Page 41

CHAPTER 41

Dearly Departed

B ryn.

Swallowing my shocked gasp, he melded my lips with his. For once so unrestrained that a bolt of primal awareness shot through me. Firm and soft, demanding and somehow tender, he kissed me with the intensity of a man on his last borrowed hour. And I wanted every minute.

His tongue slid along my bottom lip, back and forth, a torturous path that had me arching against him. In answer, he bit down gently, teeth sinking into the softness like O’Sahnazekiel had, each tug summoning tiny sparks of pleasure. My hands curled reflexively where he kept them pinned against the wall.

“Bryn, you’re killing me,” I murmured between panted breaths.

“Certainly, we—we cannot have that.”

In one stroke, he parted my lips, tongue flicking, teasing, tasting before sucking my own between his teeth. Everything inside me went molten at the raw possession. I opened for more, angling to meet him stroke for stroke, and his answering groan vibrated through to my toes. Familiar. Wild. Now. A thousand years ago.

When he released my wrists, I fisted his shirt on a breathless curse, dragging him flush against me. His hand shot out for the wall on a half-groan, half-laugh, and the sound was as sweet as the wine I still tasted on his lips.

I’d wanted him to want me instead of Nereida, but I hadn’t seen O’Sahnazekiel. Sahn wasn’t a memory or a dream. It was—as Bryn had once said—his life. Not separate from Bryn, not even a part of Bryn as Jamellian was to James, but essentially, irrevocably, him.

“I’m sorry,” I panted. “Sorry I didn’t see you, sorry I didn’t recognize you, sorry I…”

He made a dark, low sound in the back of his throat as his hands gripped behind my thighs, lifting me. “Rowan, I cannot separate you from Nereida,” he said when I wrapped my legs around him. “Will not.”

We managed three steps without his cane before bumping into the piano. My back hit the fallboard, my hands the keys, and a booming octave of crushed notes echoed through the room.

Then his mouth was on mine again, swallowing my muffled moan, his hands tangling in my hair, wrapping what was left of my braid in his fist. He tugged my head back, delving deeper, a consuming need that threatened to take me with it.

I wanted my hands on him now, now, now. Wanted to feel every humming inch of him. Fumbling with his shirt, I managed to snap the snug button of his collar, baring pale, gold skin that glistened under the candlelight. I broke the kiss to lick my way to his neck, tasting the rough column of his throat, feeling him swallow against me, my hands tugging at all that silky hair. When my teeth found his flickering pulse, I bit softly.

“Maybe I didn’t see Sahn when we met,” I said against his feverish skin, “but that’s only because I saw something I wanted more. I saw you, Bryn. Just you.”

Rowan, I cannot lose you again, not ever.

He dragged my mouth back to his in a wild mating of tongue and teeth and lips. I bathed in every sound he made, each oath and breathless pant and whispered promise, and touched him like it was my last chance to do so. I was shaking when I slid my hands under his shirt, mesmerized by the feel of him, of the solid muscle, the sharp planes, the heart that beat fiercely beneath my palm.

My fingers dug into his shoulders when he tugged my collar open. Then his mouth replaced his hands. His tongue exploring the ridge of my shoulder, collarbone, licking, soothing all the sensitive areas I didn’t know I had until I melted into him. Boneless, hot, needy.

I skimmed fingertips up his back, dipped them into the curve of his shoulder blades where O’Sahnazekiel’s soft wings would have sprung.

Crack.

The fallboard splintered under his grip.

“Is that—”

“Old, it is old,” he muttered, his breaths sliding under my blouse, tingling the tops of my breasts. My eyes fluttered closed when he slipped his tongue under the loosened fabric. His hands tightened on my waist, his thumbs whispering across my ribs. A simple touch like that shouldn’t have caused a wave of pleasure to shimmer through me, and now I wanted my mouth over every inch of him. Wanted to start making up for everything right here, right now.

As if he’d heard the thought, Bryn tilted his head, gaze flicking up so he peered at me through beautiful, gold-flecked eyelashes.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a roll of thunder whispered over a starless night. A memory, not mine, but his—of us. In the kitchen, the night we’d almost…

But this time, the journal didn’t slip, and I didn’t pull away. Instead, Bryn yanked me into him until the image of me straddled his lap and his lips met mine, his hand curling possessively around my neck.

Just one of the many versions I have imagined , Bryn teased, skimming the sensitive skin under my breasts.

My blood lit to fire. What else?

Ah, Rowan. Hand bunching in my shirt, he nipped at my neck, my pulse, teeth pinching just enough to draw pleasure without pain. “I should likely not admit how unashamedly I think of us.”

“How unashamedly?”

His huff of breath tickled my throat.

But my vision blurred again, and this time, we were on the kitchen table, Bryn bent over me, naked, back rippling, hips pistoning—

The image winked out.

Bryn. My blood sang as thick waves of desire had the legs I wrapped around his waist weakening. He braced both hands on the piano and pressed his hips into me. My breath snagged in my throat, the keys thundering a disjointed melody as he settled against me.

“Is this what you want?” he asked in a voice I didn’t recognize, but one that had a thrill tripping down my spine. He licked a hot line up my throat to nuzzle at my jaw, then my ear, and murmured against it. “For me to take you here, Rowan, on the piano?”

A hot punch of answering need rippled through me.

I hitched my leg up his hip. “I—”

Bang.

My answer died beneath a sudden noise from downstairs.

Bryn went still, chest rising and falling on thick, heavy breaths. I tugged at his shirt— Whatever part of the roof had collapsed would just have to wait—and dragged him back against me. I skimmed his lips, reveling in how soft that stern mouth could be. His tongue flicked mine, lingered.

When he hesitated, I murmured, “What is it?”

He drew back, cursing softly. “The others have returned from the Gate.”

What? Now? I glanced at one of the three clocks. But James should have been another forty minutes at least.

“Bryn! Bryn!” Kazie’s scream carried through the room, silencing our still heavy breaths.

All the soft wildness that had come into Bryn’s face now fled, his eyes cooling to a warm, honey-brown. He grasped my shirt and quickly laced the one button he’d undone. Then he drew me off the piano, brushed my cheek. “We will have to continue this conversation later, Rowan. Stay here.”

“Why?”

I was reaching for him when he turned toward the door.

Something is wrong with James.

M y legs felt like stiff Jello as I hurried after Bryn, my body quivering from the overwhelming lack of him. The trail his tongue had left on my neck that felt like a scalding brand. The lingering touch from where his hands had gripped my wrists. Even my lips tingled from the taste of him, like they couldn’t wait to feel his mouth once more.

But when Kazie screamed again, all my romantic thoughts fled like spooked deer. We rounded the corner, Bryn one step ahead, and blocking me from whatever had Kazie hysterical.

Rowan, please, do no look.

I leaned around him.

For a moment, my world went silent. Utterly, deathly silent.

In the harsh light of the kitchen, James hung limply between Kazie and Tye. Drool glistened in the corners of his mouth and dripped down his chin onto a crocheted scarf. With his glasses gone, broken blood vessels framed eyes as white as bone china. Kazie stumbled under his weight, tears marbling her dark skin as she and Tye maneuvered him through the cluttered kitchen.

James.

I stood, stunned, watching helplessly as the man who’d become my brother spasmed in pain, and every bone in his body seemed to protrude under his oversized sweater. He gasped, his eyes glossy and cloudy as a fish, like the pike Tye killed for his brother.

Then the world came rushing back, a first breath out of water, and I shifted around Bryn to take his weight from Kazie.

Ripe, bitter vomit frothed from James’s mouth as Tye angled us toward the table. He thrust James on top, shoving aside the leftover potatoes, carrots, and peas from dinner.

I grabbed James’s clammy hand. Shouts rang out behind me, but I couldn’t look away from the anguish contorting his face.

“Where are you hurt? Did the Inquitate—”

“It’s not the Inquitate, it’s the fuckin’ Gate,” Tye bit out as James’s neck snapped back. “He’s seizing. Get the car, Kaz. Get the car!”

She rushed out on a stampede of heels.

Across from me, Bryn held James down by his shoulders, their gazes locked. Whatever passed between them had Bryn’s face shutting down. He seemed to shrink into himself, his eyes blank as I squeezed James’s wrist to stop the shaking.

“Bryn?”

He didn’t react. Didn’t move, even as James seized again and it took all my strength to hold him to the table.

Bryn!

His eyes whipped to me, breath rushing back as his lips parted. I felt him then, somewhere on the cusp of my mind, a caress between my eyes. Then it was gone and Bryn shifted his attention to Tye. “You know the hospital will do nothing for him.”

“Why?” I lifted my voice over James’s moans. “What’s happened?”

“We’re taking him anyway,” Tye barked. “Don’t be a fool just ‘cause you’re pissed at me. Roe, get blankets—he’s freezin’.”

The next ten minutes went by in a frantic blur.

James threw up twice more before we could get him calm enough to move, but by then, he was shivering so badly I’d needed to bundle him in three blankets before Bryn, Tye, and I could get him to the car. We ended up half-dragging, half-carrying him into it when Kazie backed the Ford up to Naruka’s entrance.

She swapped with Tye, sliding into the back seat with James.

“Roe, I’ll call ya from the hospital,” Tye shouted out the window.

What? I wasn’t staying here—this was my brother. “No you won’t, I’m coming.” I rounded the car as the spark plugs fired off like shotguns.

“Roe, I think you can count. There ain’t room for all of us. You wanna leave Stornoway for the Inquitate, that’s your business. I bet James wouldn’t care for that, though.”

Bryn pried open the passenger door as the car huffed into gear. “We will share the front.” He tucked his cane under the seat, slid in, and patted his thigh. “Come, Rowan,” he said amiably. “I will not bite.”

Not even the slightest flicker of his eyes revealed he’d done precisely that only minutes ago. His lips were, in fact, still showing the evidence of my own aggression.

“I’ll hurt your leg,” I warned, but slid onto his lap. His thighs flexed before adjusting to my weight, then he slipped his arms around my waist as the Ford roared out of Naruka, holding me like we’d been together for years.

I turned in his lap, meeting his eyes.

My pulse leapt when they flickered to gold for a heartbeat before cooling to perfect, still water.

I couldn’t think of us right now, not with James near death in the backseat. But it was hard to ignore the comfort of Bryn’s hand stroking my loose braid. Of how close he was again, of how he’d felt pressed against me only moments ago, of all that he’d laid out that I’d yet to disassemble. All he’d admitted.

James let out a low moan in the backseat.

Guilty, I drew away. What’s wrong with him?

But when Bryn didn’t answer—maybe I’d thought at him wrong—I craned my neck to look into the back. James lay gaunt and pale, with sticky sweat greasing the strands of his dark hair. A smear of vomit Kazie hadn’t yet wiped away stained his handmade sweater. With his head in her lap, she gently stroked his hair back.

“Did he catch something in the Gate?” I asked. “Some flu?”

She shook her head, curls bouncing. “No, Roe.”

“Then what?” I looked around the car. “ Someone tell me what’s wrong with my brother. ”

Tye stared straight out the windshield, and James—swallowed in blankets—only breathed heavily through his nose.

Bryn’s fingers tightened around mine. “Rowan,” he said softly. I knew that voice, the careful tone, the hitch before the words dropped, as if by holding it in, you could lessen the blow.

“Who’s dead?” I asked flatly.

Bryn scooped my hair over my shoulder. “Essie. It is Essie, Rowan.”

No . No. My throat squeezed shut.

James’s childhood friend, the girl he’d needed when he was bullied, the woman who brought a smile to his face when he visited the Gate. Essie, with her bubbly cheeks and wide eyes, always laughing as Jamellian struggled with archery before cooing to him after.

It shouldn’t have been her. James didn’t ask for anything, didn’t want anything but Essie, even knowing she’d never return, was never in the Ledger.

“How did it happen?” Bryn asked. And maybe it was only me who heard the slight hitch in his voice.

Tye answered after a beat. “I was anchorin’ when I saw James’s body arching off the ground—and not the good kind when he’s having his fun with Essie, let me tell ya. Guy looked like he’d been possessed by the goddamn devil.” He let out a heavy breath of smoke. “I pulled him and Kazie out right away.”

“Roe?” Kazie whispered, for once so serious and desperate that I hardly recognized her voice.

I swiveled to face her in the back seat.

Her dark skin was as pale as I’d ever seen it. “Roe,” she said again. “It wasn’t a Drachaut that killed Essie. It was an Inquitate.”

A n Inquitate had killed Essie. The words, their meaning, echoed in a place where I couldn’t fully process it. What did they look like? Had they wanted something? Why had they attacked Essie? Was she linked to Willow? But I couldn’t think of that now—no, for once, I couldn’t put Willow first, even if everything in me was crying out to hike to the Gate and see exactly what had killed my sister.

Instead, I shoved aside those worries, focused on the only thing that mattered right now—James.

Fluorescent lines flickered over Capolinn’s tiny emergency room. I didn’t see where James would find relief from a pain born of the Gate in a place that reeked of cigarettes and floor cleaner, with a wooden reception like a confession box.

We waited for him impatiently, with Tye whipping through cigarettes and Kazie emptying the vending machine of chocolate bars before they let her join him.

And what could they possibly do? What effect did the Gate even have?

Enough that centuries later, there was this—this connection between Bryn and me.

My gaze drifted to where he stood by the exit. I took in the lean lines, the wrinkle in his shirt from where I’d grabbed it, the streetlights that transformed his skin into warm porcelain, the eyebrows knitted in concern.

He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

And I was his mate.

I was Bryn’s mate. Bryn’s. The sailor, the artist, the Azekiel. The man who couldn’t hang a shelf.

If the roles were reversed and it’d been me looking for Sahn for years, would I have told Bryn I was Nereida? To face that rejection? To know that each time he went to the Gate he’d be experiencing what should have been his memories with me? No. Never.

Tye snapped his fingers in front of my face. “So even with James lyin’ in the hospital bed, y’all can’t let go of Ruhaven.”

Ashamed, guilty, I turned to face Tye, who stood wearing the leather jacket he hadn’t buttoned in his hurry to get James here, his hair still darkened from rain. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“Oh?” Tye pinched a smoke between his lips. Grunted. “So those marks on your damn neck ain’t from Stornoway?” He cupped the end of his smoke, and the flick of the lighter echoed in the waiting room. Of all the things to ask me about. “Thought ya weren’t gonna fall for his shit?”

“Don’t start, Tye. Not now.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe ya should have thought about that before you were neckin’ in the damn car and with James cryin’ in the back seat.”

Annoyance washed over me, but I wouldn’t dignify that with an answer. Not with James in the hospital, the Inquitate having just killed his mate. My eyes flicked to Bryn, his gaze still rapt on me.

Tye thumped a boot onto a chair. “So ya just go from hatin’ the guy to forgiveness, huh?”

“Bryn explained things,” I said shortly. Panted them, licked them.

“Explained you’re his mate?” Tye scoffed. “So what?”

So what? How could he be this flippant? James was in an emergency room because of that bond. Something strong enough that just witnessing her death in a dream could trigger seizures.

I pushed off the chair, trying to loop my thumbs in the tool belt I wasn’t wearing as I paced the hospital. Outside, a moth beat its wings on the light as a couple strode past. “Look at what just happened to James when Essie died. Being a mate, even here, it means something.” I hadn’t really thought of that before, of what it would mean to Bryn.

Tye snapped his leather jacket over a faded football shirt. “Listen to yourself, Roe. You’re startin’ to sound like Kaz these days.” He inhaled a drag that shot the end of his smoke bright orange. “You think because you boned the guy in Ruhaven it means anythin’ here? On another fuckin’ planet?”

I stiffened at his abrupt tone. “Tye, I don’t—”

“When I wanted ya in the tack room, should I have said, ‘Sorry, Roe, but I hear your past life has a boyfriend. Maybe we should leave it off’? I don’t need to tell ya how stupid that sounds, do I?”

He did make it sound stupid. “Look, Tye, I’m just trying to make sense of this.”

“Make sense of this, Roe—you ain’t Nereida and you don’t belong to a guy she fucked a thousand years ago.” Tye stabbed his cigarette at me, then at Bryn’s bristling form. “The fact that I even need to say that out loud tells me you’re already buyin’ his bullshit.”

Do you wish for me to intervene?

God, that’s weird.

Do you think? I rather like hearing you.

When I smiled at Bryn, Tye released an annoyed grunt and swung toward the exit, boots clacking.

“Tye, wait.”

He stopped with a palm on the glass door. “What?”

I strode toward him so Bryn wouldn’t hear. It wasn’t time for this conversation, but I had to know. “What did you say to Bryn when you phoned him in Norway? And why did you lie?”

Really, Rowan, you shall have to move farther than that.

How far?

Perhaps a block. Though even Tye will know better than to repeat his words.

Tye shook his head. “So he told ya. For the first, we’ll say that’s just between us men. The second I did because he’s a prick. Stornoway never knew a good thing when he had it and he’d toss your ass away in a second.”

“Why do you hate him so much? Just because of what he did at the Gate?”

Tye shoved the door, letting in the tepid Atlantic wind. “For what he risked when he did.”