind them. I saw his dark shape watching me. I gasped, dropping the paper and the flashlight into the creek below me. I lost my balance and fell forward onto my stomach.

The paper swirled down the stream.

“Sorry, sorry.” He rushed forward and leaned out over the water toward the log and my perch. “I’m Tens, remember? I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You were here before. Twice.” I sat up, but didn’t move toward him nor take his hand.

He dropped it. “With Meridian, my, um, girlfriend.” The wolf licked his fingers and seemed pleased to have him here.