“Beautiful,” he added. “You saw that yourself from Sasha’s drawing. But that wasn’t the image of her I’ve been carrying with me all this time. That one was of age and illness, of a woman ready to move on. I don’t know if it’s good or not to have the image replace that of her young and vibrant and beautiful. Does it matter at all?”
She leaned against him a little, a kind of comfort. Without thinking, he laid a hand on her head. And she let him.
“I believe there’s an after. With all I’ve seen there’s no choice but to believe it. And that’s a hell for me knowing I can’t reach it. But it’s helpful to know they have. Or sometimes it’s helpful. It’s easier not to think of it at all. But today . . .”
He broke off a moment, took a breath. “You see there, how Annika laid the flowers and the stones on every grave here. On my mother’s she put them down in the shape of a heart. Christ but Sawyer’s a lucky man. He’ll have a lifetime of sweetness. So Annika came out and gave them this respect, this sweetness, this remembrance. How could I not come and stand here, even knowing they’re not here?”
He looked down, stared at his own hand a moment, then quickly lifted it off her head, stuck it in his pocket. “We need sleep. I’m going to work your asses off come morning.” At her snort he gave her a thin smile. “I’ll take that as a challenge.”
He turned with her, walked back to the house and inside, switching off the kitchen light as they walked through.
Up the back steps, he as quiet as the wolf.
She veered off to her room, gave him one last look before nudging the door closed.
He walked to his own, wondering why he’d said so much, why he’d felt compelled to say so much. And why now he felt lighter of heart for having done so.
In his room he opened his doors to the night, lit the fire more for the pleasure of having one than for warmth. As a matter of habit, he propped his sword beside the bed, within reach, with his crossbow and a quiver of bolts beside it.
He expected no trouble that night, but believed, absolutely, in always being prepared for the unexpected.
He stripped down, switched off the lights. By moon and firelight he lay in bed, let his thoughts circle for a moment. But since they circled to the wolf, and the woman inside it, he shut them off as routinely as he had the lights. With a soldier’s skill, he willed himself to sleep.
He often dreamed. Sometimes his dreams took him back to childhood, sometimes back to wars, sometimes more pleasantly back to women. But the dreams that chased through sleep flashed and burned. The witch’s lair, his brother’s blood, the shocking pain of the curse hurled at him that for one agonizing moment had seemed to boil him from the inside out.
Battlefields littered with the dead, more than a few by his own hand. The stench of war, so much the same whatever the century, the weaponry, the field. That was blood, death, fear.
The first woman he’d allowed himself to love, a little, dying in his arms, and the child she’d died for stillborn. The second woman he’d risked, a century later, growing old and bitter with it.
Dying, the pain of it. Resurrection, the pain of it.
Nerezza, the hunt, around the world, across time. Battling with five he’d come to trust. More blood, more fear. Such courage.
The slice of sword, the death song of a bolt, the snap of bullets. The scream of creatures unearthed from a dark god’s hell.
The wolf, impossibly beautiful, with eyes like hot whiskey.
The woman, brilliant and bold, sharp and quick.
Those eyes—they compelled him to wonder.
Beside him the wolf curled, a companion in the night. Warm, soft, and bringing him an odd sort of peace. Dawn broke in bleeding reds and golds, striking the moon away with color and light. The wolf howled once.
Bittersweet.
And changed. Flesh and limbs, breasts and lips. A woman now, the tight, disciplined body naked against his. The scent of the forest on her skin, a beckoning in her eyes.
When he rolled to cover her, she laughed. When he crushed his mouth to hers, she growled, nails biting into his back. He took her breasts, firm and perfect in his hands, smooth as silk against his rough palms. Tasting of the green and the wild under his mouth.
Strong legs wrapped around him as she arched in demand. So he plundered, thrusting, thrusting, hard, fast, deep into the tight, the wet, while those eyes—wolf, woman—watched him.
He drove her, himself, next to madness. Drove mercilessly until . . .
He woke in the dark, hard as iron and alone.
He cursed, as for an instant the dream scent of her, forest wild, followed him.
The last thing he needed were sex dreams starring a woman who deviled him half the time. Until this quest was done, he needed to keep his mind, his body, his focus on the stars, on defeating Nerezza, on making sure the five who fought with him survived.
When that was done, he’d find a willing woman for a night of uncomplicated, impersonal sex. And then . . .
That was as far forward as he needed to think.
Restless, annoyed—he wouldn’t have dreamed of her if she hadn’t come to stand with him in the graveyard—he rolled out of bed.
He could smell dawn, see its approach in the slight lessening of the dark. Naked, he strode to the open doors and through for air, for the fresh and the damp of it.
The faintest sound had him whirling, braced and ready to spring back for his sword. Down the terrace, facing the sea, Sasha stood at her easel, one of Bran’s shirts over her own thin nightshirt. Bran, wearing only jeans, stood behind her while the light from their suite washed out and over them.