Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4) (30 page)

When he paused us for a few seconds, his eyes were glassed.

“Tell me,” he murmured. “Tell me you fucking love me, doc...”

“Why did you say we were married?” I blurted. The words came out without my willing them. Breathless-sounding, even to me, my voice filled with that vulnerability and pain all over again. “Why, Black? Why did you tell Cal that?”

There was a silence.

Even before he broke it, I knew what he was going to say.

“Because we are,” he said, meeting my gaze.

For a long-feeling few seconds, I could only look at him.

Then I shook my head, adamant, fighting another flush of that fear. “No. I was never that out of it. No matter what we did in that penthouse, I was never so out of it that I wouldn’t
remember
that, Black––”

“Doc,” he said, his voice warning. “I didn’t drug you and put a ring on your finger. I’ll do all of that if you want, whenever you want... the ring, the big white dress, the party... even the fucking church if you want that, too. But that’s a
ritual,
doc. I’m talking about reality. In
reality,
as far as the seer world is concerned, we’re already married.”

“In ‘reality’?” I retorted, biting my lip. “So whatever goes on in your mind is
reality,
is that it, Black? Your culture dictates it, so it’s so? The hell with what I say or think?”

He shook his head, caressing my face with his hand. His voice grew surprisingly gentle, and for once, maybe even for the first time, I found myself feeling him as older than me.

“No,
ilya
... not just in my mind... and not just in my culture. Not even just to you and me. To
any
seer, doc. Any seer who looked at our lights right now would know we are married. They’d
know
it, even if they didn’t see us together. Even if we said nothing to them about it and neither of us
ever
went through any kind of ritual or wore any kind of ring. They could see it in our light... do you understand? It’s not just culture. It’s who we are now.”

When I frowned at him, shaking my head, his voice sharpened.

“Gaos,
Miri... I know you understand this. What the fuck do you think your uncle was so angry about? I thought you got that... the whole ‘mate’ thing. What did you think it meant? That we’d be lifelong fuck-buddies, but it wouldn’t go any deeper than that?”

That time, he sounded almost angry.

I stared up at him, breathing harder. Tears came back to my eyes. “You married me without telling me?”

He hesitated, looking down at my face. “Doc,” he said, softer. “It doesn’t work like that. One seer doesn’t ‘do’ it to another... it’s mutual. I promise you, it’s mutual. By design.”

“But my uncle said––”

“I know what that bastard said,” Black growled. “But I’m telling you, it doesn’t
work
like that, Miri. It just doesn’t.”

“Then why was he so mad at you?” I folded my arms tighter, staring up at him.

Seeing my expression, Black sighed, leaning his weight to one side on the mattress before he met my gaze. Combing a hand through his hair, he exhaled again.

“Your uncle expected me to stop it, Miri. He was pissed off at me because he expected me to see what was happening and stop it... to walk away from you before our light restructured around one another. I
didn’t
stop it. I didn’t even try to stop it really, so yeah, he’s mad at me. He blames me because I knew about seers and I let it happen.”

He shrugged, giving me a faintly embarrassed look.

“He’s basically mad because I wanted it. Not because he thinks I
forced
you into mating with me, for fuck’s sake, but because I
wanted
it, Miri. He can’t blame you for wanting me... you’re his blood. But he can blame
me
for it, and tell himself that I took advantage of you, by letting us become mates when I could have walked before that happened...”

Grimacing, I refolded my arms tighter, feeling my skin flush hotter again. “Do you have to say it like that?” I grumbled. “Mates. It sounds so... I don’t know. Animalistic.”

He grinned at me, pressing closer, but I shoved at his chest.

“Don’t get cute with me right now, Black... I mean it. How could you not tell me this?”

“Not tell you?” He stared at me, a denser hurt suddenly visible in his eyes. “Miri! We talked about this. Your uncle talked about it... the important aspects, anyway.”

I shook my head. “No. We
didn’t
talk. Remember? We didn’t.”

“And that’s
my
fault?” he said, sharper.

“Whose fault
would
it be, Black?” I snapped.

“I asked you if you wanted to talk,” he growled. “I
asked
you, Miri. You heard what your uncle said, same as me! You heard him say once we consummated, there was no turning back. Don’t pretend like you didn’t have a fucking
say
in this!”

“Calm down,” I snapped, looking towards Angel’s room. “You’re going to wake her up.”

“Calm down? You want me to calm down? My fucking
wife
is accusing me of raping her... of
lying
to her and forcing her into marriage with me against her will...”

That intensity of hurt on him rippled outward, hot enough and violent enough to scare me. Feeling the fear there, the pain coming off him, I gripped his hair, leaning my face closer to his. I met his eyes that time, forcing him to meet mine.

“Black,” I murmured. “Hey... come on. Calm down, okay...? Calm down...” I kissed his face, caressing his jaw where it wasn’t hurt. “I’m not saying that, okay? I’m not.”

“You
were
saying that, Miriam...”

“I was. But I’m not now.”

When he shook his head, his jaw hard, I found myself opening, pulsing heat into his chest. I watched his eyes close, even as some of that charge I’d felt in his light began to break apart, to flash outwards in heat right before it grew softer, less directed. Pain rose in my own body as I watched his face change. That vulnerability mixed with my own wanting until it nearly blanked out my mind. I watched his expression grow even more open, more filled with pain.

“Fuck, Miri...”

Tears came to his eyes, shocking me even more. I found myself kissing his face again without thought, sliding my arms around his neck as I pressed up against him.

“I wanted that,” he murmured. “Last night... I wanted it, Miri. So fucking badly.” His voice grew so soft I could barely hear him, even with his mouth resting by my ear. “What you did last night...
gaos.
Miri... I’ve been asking you for that. For weeks I’ve been asking. But now, this... I can’t do this right now. I feel like you’re cutting my heart out of my fucking chest and I can’t
do
this right now, Miri. Not after last night...”

My throat closed so tightly I couldn’t swallow.

I nodded, though, understanding him more than I wanted.

More than that, I could feel him again, so intensely that I couldn’t see or feel anything else. Or maybe I just couldn’t care about any of the rest of it, or even pretend to care anymore. I found myself gripping him tighter in my hands, stroking his shoulders and arms before I wound my fingers into his hair. I wrapped my legs around him too, even as I forced myself to think. I opened more to him as I did, letting that relief wash over both of us again.

A few seconds later, I felt him sigh. It was a real sigh that time. That fear in him began to ebb. I felt him letting it go, right before he leaned his weight into mine. By then, I knew. Or maybe I’d just finally admitted it to myself.

He was right. I’d known about this.

I’d been in denial about it, yes... but I’d known.

I’d been pretending I didn’t know how he felt, or how I felt... but I’d known that, too.

I wrapped my arms around him tighter as another pulse of relief left his light, probably because he’d heard at least some portion of what I’d been thinking. I found myself fighting tears when I felt the relief there, even as I realized again that it wasn’t only me who felt vulnerable.

We lay there for what felt like a long time.

Long enough for Black to relax more. Long enough for him to eventually doze off in my arms, which also made me realize how tired he was, how little sleep I felt on him from the days he’d been gone. I was tired too. It took me longer than him to fall back asleep, but eventually I felt my mind wanting to follow his to a simpler place.

Before I drifted off, however, I realized something else.

The feeling overwhelming me wasn’t anger, or even distrust––it was fear. It wasn’t the fear I’d been telling myself it was, either. As much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, my fear wasn’t aimed at Black, or at what he might do. It wasn’t even aimed at the idea of the two of us being together from now on, given how different we were and how we still seemed to flip out on one another at the drop of a hat. The longer I lay there, the more I wondered if it had ever been about those things. The fear, I mean.

The truth is, I wasn’t afraid of Black.

I’d never been afraid of Black.

I was afraid of me.

In a weird way, I may have even been trying to protect him. I knew it wasn’t over yet. Not just this latest thing, with Templar. Something else was hunting me.
 

Maybe I was afraid whatever killed Zoe and my parents wasn’t gone yet.

Maybe I was afraid whatever it was, it would get Black, too.

Twelve

DIFFERENT FOOTING

ANGEL DEVERAUX WALKED cautiously into her own living room at just after eleven thirty in the morning, after stopping midway in her hall and listening to the silence.

She’d gone out to that same hall the night before, a P226 DAK she’d gotten for Christmas from her boyfriend, Anthony, clutched in both hands. The gun had a bullet chambered, the safety off, and it was loaded with a brand new magazine as she edged out to investigate the noises she’d heard in her living room.

She figured out pretty quick that it wasn’t the Templar, there to kill Miri.

She stared long enough to recognize the shockingly colorful tattoo of a winged dragon on Black’s back, and to see that they were both naked, that Black was fucking her best friend on Angel’s mother’s floor rug with an alarming amount of athleticism––and seemingly without any awareness of anything going on in the world apart from the two of them.

Then Angel saw tears in his eyes, heard him murmuring to her...

And she backed away.

She’d retreated back to the darkness of the hall, cursing both of them silently under her breath as she lowered the gun.

She made it back to her room a few seconds later.

Even so, something about what she’d seen had shaken her.

She’d found herself lying in bed for awhile after that, remembering the look on Miri’s face as she’d looked up at him, how small she’d looked beneath him, her hands white and small-looking too, where she clutched Black’s arms. Angel had never thought of Miri as a small woman before, or as a particularly vulnerable one.

It also hit her that Miri and Black’s relationship suddenly seemed a lot less funny.

She’d told Miri herself she thought Black was in love with her. She hadn’t been blowing smoke––Angel believed that when she said it. Even so, it was different to actually
see
it. It was also different to see Black when he wasn’t acting with his usual swagger and bullshit routine.