Dark Around the Edges

by Cari Z

  The power within Rio rang out like a church bell across the psychic sphere, lighting him up like a beacon. The glory of God, his soul proclaimed to the aether. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Rio couldn’t stop it, any more than Devon could have held back his allure during sex. When the power was in use, it followed its nature. And the nature of a nephilim was to exult over the bodies of its enemies, as he was an instrument of God’s justice.

  It was so hard to put that power away. Rio hadn’t used it like this in decades, over half a century, and it energized him like nothing else could. This was right, this was what he had been made for, what he had trained for over the centuries…

  He felt it then, the feather-light touches of roving psyches reaching out for him. Some curious, some fearful, but the worst were the determined ones, signs that some people out there had just recognized Rio for what he was. He was a star, blazing bright, and that power made him a target.

  Rio took a deep, calming breath and focused on the skin beneath his fingers: Devon’s skin, cool and beautiful. He let his gaze rest on Devon, confirmed that he was whole and unharmed, that the wound in his chest had mostly healed by the time Rio had arrived. Devon, he was what was important now. Just Devon, and Devon needed Rio to be normal, not righteous. He needed Rio to be a man, nothing more. Rein it in for Devon. Now, you have to get out of here before they find you. One more deep, shuddering breath, and Rio was finally able to tuck the last of that power away, buried beneath layers of humanity.

  The full extent of his injuries hit him as the fire died, and Rio choked with the pain. It hurt to hold Devon up, but he wasn’t going to let him go, not now. Maybe not ever. Devon was unconscious and that was probably a blessing; there was nothing here that he should see. If he woke up—when he woke up—he might not remember a thing. If that happened, Rio wasn’t sure how much he would tell Devon when he asked about tonight.

  The cloud had finally dissipated enough that Rio could see that the shadow demon had fled its corpse. Cressidus’s children lay in pieces across the floor, pawns to the demon’s madness. Except…wait. He could still hear another heartbeat, very faint but not his or Devon’s. Rio reluctantly set his lover down and limped into the center of the room, where a few feet away from the body the shadow demon had ridden lay the little girl, abandoned by the siren to face the noxious fumes alone. Rio knelt and pressed his fingers to her carotid artery, checking her pulse: weak but regular. She was still breathing too, although her airway was so swollen she was getting little more than a trickle. She needed a hospital, and he and Devon needed to get out of there.

  It would be a bad idea to make emergency services try to reach Mission Hill, given all the dangers still surrounding the place, but there was no way Rio could just go to the police and try to explain his way out of this either. He was a mess, the house looked like a serial killer’s wet dream, and he wasn’t going to let anyone else touch Devon if he could help it. Well, then. He’d have to find another way to get things done, and fast; the sun was beginning to rise.

  Wasn’t there a helicopter around here somewhere?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Devon couldn’t quite seem to wake up.

  He was on the verge of it, he knew. He had been for a while now. If he strained, he could hear sounds: the hum of an engine, or strains of soft, unfamiliar music, or water splashing against porcelain. Bright blobby shapes floated against the blackness of what had to be his eyelids, and Devon tried to open them, but they didn’t budge. Too much effort, and he tumbled back down into sleep, with no measure of how much time was passing.

  As Devon pushed back up after another dip into unconsciousness, he was vaguely aware of the sensation of movement, and warm pressure against his upper back and under his knees. Carried, his mind lobbed at him lazily. He was being carried, held close against someone’s chest as the air went from warm to cool. Inside to outside?

  Whoever was carrying Devon set him down gently onto something soft—a bed, a couch?—not outside, then. Soft fabric rubbed over his skin, followed by gentle hands shifting his limbs to slide on some sort of clothing. Then the hands went away. Devon could just barely hear the scuff of shoes on carpet, followed by a long, slow sigh. Big lungs, a deep voice…didn’t he know someone like that? For a moment Devon thought it had to be one of his fathers, but neither of them was particularly big. No, this was…

  Rio. It was Rio. Just thinking his name made Devon’s heart speed up. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but it was suddenly imperative that he wake up all the way and open his eyes. He had to see Rio, had to see him with his own two eyes. It seemed like the last time Devon had seen Rio, things had been…different.

  It took a lot of effort, but after a few seconds Devon was able to move his fingers. His toes followed suit, then his whole hand. He forced air through his vocal cords; it was barely enough noise to qualify as a grunt, but Rio seemed to hear it.

  “Devon?” The soft surface depressed with Rio’s added weight, and Devon felt one of those oversized hands cup his face. He turned into the touch, weakly, and grunted again.

  “Here we go,” Rio muttered. “Let’s do it right this time, no more slipping away, Devon. Open your eyes.” His voice sounded odd, strained, not sure and smooth the way Devon remembered it. “Open up, honey, open your eyes.”

  Devon tried, but his eyelids felt so heavy. He was able to curl his lips up into a little smile though. “C’lled me h’ney,” he husked, and the dryness of his throat made him blanch. Why was he so thirsty? How long had he been asleep?

  “I’ll call you anything you want if you look at me, snickerdoodle.”

  Devon wanted to laugh but he couldn’t—his voice had dried up and blown away. He focused his energy on his eyes instead, felt his lashes flutter against his cheek as the heaviness receded and they slowly, tenuously began to reveal the light behind the darkness.

  It was dim, wherever they were, and it took a moment for Devon’s vision to handle little things like focusing on what was right in front of him. That was strange; his eyesight was always perfect, even after a bender, even when he’d stayed up for eighty hours straight. Right now it was taking its time though, slowly settling in on Rio’s face, not too far above Devon’s. The look of pure relief Rio sported made Devon both happy and worried at the same time. Why should Rio be relieved?

  “Thr…thir…” Devon tried, and Rio got it.

  “Right, of course you are. You haven’t been awake enough to get much down yet. I was going to set you up on an IV today.” He leaned away and came back a moment later with a water bottle. It was room temperature, but still deliciously refreshing. Devon swallowed greedily as Rio tipped enough for a few sips into his mouth before withdrawing it. Devon wanted to follow, to grab it and drink some more, but his body was still too lethargic for that. He settled for a frown instead.

  “Let it settle in your stomach first,” Rio advised. “You haven’t had much of anything in there for the past couple of days.”

  “Days?” This time his voice worked much better. “Where are we?”

  “Northern Minnesota.”

  Why? “What happened to me?”

  “What do you remember?” Rio countered. His dark eyes were guarded, wary. He was hiding something.

  He was…oh, wow, he was hiding a lot of things. Or trying to, at least. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, but Devon could see the ridges of bandages beneath it that ran all the way down the length of his left arm and his right forearm, stopping just above the wrists. Rio sat gingerly on the bed, careful and still, like one wrong move would cause him pain.

  “Forget me,” Devon said, trying to sit up. Rio put an arm around his shoulders and helped resituate Devon against the headboard, a rough, rustic thing that seemed more like bark than actual wood. When Rio tried to back off after Devon was settled, though, Devon slipped his hands around Rio’s wrist and pushed back the light cotton fabric. The white bandages were fresh and a little wet around the edges. Right, of course, because he’d just lifted Devon out
of the bathtub.

  “Forget me,” Devon repeated, a growing sense of dread blossoming like a corpse flower in his gut. He felt nausea rise and swallowed hard, pushing it back down. “What happened to you?”

  “I got into a fight.”

  Devon glared at him. “Stop it with the strong and silent thing, okay? I need to know that you’re all right.”

  Rio gently detached his hand from Devon’s grip and raised it to his face, stroking his cheek in a move that was completely atypical for him. He looked more exhausted than Devon had never seen before, but also so relieved and content that Devon just wanted to slip into his arms and never let him go. He felt profoundly protective and disturbed all at once. “What?” Devon demanded.

  “You’re okay, so I’m fine.” The pure sincerity in Rio’s voice, without a hint of the customary sarcasm, was even more worrying than the caress.

  “I wasn’t okay?”

  “No, Dev. You were pretty far from okay.”

  “What was I…” Devon’s eyes fell on a set of bright red scratches wrapping across the back of Rio’s neck. They looked fresher than everything else, which meant… “When did I do that to you?”

  “Devon, you didn’t—”

  “No.” The dread was growing again, accompanied by a pressure in Devon’s head that made him want to cringe. “Don’t tell me I didn’t do it, tell me why I did!”

  “I was saying, you didn’t know what you were doing,” Rio continued, deliberately making his voice even lower, more soothing. “The first time you woke up, you didn’t recognize me. I don’t think you could even see, you were so out of it. You scratched me, but it was just a reflex, a reaction to something that you didn’t understand. You couldn’t help it.”

  “I couldn’t…oh.” It was there, at the edge of his mind. Devon could feel it, the mass of whatever he was repressing, piling up on the edge of his sanity. It teetered and threatened to tip into his mind and drown all of his thoughts, and he clutched his temples and moaned.

  “No, baby.” Rio’s hands cupped his own, his face just an inch away from Devon’s own. “Not again. Look at me.”

  “I did—I did—fuck, how could I do that?” Flashes of memory were filtering in, scenes from a place Devon couldn’t remember, a room full of black and anger and fire. He could feel the gun in his hand; feel his panic as the demon controlling him aimed it at Rio. Devon remembered the heft of the guan dao in his hands, the pleasure that flowed through Cressidus—through them both—when he smelled the nephilim’s wounds bleeding power out onto the floor. “How could I do that to you?”

  “Devon, stop it.” Comfort had been replaced by command. “Look into my eyes. Look.” Devon forced his head up and looked at Rio, and focused on the dark shine of his gaze. His eyes glittered strangely, almost glowing. “Calm down,” Rio said, and the words reverberated with power. “It’s over. We’re alive and together and it’s over. That’s the most important thing, do you understand me?”

  “Yes…” The painful, gnashing wave in his head pulled back a bit, and Devon felt like he could breathe again.

  “Say it.”

  Devon shut his eyes for a moment, gritted his teeth as he deliberately pushed away the memories, and let himself be totally in the present. “I understand.”

  “Good.” Rio leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. Devon whimpered and followed him as he let go.

  “Don’t stop,” he pleaded.

  “Dev, you went through a massive ordeal, you’ve been in and out of consciousness for the past three days. You’ve got to be low on energy, and there’s no way to get any extra from me. I wish I could let you go find someone, but it’s not safe for us to be in public places yet. The last thing you need right now is for me to exhaust you any further.”

  “You won’t,” Devon promised him. It was true, he wasn’t exactly brimful of extra energy, but powering up his allure wouldn’t have done anything for Rio anyway. And honestly, at the moment the thought of anyone else’s body against his made Devon gag. “I swear. I just, I need you right now. I need to be closer to you.” As close as I can get. Rio was the island of sanity in a world of confusion and fear, and Devon wanted him desperately.

  “I haven’t even told you everything that happened.”

  “Tell me later,” Devon said quickly. He didn’t want to think about those things right now, he needed to be grounded first, he needed to be overwhelmed with Rio. “I’m fine, I promise, I just…” Devon’s voice broke on a sob he hadn’t intended to free. “I need to feel you.” He needed to feel every part of Rio, to make sure he was real, and whole, and that Devon hadn’t ruined him.

  Rio sighed. “Okay. But you’ve got to be on top.”

  Devon didn’t realize exactly why he had to be on top until Rio stripped. The arms, okay, Devon had expected his arms to be damaged, given the bandages. And they were red in spots, and Devon could feel the imperfect ridges of awkward, self-inflicted stitches in places, and that was enough to make him wince in sympathy. But worse than that were the wounds he saw when Rio dropped the sweatpants he’d been wearing. Rio’s thighs were swathed with white from his knees to just below the jut of his hips, far too close to the family jewels for Devon’s comfort. The bandages were stained all over with seeping patches of red, and Devon couldn’t for the life of him figure out how these wounds had happened. “I didn’t…” he started uncertainly.

  “No, baby, this wasn’t you,” Rio assured him, shifting carefully until he was lying on his back. He was nude except for the bandages, which stood out worse than bruises against Rio’s olive complexion. “This was me getting careless around a demon.”

  “Which...oh.” Unbidden, the memory floated across Devon’s consciousness: Shan, his empty body possessed by a creature that cracked bone and tore muscle to reshape its new shell as it desired. Cressidus had chuckled about it, patted the demon on a sallow cheek and called the horns an improvement. Devon felt like he might retch.

  “Hey, hey, no,” Rio said, reaching over and pulling Devon in close. He snuggled as tight as he could get without disturbing any of Rio’s injuries. “What did I tell you? It’s over, we’re both okay. These will heal fast, trust me.”

  “How did I get through all of it without even a scratch?” Devon asked, a little bitterly. Of course, Rio was the one to pay the price while Devon escaped unscathed.

  “Oh, you were scratched,” Rio replied, and now it was time for his voice to sound a little uneven. “I think you were dying, actually.” He slid one large, warm hand under Devon’s t-shirt and grazed his fingers over Devon’s chest. There was an unexpected twinge of pain, and Devon pulled back just far enough to work the shirt off so he could see the wound for himself. There was a small red line on his chest, just a little jagged, slotting neatly between two ribs. “Do you remember how that happened?”

  “It was…before you got there, I think. I was stabbed.” Shan, his mind supplied. The scissors.

  “I’d say so, yeah,” Rio said, for once not an ounce of sarcasm in him. He stared at the spot for a while, his thumb rubbing over it gently, before leaning in and pressing his lips against it. He laved the thin white line with his tongue, careful and curious and almost worshipful, and it was more than Devon deserved and less than he wanted. He wanted to do this for Rio, wanted to tie him up and hold him still and memorize every scar and bump and smooth patch of skin. He wanted to exult in the triumph of his lover’s survival and rage over the horrific nature of his wounds. Devon wanted to own him, like he’d never wanted anything before.

  “Please,” he husked, stroking Rio’s head and neck as he shifted against the thin polyester comforter. “Let me have you.”

  “You’ve always had me,” Rio said, drawing back just far enough to free his lips to speak. “I’d do anything for you. I did everything I could for you.” There was a dark resignation in there that Devon wanted to examine, but right now he was too intent on pressing Rio back against the bed and very, very carefully straddling his thighs. Rio wa
s only half-erect, fatigued physically and emotionally, but he was smiling now and that was enough to jerk Devon out of his silent evaluation of his lover and back into the present.

  “This,” Devon said, “is going to be the most awkward sex we’ve ever had. Like, ever. In fact, this may end up as the most awkward sex I’ve ever had in my whole life, and that includes the time I got caught in the backseat of my first boyfriend’s dad’s car.”

  Rio arched his hips ever-so-slightly and grinned. “Rough, huh?”

  “Especially because his dad kind of wanted to join in.” Devon rubbed his cotton-clad ass against Rio’s hardening dick. “It was a squicky situation; my control wasn’t as good back then.”

  “Well, I don’t mind awkward,” Rio said, using his hands on Devon’s hips to urge him back and forth a bit. “Normal people have awkward sex sometimes instead of fabulous sex always, so this is our chance to pretend.”

  “Right.” Devon lowered his chest down over Rio’s and nuzzled his collarbone, then nibbled at the bend between his shoulder and neck. “Because it’s totally normal to have sex while you’re bandaged up like a mummy and I’m suffering from traumatic memory loss. If this is normal, I think I’ll go with fabulous next time.”

  “As long as we do something this time.” Rio reached out and snapped the elastic at Devon’s waist. “You might want to take these off.”

  Devon rolled his eyes. “Why did you put me in underwear anyway?”

  “Because I had no idea what you were going to do when you woke up,” Rio told him honestly. “Or if you were going to be you when you woke up, honestly. This area is pretty isolated, but I didn’t want you to be seen running around completely nude if I could help it.”

  “That bad, huh?” Devon said it lightly but he didn’t need Rio to answer; he knew it had been bad. The badness was still lurking in his head, waiting for him to let his guard down before it tried to take over again. Which meant Devon was determined to take his pleasure while he could. He needed not to think for a while, and sex was the best way he knew to accomplish that. And if he could make Rio feel better at the same time, then it would be perfect.