The Ring Bearer (5 page)

Daniel perked an eyebrow and waited for Nevia to taste hers. She nodded. “Perfect, that’s impressive. Usually people put too much sugar in and not enough cream.”

“See, I can do more than drink and get laid.”

Heaton scoffed, “Barely.” Daniel smiled at his taunt, but when he saw Nevia’s sober reaction, he lost it. He sipped on his own coffee, which needed no special attention like his partner’s. “No beer last night and tea service this morning. What bug got into your bonnet?”

“I really bitchy one,” he mumbled into his cup before another sip.

Heaton glanced between them. “Did I miss something?”

Daniel cleared his throat and put down his coffee. He was willing to do just about anything to change the subject. “Do you want me to fix your arm?” Heaton instinctively reached to check if his sleeve was covering his scar. “I can now, if you want. I understand if you’re uncomfortable with me doing anything more to you.”

Heaton looked to Nevia. She nodded. “He can. I’ve been helping him develop his reversal power. He’s reluctant to do it, because he’s afraid of hurting anyone, but he’s capable of healing you. You’ll be as smooth as the day you were born.”

“I’m thinking about opening a salon to do facial reconstruction for wrinkled old birds.”

“Daniel,” Nevia quietly scolded. He could tell she didn’t like it when he mocked his own ability. He wasn’t sure why. Whether she admitted it or not, that was a viable use for his skills.

“Anyway, I just figured I’d offer.”

Heaton looked down at his arm. The shirt was still covering it, but he didn’t need to remove it to see the damage, it had been there long enough to memorize it. “Does it hurt?” he asked him with trepidation.

“A little at first,” Nevia answered for him. Heaton didn’t really agree to anything one way or another, but Nevia slipped off her stool and took his hand. “Come on.”

Heaton seemed a little resistant, but in the end he followed her like a man being dragged to the gallows. It was an odd scene to witness Nevia dragging a reluctant man upstairs to her bedroom. Why would any man be reluctant to follow her to her bedroom? It could very well be to his death, and Daniel would still follow her willingly.

Daniel grabbed the ice packs from the freezer, along with a few frozen veggies. He didn’t really want to do this again, but he owed Heaton for scarring him in the first place. He also wanted to exert some choice over his power. Not to mention prove that he wasn’t a complete arse. He was probably mostly an arse, but not completely.

Nevia’s bedroom was much like his own, but with a few more feminine touches. He was always amazed at how the house recognized the personality of its guests so quickly. If he had ever taken the time to think about it further, he might have found it creepy. A living house was just a bit over his threshold of comfort, so he just didn’t think about it. A solution that he found worked in many areas of his life.

He usually took this same approach with woman, but Nevia was different. Last night he had meant every word he said to her. He wanted nothing more to do with her. This morning however, was another story. This morning he was back to square one. He wanted to be that guy she thought he was. He wasn’t exactly sure if he could do it, but he could at least try.

“What’s with the ice packs?” Heaton asked as Daniel tossed them on the bedside table.

“The reversal of his power causes...” Nevia started to explain as she pulled her comforter up over her pillows. She caught Daniel looking at her and she interpreted his annoyance to be from her speaking for him. His irritation stemmed more from the fact that he could see down her shirt as she leaned over the bed. No one likes to smell freshly baked bread when they can’t eat it. Yet they continue to make candles scented like food.

“Sorry,” she apologized for her conversational dominance. “Did you want to explain?” He mumbled a retraction, and motioned for her to continue. “The healing power...” she continued while Daniel sat on the edge of the bed. It was probably the closest he would ever get to being in her bed. “…reverses the thermal reaction in him. Instead of getting dangerously cold with a low heart rate, he gets dangerously hot with a high heart rate.” Daniel resisted the urge to make a joke about being hot.

“Dangerously hot, didn’t you put that on your resume,” Heaton offered a joke up for him. Daniel chuckled at it. He was happy that things were back to some semblance of camaraderie between them. He still didn’t understand why he could trust Nevia with his secret and not him, but he couldn’t baulk about it too much if Heaton was in a better mood because of it.

“Yeah, right before: plays well with others,” Daniel added. “Okay, get over here before my peas melt.” He patted the bed.

Heaton coughed. “Seriously, we have to do this on a bed?”

Daniel looked back at Nevia who was kneeling on the mattress behind him. “Come on, like isn’t a dream come true for you,” Daniel chided. Heaton rolled his eyes. “Get on with it, I promise I won’t touch your gooter.”

“He’s a pain in the ass to lift so I prefer if he passes out on the bed,” Nevia offered a more rational explanation.

Heaton joined them on the bed lying between them. He smiled after he got into position, like the image of Nevia crouched on one side and Daniel sitting on the other had taken the joke to a whole new level.

Daniel wanted to make another joke, but it only would have been to stall. He grabbed Heaton’s forearm and turned it over. He looked back up at him. Heaton was nervous, and he looked a little angry, but he didn’t object to anything.

He could see Nevia watching him out of the corner of his eye as he focused his energy. She was such a contradiction in his life. People always avoided looking at him. Sometimes they didn’t even know why, they just instinctively pulled away. She conversely was drawn to him. Not in the way that he preferred, but…

He wasn’t used to that kind of attention. He certainly wasn’t used to admiration of his power. It made him uncomfortable. She was right to push him though. If he was going to be able to wield a power great enough to destroy a being, he should at least learn how to undo some of the damage he creates.

Unfortunately,
that
realization meant he would have to apologize to her. Which he planned to do after he woke up?

6

Daniel woke to the sound of Heaton and Nevia talking about his recovered arm. He didn’t need to hear the words, to know that he was pleased. Heaton’s arm was back to new and probably without so much as a freckle. He really could blow the beauty industry out of the water.

“How did it go?” Daniel asked more to announce his consciousness than to get an update.

“Dude,” Heaton stepped over and showed him his arm. “This is amazing.”

Daniel rolled to his side to see the pubescent skin on his arm. “It’s all for you buddy.” Daniel intended it as a joke, but in a way Heaton was on his list of reasons to continue with Nevia’s intrigue despite not getting sex out of it. “I’m sorry I had put you through it to begin with.”

Heaton must have sensed the somber tone in his voice, because he slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. How’s the heart?” He pressed his finger to his throat. “That’s still pretty high, are you sure he’ll be okay?”

“Yeah,” Nevia leaned in behind Heaton to check his temperature with the back of her hand pressed to his forehead. He vaguely remembered her tossing her ear thermometer on his bed. She hadn’t expected to need it again. “He’s actually not being affected as much as he was originally.”

“How would you know?” Daniel asked with a little more offense than he intended.

“Because you’re awake,” she reproved right back. Heaton turned and they spoke as if he were a patient, completely unnecessary to the diagnosing process. “I think as he develops this power he will be affected less and less. At some point I imagine, he would actually be able to do it without passing out, though he might still have the spike in temperature and heart rate.”

“Like developing cardio stamina,” Heaton suggested.

“Precisely,” she agreed.

“Why does he still risk dying when he uses his destructive power?” Heaton asked as if she had suddenly become the foremost expert on dispersers.

“I suspect it has something to do with the energy expenditure. The heart and lungs can develop stamina to cardio exercise. The destructive power is more like weight lifting, he can do it, but he will be sore afterwards, and he has to rebuild the muscle tissue before he can do it again.”

“But he doesn’t necessarily get bigger muscles to do it better.”

She waved her hand like the analogy got fuzzy at that point. “I suspect that in the case of removing a transmorph from a human, he might be able to utilize both powers at the same time, and therefore balance his reaction to it.”

“Really?” Heaton asked with gasping interest.

“Really?” Daniel asked with far less audible enthusiasm.

“Yes,” she looked at Daniel with disappointment quickly creeping into her eyes, “but that’s neither here nor there, since Daniel isn’t interested in continuing this.” Nevia moved off to her duffel bag and found a set of clean clothes for the day. Without regard for either of them she turned her back to them and exchanged her t-shirt for a button down shirt. Daniel looked on her large serpentine tattoo like a fond memory.

Heaton looked back at him for an answer. “You aren’t going to keep developing your power?”

Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. It wasn’t quite an admission of defeat to her badgering, but she did pause to hear what else he had to say. “I’m not sure I can live up to what Nevia has in mind. She thinks I’m a new messiah.”

“I do not think that.” She turned back and gave him a stern glare that told him he had caught of nerve, or just offended her with his blaspheme. “I just...”

Nevia was interrupted by a wall shaking knock on her door. “Nevia, Heaton, anyone,” Danato’s voice blustered despite the thick door.

“Shit, it’s Danato,” Daniel said forcing himself to sit up. He pushed the ice packs and vegetables under the covers and tried to look casual even though he was still panting and sweating. There was really no reason to hide anything from Danato, but Daniel had learned long ago that his particular personality put Danato into a rage pretty quick. Just stealing his frozen vegetables might be enough to set him off.

Nevia quickly slipped on her fresh pants, and zipped herself on the way to the door. She opened it and Danato stepped in just enough to ensure that the door couldn’t be closed on him prematurely. He gazed over the room taking in Daniel panting on the bed, Heaton standing near him, and Nevia by the door not quite to her all business self just yet.

“What’s going on here?” He asked. Daniel could tell Danato was trying to put it all together on his own. If they were missing clothing he might have assumed something despicable, but since Daniel was the only one out of breath and everyone was clothed it was throwing off the logic of any conclusion he was trying to reach.

“We were just discussing our game plan,” Nevia said the lie as diplomatically as she would the truth. “We planned on leaving today, but with Cori in trouble again, we weren’t sure we should.”

Danato eyed Daniel one last time before turning his attention on Nevia. “Yes, I was just coming to speak with you about that. Belus and I are going to be busy trying to get things under control. I may need Ethan to keep things operational. Unfortunately, the Council of the Moon is not willing to postpone their trial. Actually, I didn’t even ask them,” he lifted his hands, half in surrender, half in a shrug. They all understood what fem-wolves were like. “Anyway, I was wondering if you guys could keep an eye on the proceedings for us.”

“Of course we will,” Nevia said.

“Hey, don’t volunteer us,” Daniel griped.

“Of course we will,” Heaton said a little firmer.

“Apparently we will,” Daniel frowned.

“Good,” Danato stared at him. “Daniel may I speak to you alone?” Daniel was not exactly a spring chicken. Twenties were a distant memory, and forties were an ever looming future for him, but when Danato said those words he felt twelve years old again.

7

There wasn’t actually a decision made on whether Daniel was open for a discussion. Danato just left the room with the implied expectation that he should follow him. Heaton gave him a smile that told him he felt bad for him, but it wasn’t going to stop him from being amused by it. As he walked past him, Heaton patted him on the back.

Daniel turned to him and grabbed his shoulders and spoke with mock seriousness. “If I don’t come back, I just want you to know…I’ve always hated your hair.”

Heaton snorted and rolled his eyes while he pushed Daniel on to continue his walk of shame. He thought about grabbing Nevia and giving her a real mock goodbye kiss, but the humor would be lost on her, and knowing his luck, she would actually get pissed off about it. Instead, he lowered his head like a frightened dog and headed to his verbal beating.

Danato stood behind the couch waiting for Daniel to join him. Since he hadn’t positioned himself in his chair Daniel already knew this wasn’t going to be a pleasant talk. He chuckled at the thought of what was to come and took a seat on a stool at the end of the island. It left for an uncomfortable conversational distance, but an ass-ripping didn’t exactly count as comfortable to begin with.