“WE NEED TO tell Angel.”

I blurted it, staring sightlessly at the horizon as I bobbed gently up and down, my feet dangling in the cold, salty water. Despite the intensity behind my words, the ripple of waves rolled silently under me, soothing, systematically wearing away my resistance to their pull.

Black looked over. He wiped salt water off his face with a bare hand, shaking his wet hair from where he bobbed gently on a longboard next to me, wearing a black wetsuit with sky blue lines down his arms and legs.

He gripped the board briefly, adjusting his position on it.

“We will,” he said. “We can call her tonight, if you want.”

I frowned.

So we weren’t going home.

I’d figured that, but he hadn’t said it until now.

“I got us something down here,” he explained, maybe feeling my thoughts. “I thought a night away from all of that would be good.” He added, “We can drive back, if you’re rather.”

My lips pursed.

I didn’t tell him I wanted to go home, though.

The thought of going back there brought up a sharp, throat-clutching wave of sickness, what bordered on depression. The thought of staying down here depressed me too, but less somehow. As usual lately, Black seemed to have a better idea of what I needed, even if it wasn’t what I thought I wanted.

I don’t know how he got me to come down here with him, truthfully.

I don’t know how he got me out on the water.

I don’t know how he coaxed me into a wetsuit of my own, after throwing a small bag in the trunk of the MacLaren with clothes for both of us and driving us down the coast to Santa Cruz, where Nick first tried to teach me how to surf. I didn’t know how he’d known exactly which surfing area to take me.

I tried to remember if it came up during our bonding in Thailand…

But that made me feel sick too.

Not the bonding.

More the memory of what had been happening to Nick while we were bonding.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing here.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing out on this water, at one of Nick’s favorite surfing spots.

“You’re paying homage,” Black said. “Both of us are.”

When I didn’t answer, he caught hold of my arm, tugging me and the surfboard I sat on closer to him. Once I was close enough, he kissed my mouth, wrapping his arm around me and hugging me to his chest.

His tongue was hot, salty; it flooded me with his light.

Pain hit at my chest.

I wanted him, but I could only feel like shit about that right then, too.

“I love you,” he said, gruff, raising his head. “Let me help you, doc. Just let me help you with this. Even if it doesn’t make sense to you right now.”

I nodded, fighting the closing of my throat.

That pain was starting up again in the middle of my chest, the longer he held me, the longer he immersed me in that heat and density.

I knew he was right. Being down here was better.

It hit me again that he’d already called ahead to get us a room, probably in some fancy bed and breakfast on Highway 1, probably some place that would be beautiful and quiet. For some reason, as that realization sank in, I found myself fighting tears. I knew he was right, but it wasn’t only that. I’d never had anyone take care of me like this, not since I’d been a kid. The closest was when I got back from Bangkok, when Nick––

I cut off the thought.

Shaking my head to shove the vision away, I clenched my jaw.

Black was right.

Getting away for a few days was the right thing, especially with Brick coming here, especially with Brick about to take up space in my city, in my head, probably with that walking corpse Dorian at his side.

I knew Black was right.

But nothing felt right, not now.

Also, Black hadn’t exactly chosen neutral ground.

Thinking about the last time I’d been out here, I let out a low gasp, feeling that pain abruptly worsen in my chest. I gripped the front of my wetsuit, and the flood of Black’s light intensified, pulling me deeper into him.

I saw wings. Those wings wrapped around me, bright green and violet and blue behind my closed eyes, and my heart hitched sideways in my chest.

We’d never talked about what happened in those caves, either.

We’d never had time to talk about any of it. I remembered all of that light, inside that grim dragon temple on Koh Mangaan. I remembered those wings that came out of Black, how his voice sounded––how his voice felt in my light.

“None of that matters now, doc,” he said, soft, wrapping me in that hot, dense light, wrapping me in those wings. “It’s your light now too. Rest on it. Rest on me.”

I fought to make sense of his words.

I fought to comprehend what he was telling me.

I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around anything though. Not the fact that Nick was dead. Not the fact that I’d never see him again, that I probably wouldn’t even see a body. Not what I’d seen my husband do in Thailand. Not what I’d felt off him when we were bonding on that beach. Not the fact that Coreq, the strange voice I heard inside my husband’s light, who claimed to be a part of both of us now, had gone silent ever since we’d left that island.

I couldn’t believe Nick was really gone.

I kept expecting to see him out here.

I looked for him in the face of every surfer with roughly the same build, with dark hair, with broad shoulders, with anything that reminded me of Nick, even just a gesture or mannerism. I kept expecting him to call, to see his annoyed, semi-grumbling text messages on my phone. I’d caught myself thinking I needed to tell him we’d come down here, that we’d gone to his favorite stretch of surf near the lighthouse.

I hadn’t lived without Nick in over ten years.

He was like my conscience. Maybe my guardian angel.

I spoke before I knew I meant to.

“He was there for me,” I said, staring out over the waves. “After Thailand. After you left. He was there for me, Black.”

There was a silence.

I felt my words sink in.

Then I felt a hard stab of pain cut into Black, enough to close his eyes.

I flinched, feeling it through him.

I hadn’t said it to hurt him. I didn’t mean to hurt him… I didn’t want to hurt him. After I’d said it, though, after I turned over my words, I realized how cruel they were. I hadn’t meant to be cruel, but I had been.

“I’m sorry,” I said, still gripping the front of my wetsuit. Reaching out, I gripped him too, catching hold of his arm, still not looking at him.

“Don’t be sorry, doc.” He sounded sad. I heard real grief in his voice, and that pain in my chest worsened. “Don’t apologize for that. It’s true.”

I nodded, even as tears ran down my face.

I stared down at my legs, still gripping Black with one hand, and the front of my wetsuit with the other. I watched the seawater lap against my thigh.

“He made me see someone,” I said after a pause. “He didn’t know about seers yet. But he noticed… things. He got me to talk to him, to admit what happened. Then he made me see someone. That psychologist I went to for a while.”

“I remember, doc.”

Biting my lip, hard enough for it to hurt, I added,

“He showed up at my door. Every goddamned night.” I let out a choked, bitter laugh. “Even after I yelled at him. Even after I told him to stop coming over, to leave me alone, he came over anyway. After that thing happened with me and him, he brought Angel… but he never stopped coming. He never left me alone.”

Black stroked my hair, not speaking.

I knew he understood that, too.

He knew what I meant, including the parts I’d left out, that I hadn’t said aloud.

That thing that happened was the night I kissed Nick.

It was the night I basically jumped Nick, mostly to get back at Black for leaving.

I’d been drunk. We’d both been drunk enough that we’d nearly slept together.

Somehow, even as drunk as I was, I realized what I was doing halfway through. I had enough of a flash of sanity and clarity to stop things before we went all the way.

By then, we’d both been half-naked. I’d been in Nick’s lap, my hand on his cock, my other hand in his shirt. Both of us had been breathing hard. Both of us had been turned on, flushed, confused. Nick had been hard. He’d been in the process of undressing me for real when I called a halt to things.

I’d felt enough off his mind and light to know he had pretty mixed feelings about me stopping things, given where we were, where it was going. Even so, he practically ran out of there not long after, making some excuse about work the next morning.

I’d felt like shit about that.

Not so much because of Black––not then, anyway.

I felt bad for doing that to Nick.

I felt like I’d used him.

Fuck, I had used him.

It also confused me, and confused Nick, who seemed to struggle with his feelings about me for at least a few months after that. According to Black, he’d been confused about me for longer than just those few months.

But I couldn’t think about that, either.

Black nuzzled my face, kissing my neck, then my cheek.

I love you, doc. I love you so much. Pain left his light in a cloud, even as he gripped my hair in one hand. He loved you, too… and you loved him. Don’t punish yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for every single thing you did wrong with him. We all make mistakes. We make the worst fucking mistakes with the people we love.

I let out a choked sound, one that hurt my chest.

It wasn’t a laugh, not even a humorless one.

I don’t know what the hell it was.

Forgive yourself, doc, Black sent, soft, stroking my wet hair. Forgive yourself. You know he would have forgiven you. He loved you, doc… he loved you…

I tried to feel it. I tried to believe it.

I couldn’t, though.

I just fucking couldn’t.

BLACK DROVE US to the actual town of Santa Cruz for dinner.

We parked near the boardwalk, and walked down to the pier, holding hands as we walked to the end of it, where a number of seafood restaurants lived.

I must have eaten.

I did eat. I remember eating.

I remember Black ordering for me after I spent probably ten minutes staring at the menu without seeing or comprehending anything written on it. I remember him urging me to eat bread, and then urging me to eat the grilled salmon and pumpkin mash he ordered for me.

I remember asking him about Charles, about the riots.

He was reluctant to discuss it at first.

I knew he would have stayed in touch with everyone in San Francisco, though. He was at least checking in periodically with Kiko. He had to be, and I didn’t blame him. He couldn’t afford not to, not with Brick coming in three days.

“Don’t worry about any of that, doc,” he said, kissing my fingers.

I shook my head though, staring past him at the night sky over the lapping ocean.

“I can’t just think about nothing, Black,” I said. “The silence is fucking deafening right now. It’s making me want to crawl out of my skin.”

He gripped my fingers tighter.

I felt conflict on him, as he felt my light.

I knew he was being careful with me. I could almost feel that brain of his calculating the best ways to help me. How hard to push. When to push. Where to push. When to distract me. When to let me sit in it, even when I was clearly miserable.

Some part of me appreciated it.

Mostly, I felt like some kind of science experiment.

In the end, he talked to me a little.

He said the riots were spreading, mostly to large urban centers in the East so far. Vampire sightings and attacks had grown more frequent. He said Kiko and Dex were both pretty sure those attacks were also more legitimate now. Kiko said their agents, those who were following the violence on the ground, suspected Charles had his people deliberately attacking known vampire enclaves, forcing them to defend themselves when they were flushed out.

I listened to him describe the reactions on the news.

I listened to him repeat back what talking heads were saying.

I listened to him tell me what government officials were saying.

He ate a pasta seafood dish with white sauce and drank wine, describing the discussions occurring on the major media outlets by political pundits and eye witnesses and victims, by scientists and political experts and lawyers, the arguments back and forth about whether the creatures were real or some kind of hoax, or even a psychological and military attack by a foreign entity.

Black expected Charles to continue to escalate things.

I knew he was right.

I wondered when Charles would be sending someone to visit us, too.

“Yeah,” Black said, hearing me. Resting his hands on one another, he gauged my face in the candlelight. “I’m wondering that, too.”

Before we could talk about that in particular, four college-aged looking kids walked up to our table, asking Black for his autograph.

He accommodated them, tossing a few jokes and smiles back and forth with them, but I could feel him pushing at them with his light to get them to leave, so they didn’t linger long.

After that, we walked on the beach, and on the boardwalk.

He took me to the downtown mall of Santa Cruz next, then to a coffee shop I’d last gone to with Nick. It had been one of Nick’s favorite hangouts here, mostly for their coffee when he came in the morning after surfing around dawn, but I’d been here with him at night a few times, too, after early evening sessions on the water.

We didn’t usually get coffee at night, but they served craft beer, and made a lemon tart Nick had a weakness for, and really amazing hot chocolate.

Black told me to grab a seat outside, and went in to order without me.

Without thinking about it much, I ended up sitting in more or less the same place I sat whenever I’d come here with Nick, on the lower deck right by the corner, where you had the best view of the shop itself, as well as the two streets of the corner it sat on. It was an old, giant, Victorian house that someone converted into the sprawling coffee shop, and it was really pretty when it was all lit up at night.

Black came out a few minutes later.

He carried a tray with two hot chocolates and two slices of lemon tart. He walked right up to the table I’d found and plunked the tray down on the salt-warped wood.

“How the fuck did you know?” I said, staring down at the tray.

Black shrugged.

I couldn’t decide if I was glad he’d done it, or if I wanted to hit him.

“You can hit me later, doc,” Black said, taking a seat across from me with a faint smirk. “We’ll have privacy tonight. You can hit me as much as you want once we get there.”

Picking up a fork, he dug into the nearest of the two lemon tarts.

Taking a bite, he smirked, raising an eyebrow at me across the table.

“Nick had good taste,” he grunted. “I should have brought him to Cal’s.”

I stared at him, caught between frustration and a tightening in my chest.

In the end, I just grabbed my hot chocolate, and took a sip.

It was as good as I’d remembered it being.

I also ate every bite of that damned lemon tart.

We walked up and down the mall a little longer after that, but I was exhausted by then. Eventually, Black took us back to the MacLaren, and drove me further down the coast a few more miles on Highway 1.

I’d been wrong, though.

He didn’t get us a room in a fancy bed and breakfast.

He rented us a beach house.

He hadn’t been kidding about the privacy.

The house sat on the edge of a sandy bluff overlooking the ocean, with a small stretch of near-private beach below. The driveway was long, and there were no neighbors; it sat on a rock outcropping with water and more cliff on either side.

Parking the MacLaren in the driveway, he found the keys to the front door in a fake rock by a palm tree, where apparently someone left them for us.

Inside, the living room and balcony looked like a movie set.

Sleek, modern furniture sat in a sunken living room by a free-standing fireplace that bisected the room. A long window made up the ocean-facing side of the house, peaking in a faint V-shape out towards the ocean, with an enormous deck on the other side of sliding glass doors. Thee deck wrapped around that whole side of the house. I saw deck furniture out there, along with another fire pit, a lap pool, and a jacuzzi.

Someone had lit the indoor fireplace for us already.

Outside, the lights were on in the jacuzzi, and I saw bubbles, showing it was already on, which likely meant someone had heated it up for us, too.

“Yeah,” Black said, shouldering off his leather jacket and tossing it on the couch. He flashed me a quick grin. “We’re definitely going in there, doc.”

We’d showered at the public showers on the beach, then threw on street clothes for dinner and for walking around downtown Santa Cruz.

I was still faintly itchy from all the salt and sand, though. Some of that might have been from the restaurant on the pier and our walk on the boardwalk after, but I knew some was probably from surfing too. I was also cold, since Santa Cruz in December was even colder than San Francisco in December. I wouldn’t be able to sleep yet, not with how wound up I felt.

Staring at the jacuzzi, I couldn’t think of a single reason not to go in there.

I could feel Black pulling on me to relax, to trust him, to stop fighting everything, to stop looking for reasons to fight everything.

I wanted to trust him. I wanted to relax.

I wasn’t sure I was ready to relax, though.

I was afraid of what might happen if I relaxed.

He didn’t wait for me to wrap my head around it.

Grabbing my hand, he pulled me towards him, then helped me off with the jacket I wore, tossing it next to his on the couch. He led me to the sliding glass doors, walking me through the opening once he’d unlocked the latch and slid it open.

He undressed me by the jacuzzi, then nudged me to get in.

I didn’t argue with him any more than I had when he put me in the car in San Francisco, or dressed me in the wetsuit and handed me a surfboard at Nick’s favorite surfing spot, or took me to dinner, or to Nick’s favorite coffee shop and handed me Nick’s favorite post-surfing evening snack.

I sank into the hot, bubbling water, and lowered my body to the jacuzzi’s bench. Tilting my head back on the wooden deck, I stared up at the stars, which were visible in crazy numbers, reminding me of Thailand, even though the constellations were different.

Steam rose up around me and I closed my eyes, trying to breathe, to relax.

I didn’t notice Black hadn’t joined me until he did.

He climbed into the hot tub next to me and I opened my eyes. When I did, I saw that he’d lit candles all around the opposite rim of the jacuzzi. He’d lit white candles on the deck table, and on the benches around us, too.

He handed me a drink when I blinked at him, looking around at what he’d done. Then I glanced down at what he’d handed me. Like before, it wasn’t alcoholic, but a blended matcha tea drink, like he knew I liked.

I sipped at it, watching him look at me.

He held a beer, but he only took a sip while I watched, never taking his eyes off me.

Pain reached me, not only from the look in his eyes, but just everything… everything he’d done that day. Everything he’d done in Europe, and since we’d been back in San Francisco. Everything he’d done since we’d found out Nick was missing.

And what had I done? Unconsciously or not, I’d been taking the Nick thing out on Black for weeks, pretty much since I’d realized he was missing.

I blamed the bonding on some level.

I blamed me and Black for what happened to Nick.

I know doc, he murmured in my mind. It’s okay.

I shook my head. It’s not okay. I know you’re right. I know what you said about us not being capable of going after Nick on our own is right.

His mouth hardened, just before he combed a hand through his black hair.

Clicking under his breath, he took a longer drink of the beer.

Setting it on the deck above my head, he continued to frown.

“I blame me, too,” he said, speaking aloud. “But maybe not for the same reasons you do, doc. I let myself forget what Brick was. I let myself forget what he was capable of. I invited him there. I fucking invited him there. I trusted that sociopathic bastard with our friends.”

Black’s gold eyes darkened as he thought about his own words.

I felt a flaring of that black, fathomless light from the structures below him. I felt the ripple of power that went through me as that part of him flexed––intensely enough that my breath briefly stopped. I remembered his voice echoing through that cave, right before he snuffed out the mountain’s heart.

I’d almost forgotten.

I’d almost forgotten the power there.

If Black noticed what he’d done, he didn’t visibly react.

“Brick exploited a weakness,” he said, his voice still hard over the sound of the jacuzzi’s jets, and now holding a denser, more light-filled power. “When I called him in that state, I gave him an opening.”

“So you think he did it,” I said. “You think he definitely killed Nick.”

My mind had clicked back on, maybe from that rush of Black’s power and light through my aleimi, maybe from his actual words. Whatever the exact cause, I was totally focused on Black now, studying his gold eyes. I felt myself coming out of that crushing grief, well enough to really think, maybe for the first time since we’d left Thailand.

Something about Black’s anger, the sheer rage and power behind it, snapped me out.

“You think Brick deliberately killed Nick,” I said.

“I sure as fuck don’t think it was an accident,” Black growled, that anger bursting out of him in a rush. “I have no fucking idea what story he’s going to feed us on Saturday, doc. No clue. But every single instinct in me tells me this thing was planned… that Brick targeted Nick. The damnedest thing is, I saw it. I saw that he was overly interested in Nick, even in Louisiana. I caught the fucker staring at him. A lot.”

I felt my jaw harden.

I hadn’t seen that.

I’d been too wrapped up in my own shit to notice any of that.

Black gave me a hard look. “You have less reason to be wary of Brick, doc. I have no fucking excuse. I knew what he was. I fucking knew, not just in theory, but firsthand. What he did to me in that prison… what he was willing to do to you in New York. I knew, and I let myself get distracted by Charles, by wanting to complete the bond with you, by those seers coming through the portal… by everything but what I should have been paying attention to. I should have let Charles kill him and Dorian in D.C. I let them go. I fucking let them go.”

Staring past me in the direction of the ocean, he threw his arms behind him, leaning on the edge of the deck.

I watched as he shook his head, clicking angrily before he added,

“Honestly? At the time, I just thought Brick wanted to fuck him. Nick. I figured he was attracted to him, that he wanted to bite him and fuck him. It was that kind of look.”

“So you think that’s what happened?” Still watching Black’s face minutely, I felt my jaw harden along with his. “You think Brick wanted Nick, so he kidnapped him, and then things went too far? He lost control or something?”

Black gave me a hard look. “I think it’s really fucking possible.”

“You think Brick would risk an alliance with you over that? To get laid?”

Black’s mouth twisted into one of his delicate frowns.

His gaze turned inward as he shook his head slowly.

“That’s the part I can’t figure,” he admitted, still frowning. “It could have been an opportunistic thing that went wrong… but honestly, it still doesn’t make sense to me, even on that level. Brick may act crazy at times, but he’s not. He’s practical to the bone. He wouldn’t risk his people over his dick. I don’t care how big of a crush he had. He just wouldn’t.”

He met my gaze, his gold eyes glimmering with anger.

I sensed a wariness there too, a near caution.

Whatever was behind that caution, he didn’t voice it aloud. I practically felt him holding it back, although I couldn’t get a sense of what it was he was thinking, or what he was worried about saying out loud.

Whatever it was, he didn’t want to tell me, specifically, at least not yet.

“You think there’s more to it,” I said. “You think he wanted Nick for something more than sex.” I frowned, thinking about that, too. “Do you think Nick died, rather than give it to him? Do you think he refused them, whatever it was?”

Black’s frown deepened.

“Is he a vampire now?” I said, my voice hard. “Did Brick turn him?”

“We already know that’s not possible, Miri.”

“But we don’t ‘know’ that. You said they had other ways. Ways besides the venom––”

“I told you,” Black said, his voice harder. “We haven’t found a single case, in any of the files, of a human being turned into a vampire who didn’t match the genetic profile. That’s thousands of cases, Miri. Almost tens of thousands at this point––”

“But it’s not all of them,” I said. “It’s not all cases, Black. There still might be––”

“He’s bringing the body, Miri.”

I stopped, staring at him.

“He’s bringing Nick with him when he comes.” Black exhaled, exuding a pulse of anger so intense, I might have flinched if I was capable of it right then. “Honestly, I wasn’t going to tell you. I know how unrealistic that is. To try and smuggle him into a room where our people could do any kind of real autopsy… but I was worried, Miri.”

He met my gaze, his eyes apologetic.

His light and expression held so much grief I swallowed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to hurt you any more than I had to. I didn’t know what you’d do.” His jaw hardened. “But I want the fucking truth. I want to know exactly what happened to him. So I told Brick to bring it, and to keep it on ice so we could do a real autopsy. I told him not to mention Nick’s body to you if he saw you.”

Feeling my heart stop in my chest, I could only stare at him at first, watching Black look at me. His eyes were glowing faintly, and I felt grief on him, along with his anger at Brick, his guilt, his helplessness that he even had to tell me this.

The next time he spoke, he lowered his voice.

“I told him we’d need proof,” Black said, gruff. “I told him we needed some way to verify whatever bullshit story he planned on telling us. He assured me he would ‘expect no less,’ from either of us, particularly from you. He said he knew you’d need proof, with you being a ‘scientist.’”

Black’s voice turned bitter.

“That’s when he told me he had it. Nick’s body. He said he would bring it to us ‘intact,’ so we could ‘mourn him properly.’”

Black met my gaze, his jaw hard.

“Fucker kept it. He’s had Nick with him this whole time.”

I stared at him, feeling that dull pain grow into a fresh wound in my chest.

I don’t think I’d ever felt so much hatred in my entire life.

I thought I’d hated Brick before, but I hadn’t, not really.

I did now.

If Black felt the change in me, he didn’t react.

Picking up his beer, he tilted back his head, taking another long drink before he looked up at the stars, his long jaw hard as he exhaled steam up into space.

THAT NIGHT, IT was me who woke Black up.

After we got out of the hot tub, we both showered.

We even made out a little afterwards.

I started it, pulling him to the bed when he was naked and still wet after the shower, until both of us were lying on the huge white comforter in the master bedroom, our light wrapped into one another’s. I pulled on him even then, tugging and coaxing and opening my light, until that heat and density below Black’s feet coiled up into me and around me, like a dense, protective cloud, physical enough to constrict my breathing.

Even so, Black remained cautious with me. When I slid down his body to give him head, he offered me a back rub instead.

He was really damned good at back rubs.

He joked it was because he was raised in Thailand.

Whatever the reason, I had trouble refusing him when he offered one.

I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of the one he gave me that night. I suspect it was all of that time out on the water, not to mention getting sick in his office in San Francisco, and just the emotional exhaustion of the day and night in general.

I only slept for a few hours, though.

When I woke up, he was lying next to me on his back, naked.

He was dreaming.

As per our usual custom, he’d opened the drapes to the room. For the same reason, I could see him almost as if it were daylight. The planes and lines of his body appeared blue and black, bathed in the light from the nearly full moon shining on the other side of the glass, but I could see every line, every tendon, every muscle.

He’d gained some of the weight back we’d both lost in Thailand.

Of course, being Black, most of what he’d gained back was muscle. His chest looked significantly bigger than the last time I remembered looking in the bungalow, although he still wasn’t quite as big as I remembered from when I first met him.

The last few years had been hard on him.

I knew that more or less started when he met me.

He was breathing slow, heavy, a taut look on his face. He made a soft sound as I watched, his brow furrowing as his living light coiled around him and around me, flaring up abruptly in colored sparks, nearly physical as I used my eyes and light to look at him. I could see darker, more fire-like colors twisting through those structures below his feet.

I could feel his light wanting to connect more with mine.

His fingers grasped at nothing while I watched, his arms sprawled out at his sides, and something about his expression brought up a rush of pain, worse than I’d let myself feel in weeks. After looking at him for a few minutes, that pain grew so intense, I was gritting my teeth. Sliding under the comforter he’d wrapped around me, I moved closer to him, wrapping the white fluffy blanket tighter around me as I sat next to him, looking down.

He still had the ability to catch my breath.

He was so fucking beautiful.

I could honestly say I’d never seen such a beautiful man in my life before I met him.

He almost didn’t look real to me, even now, especially when he was asleep like this, or whenever I couldn’t see him through his eyes, or hear him in his voice.

Not that he was better-looking absence of his own presence––the contrary was true, for me, anyway. It was more that his presence somehow eclipsed his own physicality, making his looks less relevant somehow.

They became a bonus instead of something intrinsic to who he was.

I started stroking his skin, lightly at first.

I traced muscles, caressing the lines of him, exploring his sides, his ribs, his arms, his thighs, his calves. I watched his light and skin react to my fingers, getting turned on when I saw it sliding into his dream, both calming him and making his muscles tense under my hands. I watched him swallow, his face taut. I’d barely started when he was shifting under my hands, jerking faintly, rising up to meet my fingers.

When I didn’t stop, his skin grew hot.

It got hotter the longer I touched him, until I was sweating lightly, just from being so near him. Pain came off him in a cloud, making me clutch at him briefly, nearly making me light-headed. I opened my light more, and he let out a low groan.

He still didn’t open his eyes.

I didn’t feel him wake, but after that, it was like a furnace ignited under his skin.

When I slid closer, a few minutes later, letting the comforter fall, and threw a leg over his waist, sitting astride him, he jerked violently.

He half sat up, his hands grasping reflexively at my hips.

He opened his eyes, breathing harder, and saw me sitting there, naked, the white comforter having fallen down to my hips and part of my back. For a few seconds he only stared at me in the moonlight, his chest moving in slow pants.

Then he let out a low groan.

He yanked me higher up his legs, so I was more or less sitting on his cock, which was hard enough that I gasped a little, pressing down against him.

Then I was looking at his face, gripping his hair in one hand.

“I know,” I said, whispering it. “I’m molesting you in your sleep again. Not cool.”

His fingers tightened abruptly on my hips.

He closed his eyes, longer than a blink. I saw his jaw harden, even as the muscles in his arms tensed, outlining every tendon in a detail that made me stare.

“Fuck me,” he said.

His voice was lower than mine, deep in that way that still drove me crazy, even after all of our time together in Thailand. If anything, it hit at me even more intensely now, pulling on that part of me that was connected to him.

He’d said the wanting part wouldn’t lessen any, with us together like this.

I could feel how true that was.

Somehow, it didn’t reassure me. If anything, it made me feel…

Well, not quite nervous. Nervous wasn’t the word.

It almost scared me. I could feel him like a second heartbeat, a second pair of lungs, a second pair of skin. I could feel that darkness under his feet, I could see those same stars––and he was right. It felt like me now.

Or not me––but mine.

It felt like mine now.

I probably would have noticed sooner, but I’d been avoiding feeling much of anything since he first told me about Nick. I hadn’t realized how much I’d closed, not just to him but to everyone. I’d closed to Angel too, and she probably needed me. She wouldn’t ask, not when I was so obviously struggling, but she needed me to go through this with her.

She didn’t even get to look for Nick in Europe, like I did. She didn’t get to tell herself she’d done everything she could to find him.

Ever since I’d heard about Nick, I’d closed off part of my light.

Now that it was open, I felt almost like I had in Thailand.

I felt that part of me drift back into the vast spaces of Black’s light, tilting out of control. I felt how it changed something in my light, sparking structures over my head that still felt so foreign to me, so new, I could barely acknowledge them as mine. I saw space there too, but it was the silent space, the stillness of a held breath.

“Miri… I feel it. I feel it, too…”

When I closed my eyes, not moving for a moment, his voice grew gruffer.

“Miri. Gaos. Do you want me? Right now, I mean. Tell me before I do something I regret…”

Opening my eyes, I looked down at him.

His irises were glowing faintly, a pale, tiger-like gold. His fingers dug into my hips, yanking me down on him harder, and his light flooded into mine, making me gasp.

“How do they do that,” I said, my voice still a half-breath. “How do your eyes do that. How do they glow like that…?”

His fingers wrapped into my hair.

He pulled me down to him roughly, kissing my mouth, hard. His light flooded into me as he opened himself more, and I let out a sound against his mouth, opening my light in response. His pain flared, right before his light grew hotter, more intense, wrapping into mine like a physical force.

It felt like he was fucking me with it… like he was already fucking me.

“Gaos, Miri.”

He pressed his forehead into mine, coiling more of his light into me, making me gasp. When he pulled on me to open more, flooding me with even more of his light, I let out a low sound, unable to help that either.

He kissed my mouth, still speaking to me in that soft voice.

“Gaos… your eyes are glowing, too. It drives me fucking crazy. They were doing that most of the time we were together on Koh Mangaan. They started right before I tied you up that first time. Remember? When we came up with those crazy safe words… when I lost my shit, and put that collar on you.”

I raised my head, looking down at him in bewilderment.

I remembered the safe words.

I remembered the collar, and him losing control.

I also remembered him using a belt on me with a precision that nearly brought me to an orgasm all on its own. It had been unbelievable.

I’d done some of that kind of thing before, especially with a boyfriend I’d had not long after I got out of the military, who’d been into bondage games… but nothing I did with Jack had been anything like what Black did to me. Black knew how to use pain with an exactness that drove me out of my mind. He got me right to the edge, then would leave me there, then roll me right back up to it, and leave me there again.

By the time he actually fucked me, I’m pretty sure I blacked out.

When I frowned, staring at him, he caught hold of my wrist.

“Here,” he said, soft, kissing my palm. “Look, Miri. Look.”

He held my palm up to my face, right up to my eyes.

A faint light illuminated the lines in my hand, green and gold. I stared at it. I blinked, then stared at it again, moving my hand closer and further from that faint light. I blinked one eye, and saw the light extinguish briefly on that half of my hand.

Black burst out in a laugh, watching me.

When he spoke, his voice was deep, gruffer than before.

“Gods. You’re driving me fucking crazy right now. Are you going to fuck me or not? Because I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.” Pain rippled through his light. “I kind of want to hit you with a belt now, too, after what you were just thinking.”

Pain coiled through me, making my eyes close.

“Was it really that good?” he murmured, combing his fingers through my hair where it hung down on him. “Maybe I need to practice my technique. Read some books. I admit, until we did that, I hadn’t played in that particular sandbox in a while.”

Jealousy rippled through me, just like it had on Koh Mangaan.

Every now and then, reminders of who he’d been, things he’d done before he met me, still hit at my light and heart in ways that felt almost animalistic.

He felt that, too.

His pain worsened exponentially, enough that I let out a low gasp.

I stared down at him, half tempted to smack him.

“You get off on my paranoia?” I snorted. “Gee. Thanks, Quentin.”

He quirked an eyebrow at me, a faint smile touching his sculpted lips. “Do I get off on my wife having violently possessive thoughts about me? Hmmm. Let me think…”

When I smacked his chest, he chuckled, still stroking his fingers through my long hair.

He leaned up, kissing my mouth, pulling on me sensually with his light.

“…Definitely, doc,” he murmured. “Definitely get turned on by that. Hitting me isn’t really going to help with that, I’m afraid…”

I let out a low gasp when he pressed his cock up against me, moving in a sensual ripple that made my pain instantly worse. Still gripping my hair in one hand, he reached down to position himself under me, watching my eyes. When I tilted my hips to follow what he was doing, his eyes closed, right before he broke out in a sweat.

I slid down on him with a deliberate slowness, watching his face tighten. Balancing my weight and feet on his thighs, I held him there when he tried to angle up deeper into me, making his light flare in frustration.

When we fell into a slow, heavy rhythm, a few minutes later, I felt his pain worsen. I opened my light more, and he let out a groan, digging his fingers into my hips.

I have to admit, it felt so damned good, being lost in his light.

I let everything else go.

I pushed out every other image that wanted to rise: Nick, my Uncle Charles, Brick, Nick’s body, Brick coming to San Francisco, the riots spreading over the country, vampires killing college students, everything that happened in that cave in Koh Mangaan…

I felt Black losing control.

I felt him fight back aggression, a desire to take control of what we were doing, to flip me over to my back. I opened my light more, fighting to match what I felt coming off his. I enveloped more of him, feeling those structures in my light, the ones high up above my head, wrapping into his, controlling and containing them somehow…

Until they weren’t.

I felt his control leave him abruptly, so quickly I couldn’t react until he writhed under me, grasping me in his arms. He held me firmly against him, slamming up into me, his hands gripping my thighs, forcing me deeper. When I let him, opening my light even more, his light flared out, a shocking, nearly blinding flash of light.

Like in that cave, I honestly couldn’t tell if that light was physical or not.

Then I saw them.

I actually saw them with my eyes.

Wings unfolded from around him, wrapping tightly around me.

I let out a shocked, turned-on gasp when they clasped around my back. He wrapped them tighter around me, pain spiraling off him in a dense cloud right before… something… something my mind made into a tail… penetrated me from behind.

I let out another shocked cry, writhing over him.

His eyes were closed now, his jaw taut. I felt his pain worsen, even as some part of him watched me, measuring my reaction, his light opening more. I watched his face as it softened, feeling that dark, strange light of his seem to swallow me. I looked into that abyss, and every part of me let go, surrendering to what I felt there.

I think I might have said his name, but I honestly don’t know.

I do know that, somewhere in that, I lost my hold over his legs and light. I found myself sitting on him, my legs flush with his hips, when the hard part of his cock extended.

His arms clasped around my waist, holding me down as he did.

I went away for a while after that.

I’m pretty sure Black did, too.