He spoke. “Steel that will come to my hand whenever needed.”
“Soul steel,” Azrael pronounced after a considering silence. “It will manifest in response to your need, in the form you desire. It will never fail you. But there is no way I can find to give this gift to you without a price.”
Gregor accepted.
Azrael had sketched a geas between his shoulders. It burned into Gregor like a brand. He did not flinch or cry out as the spell etched itself along his spine, threading into his chest and the base of his skull. The first time he drew felt like pulling a jagged bone from his own body. He knelt, gasping at the sight of the obsidian blade in his hand. His vision blurred.
Lysippe watched, a concerned eye on him, but her words for Azrael. “What good will it do us if it leaves him broken?”
“He will learn to bear the pain.” Azrael’s response tattooed itself on Gregor’s soul. “He must, to survive in this life.” He’d rested a hand on Gregor’s shoulder and crouched to meet his eyes. “This is the sign of our covenant. But I suggest using mortal blades for a while.”
Gregor found Ana’s face in the darkness. “Sometimes I wonder if an inhuman tolerance for pain was Azrael’s true gift. It’s true, the sword never breaks, never dulls. It can be a broadsword or an assassin’s blade, a machete or a rapier with a thought. I learned to anticipate the pain, to master it, and finally to ignore it altogether. It comes in handy.”
She made a small, thoughtful sound.
“Ana,” he said as a memory of the previous day caught up with him. The expression on Ana’s face as she stood between the creature and the elderly women, as if she was searching for something but unable to find it. It wasn’t until much later that he recalled her gift. “What did you see, when you looked at…”
“The giant squid woman-thing?” She shrugged. “Nothing. It’s like that with some grace bloods. What you see is what you get.”
“But you expected to see something else?”
She rolled onto her back, glaring up at the patterned ceiling as if the repeating squares held her answer. Tin, or something that had been made to look like pressed metal, a feature that would not have been out of place in a building around the turn of the century in San Francisco. He looked around the room with a new understanding: the antique bed, the furnishings. She had re-created something, modernized and updated perhaps, but familiar.
She sighed. “After all the talk about Raymond’s past and an old bargain, I expected—”
“Something that had once been human.”
She nodded once, mouth working over unspoken words before sinking into a frown. “Anyway, it’s done. Doesn’t matter.”
Dipping his nose to her small curved ear, he breathed her in. His marks followed the slope of her neck to her collarbones. With each nip she had arched into him, squeezing him so tight he’d shuddered. But she was not immune to pain as he was. He thumbed the livid, bruised flesh, dismayed by how slow the marks healed. He pushed himself onto one elbow to stare into her face, alarm growing.
She stopped the question before he could form the words. “I liked it. It grounds me. Reminds me I’m alive.”
The irony of an immortal life among necromancers was to be surrounded by death but untouched by it. Though not always. In low, halting tones, she spoke of the guardsman who had been her second-in-command, and a rare ally, until a demon had bitten him in half.
“I picked him.” She whispered the confession in the darkness. “I convinced Raymond to make him. I trained him and protected him until he could survive in this world. He went in alone, unprepared for demons. He died screaming.”
She no longer tensed when his mouth drew close to hers. He thrilled a little when their breath mingled and they were nose to nose and she didn’t pull away. She had given him her boundary. Now she trusted him to respect it. Instead, he tasted the dampness at the corner of her eyes and drew her into the curve of his chest.
His index finger rode the long scars left by demons, reveling in the shivered response of her body.
When her fingers played over the scar on his chest, he went so still she raised her head to look into his eyes. The sight of her face, raw with emotion and crowned with a tousled mess of hair, robbed him of his breath for a moment.
The steadiness of her gaze verged on tenderness. “Tell me about your demon.”
Had he thought to reach her without revealing himself? The locks he’d placed on his heart closed one by one and left his mouth dry and silent.
“Not a demon,” he said at last.
She frowned. “Nothing else marks a guard.”
That wasn’t true. He knew she would press. He would have.
Before she could, he rolled her on top of him and filled his palms with her breasts, pinched the pebbled nibbles between his fingertips until her gaze grew soft with want. A wicked smile curved her mouth, but it did not meet her eyes. She knew. Of course she knew.
And yet she let him distract her with this, rolling her head back and sliding her eyes shut with a long sigh as their bodies joined again.
They lost themselves and the conversation. Afterward she fell asleep on top of him. He held her for a long time, listening to her breath and feeling the beat of her heart against his own. It served as a reminder—this could not be a love story. That’s not who they were. He drifted into unconsciousness. It was the deepest sleep he’d had in years.
He woke alone.
The steady gray overcast lit the city in a dull, even light. It was impossible to make out the time of day. He contemplated the passage of time. Had they lost an entire day? It felt like a dream now, the scraps fading as he opened his eyes, alone in bed. Except this was her bed her scent was all over him. His hands, his mouth, his body.
His fingers traced the outline of her place in the rumpled sheets beside him. He rested for a moment, pondering the strange, hollow sensation in his chest at her absence.
“It’s too late for that now,” he chastised himself, dragging himself out of bed and heading for his own suite. “You had your chance.”
The house was empty. He emerged from a shower cleaned and shaved, a fresh towel around his hips. His bed, unused, served to remind him of the future he’d made for himself.
His phone screen flashed—a message from Azrael. He booted up his laptop, leaving it on the dresser. While he waited until he had a secure connection, he laid out a suit for the day. He plucked a cobalt tie from his dwindling selection. It was a good thing their assignment had been completed.
His fingers stilled on the silk. The creature, whatever it had been, was at the bottom of the sound. Azrael’s debt had been repaid. He had more than enough information about Raymond’s territory to satisfy both Azrael and Ito. Raymond might request a postmortem, but more than likely Ana could deliver it alone. He wasn’t needed here any longer. He could be on a flight to Prague in a few hours. His time in Ana’s bed came into stark relief. It had been a goodbye.
His hand clenched the silk. He snarled, tossing the tie back into the bag. He was a fool. The biggest kind. She had gotten what she needed. She was done with him.
He slid a black tie with subtle crimson pinstripes around his collar. The laptop chimed, alerting him to an open connection.
“Master.”
Azrael’s face appeared on the screen. “Good morning to you too.”
He was at the estate. Gregor recognized the new kitchen from having the dubious pleasure of overseeing its reconstruction and ensuring the placement of the consort’s belongings. Feminine laughter and an eager yipping filled the background. The dog. How had he forgotten? The latest sign of Azrael’s madness. A cautionary tale about what happened when you stopped thinking like an immortal and started being more like them. Human.
Dogs. Foot massages while reading the Sunday paper. A whole day in bed, fucking like rabbits. How did anyone in love get anything done?
Love.
“It’s not morning there,” Gregor snapped.
“But it is t
here.”
Gregor grunted, trying to make sense of the lost time. At some point they’d drifted to the kitchen for more food. Once. Twice? He’d lost track. Take-out boxes and a bottle of wine next to the bed.
“Is there something you needed, master,” Gregor said, shrugging his weapons harness over the dress shirt.
Even after a shower, a shave, and fresh clothes, she lingered on his skin. She had gotten to him. He had laughed away the darkness with her. He touched her scars and listened to the way her voice cracked as she remembered losses. He curled his body around her as she slept, as if to protect her. As if they meant something to one another.
Azrael sat back, wary. “Isela spoke to Nix about your seafood problem—he seemed surprised that you were successful.”
“And the necromancer?”
Azrael frowned, shaking his head. “Barnabas emigrated before the godswar. I’ve got nothing of use. But I don’t like this at all.”
At the click of the knob, Gregor turned. The door opened.
“The best waffles in Seattle, but they don’t deliver.” Ana backed in, carrying a greasy paper bag and a beverage tray with two cups of coffee.
She looked fresh out of bed after a night of wild sex.
The strap of an oversized tank top slipped off her shoulder, revealing a lacy hot-pink bra beneath. Her hair had been hastily swept on top of her head, short strands floating loose around her small, love-bitten ears and neck. A pair of sweatpants made from the kind of material that should have been shapeless clung to the curve of her hips and tapered at the ankles.
His chest throbbed at the sight of her.
“I can’t compete with your skills in the kitchen.” Ana huffed, turning as she balanced the load. “But I thought if it was breakfast in bed you’d overlook my failure to—”
She looked up, taking in the open laptop and Gregor on opposite sides of the room. Her eyes darted to the face on the monitor. For a second she froze with the sheer desperation of a cornered animal. Her deep flush met the cups of the flimsy little bra. Ana dropped the coffee on the nightstand table, and her eyes darted back to Gregor.
Then the meticulously constructed mask returned. He saw it for what it was now, the effort, and how little it suited her. Composed, she bowed stiffly. “Lord Azrael.”
“Forgive me for interrupting.” Azrael coughed.
Gregor blocked Azrael’s view with his body, snarling. “We’re done.”
He realized he’d been misunderstood when she drew up sharply. The flush went from a beguiling rose to deep red, and her mouth settled into an angry line. If she’d been armed, she would have run him through. But for the first time since they’d set out, her swords were nowhere in sight. She’d let her guard down.
“Please excuse me,” she said with a glance around him at the screen.
She spun on her heel and stalked out of the room.
Gregor’s fists bunched at his sides. “Ana, wait—”
The image on the laptop swung so quickly it blurred. Isela’s face appeared, her eyes wide. “Go after her, you idiot.”
Gregor slammed the laptop closed, cutting off Azrael’s entreaty to call him back. He’d broken through Ana’s network security. It was a violation, to be sure. But more worrying was the vulnerability in her eyes, the embarrassment. He had done with intimacy what he could not have with a sword: disarmed her. And then exposed her.
By the time he reached Ana’s room, the door blocked him. He took a deep breath and knocked. No answer. He tried the handle. Locked. For a moment he considered breaking the thing down.
He splayed his palm on the door instead. “I must speak with you.”
In twelve hours or less he would be on a plane bound for Prague. This was not a love story. The pragmatic thing to do would be to take the opportunity to walk away.
She came back. She hadn’t left him alone in bed with the intention of not returning. She’d come home with breakfast and coffee and the intention to climb back into bed and enjoy both, with him. The little huff of her voice in her explanation betrayed her impatience, eagerness. She was vulnerable and deadly and sexy with her messy hair and incongruously delicate underwear. The shower turned on and he swore, even as his cock jumped again at the thought of her under the cascade of water. No matter how much he tried to release the sensation of connection to her, he could not fully sever it.
“Ana,” he tried again, an edge of desperation sitting tight in his throat. “Please.”
Silence.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ana strained to catch the last of Gregor’s footsteps retreating down the hall and released the breath she’d held. The shower ran on, pillows of steam drifting out into the bedroom. She tore off a bite of a cooling waffle between her teeth and attacked the sex-soaked bedding with the ferocity reserved for a horde of undead.
She’d ask the decorating service to order everything new. Even the bed would have to go. She had needed something more in keeping with the rest of the apartment for years. This room had always been a silly notion, out of step with everything she’d become since she left her mortal life behind.
She swept the empty boxes of takeout into the delivery bag with the bottle of wine, closed the book he’d plucked from the pile to read until she’d tempted him back to more mutually rewarding activities. How could she have been so stupid?
She eyed her daishō hung in their places of honor. When she’d left them there before joining him for breakfast, the flutter of anxiety in her belly had begun almost instantly. Then she’d laid eyes on him, and the glacial blue gazed back at her with naked desire driving every restless worry beyond the edge of her consciousness. Stupid.
When she woke up to him sleeping like a corpse beside her, his lax face woke a fierce tenderness in her chest. They had done nothing but eat, sleep, and fuck on repeat for a span of time stretching impossibly long in her memory, and still she had not had her fill of him. His long-limbed body molded itself to her so well.
So what, he wouldn’t explain a scar to her? He had not pressed, or even asked once, why she wouldn’t kiss him. He accepted it, and her, anyway. They had lived many lives in their time, not all made for amusing anecdotes. Some memories filled up vast portions of their chests with ache. There were stories it would take her time to reveal.
One day she might kiss him, and one day he might tell her the story of the only scar that marked him.
This was not a love story. But it might be more than just swords and sex.
Her network should have notified her of a breach and traced the receiver with an alert. He must have been able to encrypt his call out, to fool the system. Another time she might have admired the ingenuity of his setup. But in addition to compromising her security, the object of his conversation was another necromancer.
Respect and formality formed the pillars of her relationship with Raymond. Respect for the power the necromancer possessed. Formality to preserve the distance between them. It gave it clear perimeters and limits. It had kept peace between them for centuries.
One did not appear before a necromancer unarmed, in one’s underwear, and bearing takeout. Gregor had compromised her. She’d appeared weak, vulnerable, used before the most powerful necromancer of the Allegiance. A cold thought gripped her—what better way to display his ability to undermine Raymond’s Aegis.
Gregor’s dismissal, curt and merciless, convinced her. His words had not come shrouded by the misty haze of a lie as her gift would have detected. Whatever had passed between them was over and she meant nothing. She needed to hate him. She would once she got over feeling as though someone had thrust a dull blade between her ribs.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. She stripped off her tank top. Might as well take advantage of the running water.
She would put him on the next plane to Prague. Auger’s latest report said Rathki had given them a long list of places to look for Barnabas. She could afford a few more days in Seattle. She would not be licking her wounds.
Her phone buz
zed. She snapped, “Gozen.”
“Auntie, you’re not going to believe it,” Jamie said. “You know the thing you killed two nights ago?”
Ana’s brain stumbled. Two nights. Had she lost track of twenty-four hours? No wonder every time they came up for food they had been starving.
“Auntie?”
“Go on.”
“I was going to dump the tracking data,” he said, “but I turned on the receiver one more time. I just had a feeling.”
The hair rose on the back of her neck. “It’s not dead, is it?”
“It hung around for twelve hours, then it started moving down the coast.”
“Send me the tracking link,” Ana ordered.
She disconnected the call and autodialed a new one, flinging open the bedroom door. Her jaw opened.
Gregor stood on the other side, looking like a thundercloud interrupted in unleashing its storm. “Ana Gozen, you don’t get to brush me off that easily.”
The flare of lightning in his eyes made her aware of the fact that she wore thin sweatpants and a bra. His hand flexed on the doorframe. The wood creaked with pressure.
She wanted to throttle him. Or wrap her legs around his neck and ride his face to the floor.
Where had that come from? She listened to the unanswered ringing with one ear. “Like you just did? ‘We are done.’”
She must have done a passable impersonation of his sexy, lightly accented voice because his lips twitched.
“I was talking to Azrael,” he said. “Since he took up with the dancer, he’s been a meddlesome old man.”
She hesitated. She would have seen a lie if he had spoken it. Maybe she had misinterpreted the delivery and the dismissal was a truth not aimed at her. He had blocked the camera with admirable speed.
She ignored the release of pressure in her chest and waved the ringing phone at him. “We have bigger problems.”
Raymond wasn’t answering. She spun out of the doorway and hurtled the phone into the wreckage of the bed.
The Talon & the Blade Page 20