another deep inhalation on his cigarette. I hadn’t even known he smoked. “I’m not
“I thought you were sleeping,” I said, alarmed because Hunter never, ever drank. I’d never learned the reason behind that, but the fact he’d abandoned one of his most stringent personal mores had me biting my lip in worry.
“Sleep?” His head rolled forward on his neck. “Nooo…”
I gingerly tipped up his chin, and saw it wasn’t just drink that kept him from focusing on my face. His eyes looked burned out, like they couldn’t bear letting in another appalling sight, and his breathing was shallow…and reluctant. That’s why I hadn’t sensed him there. He was almost devoid of anything that passed for human life.
“You’re very drunk.”
“You’re very right.”
“C’mon, Hunter,” I said, taking his hands. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“Absolutely. Bed is where I need to be.” He let me shift him to his feet, but his acquiescence was more surrender than agreement. We maneuvered down the hallways, his cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth, the smoke making my eyes sting. Though he was moving his feet, I got the feeling he didn’t care whether he came or went, stayed or left, lived or died. Bone-deep didn’t even begin to describe his fatigue.
“This is it, right?” I asked, steering him to a nondescript door off the top of the Z-shaped barracks.
“Home sweet home,” he agreed, and blew the air out of his nose while dropping his face against the wall. It was as close as I’d ever heard Hunter come to a giggle. He fumbled to get his hand aligned with the palm plate, and nearly fell inward when the door swung open. We stumbled in, and I jumped as a clap of thunder split the room in two and rain began to hammer on the window opposite the door.
A holograph, I thought, sighing. We had the option of programming three-dimensional images onto the walls in our rooms-a green meadow, a streetscape, anything to further personalize our space-but I hadn’t activated the feature in my room, forgetting it even existed until now. A holograph of a soft summer shower might be relaxing, one with light from a far-off street lamp playing over slowly streaking walls, and headlights from cars ferrying souls unlucky enough not to be tucked snugly in bed adding to the comfort and security of being nestled inside.
But this wasn’t womblike and warm. This assaulted the senses, an angry attack from the heavens that ripped through the bruised sky to punish the pane.
“God, no wonder you needed to get out of here. This is…”
“Atmospheric,” he finished, opening his arms wide to throw himself off balance again. I let him stumble since he was headed toward the bed, but he righted himself again in an exaggerated sway and offered me an equally overstated grin. I smiled back weakly. Seeing a heroic man this drunk was like seeing a rhino tottering about after receiving a tranquilizer dart. You really didn’t want to be near it when it fell.
“I was going to say depressing.”
“What? You don’t like rain?” He maneuvered over to the wall, touched the faux window, and came away with wet fingers. A water wall too, I realized, as he rubbed his smooth fingertips together. “I love rain,” he whispered. “It makes me feel small. It feels like baptism.”
The note of loss in his voice bored a hole straight through my chest, and another sharp bolt of light cracked through the room, lighting the hollows under his eyes. I felt the air escape me as his shoulders slumped, and crossed the room quickly, putting my arm around him again, this time in comfort rather than support. He turned into me, and heat leached from my body into his and back again. I imagined it driving the cold spots from the crevices of his heart, held him for a long minute, then squeezed him hard before pulling away.
He pulled me close again.
“Hunter,” I said, my voice muffled against his chest. God, but his skin smelled good, even with the alcohol and sorrow permeating his pores. Still. “Let go of me.”
He released me enough to stare down at me, eyes so dark his golden skin appeared whitewashed in contrast. “I’m sorry, Olivia, but you’re being a tightass, and this is for your own good.”
And he kissed me. And that’s when I realized that whenever he did so, I thought of violence. Sure, it was tempered with warmth and the softness of his full lips, but there was a firmness in his embrace, a determination to infiltrate, overpower, and conquer that made some primal need in me rear up to do the same.
My hands were on him before I could stop them. We over-balanced-he was drunk and had an excuse; I simply had a sudden and blinding need to taste and feel more-and we crashed against that wall of water, the pane shaking beneath our combined body weight. He could match my strength, so I wasn’t gentle, concentrating solely on my hunger as lightning scorched the sky behind him. In the brief illumination I saw water sluicing over the sides of his silhouette, plastering his hair to his skull, his T-shirt to his back, molding his jeans to his ass. I lowered my hands, pulled in close, and he dropped his head back on a rich, musical moan. A single trail of water coursed over his left cheek, and I caught it at his neckline, stroked upward with my tongue, found his ear, pressed closer.
His hands were on my waist then, beneath my shirt, printless fingertips gliding along my sides. They dipped to the small of my back, met there, and I quivered as they lowered, cupping me from behind. He was towering over me now, head bent, his lips so close to mine, I scented his breath on mine.
“Joanna…”
My name, whispered, brought me to my senses. It wasn’t supposed to be paired with his. Not in my dreams, or in my life, not even surrounded by a punishing rainstorm bested only by his heart against my own. It was supposed to be Joanna and Ben. The way it’d always been. The way it always would be.
So what the hell was I doing? This wasn’t a flirtation, or a game, or fun. This was a wild bid to escape whatever had buried itself in his mind. I pulled away despite a desire to curl up into his core, knowing there was no epiphany to be found in his arms. Or mine.
“How altruistic of you,” I managed, when I got my breath back. I licked the taste of him from my lips and met his gaze. “Now let me go.”
His mouth quirked, like I’d told a joke, but he let his arms drop. I felt unbalanced; free, but fettered at the same time. Hunter seemed to know it. Letting out a deep sigh, I shook my head and headed to the door. His voice stopped me halfway across the room.
“Jo.”
I turned back warily. As the only member of the troop outside of Warren and Micah who knew my true name, he also knew not to use it. But he used it again now that we were alone, tongue silky over the single word. “Jo. You think I don’t know how you want me? That I can’t see what’s going on inside you? Or feel it?”
I gave my head a short jerk. “I know you know.”
“Because you know me too. Because when you gave me the aureole we became joined.” He took a step forward, steadier now. “You’ve already let me inside of you.”
I swallowed hard. “Not on purpose.”
Another step. “You don’t have to be alone.”
I looked over his shoulder to the wall of glass and falling rain. What he meant was
“Hunter, I-”
“Need an ally,” he interrupted, as sober as he could manage. “Someone who knows your secrets and has seen into your Shadow side…and still stands by you. Warren won’t, you know. You don’t want him to know about your daughter-”
“
“The child who carries your lineage in her blood, then,” he said sharply, and that somehow sounded worse. Maybe because it was the truth, and someday soon I was going to have to face it…and do something about it. I dropped my head, saying nothing, and a moment later the warmth of his palm glided up my arm, sending chill bumps along my side, while he rested his hand on my shoulder. His weight against me was solid and reassuring. “Warren can sense you’re not telling him everything. He’s waiting for you to make even one false step. If anything reminds him remotely of the Shadows he’ll name you a rogue, just like his father.”
