“Hey... Relle?” Warren’s voice sounded thin. “I think... I’m bleeding again. A lot.”
Alcohol was a good way to prepare a guy for shoddy surgery, but it was also a blood thinner. One of those little nuggets of info I’d gleaned over the years that had conveniently slipped my mind.
I sighed.
The apartment was becoming entirely too acquainted with blood.
14
Back in the kitchen, I tossed the messenger bag on the table so I wouldn’t forget it, and dug out a threadbare kitchen towel for Warren. “Press hard,” I told him, laying his hand over the towel on his wound.
I lit a candle so I could burn the blade when it was done boiling. Lacking a sterile lab and autoclave, we adjusted. “So you live out there? 10th encampment?”
He shrugged. “It’s cheap. I can keep an eye on things.”
“What things?”
“Things.”
Irritating asshole. I scraped a chair up in front of him and sat so that his thigh was between my legs. I tried not to think about that, too. Think about the bullet. Torn skin and muscle. Getting the shard of metal out with minimal damage or bleeding.
“If I’m going to help you, you need to talk.” I turned up a bottle of rubbing alcohol over his leg. His quick inhalation at the pain made me a little too gleeful. “When did you become shadow touched?”
“I told you. I was born this way.”
“Nobody is born shadow touched.” I ripped open a pack of iodine and began to swipe at his wound. The bullet had gone in clean. Now that the alcohol had cleaned out the dried blood, I could glimpse the glint of metal deep inside. Thank Senka. That meant I’d have no problem getting it out.
“I beg to differ,” Warren said matter-of-factly. “My mother was a shadow touched fae. My father was a healthy human. And I am... something altogether different.”
“Human and fae can’t reproduce.”
He touched my cheek. “Do you have to be so contrary?”
I jerked away from his fingers, startled by the contact. My gaze fluttered to meet his. He was smiling; not the sardonic grin I’d come to associate with him, but a sweet half-smile.
“I’m not being contrary,” I snapped, returning to his wound. I rubbed a little harder than necessary as I cleaned with the iodine. “It has been proven that the races cannot interbreed, and the shadow touched are infertile. So you’re trying to tell me your existence proves both beliefs false?”
“Yes.”
I opened the sterile needle and thread from the kit and spread it on gauze, preparing it for a quick sew up. I didn’t have a response for his claims. It’s hard to suspend your disbelief enough to allow truth in the things you’ve always believed false.
“You act like you know what you’re doing,” Warren observed.
“We had to learn field medical care in SEB training. They cut my leg open, and I had to clean it and sew it up.”
“On purpose?” He looked aghast.
“The SEB isn’t for pussies.” I had plenty of scars to prove it, and that one was the least of them. I returned to the stove and switched off the burner.
“I wanted to be a cop. When I was a kid.”
Using a pair of tongs, I extracted the blade and laid it on a waiting towel. “Guess that was hard. Knowing you weren’t eligible.”
“It is what it is. My father tried to hide my condition for a long time. He passed me off as normal for years; even started to believe it himself. Then when I was thirteen, my eyes changed. We couldn’t hide it anymore.”
“What happened to your mom?” I held the cooling blade to the candle’s flame.
“Dead. The darkness took her completely and drove her mad. She ended up killing a human. One of your people came for her.”
Something in my cold, dead heart shifted and ached. “My people” gambled life and death every day, but the game had never come so close to me.
Warren was lost in his memories as I returned to my chair, blade in hand.
His eyes widened at the innocuous metal shard. “Don’t you need gloves?”
“You aren’t contagious.”
He barked with laughter. “Tell that to the rest of the Hollow.”
An undercurrent of bitterness laced his tone. I didn’t know what to say. Some people felt they could contract the disease from those who had been shadow touched. It was a ridiculous notion; the darkness came from Acura's poisonous, leftover magick. We were just as likely to become shadow touched simply by existing in Senka Hollow.
“People are just paranoid,” I said. “They don’t understand why Senka is failing. And once you become shadow touched, there’s no going back.”
In the early stages of the disease, the person retained so much of who they were that the sudden fall out caused by their condition felt like a witch hunt. They found themselves cast out into the encampments, separated from the Core, from Senka. And out there in the Rim, they would eventually die, so full of Acura they were no longer themselves.
Then there were girls like Georgie, who chose to spend their time partying with the shadow touched, sure they were invincible and nothing could hurt them. But they weren’t strong enough to face Acura’s power.
“Life probably sucked for you,” I finally said, because nothing else seemed appropriate.
He nodded once, then the sardonic grin returned. “I’m still alive, and the darkness hasn’t killed me yet. So that’s something.”
“That’s pretty spectacular, actually. How long have you been like this?”
“Seventeen years since my eyes changed.”
I put the blade on a towel and poured rubbing alcohol over it. He was about thirty, I guessed. “Most shadow touched don’t live five years.”
“I don’t think I’m shadow touched.”
I laughed. “Come on. Seriously?”
“No. I told you. I’m something different. Know anybody else who can time travel?” he asked pointedly.
I lifted the blade. “No, now that you mention it. You knew about the earthquake, too.”
“Prophetic dreams. The dreams and the time travel came with the eyes.”
Okay. Now I was very intrigued. “And the vanishing?”
He laughed. “No vanishing. Just a side effect of the time travel. I can slide back in time thirty minutes and go right back to where I started.”
“Wow. How many minutes have you relived multiple times?”
Warren shrugged. “I don’t keep track.”
“Has it affected your aging?” I eyeballed him – for thirty, he looked pretty youthful and vibrant. Not that thirty was old by any means, but living past the end of the world ages a body.
“The opposite, in fact. Time travel rejuvenates me.”
“Huh,” I said, because no other words seemed to encompass the depth of his story.
He grinned and nudged my knee with his. “Have I made the badass SEB agent speechless?”
“Maybe. I didn’t realize bringing you home would send me down a rabbit hole deeper than Senka's grave.”
Warren laughed.
“Let’s get this bullet out, then we’ll talk some more.” I knew at some point, I would have to take him to Lila. But for now, I wanted to keep him to myself and wring all his secrets dry. Every detail he shared made him that much more intriguing.
Warren took a deep breath and sat up straighter, physically bracing himself. “I’m ready.”
I shook my head and gently shoved him against the back of the chair. “You need to relax, or it'll hurt worse.”
“You’re about to cut open my leg with a box cutter. Relaxing is the furthest thought from my mind.”
I moved my chair as close as I could, which cradled his knee firmly against the most intimate part of my body. I pretended I didn’t notice. “Think about kittens. And clove cigarettes.”
“Kittens smoking?”
I laughed. “You’re an interesting dude.”
“Not the worst thing a girl has ever told me.” He shot back th
e rest of the whiskey and then said, “Let's do this.”
“Deep breath. Then breathe normally, okay?”
Warren nodded. He pulled in a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Fresh blood flowed from his leg as I opened him back up. He hissed and the muscles in his thigh tensed.
“Breathe, Warren,” I said, keeping my eyes on his bullet wound.
He chuckled, albeit painfully, and took a shaky breath. “That’s the first I’ve heard you use my name. I like it. Sexy.”
My neck flushed, and I blamed the heat coming from his body. “I’m going in. Squeeze the table if you need to.”
I’d sewn up my own leg before, but I hadn’t actually put my appendages inside another person’s limbs. His skin and muscles and blood closed over my two fingers in a grossly intimate embrace that exhilarated me and made the bile rise in my throat simultaneously.
Then the bullet was out.
“Fuck. Me.” Warren gasped the words, sinking against the back of his chair.
His choice of terms didn’t help the flush still warming my skin. I dropped the bullet on the table and reached for the rubbing alcohol. If I focused on the minutia of my movements, I could pretend his scent wasn’t overwhelming me.
“It isn’t over yet.” I uncapped the bottle.
He eyed me warily. “That’s to sanitize the needle. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed and tipped it over his thigh.
He groaned through clenched teeth. I gave him credit for not screaming like a little girl.
I made quick work of sewing him shut. The bleeding had already ceased before the final stitches were placed. Considering I’d managed the bullet extraction without prior practice, and I had put in stitches for the first time in six years, I thought I’d done pretty well.
“All set,” I told him, patting his good leg. I gathered my supplies and took everything to the sink to wash my hands.
Warren whistled as he regarded the bullet. “Such a small thing to cause so much pain. Though I’m unsure how much pain came from the bullet and how much came from your bedside manner.”
I laughed as the last of his blood washed away from the creases in my knuckles. “Glad you’re getting your sense of humor back.”
“That was probably the second most exciting experience of my life.”
“Only the second? What was the first?” I asked, drying my hands as I turned to face him.
He stood behind me. I hadn’t even heard him approach.
“Meeting you.” He winked. He reached past me for the paper towels, his body so close I could feel the power that emanated from him. I knew why he didn’t feel fae now, considering he was only half-fae. But I could also tell it was there: a barely contained wildness, a magick that sang to my own.
My heart pounded in my chest. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to feel the muscles beneath his t-shirt, to press my hips against his, to taste him. What was wrong with me?
Warren stepped away and used the towels to clean up his leg. “Thanks for doing this. Hurts like fuck right now, but I’m sure I’ll feel better later.”
I tossed the dish towel I’d been using into the sink and leaned a hip on the counter. “I don’t have any antibiotics, but we can get some at HQ. You’ll need to take some stat, before any infection has a chance to set in.”
Warren moved forward to deposit his used towels on the counter. At the same time, I pushed away from the counter to go clean the table. We ran into each other, my leg unfortunately bumping his stitches.
He grunted and wavered on his feet, falling into me. I reacted quickly, encircling his torso with both arms. “You need to sit. You shouldn’t even have stood yet, you idiot.”
“Oh, thanks,” he said sarcastically. “That makes me feel so much better now that you’ve maimed me.”
“Don’t be such a baby. It's just a flesh wound,” I reminded him, throwing his flippant words back at him.
I helped him into the chair, both of us nearly tumbling to the floor with his backward momentum. I ended up in the chair across from him, straddling his good knee, my arms still tangled behind him, and our faces inches apart.
I tried to right myself, getting my hands between us to push off his chest.
Warren’s hands cradled my waist. His gaze moved south to where my breasts threatened to escape my tank top from the awkward angle of my body. The pain drained from his expression, replaced immediately by an almost feral desire that took my breath away.
I watched the metamorphosis, shocked to see it happen so quickly. To see so clearly what would happen next.
He kissed me. A hesitant touch of the lips, a question that stole any sense I had left.
Desire exploded within me. I fell into him, mindful of his wounded leg. I deepened the kiss, a small moan escaping as his tongue touched mine. His hands moved to cup my ass and draw me closer, until I was on his lap, his leg between mine, and my hip pressed into a very impressive surprise beneath his thin boxers.
His mouth left me breathless. His hand beneath my shirt, cupping my breast, made my skin run hot until I felt like if I didn’t shed everything I wore, I’d incinerate on the spot.
“Relle, tell me to stop,” Warren murmured against my lips. He drifted lower, his tongue touching the sensitive skin near my collarbone. He jerked my top out of his way and closed his lips over the dark bud of my nipple.
I gasped and rocked against him. “You’re not doing a great job convincing me to make you stop.”
He grinned against my skin, and fuck the movement was as sexy as his hands on my body.
We locked lips again. Warren reached for the button on my jeans.
It took me a moment to realize the rocking beneath us wasn’t Warren, or the chair, or me. Everything was rocking, and an accompanying rumble grew in intensity.
Earthquake.
I tugged Warren beneath the kitchen table, all worry for his injury ignored. I braced myself against the base of the table, Warren's arms wrapped around me from behind.
The entire world quaked around us in a disorienting blur. Plaster fell from the ceiling, and appliances danced off my kitchen counter. This was more vicious than the quake during Georgie's takedown. That one had been the opening act; this was the main event.
Above the growing rumble, another sound met my ears. Something breaking apart. A vicious series of whines and cracks, followed by the sound of debris raining down from above.
The skyscraper.
I lunged out from beneath the table to grab the messenger bag with Rice’s Com in it. My fingers had barely wrapped around the strap, when Warren yanked me against him.
The ceiling collapsed onto us, rebar and chunks of construction material piling onto my kitchen floor. Then the world dipped and changed, and I fell for the second time in Warren’s arms. Nothing remained but his scent and touch and the lingering taste of his lips as we traveled through time.
15
After the crazily tilting world came to a halt, my senses took a few seconds to catch up to my body and realize the ground no longer moved beneath my ass.
When I finally shook away the cobwebs, I heard: “You live here?”
We sat in the same position we’d taken beneath the table, my back pressed against Warren’s chest and his hand resting possessively on my stomach. We were between the skyscraper and the apartment building, hidden from sight.
“It’s not as bad as it looks on the outside,” I heard my own voice answer. Had I always sounded so low and gruff?
“I guess I expected the Reina’s hound to live in luxury.”
A pause. “Don’t call me that. I don’t need luxury.”
“I see that.”
I glared at Warren in a mimic of the same look I’d given him earlier. “I’m not the Reina’s hound.”
“Oh, sorry. I meant her ‘BFF.’” He squeezed me playfully.
The heavy metal door slammed behind “past” Relle and Warren. Strange to think not much time had passed since we walked through that door
. Even so, that girl was the past. That girl hadn’t yet leapt on her strange, hybrid-shadow touched patient like a cat in heat.
“We should move,” I told him, leaving the ridiculously comforting warmth of his arms to stand. “This building is gonna collapse right on top of us.”
“We can’t go yet.”
“Why not?”
“There are rules with time travel,” he said patiently as he used the rough red bricks of the building to stand. “We can’t be seen, and we can’t move on until the timelines sync.”
I motioned to the skyscraper looming precariously above us. “If we wait for the timelines to sync, we’ll be dead anyway and your little time stunt did no good.”
He leaned against the apartment building. His lips curled into a grin, but the tightness around his eyes gave away how bad he hurt. “Trust me, Relle. I know that’s hard for you, but just trust me.”
“What do you mean it’s hard for me? I trust plenty of people. Forgive me if I’m still leery on a guy I just met two days ago!”
He reached out and gently gripped my biceps to pull me into him. I was no slouch in the height department, and he still loomed over me by several inches. His lips grazed mine.
“You didn’t seem very leery a few minutes ago,” he said, voice husky.
That smooth molasses rasp made my knees turn to jelly. I locked them fuckers in place and took a step back. “You have no pants.”
Warren looked down at his bare legs. His wound looked raw and red, the stitches stark against his skin. At least the excitement – pre-Earthquake and during – hadn't busted his wound wide open. “Ah, yes. They’re on your kitchen floor.”
“You wanna go back in for them?” I grinned saucily.
“She makes jokes! Who is this person?” he asked the empty alley.
“We’ll get you some new pants at HQ. You know, whenever you let us leave. If you let us leave before the earthquake kills us.”
“Anybody ever tell you you’re an impatient one?”
“My mother. My brother. My boss.”
“I am validated.”
The banter felt so fucking normal. Bantering with Warren came easy, like it had with Rice. Except with Warren, there was a new undercurrent of desire that made my insides burst into frenzied recon.
Relics and Runes Anthology Page 9