by Lucia Ashta
If my arm hadn’t been killing me—perhaps literally—I would have jumped up and suggested myself on him right then and there. We’d just survived a demon battle. We deserved to lose ourselves in pleasurable distraction, and everything about his body reminded me of all the ways he could pleasure me.
He slid onto his knees next to me, unconcerned by his nudity or how everything he displayed would distract me from what we needed to do next. He reached for my arm, but then he didn’t touch it. His fingers lingered just above the raw, pained flesh.
“This looks awful. We need to get you medical attention right away. Are you otherwise okay? Can you stand up?”
“You’re a bear.”
He sighed, as if it were both a curse and a blessing. I understood exactly what that felt like. “Yes, I’m a bear. I’d been meaning to tell you, really I had.”
“You’re a shapeshifter.”
He made eye contact and didn’t pull away from the questions in my eyes even though I feared he might. “I am. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but can we talk about this later? We need to get out of here before any of those things comes back. Your arm looks pretty urgent, like life-threatening urgent. I think you might be in shock and not realize how serious this is.”
Shock. Right. I probably was in shock.
I finally looked down at my arm. Immediately I wished I hadn’t. My forearm didn’t much resemble one. It looked like a savage beast had gnawed on it for a while before growing bored. If a bear munched on my arm, it might look like this, if a dark shadow came around and infected it with death afterward. “Right. My arm. Yeah, needs some kind of attention.”
“Can a normal doctor treat something like this?” Alek’s face, all crisp, straight lines, dripped with concern. “I mean, that was a, well, I don’t know what that was exactly, but I know it wasn’t human.”
“It was a skin walker demon beast... thing.”
“Mhm. And you are a...?”
“Demon huntress fighter exorcist... person.”
“So you’re human?” He didn’t even skip a beat. Maybe that’s what happened when you weren’t exactly human yourself. I’d always liked the fact that Alek didn’t rattle easily. I was beginning to understand why and how easily he could actually roll with the otherworldly and inexplicable.
“I’m for sure human.” I blinked. “I think.”
“How long have you done this kind of thing?”
“Too long.” Just then I felt a hundred instead of twenty-five. “Sorry I didn’t tell you either.” But I couldn’t add what he had. I hadn’t been looking for the moment to tell him. I hadn’t intended to bring this nightmare to his life. I planned to keep it a secret always, and in that way spare him from it.
Stupid. That’s what I’d been. Loving him had been enough to condemn him to a danger I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy—a human one, anyway.
He moved behind me, slid his arms around my waist, and pulled me up, careful not to touch my arm. It hung limply out to the side as if it were a foreign object, no longer a part of a beating, living person.
“We’ll talk later,” he said from behind me, into my ear. For the first time he sounded like my being what I was might be a big deal.
He pulled me to standing and held me against him as if I were no heavier than a doll. I slumped into his body and regretted that I couldn’t even enjoy the pressing of his naked body against mine. The day had started out bad and the rest of it wasn’t looking much better—although Alek and I were still alive, and that was an outcome I hadn’t been sure of when I first got here.
“Do you have someplace or someone that helps you with things like this?”
“What do you mean?” My words were slurred, not a good sign.
“Well, obviously this isn’t the first time you’ve fought these things. Do you have someone you can go to who helps you heal from these kinds of injuries?”
“I used to. He’s not there anymore.”
“Has he moved or something?”
I’d meant that my mentor was no longer in his body, not the same man who’d taught me most of what I knew about the shadow world, anyway. The curtains were pulled open on the front windows, but nobody was home. His eyes were no longer the same, hauntingly vacant. “No, but I can’t go to him.” I was sounding drunker by the word. Definitely not good.
“All right. The hospital then?”
I slumped so far into him that he swept me up into his arms. I leaned into his warm chest and started to feel safe.
I shook my head, my long dark hair spilling across my face. I wanted to wipe it from my eyes but couldn’t. My dead arm hung loosely against my other side, hanging as if I really were a rag doll. “No hospitals. They won’t understand. Need magic.”
“I understand. Where do you get this magic?”
“Nowhere. Not anymore.”
“Where do I take you then?”
I closed my eyes against his chest and was glad this was where I’d come to rest. I wouldn’t be moving anymore, not on my own.
It seemed Alek realized it too. “Kat. Don’t sleep. Not yet. Where do I take you?” Panic laced every one of my lover’s words. I’d never heard him really panicked before. Not in the fighting arena where I’d met him, not even when his opponents seemed well matched to him. Not when they’d seemed impossibly larger and stronger, not even then had he hesitated or worried.
Now he sounded like a frantic boy faced with his first real life-or-death emergency. All good intentions and willingness to act, but no idea what to do.
“No, no, no. Where do I take you?” Every vibrating sound that spilled from his lips, those I loved to kiss, urged me to snap to and give him an answer.
I wouldn’t. “I love you.” My whispered words were the only ones I really needed to say.
Grrrrr. He growled so ferociously that if I hadn’t already known he was a bear, I might have realized it then.
He ran to the edge of the stage, bound down from it, and decimated the distance between the stage and the door out of the theater. He held me in one arm with ease while he yanked the door to the vestibule open.
In a few bounds we were at the theater’s main entrance, where it seemed I’d entered looking for him at least a millennia ago.
He pulled the door open and delivered us to the fresh air and a day so bright it seemed darkness shouldn’t have been able to survive against it.
He’s still naked, I thought, while he started pounding up the street with me in his arms.
Each of his barefoot steps jolted pain through my dying arm, and I lost the fight to maintain consciousness.
Chapter Eight
The sounds and scents, which startled me awake, were unfamiliar. I tried to roll out of bed and reach for my katanas in the same motion, but a large hand pressed gently against my uninjured shoulder, and my katanas weren’t where I always left them, on the night stand right beside my bed.
“No, kitten. Are you out of your damn mind?”
I peered at Alek, who looked no worse for the wear after what I assumed was his first demon battle.
“You can’t leap out of bed like that. Mick treated your arm, but you’re still not in the clear. It was bad. It’s still bad.” His voice drew very serious, the one thing he rarely was when he spoke with me.
I allowed him to ease me back against the pillow. It had been bad, I remembered that. “What did this Mick do to treat it? Did you tell him...?”
“Did I tell him some kind of demon beast inflicted the wound with some kind of hell sword, you mean? Yes, I had to.”
I looked away, toward the room that would otherwise look common if it weren’t for all the shiny, pointy weapons that lined the walls and shelves between buttercup walls. This was Alek’s room, it had to be. I met those stormy blue eyes, which studied me. “You shouldn’t have told him. People freak out when they find out what really goes on around them, and once they freak out, it isn’t usually good. Most people can’t get themselves to believe what goes on everywhere j
ust beyond their sight. It does something to them—they fracture—and it isn’t good.”
“Well I had to, there was no way around it. How else could I explain to him what he was dealing with? Besides, Mick isn’t your ordinary human.”
He had a point, of course.
“I tried to get you to tell me where to take you before you passed out, but it didn’t seem like there was anyplace to go, so I brought you here.”
“And where is here, exactly?”
“The house a few of us shifters share. They can keep a secret, I assure you of that. Mick won’t tell anybody beyond these walls what happened to you.”
“But he’ll tell the other shifters?”
“I already told them.”
“Alek! You shouldn’t have!”
“Really, why not? We’re in a house of shifters, you get that, right? It’s not like a little demon or two are going to frighten them or shatter their psyche. These are people who turn into animals.” He paused while he waited for that to sink in.
“Yeah, I don’t think it really hit me yet that you’re a bear.”
He grimaced. “I wanted you to find out a different way.”
I half smiled and adjusted on the pillows. “Damn that hurts.”
“Told you, it’s bad. Mick did his best. He’s used to treating some gnarly injuries, but he’s never seen anything like this before. He’s actually kind of fascinated.” His smile was sheepish, almost as if he were looking to me for permission to be jovial again after what we’d survived.
“And what is this Mick? A bear too?”
“No. He’s a super-sized fox, who’s wily like a fox. There’s no one better to heal the supernatural members of our community than Mick.”
“You make it sound like an advertisement.”
He shrugged. “I have nothing but good things to say about the man, which isn’t always the case among shifters.”
“Oh?”
“Shifting is intense. It gifts normal people with superhuman strength and sometimes even special powers. Just as regular people are messed up, so are shifters. They bring all their baggage to the table.” He shrugged again. “When that baggage is bad or they’re particularly angry, let’s just say they can be less than pleasant to deal with.”
“And now they all know about the demons.”
“They do. No matter what, we don’t keep secrets in this house. Secrets get us killed.”
“You say that as if from experience.”
His wide lips thinned into a grim line. “I’ll save that story for another time.”
I studied him. A shadow of stubble made his face seem darker than usual and his hair was mussed. His eyes looked harried and tired. He hadn’t slept recently... and he was dressed. “Wait. I just remembered. When you took me from the theater, you were naked.”
Mischief rolled across his face. “Yeah, I startled quite a few people on my way over here.”
“You didn’t run naked all the way here?” Even though I actually had no idea where here was located.
“Of course I did. You were practically dying in my arms. I wasn’t about to put you down to get dressed.”
My eyes widened. “How far was it?”
“From the theater to here—” another shrug “—about half an hour.”
“You ran naked, with me in your arms, for half an hour?”
“You aren’t the only one to be surprised by it.”
“What about your fellow shifters here? Were they surprised by it?”
“Oh, no, of course not.”
Of course not. I thought I was handling the bizarre turn my life had taken remarkably well, all things considered.
I gasped as realization hit. “What about your ID and phone and anything else that can identify you? Are they still at the theater?”
“They dragged me from our bed, remember? I barely had time to throw on clothes before they walked through the door.”
Our bed. I smiled to myself despite the gravity of the circumstances. He was talking about demons invading my home, the one I’d believed safe, and all I could think about was how here was the man I loved, and he and I were alive.
“Besides, even if I had left ID in my clothes, it’s not like there’s anything really incriminating at the theater. The demons just vanished, and your arm didn’t really bleed, it just kind of started... rotting.”
My arm was bandaged. I was grateful to be spared the sight of whatever my arm might look like. “How exactly did the demons leave? Did you do it?”
He stood up and started pacing the length of the room. Mellow sunshine filtered in through the windows. “I didn’t do anything. You did it all. When you did that light beam... glow... thing that tore apart that big guy, the others started fading away, little by little. They were nearly entirely gone by the time you passed out.”
“So it wasn’t you...”
“I wish it had been. I was half going out of my mind trying to figure out what I could do to help you.” He gestured wildly in the air, making it clear that his frustration had been important. “But I couldn’t break their binds no matter what I did. They weren’t ordinary binds, clearly, because something as insignificant as bound hands and mouth shouldn’t have been able to do anything to restrain me.”
“Yes.” I slid up the bed so I could see him better and winced. “They bound you with shadow. You can’t break it with any tool of the physical world.”
“But you can.”
“I can.” Our gazes met across the bed.
“Is the big guy dead? Gone or whatever happens to demons?”
I exhaled. “Probably not. He didn’t disappear entirely, did he? After I did my light thing? I passed out before I could see it through to the end.”
“No, he didn’t disappear all the way, but he was little more than a bean pole.”
“Well that at least buys me time.”
“Buys you time?”
“Well. Yeah.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
“You don’t actually believe I’m going to let my mate battle demons without my help, do you?”
Mate. He’d never called me that before... But still. “I did believe that. I do. It’s dangerous. I can’t ask you to risk yourself for work like this.”
“You’re not asking. I’m telling.”
“No, Alek. I was called to this work, for better or worse, mostly worse. You weren’t. It’s my curse, not yours.”
“Shapeshifting is both a curse and a blessing too. I understand that quite well. You might have been called to your work, but I’m called to you.” He said it with finality, as if that were the end of the discussion.
“It won’t work, Alek. Besides, I’d never be able to live with myself if you got hurt doing this stuff.”
He stopped pacing and brought his hands to his hips. “And I could never live with myself if I let you get hurt doing this stuff.” Alek was six foot four and all muscle and broad shoulders; he straightened into every inch of his imposing size.
I changed tactics. “Assuming I’d even consider letting you help me, it makes no sense. You’d be at risk for no reason. You’d end up being a distraction because I’d be worried about you instead of what I was supposed to be doing.”
He flinched at the word distraction, but I wouldn’t take it back. If he was anywhere demons were, I’d be worried about him and that would distract me. My arm was proof. I’d never been injured this gravely before. “Demons fight on more than a physical level. What you saw today—”
“Yesterday.”
“What?”
“You’ve been asleep for a while, and you should be resting and healing now instead of fighting me on this.”
I ignored his suggestion and continued. “What you saw yesterday is unusual. Demons only fight those of us who wage war against them.”
“There are more of you?”
“I think; I’m not sure anymore. But what I’m getting at is that demons usually wage their battle
s in the human mind. They influence people to do terrible things they’d never do if not for the demons’ influence. I’m actually really surprised that the demons didn’t try to get you to hurt me, that would’ve been much more up their alley.”
“They didn’t because they couldn’t.”
“What do you mean?” I hedged. “Demons can influence everyone. I’ve had to work really hard to learn how to keep them from getting in my head, and they still almost manage it more often than I’d like.”
“I felt them trying, whichever of them it was. I don’t know if it was those shadowy things or the big daddy of demonhood, but one of them kept poking at my brain. I shut it down to them.” His face was nonchalant, as if it weren’t a big deal.
I pushed up in bed, decided it hurt too much, and sank back down. “You shut it down? You can do that? You actually managed to keep the demons out of your head?”
“Yeah. If it hadn’t been for those damn binds, I would’ve been able to do something to help you with that huge demon. Do you have any idea how torturous it was to watch you take him on all by yourself and not be able to do anything? I didn’t know you could do anything super powered.” He nearly growled the words. “I thought you were coming to save me with nothing but your katanas to fight those things.”
“Hey, I’m quite good with the katana.”
“The best, no doubt, but those things...”
“Are scary beasts.”
“Literally. I thought that demon was going to skewer you and I’d be forced to watch the woman I love die. Do you have any notion what that feels like?”
“A bit. I thought I was going to get you killed.”
“So you understand why I’ll be there to fight along with you. If those things aren’t dead, then they’ll come after you again.”
I didn’t say anything. I turned toward the window and saw rolling hills instead of city. “There are no hills thirty minutes from the theater.”
“I run fast.”
“But you were carrying me,” I protested.
“You’re light as a feather. I’m a bear.”
I didn’t have much to say to that. Life was suddenly so strange that words escaped me.