had looked astonished, then approving. Clearly he hadn’t thought that Aryal and Quentin could take down Galya by themselves.
Not that Dragos’s opinion mattered to him, but still.
“Thanks,” he said, smiling. Both men disconnected without good-byes.
Aryal recovered too, but she didn’t thrive. Her appetite was fitful, and she lost weight. At odd times he caught her looking out the window, up at the sky. Once he woke in the middle of the night. He rolled over to find her already awake, staring bleakly at nothing. She grew jittery, distracted.
He wasn’t having it.
He started to bark at her like a drill sergeant, driving her through the days and nights. Telling her to eat. Snapping when she didn’t pay attention.
On the fourth day, he nagged her into going with him to the gym at the Tower. People stared in wonder, especially at him. Either they were looking at his scars, or they were wondering at his sanity.
Bless them, they were probably doing both. He ignored them.
“Come on, let’s fight,” he said to Aryal. “What will it be—sword, nunchakus or hand to hand?”
She glanced at the training mats and shook her head. “I’m not interested.”
Inside, his heart pounded. Could she really pine away despite all of her promises to the contrary?
“Oh, no you don’t.” He advanced on her. “You will pick something, or I will pick for you.”
She shrugged and a touch of sullenness entered her expression. “So, pick.”
He snagged his ankle behind her foot and elbowed her hard, knocking her flat.
She took her time rolling over to her hands and knees. When he looked in her eyes, a faint anger had begun to spark.
He slammed her down again, hard as he could.
She came up faster.
Doctor said Aryal couldn’t use her wings. Didn’t say a word about anything else. And he discovered he was mad at her for scaring him when she jumped off that cursed bluff, and for not hitting him back. For not eating or sleeping well. For not trying hard enough.
He lunged forward again.
This time she blocked him.
They stood face-to-face, straining against each other.
She glared. “You suck!”
He smiled. “There you are, sunshine,” he purred. “I missed you.”
They fought each other single-mindedly until they were both on the mat. Then she scooted over to put her arms around his neck and hug him fiercely. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll do better.”
He put his face in her neck and held her tight.
When he finally loosened his hold and they went to stand, Graydon and Grym were there to offer them a hand up. The other sentinels wore sober expressions. Behind them, a wide-eyed crowd had gathered to watch the fight. Now that the fireworks were over, people began to drift away.
Graydon pulled Aryal upright and into a tight bear hug. “Good to see you surface,” Graydon said to her. “I almost came over to bang down Quentin’s door.”
“I almost did too,” said Grym, as he gave Quentin a smile as sharp as if he had pulled a sword. Telepathically he said,
Quentin relaxed, and his smile turned real. “I wouldn’t have expected anything else,” he said aloud.
Grym ran his fingers through his black hair, blew out a breath then gradually relaxed.
Whatever Aryal and Graydon said to each other was private too. Afterward, Graydon turned to him and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to see you. I’m glad you guys are home.”
Quentin studied the First’s craggy, good-humored face. Graydon had said it in all sincerity. “It’s good to be home.”
The days continued to trickle by. Alex gave them each a hug and a gift of the top fifty Oscar-winning movies on DVD. Bayne and Constantine brought stacks of pizza and beer one night, and stayed overlong.
Aryal showed Quentin her apartment in the Tower. He took one long look around at the chaotic mess. Then he said, “I think it’s a good thing if we each have our own place for a while, yes?”
She grinned. “Yes.”
After their fight in the gym, she ate better but still had trouble sleeping. When her face started to grow tight and stressed, he made love to her with single-minded passion until they both fell into oblivion.
To work off nerves, they went running, sometimes for hours on end until their bodies poured with sweat, setting two treadmills in the gym on their highest setting. They burned out the motors in two pairs of treadmills. Nobody complained.
One evening, wearing a pair of her jeans and one of his old sweatshirts, she disappeared for a short time. He said nothing when she left his apartment. He’d had a key cut for her, and really, he couldn’t watch her 24/7. He was with the surgeon on that one. She was a big girl. In the end, it was up to her to decide to do the right thing.
He regretted that thought almost immediately and paced furiously, because he had developed all the obsession in the world needed to watch her 24/7, if only she would show up again so that he could get to it.
A key turned in the lock forty minutes later. He spun away from the living room window where he had been staring out blankly.
Aryal walked in. She carried a longish bag and looked settled on some kind of decision.
“Hey, sunshine,” he said. His tone was mild. He was such a goddamn liar.
“Hi.” She shut and bolted the door behind her.
He picked up a novel he was trying to read and thumbed through the pages. “Where’d you go?”
“To a store I know.” She took a deep breath that shuddered a bit, and then it was her turn to pace through the wide-open area. The jitters were back. Her gaze bounced to him and away again. “I haven’t said it yet, and it’s past time. I love you. And I am really grateful for what you’ve been doing over the last several days.” She craned her neck from side to side. He saw, grimly, that her hands were shaking. “I have one more favor to ask.”
“For God’s sake, just spit it out.”
She reached into the bag, drew out a crop and threw it at him. He stared without catching it. It struck his chest and fell with a clatter to the floor. Whatever he had braced himself for, he hadn’t expected this.
He said, “Aryal.”
She had never asked such a thing of him before. This was a game changer.
This was not what they were together. They played at games of dominance and bargained for time with each other, and that was one of the very best things they did together, the strain of the give and the sweetness of the take, all leavened with the spice of uncertainty.
She tore off the sweatshirt. She didn’t wear anything underneath, her racy, streamlined torso bare. “I need you to do this. I feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t do something. I’m like an addict. It’ s—” She looked outside at the sky, her face stark. “It’s my food, water and air. It’s all of that, and we aren’t even paragliding.”
They had talked about trying to paraglide, and had decided against it for the two-week wait. She didn’t trust herself not to shapeshift if she got into the air.
“I get it,” he said, and he did. Her pain crawled in his marrow. The waiting and the uncertainty were a cruel combination. If they only knew one thing or the other, they could take steps to deal with it.
Her face clenched. She kicked off her shoes, tore off her jeans and came to stand in front of him.
“I have to get this feeling out,” she said through her teeth. “Help me get it outside of my body.”
Slowly he picked up the crop and he turned away as he looked down at it. That whip she had inside of her that was so like his—it wouldn’t stop driving at her until she got some relief.
“I love you too,” he said. He turned back around and struck at her, a fast, controlled blow across one thigh.
