Page 69 of Fortune's Blade

I found them oddly fascinating.

My fingers traced an old tattoo I couldn’t see, but which had left a textural change on his otherwise smooth skin. I tried to follow it to discover what it was, because I did not want to interrupt again to ask. But little goosebumps followed my fingers despite the gentleness of the touch, as I attempted to discern the pattern through the roughness of his sleeve.

It was a strange game, and a difficult one, trying to tell the difference between goosebumps and little silk nubs, and between old ink and firm flesh . . ..

I was disturbing him again, I realized unhappily, and tried to stop it. I tried to stop everything and just sit quietly in his head for a while. But that did not appear to be working, either.

Sweat was dripping down his face although it wasn’t hot in here. A drop plunked onto our shirt and he flinched, while I found myself wanting to taste it. It was bizarre; I knew so much about vampires, was practically a walking encyclopedia of information about them, and yet did not know if their sweat was salty like a human’s or—

I decided that perhaps I should concentrate on my own body for a while.

I could still sense it if I tried, could feel the softness of the sheets, smell the faint sent of the soap they’d been washed in, hear the soft conversation of a guard outside my door, the same one I had briefly hijacked, talking with the friend he had brought along for moral support. I could even drag my sleeping hand along the undulations of my body underneath the covers, the swell and peak of a breast, the dip of my naval, the rise of the flesh below. And experience myself stretching luxuriously from this far away, under the warm cocoon that the blankets had made of my heat.

It was all distant, like an echo after a spoken word, or the faint roar of the winds there, which varied slightly in pitch and tone from the ones here. But it was very real, and might be another reason why I could not steer us about. It was difficult to walk when lying down, or to turn a corner when in danger of falling off a bed.

You’d think I’d be better at this, I thought, frustrated, considering how long Dory and I had had to share. But I had been controlling my own body then, not someone else’s, and we were rarely awake at the same time. But this . . ..

I did not know how to do this.

And Ray didn’t either, because he sighed a second later and gave up.

I could feel when he let go, when I started to drift away from him, because I was much weaker in this form and could not force the issue. He’d had to grasp my hand when we first tried this to allow the mental intrusion. And right before I lost contact, I felt him do so again, which was frankly ridiculous as I didn’t have a hand!

But he gripped it anyway, and when I opened my eyes, they were fuzzier than they had been a moment ago. But clearer than when I’d been floating about on my own in the hallway. It was rather like being a human who had forgotten her glasses, but could still see.

And what I could see was Ray, since I was now separate from him, if only slightly. He was handsome, I thought, examining him from inches away as I rarely had reason to do. Why had I not seen that before?

Perhaps being someone else for a time gives a new perspective.

“I got hair on my butt,” Ray said abruptly.

“What?”

“I have to shave it off, okay? If I don’t, I got a hairy ass. Something else to thank my dickhead father for.”

I felt around behind him, using his spare hand. And slipped it below the waistband of the trousers, which was loose thanks to a draw tie closure. I encountered smooth flesh and hard muscle, but no discernable hair.

“I shaved it already,” Ray snarled. “And stop that!”

I stopped it, but failed to understand this conversation.

“I can’t even grow a beard properly,” he added, in an aggrieved voice. “Unless I’m on some weird fey enchantment. But I got hair on my ass, and I don’t need this, okay? I know who I am; I know where I rank; and I. Don’t. Need. This. Do you get it?”

No, I thought, confused, and he sighed deeply. And then pushed off of the wall that I had the vague idea he had been softly beating his head against and stood tall. Because he could move!

He realized it the same moment that I did, and froze. Then slowly, carefully, tried out first one foot and then the other, waggling them around as if wearing a pair of new shoes that didn’t quite feel right. But he could walk in them, oh yes, he could!

He took a small turn around the room, and did not run into anything. Of course, there wasn’t much to run into, there being no furniture, but that had not stopped us in the hall. And then he did it again, just for fun, speeding up slightly.

“Are we doing this?” I whispered, despite the fact that no one could hear me.

But he could, and the smile that lit up his face suddenly echoed the one on mine. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay, distance seems to be the thing we gotta balance. Too far and you drift away; too close and I can’t think straight or even move. But this . . . seems to work, right?”

I nodded. I wanted to throw my arms around him and say thank you, but . . . distance. “Yes. I think it works.”

“Good. Then let’s go find out what that bastard of a father of yours is hiding.”

Chapter Twenty-Three