The Angel's Hunger (Masters of Maria)

by Holley Trent

  Tamatsu shook his head. He didn’t want to wish for impossible things.

  “Then figure that out first. Yes? I’m going relic hunting now that darkness has fallen, and I can move mostly unseen. I’ll connect with you tomorrow, or …” Tarik shrugged. “Whenever.”

  Tamatsu closed his eyes. He appreciated his friend’s optimism, but he wasn’t so certain he was deserving of it yet. He wasn’t certain Noelle would even let him get close, in spite of what she owed him.

  Still, he nodded.

  Tarik departed.

  Tamatsu sat in silence, and he was good at that—sitting still and waiting for sparks of inspiration, or just permission to fucking do something.

  No more waiting.

  If he needed to make decisions, he wanted to make them on his feet, or at least in front of the person they concerned.

  He climbed the stairs as quietly as he could and let himself into Noelle’s bedroom.

  She slept sprawled on her back. Her long, dark braid resembled a dangerous whip in the dim light. He moved closer to see it. Maybe touch it. Hair wasn’t alive. He could touch her hair to no ill effect, he believed, and doubted she would let him if she were awake. She’d accuse him of teasing her because she loved having his fingers in her hair almost as much as he loved for her to yank his.

  He always told her that she couldn’t hurt him and that he liked a little pain, but suspected she didn’t completely believe him.

  He opted to look rather than touch. Perhaps touching her braid wouldn’t spark his hunger, but he’d still want more. He didn’t have to be starving to want to consume her.

  Forcing some air through his clenched teeth, he sat in the armchair near the bed and started loosening the buttons of his shirt.

  She’d liked his attire. He could tell by the way her creamy skin flushed pink as a cherry blossom. He didn’t understand the appeal, but if she liked the way he looked, he could certainly accommodate her whims … at least for a while. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to witness her unvarnished attraction to him and not be able to do anything about it. There were always things that could be done. The satisfaction quotient of them, however, was decidedly lower than an actual coming together.

  “Bastards,” she whispered in sleep.

  He paused the loosening of his buttons and watched her features scrunch. She turned her head and coiled her body as if preparing for a fight.

  He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. He scowled at the sheen of sweat on her flesh and at how her strong shoulders flexed under the weight of any number of imaginary burdens.

  Once, he might have sat beside her and rubbed her neck and back until she let go of the dream. She’d wake up wide-eyed and confused, uncertain of who was touching her and whether or not the touch was safe. When she saw that the hands were his, she’d melt against him, and go back to sleep.

  She didn’t dream as much when she was touching him.

  He leaned back, shirt buttons all undone.

  Her limbs twitched spasmodically beneath the covers.

  He didn’t know if she were at the start of her dream or near the end, but either way, she was going to be tired when it was done. She’d feel unrested and perhaps wouldn’t know why.

  Wake her.

  She’d be annoyed. He knew that. But if she had a chance to rest, she should try to take advantage. A rebooting of the sleep cycle often helped.

  He put his foot against the side of the mattress and gave the bed a nudge.

  She bolted up onto her hands, and didn’t bother checking her surroundings. She pulled the knife from beneath her pillow and then brandished it at whomever was behind her.

  Before she could fully turn over, he nudged the mattress again.

  She rolled over onto her bottom, blade pointed his way, pale eyes wide with anger.

  For a while, she stared. A minute or longer. No one could beat angels at staring contests, though.

  Furrowing her brow, she looked slowly about the room. “I … I think I was having a dream.”

  He nodded.

  “Those things that attack you were in it.” Expelling a sharp breath, she set down her knife and then dragged her hand down her face. No makeup, but of course she wouldn’t be wearing any in sleep. She hadn’t had a habit of using cosmetics back when she’d been a traveler, but apparently as a modern woman, it’d become part of her armor.

  He preferred her without it. He liked the freckles she covered and the natural pink of her lips. He liked seeing her as she had been once, before …

  He closed his eyes.

  He needed to let go of “before.” “Before” was a long time ago.

  “Those things were in my dream,” she said. “Those things that follow you. Do they not hunt you when you’re indoors?”

  He shook his head.

  “You need to tell me what they are so I can research them. I can’t get rid of them unless I know specifically what they are.”

  He opened his eyes.

  “Can they be eliminated?”

  Turning his hands over, he shrugged.

  “You’ve never bothered to find out? Or do they not merit your attention?”

  He held up two fingers to indicate the second thing.

  “Can they actually hurt you?”

  At that, he cringed. They could hurt him. They could make him feel pain, though fleeting, but in the scheme of things, they were no more obnoxious than mosquitoes. He’d had other concerns in the time since he’d triggered their attention—Noelle being one of those things.

  She let out another breath and tucked her knife back beneath the pillow. “If there’s a chance at all that someone in this realm will spot them, you need to neutralize them.”

  Tugging the covers up, she settled onto her side, facing him. Her eyelids drifted shut. “Sorry to be a party pooper. The thing I look forward to the most about the heavy winter slumbers is that the subject matter of the dreams tends be more cinematic and less gory.”

  And she’d be dead to the world so anyone could harm her.

  He ground his teeth so hard that they squeaked.

  Who’d been monitoring her during her rest for so many years? Had she some guard? Some other fae creature to look in on her?

  He sprang to his feet and moved to the table at the side of her bed. She’d had a pad in there before. He found the paper and a pen, and hastily scribbled

  Who watches you when you sleep?

  He nudged her with the pad.

  She pulled her eyelids open, and her gaze focused slowly on the paper. Then she sat up and tapped on the nearby lamp. “Who watches me? You mean during the winter?”

  He nodded.

  “Jenny and I pair up. We’re not the sorts to generally have roommates, but that time of year, we do tend to share housing.”

  He ground his teeth again, and wrote:

  So you have two dormant elves under one roof instead of just one?

  She laid her head to the side and rubbed her neck. “I have a neighbor who checks on us. And we’re not completely useless. We have some instincts that are still switched on even when we rest. They’re just slower to activate.”

  And your attackers could thereby take their time killing you.

  “Did you come in here to bring me more nightmares?”

  He wrote:

  You’re smarter than that. You’re not in a protected realm anymore. People would hurt you if they knew what you were.

  “For goodness’ sake, Tamatsu. I’m an elf, not a vampire. No one’s going to stake me through the heart or lop off my head when I sleep. I’m not a menace to the public.” She grimaced and added in a murmur, “Except for the occasional asshole in a coffee line. Ugh.” She buried her face into her pillow. “I swear, I try to be good,” came her muffled voice.

  He gave the mattress another nudge.

  “I do,” she whined. “Some people have appalling manners, and I reach a breaking point every now and then. If I don’t correct them, who will? Some human la
dy who doesn’t have my abilities?” She lifted the edge of the pillow and stared at him through the crack. “Hmm?”

  He picked up the pad.

  Is that your job now? Defending good manners, one ill-bred cretin at a time?

  “Your handwriting is appalling.”

  He could feel his eyes bulging with incredulity. Of all things to point out, she’d critique his penmanship.

  “And, well, I’d certainly prefer to spend my time more productively. Trust me. I’d love to be able to conduct a simple retail transaction without having some knuckle-dragging troll breathing down my neck because he doesn’t believe I deserve personal space. I hate that. Maybe I’m a little more keyed up about it than the typical short person because I’m an elf, but there’s something so annoying about people who get into your space and tower over you. They know that you can’t possibly move any faster, and even if you could it shouldn’t matter, anyway, because it’s not their turn.”

  Breathe, woman.

  She’d said all those words in one continuous stream, and he marveled at the fact she hadn’t gone blue in the face.

  “I mean, I don’t do anything to them. I use common sense when I’m in public most of the time. All I can do is tell them off. Pointedly. If I don’t explain why they’re wrong, they’re going to behave the same way again, and the next person might not have my fortitude. You never know when someone will finally get triggered by an encounter. All it takes is one traumatizing social interaction to send them spiraling, and if I can prevent even a few, then my effort is worth the frustration.”

  Tiny avenger with far too many knives and who could probably sprint a mile in four-inch heels.

  He smiled and couldn’t help himself.

  “Ugh, smug bastard.”

  He nudged the mattress. He couldn’t stop what his face was doing. She was endlessly amusing, and he’d missed her breathless rants. He’d missed her emotion over things he couldn’t drum up any passion about himself.

  Curious little thing.

  When she didn’t look up, he nudged again.

  “What do you want?” she muttered beneath the pillow.

  Look at me.

  Another nudge.

  “No. You’ll have me raving like a loon all night, and I have things to do tomorrow. Don’t you?”

  He wrote the lie, “Nothing urgent,” and slid the paper beneath her pillow.

  She sat up and read. “How do you spend your time, anyway?”

  He took the pad back and wrote:

  Do you want the real truth or the watered-down version that’s close enough?

  “The real one, of course. I’d be surprised if anything you write could send me running and screaming.”

  If you say so.

  She claimed to want the truth, so he decided to give it her.

  He wrote:

  When I’m not beating my head against a wall over things beyond my control, I take jobs that aren’t strictly legal.

  “You’re a mercenary.” She yawned and patted her mouth. “Been there, done that. What else?”

  Illegal and probably immoral.

  Who was he to give a shit about morality? Obviously, his morals couldn’t be trusted or else he wouldn’t be Fallen.

  Her posture went a bit more rigid and eyes clearer. “Immoral … is a strong word.”

  He poised the pen’s tip over the page and pondered his words carefully. Noelle might not have been as sensitive as some women, but she still had a fairly black-and-white sense of right versus wrong. There were things about himself he hadn’t shared with her—that he’d been too afraid to share with her and he hadn’t realized why back then. He’d actually cared what she thought of him.

  But if they were going to heal from the things they’d done to each other in the past, they needed to adopt candor. Whole truth, not lies by omission.

  Pausing every so often to ponder the right words—the neutral words—he wrote:

  Some people need to be killed. I kill them.

  Then he waited, watching her eye, waiting for it to twitch. Looking at her lips and waiting for them to press.

  Nothing.

  For a woman who’d been literate for nearly ten centuries, she seemed to need an inordinate amount of time to read his response.

  Her gaze rose slowly to his. She dragged her tongue across her lips and then swallowed. “People?” she whispered.

  He nodded. Her emphasis on the word was intelligent, but she was intelligent. Clarissa wouldn’t have had a guard who couldn’t think as well as she fought.

  “Why?”

  He wrote:

  Because laws do not always apply to the people who abuse them.

  “Yes, and …”

  And sometimes, victims aren’t believed because of who or what they are. The law offers no justice because the people with power change the rules as they go along.

  “So, you’re Justice, then?”

  Sometimes, Justice was paid well. So were Vengeance and Wrath.

  And sometimes, he did the work for free because he needed to staunch his bloodlust. Right or wrong, he felt no guilt over interfering in human affairs. Just because he didn’t experience profound sorrow the way mortal creatures did didn’t mean he didn’t care.

  Sometimes, he felt like he was the only one who cared about the fates of strangers. Knowing what he knew about supposedly “higher” beings, he didn’t buy into that “Well, maybe it was just their time to go,” bullshit when too many deaths happened at once.

  “How long have you been doing that?” she asked. “Killing people?”

  Too long, but all the same, he wrote:

  Since currency became a concept.

  “So, even when we were …”

  He shrugged.

  Even then. Of course, there was rarely any evidence. When he killed with his katana, there was only ever dust left behind. His clients appreciated that he left some doubt to the circumstances. While the supporters of the killed launched their searches and waited for them to return, their opponents quietly prepared for change.

  “I don’t even know you,” she whispered. “I hardly know anything at all about you, and even if you were the worst creature on the planet, it wouldn’t matter. We’re still tethered.”

  I’m not the worst creature on the planet.

  It was important to him that she understood that. He wanted to be wanted, not disdained.

  I don’t kill for the sake of killing. I do have standards.

  “What other secrets did you keep from me? Hmm?” She sat up then, anger creasing the corners of her eyes and drawing her lips downward. “How many do you have? You didn’t tell me what touching me would do to you. You didn’t tell me how you make your living. You won’t even tell me why those monsters are harassing you. You need to fucking tell me things, or I’m going to react in ways you don’t like. Don’t you remember what happened the last time you didn’t tell me something about yourself? Don’t you remember what you lost?”

  He’d never forget. His pride was wounded by every insinuation that his masculinity, his intelligence, his strength, was predicated on him having a voice. She hadn’t only taken away his ability to speak, but also his ability to quickly mold people’s initial impressions of him. He didn’t want children to fear him for his lack of words, or the perception that there was no humor in him.

  He wasn’t a monster.

  He wrote:

  I’ve not forgotten that I’ve relied on Tarik for all these years to talk for me on any matters that required speaking. I’ve not ignored what an intimate thing that is, to force someone so deeply into your confidence that they know you well enough that they may as well have been you. Any privacy I get is short-lived because I always need to clue him in.

  Lying on her belly, she rested her chin atop her hands and stared at the pad, and then at the floor.

  He held another note in front of her gaze.

  I’m certain there are things you are curious about. I’m simply not aware of a means of sh
aring them outside of natural conversation that makes good sense. Shall I write you a book? Or books, rather? The story may be several volumes long.

  “I don’t remember you being quite that sarcastic.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  She closed her eyes. “Granted, we were distracted much of the time. I imagine you didn’t have much of a chance to demonstrate your prowess in that regard.”

  That made him smile. They’d been too busy back then to do much talking. He leaned forward and picked up the end of her braid.

  She watched him skim the pad of his thumb over each little notch, and then as he set it down.

  He shouldn’t have, but if that small caress was all he could have, he didn’t want to torture himself with more denials.

  “I like your pants,” she muttered groggily.

  Almost certainly a reluctant compliment, but he’d accept it.

  He sank onto the rug in front of her, crawling as close as he dared. She was so pretty.

  Her eyelids lifted, likely at his breath tickling her face.

  “What do you have on under them?” she asked in a laugh, but he’d never been so committed to keeping such things secret. He wasn’t ashamed of skin.

  He wrote:

  You’d be surprised.

  “What?” Eyes wide open, she pushed up onto her elbows.

  His lips curved up at the corners as he pushed the button of his trousers through the notch.

  “Don’t tease me. I don’t have the energy to work of a suitable amount of indignation tonight. I don’t—”

  He unzipped.

  She peered over the edge of the bed. Staring, she blinked several times.

  He gave the mattress a poke.

  She performed a jerky shrug. “It’s just … weird seeing you wear more rather than less. Good choice with the stripes.” She said the last in something of a monotone. “Did your tailor friend pick those out, too?”

  Jealous?

  “Of course I am. I wouldn’t lie about that.” She reached, slowly, over the bed’s edge. Her fingers hovered over his knee and thigh and up to his waist, and then lingered in front of the open tabs of his pants. She watched him for a moment, and he watched her, and then her gaze fell yet again to his lap, and her nimble fingers toyed with his fly.