Bitten to Death

I slipped my hand behind his neck. “I thought . . .” I stopped. Gawd. This is about to be one of those moments. I backed away. And then, Aw, screw it. “Don’t ever do that to me again, you hear me?” I swung my leg over both of his, wrapped my good arm around his neck, and gave his luscious lips the attention they’d been begging for from the moment I’d laid eyes on them.

When I finally pulled back Vayl said, “We really must do this more often.” He looked over my head. “But perhaps without the audience?”

“Agreed. And, uh, about the son thing?” I flipped his collar up and down until he captured my hand in his. “Sorry. Maybe I’ve developed a new nervous habit. Anyway”—I squeezed his fingers, hoping it would comfort him a little—“we’re pretty sure they’re not. According to Cassandra, Erilynn couldn’t have seen either one of them. And they both seem to have been manipulated to that place by Disa. I doubt she has any contacts in the Agency or the military, so she was probably just pushing her Trust’s weight around, which she seemed to be better at than any of us gave her credit for. We underestimated her, Vayl.”

He went absolutely still, his face draining of expression. I suddenly felt like I was cuddling with one of those statues you occasionally see perched on park benches. After a moment he moved, but the only sign of disappointment was the slight drop of his chin, the downturn of his lips. “I must stand,” he said.

“Of course.” Trayton’s hand was the one that reached out to lift me off his lap, that continued to hold mine when Vayl rose without looking at or touching me, as much in his own world as the lover in that god-awful poem Eryx liked so much. He stood in his tattered clothes, soaked as a bad surfer, his deep purple eyes taking turns studying Cole and Cam.

Trayton leaned in. “Look at me.”

I turned my head, couldn’t help but smile a bit as I found myself searching for his gleaming eyes between strands of fine black hair. “What is it?” I asked.

“He’s not going to be an easy one to love,” Trayton said, with a sideways nod at my boss.

“How can you tell?”

“Because I have a complicated partner myself.” He winked at Phoebe, who seemed poised to tear my hair from its roots the moment Krios gave her permission to ditch her post.

Would you chill? I mouthed to her. She looked pointedly at my hand, still entwined with Trayton’s. I pulled it free on the pretext of settling Cirilai more firmly on my finger.

Vayl moved closer to me. “What is happening?” he asked, nodding to Aine, who still struggled inside the mask.

I explained as Jack shoved his nose into my thigh, looking for his share of affection. Since he was sitting on my left between Vayl and me, my sverhamin helped us both out, crouching down to give the dog a thorough petting.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I finished the story. “I knew it wasn’t what you wanted. But I couldn’t think of any other way to save your life.”

When Vayl looked up I felt his power reach out to me as never before. And though he didn’t move to touch me, the soft breeze of it caressed me like a cool winter wind. I nearly closed my eyes, the sensation overtook me so completely. But I couldn’t relax. Because our work wasn’t finished yet.

We were reminded of this when Aine finally stopped moaning, fighting, scrabbling at the mask and stood perfectly still. Blood sprang from the corners of the mask’s eyes, ran down its face, and caught in the furrows that Vayl had thought the carver meant as whiskers. It spread outward to the edges of the mask and farther, taking new routes no artist had drawn for it, until lines of red covered it from top to bottom. The mask shivered. Cracked. And fell into pieces at Aine’s feet.

Collective gasp as every single creature in the room, human and other, discovered that the mask had given Aine a new face. She might have been Disa’s cousin. The eyes were Octavia’s. Maybe the heart and spine belonged, at least partially, to Hamon’s former mate as well. But the rest of the face had definitely been Disa’s.

Aine stepped forward. The voice I didn’t recognize. Maybe it was hers, given wings now that she had a mouth and a nose to do the work her keyboard had taken over after her injury. “Words of thanks are so inadequate. We are forever in your debt.” She wasn’t being queenly. When she said we, she motioned to everyone in the Trust. I wasn’t sure Genti and his bunch would agree with her, but I was willing to rise above if they could keep their mouths shut.

“Honestly, Aine, this is the best possible scenario for us. Eryx only gave me one other option to Disa’s death, and though we were following it, I knew it was going to make Vayl utterly miserable.”

“When did you see Hamon?” asked Dave.

“I was having visions of him,” I said. “Every time I came across a big puddle of blood, there he’d be.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“It didn’t really seem like something a sane person would be experiencing. So . . .”

Aine said, “He came to me inside the mask as well.”

“And now?” I asked. “Is he . . . gone?”

She nodded. “He and Octavia both. And the mask”—she looked back at it, now lying in pieces on the floor—“it is shorn of its powers. We will have to find a new way of governing in this Trust.”

Aine was looking at Vayl now, and I could see the invitation in her eyes. He must have too, because he began shaking his head before she could get the words out. “My place is in America with my avhar. But first”—he looked at Cole and Cam—“yes. Perhaps a trip to my homeland. I believe it is finally time to tie up some very old loose ends. And then I will be able to search for my sons with a new heart.” His eyes came to mine. “One that has made room for all kinds of love.”

Vayl said more. And Cole made some comment, an angry one I thought, since his hair waggled and spit flew, but my mind began roaring as soon as I heard the word “love” spoken in that possessive tone of voice Vayl only gets when he’s talking about what matters to him most. Usually he reserved it for conversations involving his boys.