YOU WERE KISSING him.

Black nudged me where I stood next to him on the elevator, his light still coiled into mine, pain whispering through the veins in his aleimi.

You were kissing him, doc, he sent, prodding me again. I saw you… kissing him.

I exhaled, half in humor, half in annoyance.

Leaning against the back wall of the elevator, I gripped a taco in my hand. It was my third taco. I was pretty sure I’d want a fourth, but for now my focus was on eating this one without getting it all over the elevator floor.

Fuck the elevator, he growled lightly in my mind, nudging me again with his elbow and light. That’s what servants are for. I want to talk about this kissing thing.

“Servants?” I looked up at him, snorting.

“Employees. Whatever.”

Luce glanced over her shoulder at us. Exchanging looks with me, she smiled, shaking her head. I grinned back at her, then took another bite of my taco.

You were kissing him, Black sent, nudging me again. Full tongue action. You were basically making out with him when I got up to that fire escape, doc.

I rolled my eyes. Do you really expect me to dignify that with an answer? I grunted. He didn’t kill me. I figure I’m alive… you’re alive… neither of us got taken by Solonik or dropped off a tall building. I call that a win.

You’re not even going to pretend you feel bad about that? About me having to see you with Nick? Shoving your tongue down his throat?

Still chewing my mouthful of chile verde taco, I gave him an incredulous look. Is that what your hyper-possessive weirdness is about right now? You’re really threatened by my being bitten and kissed by a damned vampire?

Not “vampire,” he sent, his mind pointed. Nick. And I seem to remember you having an issue with me putting any of my body parts near vampires, Miri.

I gave him a hard look. Don’t go there, Black.

Why the fuck not? He grunted, anger coiling off his light as he adjusted his weight against the wall, holding the brass bar in his hands. What’s the difference? Apart from me being venomed into doing it with people I hated? While you did it with Nick. Nick––a guy you made out with willingly back when he was human.

I exhaled in frustration. You and I weren’t together then, Black.

Bullshit. We were together then. And you just made out with him again. The same guy. Nick. Only I had to see it in person this time.

He’s not the same guy, I sent, exasperated. Nick is currently a vampire, Black. In case you didn’t notice.

It’s still Nick, he repeated stubbornly.

Shaking my head, and struggling to keep the braised pork and sauce in the taco wrapper, I rolled my eyes, exhaling in frustration as I took another bite of taco.

He probably only did it to get to you, anyway, I grumbled after a pause. Given what he wrote on our wall, I don’t think I’m the one Nick’s obsessing on right now, Black.

Bullshit. He couldn’t take his fucking eyes off you during that meeting.

But my mind had returned to the day before, to what we’d found when we walked into that penthouse. Remembering Kiko, remembering what Nick had written in blood on the wall of the apartment I shared with my husband, a place where Nick had come to watch movies, to eat dinner, to hang out and talk, my humor faded, along with my smile.

We’re not going back there, are we? I sent, looking up at him. Tonight.

Black’s smile had faded too.

“No,” he said aloud.

He motioned with his fingers towards the elevator controls, and I followed the gesture with my eyes. More than just the penthouse button was lit.

“Sixtieth floor,” he added. “We’re taking a different apartment until the police are done with that one. We’ll move back in once they get it cleaned up. I want to change some things. Besides the obvious––meaning new carpet, new television, new couch. I have contractors coming in tomorrow. If you don’t mind, I might redo that whole room, so maybe we could look at a few ideas tomorrow.”

I nodded.

“We’ll redo it,” I said, my voice firm. “Absolutely.”

Black nodded, but I could tell from his eyes he only half-heard me.

His mind was back there now, too.

I felt a pulse of anger leave him, mixed with disgust as he remembered what we’d seen when we entered that apartment, as it really sank in for him who’d done that to Kiko. I felt him relate that back to what he’d just been hassling me about, trying to reconcile the two things. I felt him trying to wrap his head around the idea of Nick doing that to Kiko.

Watching his face, I nudged him with my arm, sending him a pulse of warmth.

Hey.

He looked down at me, frowning.

Seeing my expression, he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me closer.

“They should have moved most of our stuff down to the apartment on 60th already,” he said, gruff. “I’ll work on beefing up security measures tomorrow. For tonight, we’ll have live guards. A lot of fucking guards.”

Exhaling, I only shook my head, not bothering to argue.

I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

Anyway, I wasn’t sure he was being all that paranoid, not anymore.

“Paranoid,” he muttered, giving me a dark look. “Gaos, Miriam. We need to come up with a counterpunch. As in now. If we can’t come to an agreement with Brick, I think we need to hit out at your uncle in the next few weeks. Before he comes at us for real. At this rate, that’s going to look a lot like starting a war. Which means I’ll need to call in a lot of favors, and not only from people here in the U.S.”

Glancing at Luce and Dex standing in front of us, knowing they’d heard Black’s words, I felt my jaw harden.

I couldn’t really argue with that either, though.

The doors pinged then, opening up on the sixtieth floor.

Dex and Luce moved out of the way, making space for us to pass. I crumpled up the wrapper from my taco as I walked out of the elevator car, knowing the two of them were heading up to the penthouse floor, and to the Black Securities offices. Dex would probably be working for at least a few more hours.

Black would probably join him, after he saw me back to our new room.

Between my pounding head, the leftover effects of the venom, and whatever the hell happened out on that street, I honestly wasn’t sure if I should join them or not.

More than anything, I wanted to go visit Kiko.

“Tomorrow, doc,” Black murmured. “And you’re not working tonight, ilya. You’re sleeping. I won’t be up there for long, either.”

Gripping my shoulder, the side that hadn’t been bitten by Nick earlier that night, he massaged the muscle there gently, steering me down the carpeted corridor to the right of the elevator doors. The actual bite had already been bandaged by Holo in the limousine on the way back. Black hassled me to go to the infirmary, too, but I’d more or less blown him off.

“Like that’s anything new,” he muttered, squeezing my shoulder in his hand.

I glanced behind us, watching the elevator door finish closing on Dex and Luce, right before the lit numbers began to rise, taking them up the last few floors.

I knew most in our team who’d gone to the Mission were in their rooms by now, including Angel and Cowboy. Some had already left for other buildings in different parts of the city. I couldn’t help feeling like none of them were safe, no matter where they were bunking for the night. My uncle had broken through the protective bubble around us, shattering my last illusions that we could protect ourselves from any of them.

I guess he was right. I really was naive.

I really didn’t think he’d come after us so hard, or so soon.

“He can’t have us allying with vampires, doc,” Black said, his voice low. “From his perspective, we provoked this, by agreeing to meet with Brick.”

“So he does have someone here,” I said, looking up at him. “With us. It’s the only way he could have gotten Solonik here so fast.”

Black shrugged, his gold eyes meeting mine.

“Was that ever in doubt, doc?”

I frowned, but didn’t answer.

I watched Black fumble in the pocket of his leather jacket, pulling out a steel-gray key card. He’d already dumped most of his weapons with Dex and Javier downstairs, but he still wore two guns in shoulder holsters, along with the two at his hips, not to mention the two swords that hung in crossed scabbards across his back and chest.

Remembering him digging that blade into Nick’s throat, I swallowed.

He hadn’t killed Nick.

He could have, but he didn’t.

I knew he’d probably done that for me.

I also knew it might be the last free pass Nick got, and not only from Black.

“Don’t think about that now, doc,” Black said, his voice a low rumble in his throat.

Giving me a bare glance and a frown, he swung the door inwards, motioning for me to walk in ahead of him. I walked across a pale green carpet, entering a long, rectangular apartment with rust-colored leather couches and chairs, and a white marble kitchen. The wooden cabinets were the same rust color as the living room set.

The view was of the opposite side of the building as Black’s penthouse.

I could see the Transamerica building through these windows, and the Gold Gate Bridge, but far in the distance, barely visible where it was lit up at the edge of the skyline. The windows weren’t as tall or as long as those in Black’s penthouse, but the suite was still impressively large, with a full living room, a kitchen, dining room with an eight-person table and a corridor that led to my right, probably to the master bedroom.

It wasn’t a full reversal of Black’s place; the layout was genuinely different, without the sunken living room, and with much lower ceilings, but with the kitchen in roughly the same place, even if it was half the size of our kitchen. The dining room and living room set were laid out completely differently, and none of Black’s art or his volcanic counters were in here, but it was familiar enough that I exhaled, feeling something in my chest relax.

More than anything, I wanted a shower.

Hearing me, Black wrapped his arm around my waist, tugging me with him towards the corridor that lay on my right.

I glanced back as he writhed out of his two swords and scabbards, then his jacket as he walked, without ever fully letting go of me. He dumped the swords with a clatter, then the motorcycle jacket in the hall without slowing.

Glancing back when I heard each thing drop, I laughed.

“Don’t do that with the guns,” I scolded.

“I won’t.”

“Shoes,” I said. “What about your shoes?”

“Boots, doc,” he said, kissing the side of my face. “I’ll take them off in the bathroom.”

I nodded, letting him tug at my jacket. He wrestled it off my arms, pulling it off my shoulders as he continued to steer me forward. Removing it from my wrists and hands, he dumped the armored coat on the carpet in the corridor. I heard the clatter of 9 mm magazines that were still in my pockets as it fell.

Wrapping an arm around my front, he tugged me to the right when we reached the end of the hall, into a sage green bathroom with a white tile floor and more of those white marble countertops.

He released me as he brought me through the door, then began undressing himself for real. Ripping open the velcro fasteners on his upper holsters first, he shouldered off the guns, checking them briefly before setting guns and holsters both on the marble counter.

He reached for his belt next, his eyes on mine.

“Stop watching me and take off your fucking clothes, doc,” he said, gruff.

He unhooked his belt, staring as I tugged off my boots, dumping them one by one on the thick, sage-green rug, then pulling straps to get off my own upper holsters. Black was taking off his hip holsters by the time I got mine off, them removing his own boots, tossing them down next to mine.

By then, his pain had me feeling light-headed again, almost dizzy.

Mixed with his pain was a possessiveness I couldn’t fail to notice, that somehow hit me harder than the pain. It wasn’t just possessiveness; I felt a desire to connect in that. That pull to drag me into his light was so intense, it felt almost organic.

I was unbuckling my belt, my shirt open on my shoulders over my bra, when he caught hold of my face in his hands, pulling me to him for a kiss.

He kissed me hard, using his tongue, and I gasped a little against his mouth, feeling his reactions to my light, to faint impressions of Nick, to the cuts on my lips and tongue.

He paused the kiss long enough to let out his own gasp, then he groaned, yanking me closer to him, pressing his body against mine. I felt relief there, but also fear, a kind of dawning awareness of all the things that could have gone wrong that night.

Feeling it go through his mind, I found myself turning over the same thoughts. I thought about the guns, the vampires ripping out throats, the bombs.

We all could have died.

Nick could have killed me.

He could have killed me easily.

Why hadn’t he killed me?

“Stop thinking about Nick,” Black growled, pulling away from the kiss long enough to finish unfastening the front of his pants. His jaw hardened as he watched my face, yanking down on his pants to pull them down over his hips and legs.

I rolled my eyes at him a little, but his light was hitting at me hard enough, I felt my skin flushing, and knew my attempts to blow off his reactions were paper-thin, at best. My eyes remained on his face as I wriggled out of my own pants, stepping on the bottoms and lifting my knees to tug them off. I watched him look at me as I pulled the black shirt I wore off my shoulders. I watched his arms and chest as he tugged his own shirt over his head.

I was reaching for the fastener on my bra when Black grabbed me around the waist, yanking me towards him.

His light swam into mine, and I let out a heavier gasp, gripping his arms.

Pain rippled through me, closing my eyes, tilting my balance.

“Do I kiss as good as him, doc?” he said, gruff. “Nick?”

I saw wings when I closed my eyes.

They wrapped around me, surrounding me with heat, with light, with Black’s presence. I could barely breathe they grew so tight, even as I relaxed into them.

When I opened my eyes next, his gold eyes were glowing.

I stared into them, lost there.

On either side of us, I could almost see the wings, even with my eyes open.

My pain worsened, so badly it felt like some part of me was ripping apart. Gasping, I looked down, fighting to breathe, to catch my breath, and realized he had me up on the marble counter, his hand wrapped around my ass, his cock positioned between my legs.

“Are you going to fucking answer me?” he said, gruff. “Or do I not want to know?”

Remembering how not-well teasing had gone over in this regard in the past, I looked up, meeting his gaze seriously.

“I love the way you kiss, Black. I absolutely love it.”

“That’s not what I fucking asked.”

“It’s different,” I said, refusing to lie to him. “It’s different, okay? It’s better with you because your light makes everything better… because we’re connected and I can barely stay in my body when we kiss. Nick kisses different. I can’t compare the sheer physicality of that part, because it’s different. Kissing is better with you. Period––”

“So I need to work on my fucking kissing then,” he growled. “Got it.”

Frowning, I shook my head. “That’s not what I said.”

“If you think hearing, ‘you both kiss equally well, just differently’ from my wife is going to cut it for me, doc, you don’t know me at all.” His jaw hardened as he looked down at me. “I appreciate you being honest, though.”

His eyes closed as he entered me, angling up and into me.

He’d already extended before I could catch my breath, before I could remotely control my light.

Relief expanded over me, even as he wrapped his arms (wings?) around me, pulling his whole body closer, pulling himself around me, pulling me around him.

I opened my light, and he let out a heavy gasp, nearly a groan.

I don’t remember either of us speaking.

I don’t remember anything once that light grew brighter.

Some part of me opened below my feet, and I felt our lights wind into one another down there, so tightly it almost hurt, even as a part of me fought to do it harder, tighter. I focused there, focused on him, even as those wings wrapped around my back down to my legs, and I felt the tail again, like I had in Santa Cruz.

I cried out when that was inside me, too.

It hit me, in some dim corner of my mind, that we still hadn’t talked about this.

We hadn’t talked about any of this––how strange things had gotten between the two of us, how weird our sex was getting, the wings, the tail, how much my light was changing, how much different it felt, even now.

“I see vortexes,” Black gasped, murmuring in my ear. “With you, Miri… I see tunnels of light. I see…”

He gasped as that pain in him worsened, causing us to wrap around and into one another tighter. His eyes closed and I felt him searching for words, for some way to show me.

“I see other worlds,” he said, his fingers tightening in my hair. “I see other worlds, Miri… tunnels of light…”

He was holding my face and hair in his hands.

It wouldn’t have been strange.

It wouldn’t have been strange at all––

––but other parts of him gripped my ass and back.

Other parts of him wound around my legs and arms, yanking me up against him, pulling him deeper into me. I felt him fucking me in my ass and cunt, those other parts of him yanking my legs wider apart so he could go deeper, gripping my hips and the backs of my knees to hold himself further inside me. I groaned against his neck, going weak in his arms when he crushed me against him, and some part of me pulled on him for more, demanded more.

I murmured against his mouth when he kissed me, even as I felt teeth sink into my neck, on the opposite side from where Nick bit me earlier.

I opened more when my pain worsened and he leaned his weight, slamming me up against the mirror near the sink. I heard the glass crack as he fucked me harder, until we were half-lying on the counter and he was groaning, those multi-colored wings wrapping around me tighter, until they were all I could see.

The pain got so bad, I couldn’t make a sound.

I couldn’t even tell if it was my pain or his. I was lost in him somehow, just––lost. Worse than that maybe, I didn’t care.

I didn’t fucking care at all.

I just wanted him to do whatever he was doing harder, to obliterate both of us with it if he could.

At some point, we had to talk about this.

At some point, we had to stop pretending it wasn’t happening.

For now, I could feel neither of us wanting to have that conversation. I felt our reluctance to do anything that might force us to look at it, much less stop doing it.

I knew it had something to do with whatever bothered Jem about Black’s eyes.

I knew it had something to do with what none of the seers on our team wanted Charles to know about Black, what Black didn’t want anyone apart from him to know about me.

Even now, Jem was probably trying to limit the number of seers on our team with that information. I’d heard him and Black arguing in the Barrier about that very thing while we rode back to California Street in the limousine.

Mostly Jem did the arguing, while Black sidestepped him or just told him no.

Jem wanted to erase Cowboy and Angel.

He wanted to erase every human on our team who might have seen Black’s eyes glow, or my eyes glow, or who might suspect Black was something other than a regular seer. He also wanted to erase the seers they didn’t know well enough to trust yet.

Black said no.

When Jem pushed, Black said no again, and told Jem to leave the minds of “his” goddamned humans alone… and the minds of his seers, for that matter.

When Jem tried to get him to talk about his glowing irises, Black said no again, and told him to mind his own fucking business.

I knew Black was dead serious in his threats, particularly when it came to messing with the minds of any of his human employees.

I loved him for that.

I also loved that it was a conversation we’d never had to have.

For all of Black’s apparent callousness and quirks, for all of his hyper-pragmatism that Nick and others used to speculate verged on sociopathy, Black’s ethical and moral lines in the sand were a lot firmer than those I’d observed on the majority of seers.

As much as I’d seen Black screw with the minds of humans outside his inner circle, I’d never seen him use his light to so much as calm someone down who worked directly for him. He was way more heavy-handed with other seers, including me.

In stark contrast, I couldn’t help but notice how the seers from Old Earth talked about, thought about, and treated humans, as compared to seers. The difference was subtle most of the time, but it got a lot less subtle when security, military, and intelligence issues were at stake.

Black made it crystal clear that the rules were different in his world, at least for the humans he knew personally. I’d heard him tell seers that if they wanted to screw with human minds, they could damned well go work for Charles. He’d more or less threatened all of them in different ways that if he caught them using their light against any human in his employ, they were out––and out for good.

As far as I knew, none of them had broken that rule, even though they’d argued with him over the necessity of breaking it.

I knew Jem was only a fraction of our current problem, though.

I’d seen the looks on all of their faces when Black’s irises glowed.

I knew we should be taking more precautions to keep Charles from finding out about Black being different, and to find out what Charles already knew about both of us. I knew it was reckless to just blow it off, especially if those differences would be as big of a deal to Charles as Jem seemed to think.

The problem was––a bigger, far-less-logical part of me just didn’t care.

That part of me just wanted everyone to leave me and Black alone.

More and more, when Black and I were together, I didn’t much care about anything apart from the two of us. Even knowing how dangerous that was, I couldn’t seem to make myself want to think about it, or try to push Black to talk to me about what it all meant.

I could feel Black’s reluctance, too.

I could feel that part of both of us that was afraid to even ask the question.