CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

There was a countless number of small caves in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. Most were inaccessible to all but creatures with the ability to slither or else teleport or fly. Tamatsu was the latter.

Unfortunately, so was Tarik.

The cave Tamatsu sulked in wasn’t large enough for Tarik to safely teleport into. He hovered in front of the entrance, wings flapping, and not bothering to disguise the pain contorting his face. “You do this on purpose,” he said in a breathless pant, “but you will not deter me.”

Rolling his eyes, Tamatsu grabbed his katana from the cave floor and teleported to the base of the mountain.

Tarik joined him on the ground soon after. He extended his weaker wing and worked the joint several ways before pulling the appendage in. His golden gaze fell to the katana blade, or perhaps the blood that dripped from it into the arid soil. “You didn’t clean your blade. You always clean your blade.”

True. For once, Tamatsu hadn’t cared to. The blade was honed in an angel’s forge and wouldn’t rust, and besides, he liked seeing the blood. The reminder of a fresh kill could stave off another urgent craving.

He knew that would only work for so long, though. All three of his hungers nagged at the back of his mind. He couldn’t guess which would be next to provoke his desire to self-destruct, but knew which one he couldn’t feed.

Which one he wouldn’t feed.

Noelle had been right that he shouldn’t have touched her.

“What did you kill?” Tarik asked. “Or who?”

Tamatsu fixed his gaze on the sky and then down to Tarik again.

“Your fish heads, then? All done?”

Tamatsu nodded.

Tarik folded his arms over his chest. “So, you’ve been passing through realms and destroying creatures that multiply like a hydra’s heads. How weak are you right now?”

Too weak to defend himself from an equal’s attack, probably, but Tarik needn’t have worried. He’d need several large meals first, but he expected to be at full capacity when he went to work the river. If he couldn’t have his voice to force the water down, he’d bang on doors and scare the people who lived too close to the river out of their homes if he had to. His momentary lack of energy was hardly worth concern.

Tarik stuffed his hands into the pockets of his slacks and turned toward the moonrise. “Perhaps we should have dinner. I believe I have an appetite tonight.”

Tamatsu shook his head. He knew the game—knew what Tarik was trying to get him to do and to forget, but he wanted to be left to his solitude.

“No.” Tarik grabbed his arm. “Not this time. I will not give you the leeway to destroy the equanimity you’ve earned in recent centuries. I won’t let you become what so many others like us do. You want to wallow? Fine. But you will do so with the person who unbalanced you, and you will fix each other, do you understand me?” He yanked Tamatsu closer, projecting energy suggestive of a preparation to teleport. Tamatsu couldn’t recall a time he’d relied on another to move him. Unnecessary, usually, but he wasn’t going to use his last bit of energy to seek solitude elsewhere.

“You steer, I’ll take you,” Tarik said, speaking truth to Tamatsu’s thoughts. He shook him by the arm.

Closing his eyes, Tamatsu nodded.

Tarik yanked him away.

If Tamatsu hadn’t recognized the smells of Maria, he would have recognized the sounds. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know Tarik had taken him to Jiminez’s home. The nearby deli was still open and the soft chatter of people in the square was familiar.

He recognized the place. It’d become as close to a home as he’d ever had since Falling.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” came a frantic voice from behind them.

Tamatsu opened his eyes and turned.

Tarik growled quietly.

There was a man pointing at them, his eyes wide, his jaw gaping. “You … Out of nowhere.”

Shit.

As luck would have it, that particular Maria resident had seen Tamatsu vanish once before. Angels tried not to materialize or vanish in front of humans, but they did have some built-in glamour to confuse people about what they were seeing. Unfortunately, a very small percentage of people were immune to the glamour—one in ten thousand or fewer. Maria’s population was around five thousand.

Tarik took a step toward the man, but the guy took off at a clip, repeating, “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

“Don’t worry about him right now,” Tarik said. “The people in the know won’t verify his suspicions, and the ones who don’t know about us will think he’s demented. We’ll be more careful in the future about where we land.” He gestured toward the house’s front door.

Tamatsu drew in a breath, shifted his katana to his other hand, and nodded.

He counted voices as they walked.

Willa. Blue. His assistant Kenny. Tito.

Noelle.

“Keep moving,” Tarik whispered.

Grimacing, Tamatsu walked through the open door and didn’t stop moving until he stepped into the dining room.

His body seized at the sight of Noelle leaning against the table beside Mr. Shapely. They were too close. Too familiar with each other.

He didn’t notice Tarik taking his katana from him, only that in a moment, he was across the room and striding into the kitchen with it, and all eyes were on Tamatsu.

Noelle straightened up and opened her mouth as if to say something, but he took a preemptive step toward the other side of the table, silencing her. He’d spent hours mulling over the revelation of Noelle having all but consumed a part of him. He’d very nearly gotten over what had happened in Japan, but the wound reopened.

For all he knew, that was what their future would be. The same insult again and again. In spite of Tarik’s encouragement, Tamatsu didn’t know if he could bear that.

He wasn’t ready for a conversation—not yet.

“Hey … So, we’ve got food,” Willa said with a nervous titter. “In the kitchen. Some of the Coyotes brought stuff over earlier. They’re helping me clean up the place. We’re hoping to be able to turn this into the Coyote hangout. We don’t currently have one, and I guess we’re a bit overdue to have a place to gather that isn’t a bar.” She added in a mutter, “Or a rock in the desert.”

Nodding curtly at her, he moved to the kitchen before he could spare another glance at the newcomer Coyotes or at the woman standing far too close to them.

Tarik handed him a plate. “Eat before you try to do any thinking and before you jump to any unnecessary conclusions.” He left Tamatsu to the kitchen and the food laid out on the counter.

Tamatsu begrudgingly filled a plate, sat, and ate.

He was listening while he chewed, his unease flaring each time he heard her voice, and how he’d never have his own unless they were touching. She’d hobbled him. He’d never be able to speak independently of her except with his hands, his expressions, his writing. So much of his power had been in his voice.

“There’s no need to be so rash,” she said over the spiking of voices in the dining room. “It wouldn’t be a takeover, Willa. No one wants that, but you said yourself that you don’t have enough dominant Coyotes in the group. What about him gives you pause? Let’s talk this out.”

“He’s a hustler! Come on, Noelle. You’ve been around the block just as long as I have and have certainly encountered creatures like him. You know how guys like him are.”

“I try to judge each one separately. You can’t automatically assume that he’ll do some harm to the pack. And, come on, dear, let’s be honest. You can’t, and don’t want to lead the pack, and you also don’t want to give the pack to one of your brothers. The way I see things, the only viable solution is for you to find a dominant enough Coyote to step in and run the pack for you.”

“To get the pack under control, not take it over. I’m not willing to negotiate on that. They’re still mine.”

“She’s not gonna let me do what needs to be done,” Blue said, “and if what I saw just from driving through town is any indication of how much work I’d have ahead of me, she should be happy I didn’t turn a goddamned U-ie and haul my ass back to the airport. There are Coyotes milling around on fur and four legs, sitting at the roadside like they’re waiting for the right car to fling themselves in front of.”

“Oh, they need to run off some of the pent-up energy, is all.”

“No, they need someone to crack the whip on them and push those animal instincts back. You’ve let them run wild for too long and they can’t hold the beasts at bay anymore. They don’t think the way people do. They’re thinking like animals.”

“So, what’s the solution?” Noelle said. There was no hint of exasperation in her voice, no hostility, either. Hers was a take-charge voice. She knew what to say to get things done. She was efficient and practical and didn’t unnecessarily inject ego into most situations. That was one of the reasons she had meshed so well with Tamatsu. Even when she was frenetic, she was reasonable.

“Willa, tell me where you’re willing to concede, and we’ll see if Mr. Shapely is able to work within those constraints.”

“Look, I don’t want them miserable, okay? I know things got out of hand and the pack is disorderly right now, but I worry that to put into place the system he wants to install, we’ll lose half the pack. The guys that don’t want to dry out and straighten up are going to go elsewhere, and if they do, they’re not gonna go quietly. They’re going to be enemies. Coyotes are good at making enemies, and you know that.”

“I do know that,” Blue said. He glanced up at Tamatsu as he entered the room and then fixed his gaze right back on Willa.

Her voice might have been strong enough, but her normally olive-skinned face was ashen and pupils far too large. She was intimidated by the dog. As Noelle had said: a functional introvert.

“You’ve got to trust me to do what needs to be done,” Blue said. “I know how to defend a pack. Trust me.”

She scoffed. “Trust me, he says. That’s a red flag, if I’ve ever heard one. In my experience, that’s the opening salvo to a whole lot of bullshit. Never believe a man who starts a sentence with trust me.”

“Okay.” Noelle put one hand over Blue’s mouth and pointed to Willa with the other hand. “Fair. I believe you’re worried about there being even more disruptions following a period of incredible instability for the pack. He’s worried about interference.”

Blue lifted a corner of Noelle’s hand and said, “Yeah. That. I can’t do my job if I have my hands bound.”

She looked to Willa. “Then it seems the reasonable thing would be for you to hash out a list of deal-breakers—the things you absolutely won’t abide in the pack. I’m sorry, Willa. You’re not going to be able to micromanage this one. Either do the work or get out of the way.”

“But—”

“Nope.” Noelle dropped both hands and shook her head hard. “If you’d like, I can keep asking around and making some inquiries. Or maybe Mr. Shapely can?” She cut her gaze to him.

He nodded somberly. “I’m not trying to be anywhere I’m not wanted. I’m not bringing my guys here if she’s gonna be hostile to them. They’d be here doing the job they were brought to do.”

“Look. I’m trying to be understanding, but I’m worried we’ll end up with an even bigger mess than we have now,” Willa said. “Can you blame me? The pack is an embarrassment. It wasn’t so bad when nobody knew the pack was mine, but now people know.”

“How about we …” Piping up for the first time since Tamatsu had entered, Kenny paused and drummed his fingers against his laptop lid. “Just … have a discussion about what a healthy pack is supposed to look like, and we can negotiate from there. Hmm?” He looked from Willa to Blue and back.

Willa sighed, then nodded.

Blue nodded as well.

Noelle rubbed her eyes. “Splendid. I’m sorry, but I’m exhausted. I’ll have to leave you folks to chat.” She cut Tamatsu a sideways look as she passed and then disappeared around the kitchen corner.

He followed. After all, she was why he was there.

Tarik stood in front of the counter, buffing Tamatsu’s katana blade with a soft cloth. “All right?”

Noelle lifted the plastic lid of one of the food containers on the counter and emitted a feminine grunt. “I’m sure they’ll come to some accord. I believe Willa to be a reasonable woman and I do think Blue has good intentions.”

She grabbed a bit of beef from the tray and held the slice out to him. “It’s cold, but it’s good.”

He stared down at her hands and the way her hand was turned so her fingers were up and the bulk of her hand turned away from him.

Minimizing contact.

Too late for that.

He took the meat, and her hand, too.

“You don’t have the right to be pitiful,” he said.

Tarik turned at the sound of Tamatsu’s, golden eyes comically round, but he said nothing.

Noelle blinked a few times and then shifted her gaze to his chest. “I didn’t think I was.”

He shoved the meat into his mouth—because he was practical in that way—and took her other hand, too, in case she had the misguided notion that she should flee. He wasn’t going to let her. If Tarik was going to insist that they have it out, they were going to do so then and there. She’d take her licks just like he’d take his. They couldn’t keep leaving each other angry to the point of destructiveness. They were better than that.

“I … understand what I took from you,” she said, shifting her weight from one bare foot to the other. “What I didn’t understand before was that I would be able to taunt you with it for as long as I live. I understand if you want to stay away from me.”

“Is that what you want?”

The floorboards creaked—Tarik shifting his weight, most likely—but Tamatsu didn’t look his way. Tarik’s expression would be a distraction. Tamatsu would have to query him, and then they’d get into one of those hours-long verbal sparring matches they hadn’t had in centuries.

Grunting, Tamatsu closed his eyes.

Maybe not having the voice is better.

“I’m not sure if what I want matters,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t it?”

He opened his eyes She was still staring at his chest, so he tipped her chin up and made her see him.

“This isn’t supposed to hurt,” she whispered.

“What isn’t?”

“Being together.”

“Is that all you experience when you’re with me? Hurt?”

She grimaced. “There’s a lot of hurt. Old shit we’ll never resolve. Bad memories we may never surmount.”

“I see.” He pulled her toward the kitchenette set that was pushed haphazardly against the wall near the back door. He sat in the chair that seemed to have the most remaining screws in it, cringed at the creak, and waited for the chair to give any further complaints. When his ass didn’t hit the floor, he pulled her onto his lap. She didn’t weigh much. And because he was so starved for touch, he snaked his hands up the front of her blouse and pressed his face to his neck.

“Tamatsu …”

“Sometimes I give serious thought to whether death would hurt less than me trying to ignore my hungers,” he said. “I wonder if this resistance I’ve been performing for millennia is just cowardice.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Being good is harder, is it not? Isn’t righteousness harder?”

“Of course it is, but that’s the problem with free will. You’ll want to fall off the path. You’ll want to sense, see, and experience things, because how else will you know if they’re really so wrong?”

“I’m not supposed to know. I’m supposed to follow orders. That was what I was made to do.”

“I’m … sorry you hurt,” she whispered haltingly. “And maybe I’m selfish and having a hard time performing righteousness the right way, too, but I don’t want you to die, either. I’d like to keep you here even if I shouldn’t have you.”

“Why can’t you? Who says you can’t?”

He realized then that he might have cut to the quick of the situation. Everything she’d done to him—all the running she’d done—had been because she thought she couldn’t have him. He would have kept her no matter how much fighting they’d had to do if only she hadn’t left. She could have raged and screamed and hurled magic at him, but he still wouldn’t have sent her away.

There was nothing inherently unfixable about them. They’d just forgotten that they fucked up even more when they were apart.

Tarik stepped out of the kitchen then, casting one final glance over his shoulder before fully exiting the room.

Breathing out a long exhalation, Tamatsu seated Noelle a bit askance of his unwanted erection and squeezed his eyes closed tight. “How do we fix this? Where do we begin again?”

“Are you sure that we can be fixed? Our foundation has so many cracks.”

“Can we not fill them in? You don’t throw things away that can still work, even if the repairs don’t make them perfect.”

“That sounds quite wabi-sabi,” she murmured.

He supposed she was right. The Japanese view that imperfect things could be beautiful because of their imperfections had been lost on him before. If it hadn’t been, he might have been able to apply the same acceptance to himself.

“I’m not afraid of hard work,” she said. “I’m afraid of taking and taking, and giving nothing back.” She scoffed. “Besides my body.”

His instinct was to rebut, but he understood why she’d said such a thing. So much of their time together had been predicated on touch—on physical things. They didn’t think about the future when they were touching. The future hadn’t mattered.

But the future did matter. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t have spent so many years angry at the only woman he’d ever wanted to keep. Futures didn’t matter much to people whose lives were so purposeless that they thought no further than to their next meal. She was his purpose, or part of it.

He skimmed his lips along the scoop collar of her shirt and sighed. “I want things from you,” he said. “Things I have no business wanting.”

“I’m sure we’ve already done some of those things, and in public, at that.”

He laughed. They most certainly had exhibited a decided lack of propriety in earlier years. “I don’t mean those sorts of things, although I wouldn’t mind repeating a number of those.”

She traced a wrinkle in his pants with a fingertip, and his leg spasmed. Her touch would probably kill him. The need would consume him and he wouldn’t be able to resist, but he let her have her casual caresses. She’d never had them before. Not with him, anyway, and he didn’t want to think about the others. He might decide they need killing, and he was trying so hard to be good for her.

And to her.

“Other things, Noelle,” he said. “Not only touching things.”

“Like what?”

“I … I want to be normal sometimes.”

She stiffened against him.

“In the ways I can be,” he said in a rush. “If I have to be bound to this place and live amongst people, I want to live as a person does.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means being connected to a place, and to the people in the place.”

And perhaps having his own people—an elf and some younger people that the two of them could make together. Creatures he could teach to be better than him.

“I think some people might argue that angels aren’t meant to be chained,” she said.

“And yet you’ve tethered me.”

“Not on purpose, but I haven’t complained. I wouldn’t dare complain.”

“I’m glad you wouldn’t in spite of the fact that you should.” He pressed his forehead against hers, brushed the fleshy end of his nose against hers—inciting giggles from her and a sigh. Then he put his lips against hers. He didn’t kiss her so much as steal her breaths. Soft pants passed through her open mouth, hallmarks of her eagerness, her anticipation—her trust, even after everything.

He knew that she’d let him have his way, whatever his way ended up being. She’d allow him to use her in whichever way he saw fit because she believed he was entitled to her.

Deserving of her.

He wasn’t, but he was going to have her anyway. He was going to keep her, and to hell with the rest of the shit. They’d figure things out.

He was convinced of that as he inched her skirt up in the front and touched his palm against the inside of one of her warm thighs.

“Tamatsu …” she warned in a whisper.

“We don’t have to live in a trailer,” he said. “The Airstream is someplace I go where people don’t bother me. I could find someplace else. A house here if you want.”

Her body tensed briefly—a flitting of muscle that a slower creature might not have noticed—but she relaxed before he could be alarmed at her slight recoiling. She crouched against his hand, insinuating her core against him, rubbing, or slaking, really, as she nipped at her lower lip.

His hand was wet. She was always so ready and so honest about her sexual hungers.

Of course she doesn’t mind mine.

“You don’t care, do you?” he whispered as he slid a finger, then a second between her folds. The panties may as well have not been there for the little good they did covering her.

“C-care about what?” Her voice came out in a rasp as she squeezed her sheath tightly around his fingers and rocked back and forth. She notched her fingers into his shirt, and then fisted the fabric.

“About my neediness.”

Her exhalation was a scoff or a laugh, he couldn’t tell. She set her teeth lightly against his jaw and bit down.

Heat flared in him, low in his belly and making his loins ache, but he would persist. His needs were unimportant. He suspected that he could take what he needed from her pleasure and be just as satisfied. Touching her was a privilege. Having her trust was … joy. He’d never understood joy until he’d found her. Joy was worth Falling for.

He worked his thumb in slow circles around her clit—thrusting his fingers deep inside her as he rubbed.

She moaned and he put his mouth over hers, eating the sounds she made.

“Shh. They’ll hear you,” he warned, even as he increased the pace of his fingers and the press of his thumb.

“I …” Growling, she pressed her face against his neck as her body convulsed and there was a gush around his fingers. She groaned. “Damn you.”

He kissed the top of her head and then slowly forced out a breath. He checked in with himself, with his hunger.

He was hungry—always hungry—but not desperate. Not starving. He wouldn’t go mad from desire because he’d sipped on her satisfaction.

“We need other hobbies,” she said dourly as he slid his fingers from her and into his mouth.

She cringed.

He gave her a pointed look as he licked his fingers clean. “What’s wrong with the hobbies we have?”

“Eating and fucking?”

“And don’t forget killing.” He slipped her hand beneath his waistband to continue their touch and moved to the sink to wash his hands.

“Put like that, you make us sound absolutely depraved.”

“We are depraved. I’m trying to care. Can’t.”

Shaking her head, she put her hand against his back.

He scrubbed his hands, chuckling.

“What on Earth am I going to do with you?” Her phone buzzed from somewhere or other. Fortunately, she didn’t run immediately to fetch the device.

“Keep me,” he said. “That’s the obvious course of action, at least, in my humble opinion.”

“So simple.”

“Not just simple, sunshine. Obvious.” He twined some of her hair around his fingers, his gaze taking on a faraway focus as he realized one other obvious thing. He needed to speak, and he could as long as he was touching her.

“Tamatsu, what’s wrong? Did you suddenly remember who was in your company?”

“In a way, yes. I used to … always carry you.”

She nodded, brow deeply creased with evident confusion. “You did, but what of it?”

“Let me carry you somewhere after dinner. I need to prevent a disaster, and I need my voice.”