by Linda Welch
“Is the same person who sent the hellion and the thing in the attic behind it?” he asks.
“Seems likely. And… . I didn’t tell you about the shifter.”
So I tell him, omitting that Castle was with me.
“But they’re not werewolves. Is there such a thing as a werewolf?”
I get off my knees and wipe my hands on a towel. “Not what you’re thinking of. Some shifters are wolves. The shifter who came after me is a puma. But they’re not slavering beasties that indiscriminately rip people apart.”
“I’d like to see one.”
“You might, though you won’t know unless you see one change. But not many are around these parts. The local shifter pack is small. The shifter population in general doesn’t amount to many. There are far more shifters Upside, they prefer it because they can blend in with the humans and the hunting is better. Shifters are all-around noble types. Not to say you can mess with them without payback. They’re ferocious when defending themselves and their family or righting a perceived wrong. As I said before, they have two disparate natures which share one adaptable body. Whichever form they wear, they have the strength, grace and intelligence of both beast and human. They have a conscience.”
That’s not true of all with a shifting nature. I sometimes think Angie’s conscience kicks into high gear only when it suits her.
River pushes off from the door frame as I pass him. The bed looks inviting but I won’t sleep. My mind whirls, my muscles refuse to relax.
He captures my hand as I walk past; I try to withdraw it but he holds on. He looks into my eyes. “Do you know how amazing you are?”
Coming out of the blue, his words make my jaw drop and I’m immediately flustered, which rubs me the wrong way. My voice is gruff. “Don’t let touching become a habit.” Castle and the stiletto in his neck flash behind my dipped eyelids. “We don’t touch casually, for obvious reasons.”
His gaze is intense, yet unreadable. “There is nothing casual about it.”
I halfheartedly tug. “Forcing flesh on someone else is never a good idea.”
He exhales gently and continues in a lower tone. “It’s forcing when one party is unwilling. I’m not. When we touch, you make me whole.”
Fingers tracing the back of my hand, his tone and words entrance me. “Your skin is so smooth, fine, I can feel your bones beneath, tiny like a bird’s. I like … the feel of you.”
When Castle explained why we shouldn’t touch spontaneously, he made sense because it takes our free will, but every living thing in some manner communicates with touch, and truly, I find it pleasant. And remembering how I enjoyed solidity when Castle and I got under the covers, heat warms my skin and my pulse jumps. I have a little trouble breathing.
We remain outside the bathroom, River holding my hand, until he flashes a quick look from beneath his brows and lets go of me.
I don’t know who is more embarrassed.
Dropping my chin to avoid his eyes, I kneel, unzip the duffle and look inside. Yuk. In a rush to quit a square littered with werekin bodies, I put my sword in the bag and blood smears a few of the other weapons. I lay them on the floor and get my cleaning kit.
“You’re good with that,” River says as I sit cross-legged, working on the sword blade.
I doubt it. I like a sword because it gives me reach but have never used it on anyone armed with more than claws and teeth. I don’t fight with style, there is no finesse in the way I hack and jab. I’d use a gun if it came with a guarantee not to blow up in my hand.
“Thanks,” I say with a tic of my lips.
His gaze drifts past me. “Are you done with the bathroom?”
I rub the back of my aching neck. “All yours.”
After stowing the clean blades, I sigh and sit on the edge of the mattress
“You can’t keep doing this,” Castle says.
I slide off the bed and my tailbone hits the floor. Castle is stretched out on the bed, hands beneath nape, ankles crossed. His boots look dusty.
“You’re not going to leave ghost smut on my bed, are you? Doing what?”
“Ghost smut? Where do you come up with this stuff?” He stares at the ceiling. “Getting yourself in trouble. This is the second time I couldn’t lift a finger to help you.”
“You did help. That’s twice you’ve warned me in the nick of time.”
“But all I could do was watch and pray. I can’t deal with it, Rain.”
“I didn’t ask werekin to attack me,” I say resentfully.
“And you were off your game tonight.”
“I know. I was worried about River.”
“He’s a distraction. Cut him loose.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Nah. You were green when I found you. Did I ditch you?”
We’re silent for a moment, until I ask, “Were you in the attic?”
He sits up. “Attic? No. What attic?”
“We had a job earlier today.” I rest my arm along the edge of the mattress and drop my chin in my hand. “Thought it was a job. A goblin who called himself Tipola engaged us to remove a pixie hive from his attic. But no hive, just a big ugly demon. It nearly had us.”
I describe what happened in detail until the shower cuts off and I haul myself back up with a hand on the mattress.
“We’ll talk about it later, poppet,” Castle says, and disappears.
You were off your game. He’s a distraction. Cut him loose.
I stay awake through the night and have reached a decision when River stirs the next morning. Someone is trying to kill me and it endangers him. He fights well and cannily but has not been Downside long enough to develop an instinct for danger. I can’t live with his death on my conscience. And he might get both of us killed.
*
Chapter Seventeen
Lying in bed, River is heavy because Rain’s arms cradle him. Her body presses to his spine, her thighs nest into the backs of his. They fit together like two spoons. Eyes closed, breathing controlled, slow and even, he dare not move for fear of disturbing her. His breath catches when her hand smoothes up his arm to his shoulder, her fingers twine his hair.
He can’t banish the image of her, naked, in that filthy attic.
He’s bereft when she rolls away. The bed creaks as she leaves it. Shuffling, and something bumps the bed, making it vibrate. A muffled “fuck!” comes from beneath.
Through cracked eyelids, River watches her pull a dusty black backpack from under the bed. She crawls to the storage cubes and begins to pack his new clothes in the bag.
“What are you doing?” He lifts up on one elbow.
Her voice is sharp. “Packing.”
“So I see. My things.”
“You’re leaving.” Her lips are so tight, her chin puckers.
Confusion hikes his voice a decibel. “I am?”
Her chin jerks sharply. “Walk east till you hit the first crossroad, take a right, take the second left, you’ll be on Kings Way. Head north to the bus depot. Take a bus as far as it’ll go. Take another, and another. Don’t stop till you’re a long way distant.” She crams in the rest of the clothes. “You have enough money to make a start for yourself.”
He jumps out of bed and drops on his knees next to her, snatches the bag and dumps his clothes on the floor. “Stop it.”
Rain’s hands are fisted on her thighs. “This is my place. I tell you to get out, you go.”
“I will when you give me a good reason.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything except get out!”
River folds his arms, sets his jaw and says nothing. He can’t believe she acts on a whim. He’s not going anywhere till he knows what is behind the abrupt decision to evict him.
She looks past him with arms crossed on her chest as if in defense, speaking firmly, spacing out the words. “Someone is trying to kill me. You are a target if you’re with me.” She shakes her head and hair threshes her cheeks. “I can’t let that happen.”
She stuffs the clothes back in the duffle. River tries to grab them again and she eels up off her knees with the bag. Before he can climb to his feet, she’s at the door, opens it and slings the backpack into the passage.
With her back to him she says, “Go.”
He glares at her for a moment, then sits on the damn bed. “No.”
She looks over her shoulder, their eyes lock, before she wrenches her gaze away. Pushing her fingers into her hair, she steps from the threshold.
Finally, she lets out a gusty breath and comes to sit with him. “Please go,” she says quietly. “For me. If you got hurt … I couldn’t live with it.”
“I’m not helpless.” He tries to make his tone reasonable, not resentful of how she treats him like a child who can’t take care of himself. “I thought I proved it, in Manhattan and last night. If you’re in trouble, I have your back.”
“You’re not my partner.”
“I can be.”
She looks at his hand next to hers on the mattress, as though she wants to touch it. For someone who told River they shouldn’t touch, this is not the first time he’s seen that yearning on her face.
“You don’t understand. You really don’t. You can’t. Whatever’s after me is amazingly powerful and I doubt they’re going to give up.”
“All the more reason for me to stick around.”
She braces her hands on the mattress, pushes her shoulders back and looks at the ceiling. River waits.
“I should get out of Gettaholt but I need to know who killed Castle, who’s after me and why,” she eventually says. She drops her head, presses fingers to temples and closes her eyes, and continues in a quiet, steely voice. “If I’d been alone tonight, I’d have lost flesh and escaped the werekin with no bloodshed. But I couldn’t leave you. Tonight, when I should have been able to take out three werekin, I let one under my guard because I worried what was happening to you behind my back with the other two. You’re a liability, River. You’ll get me killed.”
Stunned, he can’t at first find words, then opens his mouth to say, Don’t worry about me. If someone comes at us again, look out for yourself and forget I’m here. But had she been alone, Rain could have easily escaped the demon in the attic. She fought the demon for him. She could have died, and he nearly did.
His mouth is dry, a lump has lodged in his throat. His stomach drops. She’s right, and he didn’t comprehend till now. He’s a distraction when she needs to concentrate on survival, not babysit him.
“Do you see?” she asks. “You have to get far away, not only for your sake, for mine. If this weren’t happening we’d have time to get to know each other, train together, possibly team up. But not now.”
He can’t run and leave her to deal with this on her own. She’s not infallible, indestructible, nobody is. Her partner’s death proves that. “Okay,” he lies. He can find somewhere to live in Gettaholt, where he can at least watch her from the shadows.
She meets his eyes, hers surprised. “Okay?”
He gets to his feet and faces her. “You’re right.”
The clothes he wore yesterday are in the yellow chair. River dresses with his back to Rain, checks his pockets and takes the cash from the kitchen counter. He kneels to unzip one of the duffel bags and retrieve the big pistol in its box.
He gets up off his knees. “I’m taking this.”
“Fine.” Her chin comes up. “Don’t kill yourself.”
River gets the backpack from the passage and brings it inside to tuck the box in, which makes it heavier. Pulling it over his shoulders with a grunt, he faces her and tries to smile, and is suddenly tongue-tied. “Good-bye, Rain.”
“Take care, River,” she says in low, harsh tones, and he knows she doesn’t take his departure lightly. He knows it by her teeth on the indrawn lower lip, how she clasps her hands so sinews pop on the backs.
He dips his chin. “You, too. And … thanks.”
She gives him a wan smile. In a crushing silence, he holds her gaze for a long moment before he strides from the apartment.
A pure, sweet note tingles up the stairs, followed by another. River doesn’t hear it as much as feel it. It twines around him like vines laden with nectar. The song plays him, strumming through his veins, plucking his limbs, carrying him along the landing. The descent has a dreamlike quality, hypnotic, soothing, as if the bliss in his chest expands and envelops, an encompassing cloud which floats him down the stairs.
Her door is open. She waits for him.
She is so beautiful and all his. River’s lips seek her neck as he crushes her to the wall. She tilts her chin to accommodate him and laughs.
“You wonderful, impulsive child.” Hands on his chest firmly push him off. “But come inside, my lovely boy.”
He follows her into the apartment. The backpack slides off his shoulders and hits the floor. Closing the door with one hand, she cups his cheek with the other and brushes her lips over his.
She turns as he reaches for her, slipping through his hands, unlatches the tiny jeweled clasp which holds together one strap on a gown the color of autumn leaves, followed by the other. The material slithers down, baring her back and shoulder blades, the delicate line of her spine, a tiny waist, curving hips and buttocks, and long slender legs.
River can’t take his eyes off the dimple above her mounded cheeks.
She laughs and walks away from him. He follows her to a bedroom on legs like limp noodles.
Angelina lies on her back on a bed, her voluptuous body hairless but for cascading copper locks. Smiling, she parts her thighs. Her hand glides over her silken belly and between her legs. Caressing herself, she gently moans, eyes rolling back, hips lifting from the mattress.
River burns. Sweat slicks him. He can’t form a thought. Need pounds his loins and he is painfully rigid.
Her body relaxes, she smiles with wickedly curving lips and opens her arms. “Come to me, my love.”
River goes to her.
*
Chapter Eighteen
On the bed, knees drawn up to my chest, arms about them, I rock. My eyes sting.
River is gone; I heard his footfalls go down the stairs. I thought making him leave would be harder. I thought we would fight and call each other names and part in anger.
He understands leaving is for his own good and mine. He must understand, or he wouldn’t have gone, would he?
I stand, and the walls close in around me. I’ll suffocate if I stay here.
I quit the apartment, trudge down the stairs and out to the street, and head for Housing to put my name on the list for an apartment.
Filling out paperwork took half an hour. I don’t want to go back to the apartment yet. I walk several blocks hoping Castle will join me, and end up at his grave. “It’s a mess. I’m a mess,” I tell it. “Where the hell are you, anyway?”
Castle materializes straddling the black dirt in front of me. “Right here, sweet pea. I think you summoned me.”
I step back. “If I did, it was unintentional.”
“There I was, minding my own business when oof, here I am.” He kicks at the rich soil as though he can actually dislodge it. “Does my resting place have some kinda power over me, you come, call, and I’m brought here?”
“You didn’t when I came here for your burial.”
“Maybe the compulsion hadn’t kicked in.”
“Were you shocked to return here?”
“I… .” He squinches one eye. “Not shocked, disorientated, but only for a second, like when you land heavily and need to regain your balance. I knew what happened to me, and I was back. It felt … natural.”
“What about before?” Feeling my skin pebble, I rub my arm. “In between?”
“Wasn’t an in between. One minute I’m in my house, life draining away, the next I’m here.”
“And you can go anywhere. Except when I come here and speak to you, you have to return?”
“I’m not sure. We should experiment.”
; “We can, but later. I’ve been looking all over. Where have you been?”
His shoulders hunch. “Wandering around Gettaholt, listening to chat.”
“Chat?”
“Folk talking about places I never saw. What do you think of traveling when this is over?”
When this is over. The bitterness is so strong, I taste it in my throat. “When this is over? Whoever killed you is after me now. Four attempts on my life and I know nothing.”
Castle ticks off numbers on his fingers. “Technically, one on ours and three on yours because you have to be special. Not to mention my murder, which went a teensy bit farther than attempt.”
“Can’t you recall anything about that night,” I butt in before his rattling gets out of control.
“Nothing more than I told you.”
I look at the almost-solid man facing me and grief unexpectedly rises in my chest again.
His voice is gentle. “What’s up, honeybun?”
“It’s not … fair.” I drop my gaze. “It must be awful for you, Castle, worse than being Upside.”
Silence stretches, making me look up to find his back to me. He doesn’t want me to see his expression and his serious tone is not one I’m accustomed to from my irrepressible friend. “It was good at first, seeing you here, knowing I still had some kind of presence. But you’re right. This is worse than Upside. This is my stomping ground, I know people, but I can’t interact.”
“Except with me,” I sniffle. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’d better not be crying over me.” His voice is firm now. “You make the difference. I’d lose my mind if not for you.”
He twirls on his heels to face me and says fiercely, “Don’t be thinking I’ll always be hanging over your shoulder, though. I’m here when you need me, and sometimes when I need you, but don’t worry I’ll stick my nose in where you don’t want it.”
“Castle, I want you with me!” I interrupt indignantly.
“Yeah? So there’ll never come a time when you’ll prefer a little privacy,” he leers.
I’m relieved to see the old bawdily suggestive Castle back. “Um.” My gaze drifts past him. I can come up with a number of situations where I’ll want to be alone.