“Cry if you need to, Raina. I will not mind holding you.”
Turning in his arms, she pressed her face to his chest gratefully and accepted the invitation, crying until she’d exhausted herself and fell asleep.
He was gone when she woke. Distressed to find herself alone, she felt like crying all over again, but she’d cried already until her head felt as if it would explode. Instead of yielding to the impulse again, she got up and went to the bathroom, standing under the hot water until she felt like she might live.
There were no towels, of course, and she hadn’t thought to get one from her suitcase. Dripping water, shivering with the cold of the apartment after the heated water, she went back into the bedroom for a towel. As she stood quickly drying herself, she heard the front door open and the rattle of plastic bags. Her heart executed a hopeful jounce in her chest. Wrapping the towel around her, she moved to the door and peered down the hallway.
Audric dropped an armload of bags on the floor and turned to leave again. As he did, he glanced toward the bedroom and did a double take as he saw her standing in the doorway. His gaze slid over her bare shoulders and down the towel that covered her from her breasts to the tops of her thighs, lingered for so long at that point that she’d begun to think she must be hanging out the bottom, and lifted one leg across the other. The movement seemed to break the spell. His gaze snapped up to meet hers again.
“I thought you’d left,” she said.
He looked away after a moment. “You needed much. I have brought all that I could think of that you would need that is not here already and I have food if you are hungry.”
Raina smiled tentatively, the first real smile she’d felt since he’d awakened her that morning. “Trying to fatten me up?”
His gaze flicked over her again, but briefly. He finally smiled back at her. “You have enough meat on your bones to please any man with eyes in his head.”
Raina blushed. “I wasn’t fishing for a compliment,” she said uncomfortably. “I’ll get dressed.”
He’d brought fast-food, she saw when she went into the dining area--burgers and fries and cola. “Yum! All my favorites!”
He looked at her a little doubtfully and Raina’s burgeoning spirits plummeted. Simon had always thought of a clever comeback whatever she said. She missed that, missed him, so much she couldn’t breathe for several moments, felt as if a tight band had squeezed around her chest and would crush her. She wanted to run from the pain, thought wildly for several moments about running and never stopping until she couldn’t feel anything anymore. But she knew there was no running from pain, no escaping it. All she could do was endure and try to forget and know that after a while it wouldn’t hurt as much.
She’d lost before. She knew the drill. At first the pain was so intense it felt as if it would consume you and for a little while you hoped it would, hoped to just die and escape it. But you didn’t and then it would dull into a heavy ache that would allow you to function and stay alive even though it dogged your days and nights and you lost track of time and place, days, weeks, months--and after a while even that would dull a little more and one day you would wake up and discover there was life after loss.
Sometime in the future she’d remember how to laugh, feel something besides pain.
She was no hungrier for lunch than she had been for breakfast, but she sat down with Audric and tried to eat enough to make him feel as if his efforts were appreciated.
“I guess you’ll need to be getting back soon?” she asked tentatively when they finally finished their meal, dreading the loss of her last link to Simon as much as she dreaded being alone, wishing she could just cling to Audric for comfort until some of the hurt went away.
Audric hadn’t seemed a lot hungrier than she was. At the question, he pushed his half eaten sandwich away.
Chapter Fifteen
Audric stared at Raina, feeling a cold sweat pop from his pores as the moment he realized he had been dreading was upon him. He had faced men armed to the teeth with blood in their eyes and murder in their hearts with less fear than he felt at that moment.
He was suddenly sorry he had eaten anything at all, for it sat like a lead ball the size of his head at the bottom of his belly and, as his belly tightened around it with nerves, he felt vaguely ill.
He had never refused an order from Simon in his life, could not consider doing so in this instance at all even if he had wanted to, and he hadn’t. Fool that he was, as hard as he knew it would be, he could no more resist the lure of spending these last days with Raina than he could have cut out his own heart. In any case, he had been too stunned when he realized what Simon was giving him to feel much beyond shock and then a tentative thrill of happiness--which had vanished the moment he came face to face with the task Simon had given him.
Simon was in his own hell and he knew that better than anyone else, knew that Simon was focused on the task at hand with the determined single-mindedness of a man drowning and clinging to the only piece of flotsam he could find. Simon had not reasoned it out, hadn’t been able to, or he would’ve known that all he was doing was giving him a taste of hell, as well.
Mayhap, he thought, Simon was so steeped in his own pain he had no idea how Riana felt--would feel, but he did. She loved Simon, not him. It did not matter that he loved her, he knew, as much as Simon could possibly love her. Her heart was given. Even if he was willing, even eager, to take the scraps from Simon’s table, she could not want him, couldn’t possibly have anything to give him.
Anger flickered inside of him as he thought of what Simon had done to him--given him the hardest task. He had to see her pain because Simon could not bear to see it. He had to hold her while she cried for Simon. As much as he wanted to hold her, as grateful as he was for any excuse to hold her close to him, it tortured him that she was hurt.
He dwelt on the anger for many moments until it dawned on him that he should be the one to bear what must be borne. He deserved to suffer as much as they were. He had thrown the two of them together. He hadn’t expected what had happened, but he had certainly expected something to happen, hoped that it would--not this, never this, but still he had played with their lives. It had not seemed callous or wrong at the time. He was doing what was best for Simon, he thought, and ultimately for the people of Schalome. He had not considered that Raina might be hurt. He had not considered that Simon would be hurt.
He had not considered that he would be hurt.
Getting to his feet abruptly when he saw that Raina was waiting for him to say something, he paced the floor, trying to compose a speech that would encompass all that must be said in the gentlest way possible. He had worn a path across the floor before he finally had to accept defeat. There was no way to say what he had to that would be gentle, that wouldn’t hurt her more.
No way at all.
He discovered that Raina had moved to the couch. She was watching him with wide, wary eyes.
He strode to the couch purposefully, settling beside her. After staring at her speechlessly for several moments, he got up to pace again.
“You’re making me dizzy, Audric,” Raina said finally.
He stopped again and stared at her. He’d raked his hands through his hair until it was a wild tangle. The look in his eyes was one of pure misery.
Audric settled beside again, stiff, tense. He couldn’t tell her, he realized. He couldn’t. He was as big a coward as Simon when it came to Raina. When she sighed unhappily and dropped her head to his shoulder he had to fight the urge to spring up and run out the door.
He couldn’t protect her from the outside of the apartment, though. He couldn’t watch both sides at once, couldn’t be sure that someone was not slipping into the rear while he was watching the front, or vice versa.
“I will stay a while,” he finally said gruffly, clearing his throat when he felt his voice crack.
She relaxed more fully against him and after a while, he shifted to get more comfortable and lifted his arm around her
shoulders.
“I should be doing something,” she said after a while, vaguely, as if she wasn’t sure what she should be doing.
“There is nothing that needs to be done that can not wait a while--until you feel better.”
“I’m not sure it can wait that long.”
He thought it was an attempt at humor, but he could hear the quaver in her voice of tears. He tried to think of something to say that might stave them off. He was still a nervous wreck from the last bout, but he was no good at diverting her mind and it seemed to help her to pour out her sorrow in tears. He couldn’t begrudge her that, even if it did make him feel like squalling like a babe himself. Uttering a long suffering sigh, he shifted to pull her across his lap and tucked her more comfortably against his chest, trying to ignore the feel of her buttocks against his groin and the soft press of her breasts against his chest.
Her delicate scent wafted to him with each breath she took, warming him and pushing his mind in a direction it had no business going. Gritting his teeth, he firmly ignored the war inside him and stroked her silky hair along the back of her head and her shoulder and back in a manner he hoped was soothing.
It didn’t soothe him. It made him regret, as it always did, that he had brought her to Simon’s notice at all. It made him wish that he had listened to the voice inside his head that had prompted him to take her for himself and leave Simon to his own devises.
It wouldn’t have turned out differently, though. He couldn’t have hidden her from Simon if he’d tried. Sooner or later, with or without his interference, she would have come face to face with Simon and it had taken no more than that for either of them. He’d seen that endless look they had exchanged that first day, seen the way she looked at Simon. He hadn’t needed to see the look on Simon’s face to know the attraction was mutual and had rocked Simon’s world.
He shrugged that thought off. There was no point in dwelling on it, no point in regret. It had happened. It had to be dealt with. They all had to deal with it now.
Bit by bit she had relaxed against him until he’d thought she had drifted to sleep again when she spoke.
“How long can you stay?”
He tensed, instantly at war within himself, trying to think what he could say that would be the truth and not something he could not tell her, but it was no more fair to her to allow her to think that he could stay as long as he wanted, or as long as she needed him. “I have … business that I must attend. I am going home in a few days, but I can stay until then … if you wish.”
Raina sucked in a harsh breath and held it as fresh pain spiraled through her and made it impossible to push the air from her lungs again and drag in another breath. He was going home--and he always went where ever Simon went.
Simon was going home.
That was why he’d sent her away, because, as she’d always known, there was no place for her in his life.
She couldn’t do anything for several moments except wrestle with the magnitude of the pain in her chest. As much as it had hurt to think that Simon had ordered Audric to take her off and dump her like an unwanted pet, it hurt far, far worse to realize that he had done it because he was leaving. It was stupid, she knew, to derive comfort from Simon’s nearness when she knew she’d never get to see him again no matter that he was just across the channel. But she had drawn comfort from it.
Even that solace was to be denied her, though.
He was leaving--going back to his world.
Because she knew ‘home’ wasn’t on this one.
It had taken her a little while to piece it all together, mostly because it had seemed just too fantastic to be true, but there was no getting around the facts. No human being had eyes like theirs. That trait wasn’t from any country, or any race on Earth, as hard as she’d tried to convince herself that was all it was, a unique racial trait, or maybe even just a unique family trait.
Beyond that, their native tongue wasn’t spoken anywhere on Earth. She was dirt poor and she always had been. She’d lived and worked among the struggling poor her entire life, and immigrants fell into that category for the most part. She’d met and worked with people from countries all over the world. She knew they weren’t speaking an Earth language, had known it from the first moment she’d heard it, she thought, although she’d struggled for a long time to try to fit it into something familiar.
Even their speech patterns when they spoke English were different, very formal--sounded stilted because they didn’t use slang, or understand a lot of it, and they didn’t contract their words and run them together like everyone else on Earth did. They very carefully enunciated each word.
To say nothing of the terms they used so often.
As far as she knew, there wasn’t a culture left on Earth that still believed in or worshipped more than one god--which they obviously did.
As painful as it was to think Simon had just gotten tired of her, it was far more painful to realize he wasn’t going to be on the same world with her anymore. She knew, even if he had meant to stay, that she’d never see him again, but it had comforted her to think of him being close by. Now, she didn’t even have that.
And Audric was leaving, too.
Lifting her head, she stared at him miserably, realizing how much she’d depended upon Audric to comfort her, to befriend her in times of need--realizing she needed him more desperately now than she ever had--and he was leaving.
“Do not look at me like that,” he said hoarsely. “The gods are my witness, I never meant for you to be hurt, Raina.”
She averted her gaze. Dropping her cheek to his hard shoulder, she fought a round with her tears and finally dragged in a long, shuddering breath, trying to sort through her chaotic emotions.
Simon had sent Audric to take care of her. It hadn’t occurred to her before that there was significance in that fact, that there had to be one. Simon knew that Audric wanted her. They’d come to blows over it more than once, and almost come to blows about it more than that. After they’d made the pact between them, he’d allowed Audric around her, but she knew he hadn’t liked it, hadn’t completely trusted her or Audric.
Why, then, had he sent Audric? She thought Audric would’ve come anyway, or at least have wanted to, but he’d said that Simon had sent him to take care of her.
Was it just because he trusted Audric more than any of the others?
Maybe, but she didn’t think so.
And she had seen ‘that’ look in Audric’s eyes, the hunger he’d worked so hard to hide before.
As tumultuous as her thoughts and emotions were, it was hard to ignore the picture that emerged--that there’d been a reason besides Simon’s trust in Audric, besides his sense of obligation or responsibility or maybe honor that had compelled him to be certain that she was taken care of.
That hurt, too, the thought that Simon had passed her on to Audric, because she wasn’t so sunk in misery that she’d failed to notice Audric had arrived with his dick in his hand and a hopeful look in his eyes.
Maybe, she thought, he was just trying to make it up to Audric by giving him a chance to be with her before they left?
That didn’t make it hurt any less, but she cared about Audric. She’d felt guilty that she’d led him to believe that she would welcome him and then had turned to Simon.
And Simon was gone, had released her from her promise and handed her off to Audric.
And Audric had his own needs and he was still trying to ignore them and comfort her.
Desire was the furthest thing from her mind, but she realized she needed comforting. She was clinging to Audric because she couldn’t bear to be alone, taking advantage of his feelings for her, and it wasn’t fair to him.
It was never right or fair when one person did all the taking and one all the giving.
Who would it hurt, after all, if they gave each other what they needed? Not Simon as much as it hurt her to accept that. He knew how Audric felt about her and he’d sent him away.
Lifting her h
ead from his shoulder, she looked up at Audric again, studying the drawn lines of his handsome face, the faint frown between his eyes. She was never going to see him again. In a few days, he would be gone and she would have no one to run to when she needed a comforting shoulder to cry on, nobody to talk to who never seemed to judge her. Just like Simon, he would disappear forever from her life, and in his way, he was as dear to her as Simon.
Without actually acknowledging that she’d made her decision, she lifted a hand and settled it on his hard cheek. He turned his head to look at her, a mixture of hope, doubt, and uneasiness in his eyes, as if he thought she would only tease him and then push him away again.
Like she had before.
Shame filled her for her uncharitable thought of before--He hadn’t come with his dick in his hand. He’d offered comfort for nothing, just like before. He couldn’t help that he was hopeful for more.
She hadn’t wanted to hurt him either, hadn’t meant to. She’d just been so wrapped up in Simon, she hadn’t spared him a thought--not enough thought. Guilt hardly counted. She deserved the guilt, but it hadn’t done anything for him, hadn’t helped his feelings in any way for her to punish herself with little prickles of shame and remorse that bothered her only when she could spare a few moments from thinking about Simon.
Maybe he wouldn’t even want what she had to offer, but she wanted to offer it. If nothing else, he deserved the chance to blow her off like she had him.
She drifted closer, planting a kiss at one corner of his mouth, and then brushed her lips lightly across his. He tensed, sucked in a shuddering breath and stilled as if he was afraid to move, uncertain if it was an offer or not.
She might as well go for broke, she thought wryly, unnerved by the idea, uncertain herself of whether she was facing rejection.
Slipping from his lap, she held his gaze as she unfastened her jeans and peeled the jeans and panties from her hips. Confusion flickered in his eyes briefly but disappeared quickly. A glazed look formed on his features as she wiggled out of the jeans. His gaze fastened on the patch of curling red hair on her mound as if he’d been transfixed.
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