Dark Solace (35 page)

Lash shot me a look that said he didn’t
understand. “You said I could swear, Sar. Or can I just not say
fuck—?”

“I meant if you were angry,” I explained.
“Try not to swear unless you have to.”

Lash rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

“Sar has feelings for you,” Carol said. “Do
you have feelings for her?”

“She already knows I do,” Lash hissed
menacingly. “Get to the point, Carol.”

I wanted to scream, this was so awkward and
uncomfortable.
How was this helping anything?

“Do you love her, Lash?” Carol said
pointedly.

“Carol, either ask a pertinent question to
Theo and Sar’s relationship, or I’m leaving,” Lash hissed angrily.
“What I feel for her is irrelevant to her relationship with
Theo.”

Carol tried again. “Lash, do you wish that
she would leave Theo for you?”

Lash glared at her, baring his fangs, and she
recoiled in her chair just from his look. “Sar loves Theo, not me,”
he hissed. “What I want is for her to be happy, Carol. She isn’t
now. Some of it’s that prick Theo’s fault. He wants too much from
her.”

Carol nodded. “What do you want from Sar,
Lash?”

Lash looked over at me, his eyes flat and
hungry. “Whatever she wants to give me, Carol. She has enough men
pushing her for sex, love, and her time. I’m not going to be
another one.”

Carol considered this.

“Carol, why did you ask me to bring Lash
today?” I said. “I’ve told you all the facts. I don’t see how going
over what happened again will solve anything.”

“Lash, Sar and Theo are trying to make their
marriage work,” Carol said gently, ignoring me. “They have several
issues to work through. One of them is you. They need to resolve
what you were to Sar, Theo’s jealousy over it, how she feels about
you, and how you feel about her, so as a couple they can move
beyond the affair she had with you. That’s why I asked you
here.”

Lash considered that, flicking his forked
tongue at Carol. “That’s simple enough,” he hissed. “We are
friends, good friends. We were lovers, but we aren’t anymore,
though that’s not by choice—”

That wasn’t true on my part, but I kept
silent.

“—
Sar and I aren’t happy about not
being able to be intimate, but that’s how it is. I accept that. She
accepts that. I want her to be happy, even if it’s with that
fucking cat—”

“Lash, do you think you could make Sar
happier than Theo can?” Carol interjected.

Lash stopped talking. In a fluid motion, he
got up and walked toward Carol, who shrank back in her chair again,
her eyes wide. “What are you poking at me for, Carol?” he hissed.
“People who can’t leave a snake well enough alone tend to get
bitten—”

“Lash, come back here and sit down,” I said
sternly. “Stop acting threatening. She’s a therapist, not one of
your marks.”

“She’s aiming to be one,” Lash hissed at
Carol. But he did come back to the couch, and sat down again. I put
my hand on his arm, and he relaxed somewhat, moving my hand off him
and putting his arm around my shoulders, stroking me with his
fingers.

“Please answer the question, Lash—”

Anger flared within me. “Carol, enough with
the remarks about rivalry,” I said irritably. “I told you, there
isn’t—”

“Sar, I can see just by the way you two act
that you are one tiny step away from becoming lovers again,” Carol
said flatly. “You are an adult, Sar, and you are married. If you
want your marriage to survive, you need to ask yourself if what you
feel for Lash is more important that what you feel for Theo. And
whatever conclusion you come to, you need to tell both Theo and
Lash the truth about what you feel.”

Lash gently took his arm off me, and moved
away from me on the couch. “She already told me,” he hissed, upset.
“She wants to try with Theo to make it work between them. She
doesn’t want to lose him over what she and I did together. I accept
that.”

“Then Sar needs to stop you when you try to
touch her, and Lash, you need to respect that, and not touch her
like you just did,” Carol said gently. “She needs you to just be
her friend. Can you do that for her, Lash?”

“Of course. I am grateful for all she did for
me. I value her friendship.”

“Lash, do you feel what you feel for Sar
because of her part in saving you?”

What did that have to do with anything? More
importantly, what would he answer?

“No. I’m grateful for her help, for what she
did. But I cared for her long before that.”

“Lash, can you be supportive of Sar and
Theo’s relationship? I know there is strong dislike between
you—”

“Theo’s an asshole, plain and simple. I’m not
going to change my opinion of him,” Lash said angrily. “Just why
Sar loves him so much, I don’t know. It must be for his body.”

“Why do you hate him, Lash?” Carol asked.

“Because he’s a simple jock, and a fool, and
he talks too much. I don’t like anyone who mouths off to me, and it
pisses me off that I can’t just kill him, like I would anyone else
who says the shit he does to me. But Dev’s asked me not to kill him
from way back, for Danial, and so I just kick his ass usually when
we fight, knowing he’ll pull the same dumb shit the next time I see
him, and I’ll have to fight him again then. I do enjoy kicking his
ass, it’s true, but I wish it wasn’t so easy to get a rise out of
him. But maybe that is the reason Sar loves him.” He smirked at me.
“I hope he’s not a one hit wonder.”

Carol looked appalled. I glared at Lash.

“What?” he said easily. “Since he’s a fuckup
at everything else, it’s natural to assume he’s shit in the sack,
too—”

“Stop being a jerk,” I said gently. “Your
digs aren’t making this go any faster.” I looked back at Carol. “I
am tired of their fighting,” I added wearily. “It’s true that Lash
runs his mouth at Theo, but Theo’s just as guilty. And it’s always
Theo that starts the actual fighting. I tried to interfere a few
times, but it didn’t help. They still fought.”

“Just stay out of the way,” Lash said
arrogantly. “It never takes me long to put him on the ground. He
usually stays there, once he’s down—”

“Still, it would be better if you didn’t
fight,” Carol said firmly. “Especially as there is nothing to fight
over. Sar, do your best this week to try to get Theo to control his
temper for those times he can’t just avoid Lash. And Lash, don’t
verbally bait Theo—”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut, so long as he
does,” Lash hissed. “But I’m not taking his insults. I don’t take
insults from anyone but Dev, and sometimes Danial, as a favor to
Dev—”

“You and Devlin are good friends?” Carol
asked.

Lash nodded.

“Why? You’re snake and he’s vampire. A
friendship between the two is unusual—”

Lash fixed her with a cold glare “I don’t
talk about Dev, and he doesn’t talk about me. Dev’s coming with Sar
in two weeks. You want him to answer questions, he’ll answer them
then. But I don’t talk about him, not without him here to hear
me.”

Lash had talked about him plenty with me, but
maybe it was a personal thing.

Carol nodded. “I think we are done for today,
then,” she said, getting up. “Thank you for coming, Lash.”

“That’s a relief,” Lash said, changing slowly
back to human form, his eyes becoming dark as his fangs receded,
and disappeared. He stood up. “So I can go, then?”

Carol looked at him, surprised. “I thought
you would be older.”

Lash gave her a faint smile. “I was
older-looking before,” he said, a faint drawl in his words. “It was
an effect of the faerie blood, how I look now.”

She was checking him out, clearly. I was
irritated at her assassin groupie-ness, then told myself it was
none of my business.

“Sar, I’ll see you next week with Theo,”
Carol said, showing us to the door.

I nodded, and left, Lash at my side. When we
reached the sidewalk, he turned to me. “I’m going to head back. Do
you want a ride?”

What I wanted from him was a kiss and then a
nice long ride, but I kept that to myself. “Come with me to brunch;
my treat. It’s the least I can do after you were nice enough to
come here today.”

Lash gave me a tilted head coupled with a
calculating look. “Sounds uptight. Where?”

I immediately began babbling. “There’s a
restaurant I know near my house. You can drop me off after. Maybe
we can go for a walk after with my dogs, if you aren’t too cold.
I’ve only got two hours before I’ve got to get home, so it won’t be
a long lunch, or anything. Theo’s got an important meeting later
today, and he can’t walk them, so I need to—”

Lash looked at me, considering my words.

God, why couldn’t I shut up? “—we both missed
lunch, and after that debacle going out to lunch sounds good. I
don’t want to go alone. You’ll like it.” I gave him a scoping look.
“Are you not hungry?”

“It’s not that. We’ve only ever gone for
sushi,” Lash said quietly, his dark eyes very guarded. “I just
never expected for you to invite me anywhere near your home where
someone you knew might see us together.”

He was nervous himself. My nervousness
evaporated. “Why wouldn’t I?” I said, giving him a strange look.
“Why are you saying it like that?”

“Never you mind,” Lash said quickly, turning
and walking toward his truck “Let’s go if we’re going.”

* * * *

The instant we walked inside, I felt like I’d
made a mistake. Theo and I had come here often in the past year,
and our usual waitress was clearly curious about where he was, and
who Lash was to me. It got even better when we got up to get our
food from the buffet tables.

“Try the blintzes, they’re excellent,” I
said, handing Lash the tongs. “There’s bacon there—”

“Sar?” a curious and familiar voice said.

I whipped around to see my parents staring at
us. Lash was already facing them, staring back.

Just act normal. “Mom, Chris, you know Lash,”
I said calmly. “Lash, you remember my parents, Chris and Tina.”

“Hi, Lash,” my parents said, the question of
what I was doing here with him loud in their voices.

“Hello, Tina, Chris. I am seeing Sar safely
home from Devlin’s,” Lash said quietly, putting the tongs back in
the serving tray. “We stopped for lunch, as Sar said this place has
good food.”

Reassured, my parents gave me a hug, and
shook Lash’s hand before they left for their own table.

“They are good people,” Lash said pensively.
“I wish they didn’t think I was so awful.”

“They don’t think you are awful,” I amended
gently as we sat down. “They think Devlin’s awful, and you are
guilty by association. You like single malt scotch and that
immediately puts you on good terms with my stepfather, anyway.”

“Still, they were happy to think you aren’t
here with me socially. And I can’t say I blame them. They have
every reason to think that of me, from what Theo’s probably told
them.” Lash met my eyes. “He has, hasn’t he?”

I looked down, stabbing some meat with my
fork. Lash was right. Theo had said more than a few derogatory
things about Lash this summer, when he, Danial, Theoron, Elle, and
me had visited my parents. Danial had joined in, though the both of
them had shut up when I’d given them my “dangerous” eyes.

“I noticed that they don’t ever come to see
V,” Lash hissed softly. “It’s because of me—”

“No,” I replied. “It’s because of Dev. They
forgave Devlin frightening them, but they don’t want to see him at
all, ever. My mother refuses to set foot in Hayden again,
especially if ‘that demon-thing’ comes around to ‘space warp them
there—’”

Lash cracked up laughing, and I smiled too,
glancing up at him. “But Devlin won’t let Venus leave Hayden. I’m
hoping to convince him to let her go to Danial’s, and have my
parents meet her there.”

Lash nodded. “That might work.” He shifted in
his seat. “Sar, I have an appointment tonight around eight. I’ll be
out for a few hours, if you try to reach me.”

Why was he telling me? “Okay.”

“I know you’re going to be home alone,” Lash
said, finishing his chicken. “I wanted you to know I wouldn’t be
around, in case you needed me.”

I put down my fork and stared at him. “How do
you always know? You knew that day that I would be alone for lunch,
too—”

“Brian tells me whatever I want to know,”
Lash said, sitting back in his chair. “And I make it a point to
know if you are going to be alone, both to let Devlin know and to
make sure Titus is around, in case you need help. Now that you can
teleport again, Dev and Danial aren’t worried about you being alone
as much, but it pays to be extra careful.”

“Thanks,” I said, understanding his
comment.

“I’m heading back up,” he said, standing. “Be
right back.”

We tried a little of everything at the
buffet. I indulged, telling myself I could go back on the diet
tomorrow. Lash had sausage, sausage gravy, chicken and biscuits,
bacon, beef tips, tilapia, and ham with a little rice.

“Having some rice with your meat?” I
teased.

“To each his own,” he hissed, giving me a
grumpy look. “I didn’t say anything about your four desserts—”

“Shush,” I said curtly, making him smile
again. “They were only three small ones.”

We didn’t talk further, preferring just to
nibble leisurely and enjoy the sunlight. It was a cold day, but the
sunlight was warm and bright on the frozen earth outside. We were
sitting near the windows, and the sunlight was streaming in the
windows to land on me, the table, and Lash.

He sighed with pleasure at the warmth, then
he looked over at me knowingly. “You didn’t ask me here for the
food—”

I gave him a wide grin. “Not just for the
food. I’ve often sat where you’re sitting, and relished the sun
warming me. I knew with the sunlight so bright today, it would be
like that if we came here, and that you’d like it as much as I
did.”