Page 38

38

RAHIL

Mercer was there when Rahil awoke, just as he’d promised.

He had dirt on his hands and blood under his fingernails and a plastic bag of ice on his head, but he was there, cradling Rahil’s feet in his lap and breathing in low, slow inhales. The mere sight of him made Rahil feel bathed in warmth, safe and loved and content despite the lingering ache in his bones. Somehow, regardless of all the sleep he’d managed to catch in the last day, he still didn’t feel properly rested . Such was his curse, it seemed. At least the wounds in his palms weren’t screaming in agony anymore.

“Migraine?” Rahil asked, groggily.

“Just a headache,” Mercer replied, lifting the edge of the ice-baggy to squint at Rahil. Then he smiled. “You?”

He grinned right back. “Sore and tired, but good.” Then his brain snapped on enough to come to his senses. “Is William—Lydia—my roommates—”

“Avery and Jim took her out for ice cream with my card.” He looked like he wasn’t sure whether that was a mistake or not. A financial one, probably, but only insofar as the amount of ice cream the three of them were likely to buy with their momentarily unlimited funds. “I don’t know about William, but I thought your backyard could use a little finishing, starting with that flowerbed—it seemed in need of some fertilizer so I threw that down beneath a couple rose bushes—dug it deeper first to fit it all.”

Fertilizer, huh… well, Rahil had been meaning to start composting.

“I used some of those broken slabs against the side wall to make a kind of patio at the end of your pathway and I might throw the deck chairs from my garage on it,” Mercer continued. “I was thinking about a pond, too? I never got around to doing anything interesting with my yard because of the shed, so this could be nice.”

Whether Mercer was sidestepping William’s burial out loud for misplaced security reasons or for the sake of his own conscience, Rahil decided not to push. He’d participated in the ending of another human’s life—bravely, and for good reason—but Rahil loved him because he was the kind of person who’d regret that. It made him think, sadly, of Matt’s death. Maybe Rahil would meet the vamp who’d done it someday, and then he would tell them that the tragedy they’d committed was painful and horrible, and that he hadn’t held it against them for one single moment and he never would.

Death could be senseless, and unnecessary, and still the only possible outcome.

And maybe… maybe sometimes that meant it was no one’s fault.

Slowly, Rahil pulled his legs out of Mercer’s lap, curling them in front of his chest as he shifted to lean against the thick bulk of Mercer’s shoulder. He gingerly slipped his fingers through Merc’s dirty ones, trying not to stretch the wound in his palm lest it resume bleeding. “I think we still have something to talk about… from before all this.”

Mercer squeezed his hand so tenderly he seemed worried he might break more than just the scab. “The unholy gold… I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me?”

“You gave it to the scientist.” He tried not to let it sound like an accusation. It wasn’t meant to be one.

“I nearly didn’t, but I had to choose Lydia.”

“I understand. I hate it, but what’s done is done.” Rahil gave a weary sigh. “You’re hardly the only one of us who needs a little forgiveness, though. I was thinking more on the lines of Leah.”

Mercer’s eyes closed. “You were trying to tell me about her, and I was the one who stopped you.”

“I’d wanted to so many times already that night,” Rahil answered. “I just… I had tried to wait for a moment that wouldn’t break your heart, so when you gave me the option to bail for a little longer, I took it.”

“You could have denied it altogether, even after Lydia pulled out your fangs—I was ready to believe anything that would have made this simple.” Mercer’s voice was thick, but somehow stable despite the emotion, like he’d thought this through a thousand times already, and his decision was long since made. “But you didn’t. And I respect that.”

Rahil tried to crack a little grin through the ache in his chest. “Babe, you really shouldn’t respect me for doing the bare minimum. But I’ll take it.”

“Rahil.” Mercer chuckled. “That’s the least of the reasons I respect you.” He leaned the side of his head against Rahil’s, and softer, he added, “I wonder if Leah went to you because she could sense something from you. That you were like her: brilliant, persistent, nurturing, stupidly brave—willing to take that risk in the first place. That like her, you’d be important to me.”

The beauty in that—that Leah hadn’t been cursed to die because Rahil had killed her, but that she’d been blessed to have her death include Rahil instead of another vampire—lessened some of the pain. It was beginning, finally, to sink in that he had known Leah, if only for a very short time. He’d seen all the traits that Mercer had listed in her. Perhaps that meant that even when he didn’t see them in himself, he could trust that others could.

That he could be good for the people around him.

The thought felt brittle still, like one defiant refusal from his heart would shatter it. Before that could happen, he closed his eyes and let the fear out.

“I’ve always assumed that it was my fault: Leah, Jonah, Matt, Shefali. If I hadn’t pushed Jonah to get help, if I had been better at showing Matt the danger in the lies he was believing, if I had been there more for Shefali when she was trying to quit smoking, and Leah…”

Mercer stiffened a little at his late wife’s name, but then he seemed to break through the emotion. He let his ice-baggy fall to the side to wrap one arm around Rahil. His fingers trailed up and down Rahil’s arm, leaving fresh lines of backyard soil across Rahil’s already dirt-streaked white top.

It was perfect.

Perfect, and soft, and exactly the stability he needed in order to finally hear Mercer as he said: “There’s only so much we can do. We try with our best intentions, and that isn’t always enough. That’s on life. Sometimes the people we love hurt, and sometimes they hurt themselves and we—we can only do so much to take that pain away.”

Rahil forced himself not to shut down, shut out, shut off.

Mercer continued, weak but solid all at once. “I—I’ve had to learn this too, from Lydia, and from you. You clearly already know it, when it applies to other people.” Mercer slid his fingers around Rahil’s chin, and Rahil let his face be lifted, let his heart be open and his pain settle into the cracks, leaving room for something more. “You are too hard on yourself, Rahil,” Mercer whispered, and kissed him.

Rahil succumbed to the kiss like a vampire to the night, parting his lips, letting Mercer in. Maybe he was too hard on himself, if this was softness; if this was forgiveness. Because this was good . He let himself have it, first because Mercer wanted it, but then because he did too . It caught in his throat and burned in the back of his jaw, and yet he kissed back, tugging Mercer’s lips between his teeth and pressing a little dose of venom into the soft skin there. He was rewarded with a moan.

Mercer’s breath trembled as he let his mouth just rest against Rahil’s, their noses touching, tight brows wrinkled into one.

Rahil whispered, “If I have to be kinder to myself, then so do you. You’ve done so much to try to make the best life for Lydia…”

Mercer sucked in a breath like a sob, pressing his face against Rahil’s. “I won’t do less. I can’t.”

“I know.” Rahil ran a hand over his lover’s curls, grasping the back of his head gently. “But you can be kind to yourself when the things you do don’t always work.” Something wet and rough rose behind his lungs. “I tried my best, with Jonah and Matt, I tried—” The release bubbled forth with a dark thought, one he’d always kept buried beneath the weight of his guilt; it felt like betraying them. Like weakness. But he asked it anyway, soft and tight and pleading. “What else was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to do, Merc? I tried , and I still lost them.”

Mercer just held him for a moment, and Rahil could almost hear the spin of his thoughts, not on Jonah or Matt, but on Lydia. On a living kid, who still had years, decades, for life to snuff her out. Mercer’s chest rose and fell in a deep, trembling breath, before he said, “Maybe there was something that could have saved them, or maybe there wasn’t, but you couldn’t have known. We don’t get to go back. We don’t get to try again. We forgive ourselves and we move forward, and we… we listen. We learn. You listened to Lydia. You saved her when I couldn’t.”

Saved her.

Rahil had done that, perhaps. And he didn’t think Mercer meant the device he’d hurled at Lydia, or the way he’d stumbled into the shed when William had her bound and gagged. He’d saved Lydia on the roof, staring up at the stars, and in the cemetery as she cried, and that might not have ultimately saved Jonah, nor Matt, but it had helped one lonely child feel a little less lonely for a moment, and that was a kind of salvation.

He had saved her.

The thought caught like a bug in a web, tangling between his vocal cords, and for a time Rahil just leaned against Mercer, shaking softly as his emotions rose and then settled again. Mercer rubbed his back, and Rahil could see the same flux of grief and joy pulsing through him beneath the stoic exterior. It felt far more alive than his fear. And far more at peace.

Rahil sighed into Mercer’s neck, letting that peace become his own. The floor creaked as he shifted his legs back into Mercer’s lap. His gaze traveled slowly around the dusky room, empty and decrepit. He’d been so ashamed to share this place with Mercer, but now that his lover was here, it felt no less natural than being with him in the shed, or in his bedroom, or on the boardwalk. His presence gave the home a new life. A new future.

Mercer seemed to be taking in their surroundings too, and Rahil broke the silence with a nudge to his side. “Was this what you were expecting?”

“Not exactly.” Mercer looked embarrassed as he admitted it. “But it is beautiful, in its own way.”

“Like me,” Rahil teased, “Worn and well-used but still able to fit oh-so-much inside.” He winked.

Mercer stared at him so sternly that it was all Rahil could do not to burst out laughing, but when the fae slid a hand up Rahil’s thigh and squeezed, the chuckle turned to a whimper. “I’ll be testing that, I assure you. You’ll be far more worn than this house when I finish.”

“So, you’re the one finishing, then?” Rahil smirked. “Noted.”

That seemed to break Mercer. His stoic expression cracked, and he shoved Rahil’s legs off his lap, shouting, “Get out.”

Rahil laughed. He rolled away from Mercer only to be caught from behind and pulled entirely into his lap. Merc’s legs wrapped around him, his arms bound beneath thick, hairy warmth, and he basked in the little array of kisses Mercer gave to the back of his neck before finally wiggling lightly. “All right, all right, it’s too hot for this.”

With a grumble, Mercer let him go.

Rahil barely scooted forward, tipping his head back to still lean on Mercer, with just enough space between them so the sweat forming along his lower back could dry.

Mercer tugged at the loose pieces of Rahil’s hair. “May I fix this?”

“Oh, yes. Please.” He relaxed into the feeling of Mercer’s fingers in his hair.

As the strands of Rahil’s half-destroyed braid fell apart, Mercer asked, “Who did you get this old place from? Was it just decrepit enough that they agreed to sell to a vampire?”

“I bought it from the Starlight Club, actually—the vampire kink club Diego Figueroa runs with their husbands. Do you know—?”

“I take commissions from them on occasion, along with some of their club’s customers. They tip well. They take care of each other, so they always have a little left over after.”

Rahil nodded. It sounded a bit like his own family, only his came together because of blood, and this one… well, they came together for a different kind of blood, he supposed. “They had hosted meets here on and off over the years. When I bought it, they offered to help me turn it around, too, but they’d already given me such a discount and my family all chipped in to help me pay it off, and I didn’t want to ask for more.” He groaned. “I might have actually been rather rude to them, now that I’m looking back on it. Them, and my family. Everyone wanted to help, but Shefali had just received her diagnosis, and she deserved that love far more than I did—”

“Did she?” Mercer asked, and Rahil looked up in time to hear him repeat, “Did she deserve that love more than you? Is love even a thing that can be deserved less ?”

The protest caught in Rahil’s throat, because as he dwelt on it, he realized he hadn’t even thought about his own phrasing. He tried to substitute the word out—not love, but support, assistance, attention not deserved but required, earned, expected. But that all seemed just as hollow while staring at a man who’d been willing to kill for his family—for a family that included Rahil.

He gave a sniffly little laugh. “Well, I’m happy to accept whatever love you want to bestow upon me in the future, deserving or not.”

“Good.” Mercer must have finished the final plait because he let Rahil’s hair go, rubbing both his shoulders. “Because I think between the two of us, we can fix this place up rather nicely. At least, once we’ve started working on things we can sell together. I’m only an unending fountain of funds when it comes to apologies-for-traumatizing-you ice cream.”

Rahil turned enough to meet Merc’s gaze. “You really want to do that with me?”

“I want to do everything with you, babe.” Mercer swallowed, an awkward little quirk to his lips. “I know this is jumping the gun, but since we both had spouses before…”

Rahil raised a brow, trying not to reveal what that statement had just done to his heart rate. Please, please, please, please, it seemed to be singing. “Do you want to have a spouse again someday?”

“Only if they’re you.” Mercer looked so adorably embarrassed for such a large, strong man. “But I would be happy simply to—”

“Yes,” Rahil said, and he doubted there was a grin wide enough to convey whatever nonsensical dance of joy was going on in his chest. “That is, if you don’t worry we’d be rushing this?”

“We both know what we want, and we’re aware of what marriage entails,” Mercer said. “I’m not saying we run to the courthouse after this, but… why delay? Lydia loves you, and I love you, and, well, Kat loves everyone who’s granted access to her treat jar. And the rings will take time to forge—a month, at least. I’ll need quite a few hours in the shed, especially if you help me.”

Rahil lifted his brow. “You’re going to teach me for this? Oh, that’ll result in weeks’ worth of distractions, surely.”

“Surely.” Mercer wove his fingers into Rahil’s. Enough of the dirt had smeared onto Rahul that the blood beneath Mercer’s nails was obvious now. On the other side of the house, the door banged open to the sound of Lydia’s snorted laughter, Avery shouting joyously while Jim protested.

“And we’ll both have to figure out how to coparent again,” Rahil said.

Mercer groaned but one edge of his mouth tipped up as Lydia burst through from the hall. He muttered, “If either of us figure out anything about parenting, I’ll be amazed by us.”

Rahil nodded toward his daughter. “You did something right today, at least.”

“We both did,” Mercer said.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Rahil could accept it was the truth.