Guilt had definitely led me here, but not spawned by lack of grief. A sheer abundance of it made me do something stupid last night.
I tried to erase my pain in another man’s bed. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
It hadn’t worked. The first man I’d had sex with taught me how beautiful it was.
The second man had shown me how ugly it could be.
“I miss you,” I whispered to his grave, and waited.
Shortly after he died, he spoke to me twice. I’d felt his presence, as if he was standing right there behind me, sunshine on my shoulders, reaching through the slipstream to comfort and counsel me.
A few weeks ago, however, I’d become aware that intangible warmth was gone—vanished while I slept—and I knew in my gut he’d moved on. Somehow he’d managed to linger in the ether to make sure I was all right and when he was satisfied, he’d raced off for the next grand adventure.
As he should have.
As we all should when it’s our time.
That thought didn’t make me feel any better. Thoughts rarely do. The heart has its own mind, measures its own time, and if it consults with the brain, doesn’t always heed the advice. My brain was screaming—stop hurting already. To a deaf audience.
I’d never fully grasped the meaning of the word “forever” before. I’d lost my mom long before she died. It wasn’t the same. I’d grieved her while she’d still been living.
But the idea that I would never see Dancer again was more than I could stand. All I had left of him were memories and we’d not had time to make nearly enough.
My gaze drifted to the headstone east of his marker. JO BRENNAN. We’d laid another of my friends to rest beside him. I smiled faintly, remembering her breaking into my dungeon cell to save me. We hadn’t always gotten along but she’d been a genuine, good constant in my life and didn’t deserve to die the way she did.
ALINA MCKENNA LANE. Mac’s sister was buried beside her. There’d been so much death in my life.
“All the more reason to live,” came the deep, exotically accented growl from behind me. I could hear traces of many languages in it, a consensus of none.
I bristled. Not many people can sneak up on me without my preternatural senses kicking into high alert. Ryodan defies the odds in countless, irritating ways. “Stay out of my head.”
“I wasn’t in it. Didn’t need to be. When humans stand at graves, they brood.” He was beside me then, in that sudden, silent, eerie way of his.
Humans, he’d said. Whatever Ryodan was, he wasn’t one of those and he’d stopped making any effort to conceal it from me. Whether urbane, sophisticated man or black-skinned, fanged beast, he was all the supers I was, plus an awe-inspiring, aggravating assortment of others. When I was young, I’d felt like Sarah from the movie Labyrinth, dashing around Dublin having grand adventures. Ryodan was Jareth, my Goblin King. I’d defied him at every turn, defining myself in opposition to him. I’d studied him, incorporating his ideologies and tactics into my own. Silverside I’d functioned by the code: WWRD? I’d never tell him that.
I turned and scowled up at him. Beautiful, cool, aloof man. Two things always happen to me whenever he shows up. I get an instant jolt of happiness, as if every cell in my body wakes up and is glad to see him. It pisses me off because my brain rarely agrees. Ryodan and I are enthusiastic foes, wary friends. I tell him things I don’t tell anyone else, and that offends me, too.
The second thing baffles me. I often feel like crying. I’ve wept on his flawless, crisp shirts more times than I care to remember.
“Because I understand,” he murmured, staring down at me with those glittering silver eyes. “And I can take it. I wasn’t sure about the happiness, though. Nice of you to clear that up.”
“What part of ‘stay out of my head’ didn’t you understand?”
“Your face, Dani. Everything you feel is on it. I rarely need to delve deeper.”
He’d glimpsed such raw emotion in me recently that I’d been avoiding him. As Jada, I was respected, feared. As Dani, I sometimes felt like I vied with Shazam for Hot Mess Poster Child of the Month.
I could only hope what happened last night was nowhere to be seen on my face. I’d never before experienced what an average woman with average strength contended with on a daily basis: physical vulnerability to the opposite sex. It had been humbling and horrifying and awakened a fierce compassion in me, making me even more protective of my city, especially women and children.
In bed with a stranger, my heart felt like it was going to explode. I’d tried to leave the man and that empty thing I was doing but the intensity of my emotions shorted out my sidhe-seer strength, leaving me a frighteningly normal five-foot-ten woman who weighed in at 142, in a locked room with a six-foot-four, 240-pound man.
Who’d called me a cock tease and turned violent.
I hadn’t killed him. I’d wanted to. If he’d succeeded in raping me, I’m not sure what I would have done. “No” is “no,” no matter when it’s said. As it was, I’d be watching him from a distance to make sure he never crossed that line again. And if he did, well: violate other’s liberties, lose your own.
“Ah, Dani.?
? Ryodan touched my cheek, brushing a stray curl back and tucking it behind my ear. “Men can be bloody bastards. But not all of them. Don’t let it shut you down. Be fearless. Don’t be afraid to fall. Taste it all.”