“It’s nothing. Forget it.” I tugged the shirt back up over my skin, hiding my wounds, hiding my pain. But Zayvion stood, walked around the table, and knelt in front of me.
“May I see it closer? Please?”
My heart was beating too fast. I didn’t know why, but I felt like crying. Okay, it was probably because I’d had a shitty day. Or maybe it was because I felt like I’d been touched, violated in ways I didn’t understand and couldn’t guard against. I wasn’t even sure I should trust Zayvion, if I should trust in the intimacy he assumed was between us.
“I might be able to ease the pain,” he said gently. “Does it still hurt?”
I nodded.
And he just waited. Didn’t touch me, didn’t push, didn’t ask again. He just knelt there on my carpet, in the pose a man would take to offer a diamond ring and the rest of his life. Except Zayvion wasn’t asking me for forever. He was asking me to trust him. Just for now.
Sweet hells.
I unbuttoned the top button again and pushed the material aside to reveal my shoulder. I gave him a level gaze.
Zayvion leaned in a little closer and studied the marks without touching them. “Some of these marks look older than others. Have you been touched by them more than once?”
“Once outside the coffee shop. Once in the parking garage with Stotts, and once on the street. In that order.”
“So you’ve seen them three times today?”
“Four. With you.”
Zayvion nodded, very Zen, although I could still smell the fear on him. “Did you put anything on the wounds?”
“Nothing but soap, water, and Bactine, Doctor.” Zayvion glanced up, smiled. “Okay. That’s good. I can ease the pain some too. Help speed the healing a little. Is that okay with you?”
“How?”
“I’ll need to touch one of the marks. I can soothe them with… magic.”
“Nice hesitation there,” I noted.
He took a deep breath. “It probably isn’t the kind of magic you were taught in school.”
“Does it involve chanting?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“You don’t like my chanting?”
“I don’t
“Hmm. So am I known or unknown?” he asked.
I held his gaze and remembered the black flames and silver glyphs that covered his body. There was more to Mr. Jones than met the eye. “Unknown. Especially when you are mixed with magic.”
He smiled, and heat of a very pleasant sort stirred deep in my belly. “Fair enough,” he said. “Maybe we can do something about that. Get to know one another better.”
“Maybe we can.”
This close, it would be easy to touch him, to kiss him. And even though I didn’t remember us, my body responded to him like fire to oxygen. Zayvion could stir emotions in me with a soft word, a sideways glance. Sweet loves, he did such things to me.
“May I?” he asked.
I blinked, trying to remember what we were talking about. Oh, yes. The burns.
“Touch one of the marks?” I asked to make sure.
A smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “Yes.” “Will it make any difference? They’ll heal on their own, right?”
He leaned back and tipped his head to the side. “They should. But if you continue to use magic, it could take a very long time for that to happen.”
“Why? They’re just burns.”
He stared at me, waiting.
“Okay, fine,” I conceded. “They’re not just burns. They’re dead-magic-user-ghost-finger-burn things.”
“Death magic,” Zayvion said, “is nothing to mess with. If you don’t want me touching you, I could call a doctor I know-”
“No,” I said a little too quickly. The idea of a doctor creeped me out right now. “It’s fine. You can do it.”
He leaned forward again and placed the fingertips of his right hand next to the marks on my shoulder. Whisper soft, he traced a glyph against my skin. Mint flowed out from his finger, warming in small circular motions as he retraced the glyph again, guiding the mint and magic to spread a pleasant heat up my neck, across my skull, and then down my other shoulder.
Oh. Nice.
“Mmmm,” I said.
Mint flowed deeper, trickling and then pouring down my body, my bones, my blood, soothing, stroking the pain away, leaving warm waves of pleasure behind. The fevered ache inside me eased. The catch in my heartbeat eased. The tight sunburn sting of my skin eased. Even though he touched me with only one finger, it felt like his hands were everywhere, drawing gently across my skin, touching me, holding me. Making me clean, whole, and myself again.
Finally he drew his hand away. “Better?” he asked.
“Please don’t stop.” It came out smaller than I wanted it to. “Don’t go. Yet.” I put my hand on his left arm, keeping him from going away.
Instead of pulling away farther, Zayvion gathered me into his arms and held me. His palm softly rubbed the center of my back and I breathed in the pine of his cologne, the sharp male bite of his sweat.
I put my arms around him and relaxed into him. Touch, human touch, felt so good. It had been a long time since anyone had touched me like this.
“What aren’t you telling me, Allie?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“My dad’s dead.”
Okay, that was a stupid way to start, but my brain was losing ground to the emotions I’d kept in check all day. Zayvion nodded, the stubble from his jaw rubbing against my cheek.
“I’ve seen him,” I said. “In my bathroom when the electricity went out. Out on the street with you, and then after I Hounded. My dad was there. But he didn’t look like the Veiled. He looked like himself but transparent. He spoke to me.”
“Do you remember what he said?”
“That I always forget to set Disbursements, and ‘the gates, seek the dead,’ or something like that. Do you think he meant the gates between life and death? In theory?”
Zayvion stiffened and then relaxed again, like a string being plucked. He pulled back just enough so I could look into his eyes. Gold eyes burning tiger bright.
“Did he say anything else?”
“No?”
“Did he do anything else?”
The memory of his hand sinking into my chest and squeezing, flickered behind my eyes.
“He touched me.”
“Did it burn like the Veiled?”
“No. But it hurt.”
The line of his lips tightened. He did not look away from me. “I’d like it very much if I could stay here tonight.”
“Why?”
“If your father comes back… comes to see you… I might be able to communicate with him.”
