I reached a hand down and pulled clawed fingertips up the inside of his thigh. “Nothing?” I asked again, from the vicinity of his waistband. I raked my hand up the inside of his other thigh, and then seated it between his legs, rubbing what I found there.
“Some places were burned less than others,” Ti admitted, arching his back slightly.
“Ooooohhh,” I said. “I love a challenge.”
My doorbell rang, twice in quick succession. I thumped my head down onto the still-closed button of Ti’s jeans. “You are kidding me.” I shook my head, and began unfastening the buttons as the door rang again.
“You’re not going to get that?” Ti asked, sitting up, pushing me back.
“No.”
“It might be important.”
“This is important,” I said, making an expansive gesture.
“This,” Ti said, making my gesture back at me with a rueful grin, “isn’t going anywhere. So go get your door.”
I got my legs underneath myself. “Fine. But if it’s my brother, I reserve the right to kill him.” The doorbell rang again. “Just a minute!” I yelled, then looked back at Ti. “You, stay here. I will be right back. Stay put.”
He grinned. “I wouldn’t want to end up like the dragon.”
“Precisely.” I made a face at him and ran into my bathroom to pull on my robe. Then I went back out to my entryway and looked out through the peephole. Maybe I was lucky and it was a misdelivered pizza.
Just outside, pacing in a circle, I saw Asher.
“We don’t want any,” I said, through my closed door.
“Edie, open up,” Asher commanded.
“Why?”
“We need to talk.” He rapped once on the door, in frustration. “Open up already.”
“Dammit to hell.” I opened up the door, and he immediately shoved his foot in so I couldn’t close it. “I was sleeping, Asher. I work night shift. What’s this—”
“I went to Y4 this morning, and saw my relative there.”
“So?” I said, trying to close my door, regardless of his foot.
“Stop that,” he said, putting an arm out against the door.
I gave up on closing him out and let the door swing wide. “You could have texted me, or written a letter, or, I don’t know,
“I talked to the social worker about our patient. And he told me about your situation,” Asher said, his British accent clipped by anger. “Everything.”
“Hypothetically, right?” I sardonically joked. My eyes met his for a moment and saw his features there burble and switch. It could have been my imagination, or a shadow, or who knows, indigestion—but I recognized the final face and the emotion it portrayed was earnest.
“Edie, the shapeshifter you saw was my friend. He was spying on the Zver, passing for one of their daytimers. When they caught him they passed him around like a toy until they broke his mind. They’ll do even worse to you.” He stepped back and held out his hand. “I can save you if you come with me, Edie. But you have to come now.”
I was barefoot and my robe offered no protection against the cold. It’d been freezing and then some last night, and the sun wasn’t winning any fights this afternoon.
“I can’t—”
“We have safe houses all over the country. Only a few such facilities like Y4 exist—in rural areas, we take care of our own. I can transport you away from here, set things in motion. After that, you never even have to see me again, if you don’t want to.” His empty hand traveled up to cup my cheek. “Though I’ll admit that that thought makes me the slightest bit sad.”
“Edie?” Ti said from behind me. Asher’s hand dropped like a stone.
I tried to think. Could I work for shapeshifters? Going from place to place, on the lam? I didn’t ever want to be a psych nurse—hell no—but I could do it if I had to. But there was Jake. And now Ti—
“Edie?” Ti asked again, nearer now. He crowded the doorway behind me, and reached a hand through for Asher to shake. “I’m Ti.”
“No, thank you,” Asher said, regarding Ti’s hand with disgust. And then anger lit. “Are you the one that hit her?” he asked, taking a step forward. Ti came another step forward from behind me at this affront.
“No!” I answered for him. “Both of you—no—just let me think, okay?”
I twisted away, unwilling to go far on bare feet, but I needed some space. I looked down the shared wall of the apartment complex, past the parking lot, to the cars driving by in the street. If only I could hitch a thumb out there and leave everything behind. But—leaving was only an option that I’d have considered taking a few days ago. Now, with Jake on the cusp of being normal, and Ti helping me—I stared out, ignoring how the cold made my feet burn, trying to imagine a future where everything might be okay. I’d almost managed it when I saw them there, outside my window. Footprints in the snow. Not mine, not Anna’s, but huge talon-tipped birdlike prints, edges frozen, sharp. The Hound’s. It’d found me. How old were those tracks? One night, two? I swallowed.
Who was I kidding, thinking I could escape? No running or hiding would save me. There would be no safe place. Ever.
“I can’t.” I turned back toward Asher. “There’s no way I can leave. I have too many obligations.”
Asher leaned in to look me directly in the eyes. “Edie, they’re going to kill you. Vampire trials are always a sham.”
“We have a plan—” Ti began.
“What, zombie, did they promise you her corpse?” Asher sniped. Ti took another step forward.
“Asher!” I raised my hands up. “I’ve made up my mind.”
“But I can promise you safety!” Asher protested. I bit my lip, and my tongue found the cut that a shapeshifter had caused.
“No.” Ti pulled back, and I stepped into my apartment again.
Asher shook his head. “Edie, the next time you see me, it will be as if we do not know one another.”
“I’m sorry, Asher. Thank you, but no.”
He stared at me one last time, as if trying to think of something else to say, then walked off.
Ti waited for me in my apartment’s short hallway. I reached for him and his arms encircled me, holding me tight. He was warmer than I was, and that was saying something. We were silent for a long while together, my face nestled against his chest.
“You put your shirt back on,” I complained.
“Not everyone is as understanding as you about scars.”
I nodded into him. Had I done the right thing? It felt right, but—Ti squeezed me. “A life running away is no life at all.”
“You’re not telepathic, are you?” I pulled back to look up at him.
“No.” He reached up and caught my chin, and I fully expected another kiss.
“You’re bleeding,” he said instead.
I ran my tongue against the inside of my lip. “Yeah. Again.”
Ti ran his thumb along my lower lip, and then tasted his thumb, before picking me up and carrying me to my bed.
Chapter Forty-Two
Round two was more like making love.
I don’t think I’d ever really made love before. It was awkward and sweet, with an awful lot of eye contact, and everything felt much more meaningful than it ought to have. I wondered if this was the clarity that some people get in the hospital when they know they’re about to die, when the spirit world and the real world overlap. They got visitors from the past and information about their upcoming strange new future. For those people, sunrises were
