He snorted, then laughed, a bitter sound. “Never that. And I assure you, you weren’t the one being punished. I waited four months and what did you do?” He shot me a look so full of scathing fury, I flinched. “You grabbed the nearest man that looked like me and took him to bed.”
I gasped, “How do you know he looked like you?”
He smiled, baring fangs, eyes flashing crimson. “I ate him.”
My brows climbed my forehead. “Before or after you came to the cemetery?”
“Does it fucking matter? Before. Three minutes after you left him that night. And it wasn’t because he almost raped you. The brand you wanted, the spell that kept you from ever being lost, is the mark of my beast. It binds me to you in countless excruciating ways. It mates my beast to you. Do you understand that? Let me spell it out for you: my beast abhors trespassers. My beast thinks you belong to it.” His next words came out accompanied by a savage rattle deep in his chest, “And bloody hell, so do I. Or I wouldn’t have given it to you in the first place.”
I stared at him. “You put that mark on me when I was fourteen.”
“As a way to keep you alive and a promise to the woman you would one day become. It was my best shot at protecting you, keeping your fearless, impulsive ass safe. And if you’d wanted the brand as a woman, I’d have let you brand me with a reciprocal mark. If you’d chosen someone else, I’d have cut it off. But I would have kept you breathing until then.”
I protested, “But you didn’t cut it off when I was with Dancer.”
“He was a short-timer,” he said savagely. “I thought I could survive it.”
I flushed. “Oh, God, you could feel me when I had sex with Dancer! That’s how you knew I shouldn’t vibrate on him. Could you see us?”
“It’s not like that. And I wouldn’t have, if it were. I have no desire to watch you having sex with another man. I spent most of that time trying to block you two out, for fuck’s sake. I felt your passion. I felt his. I felt your heat, your need, and it almost fucking killed me. I was ready. You weren’t. I knew that. When you chose a man that looked like me you couldn’t have sent me a clearer message. Through you, I could feel Dancer’s life force. He was growing weaker every day. Had he lived, had you stayed with him, I’d have removed it. I couldn’t have stood it much longer anyway.”
“Yet you offered to make him like you,” I said, stunned.
“How the fuck do—ah, the letter from Barrons. It was from Dancer. That shit. He wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
“You told me no. Why did you change your mind?”
He shrugged, muscles and tattoos rippling. “I had a moment of temporary insanity, Dani. Fuck, I don’t know. I ju
st wanted to end your pain. Maybe I knew he wouldn’t accept. Don’t paint it honorable. I’m not where you’re concerned.”
Yes, he was. No matter how he wanted to spin it. Because I loved Dancer, despite his own desires, he’d been willing to make him immortal for me. I wanted to thank him. I would thank him. But I wasn’t done yet. He’d vanished then showed up at my door, nearly starved to death, and I wanted to know where he’d been and what had happened to him. No more secrets. We would, at the very least, be friends, by God, I wanted something with this man and friendship demands truth. Besides, I couldn’t stand thinking about him out there, never once calling or texting. That was bullshit. There was no excuse. “Where did you go? Where were you for two years?” I demanded.
“Why were you so relieved to see me go?” he fired back. “There was one emotion I couldn’t get to. You had it too tightly boxed. I’ve never been able to get into your high security vaults.”
That was good to know. I closed my eyes, steeling myself. If I wanted truth from him, I had to be willing to give it myself. But this was what had created the entire mess of my boxes to begin with. Boxes are like lies, they breed like rabbits and hop around out of control. Still, it wasn’t as if there was anything left to lose. Inhaling deeply, I opened my eyes and said, “I’ll tell you, if you tell me.”
“Agreed.”
I was silent a long moment that spun out into a longer minute. Then two. We were about to do something we’d never done before. Rather than dazzling each other with our strengths, our finest qualities, here and now, in this strange final inning of a game we could no longer play, we were baring our weakness, our faults. Something I’d never done with anyone. The world ferrets out your faults often enough, I see little point in lending a hand.
I said slowly, wanting to bite back every word, “Because duration of grief seems as if it should be equivalent to the depth of love you felt for the person you lost.” I paused a moment, struggling to get the next words out. “And I wanted to come to you shortly after Dancer died.” I’d been ready long before he’d left. And I’d boxed it the moment I felt it. Who does that? Who moves on so quickly? I’d loved Dancer. He’d deserved better than that!
He went motionless, staring into my eyes. Softly, he said, “You crazy, beautiful, maddening woman, that’s because you trained yourself to live that way. And wisely so. It’s what kept you alive. It’s been your saving grace. You learned young the necessity of leaving the pain behind and embracing the next good thing. Few people ever achieve that clarity. Prolonged grief is self-mutilation; a blade you turn on yourself. It doesn’t bring them back and only keeps you trapped in misery. You were healing the way people should heal but they punish themselves instead. For what—being the one who lived? Those we love will die. And die. And die. Life goes on. You choose how: badly or well.”
I knew that. With my head. But my heart had felt guilt so enormous and crushing, I hadn’t known what to do with it. I’d been out of control from that moment on. Each time I’d passed Chester’s, telling myself I was just checking on it, it was all I could do not to stalk in that door and pick up where our last kiss had left off, when he’d kissed me like I was the many complicated things that I am, when he’d shown me how completely he understood me. I’d wanted to forget my pain but any way I looked at it that was equivalent to forgetting Dancer and I was the one who remembered the people who died, damn it. That was what I did. I noticed the invisible people. I knew what it felt like to be one. I used to think I’d die in my cage and no one would ever even know I’d once been there. I’d simply vanish, unknown, unmourned, forgotten. Sometimes, toward the end, I’d wondered if she’d been trying to starve me to death.
“I couldn’t forgive myself,” I said softly. “It was a betrayal of the love we’d shared. I refused to see you because I knew what I’d do and I couldn’t resolve the conflict. But I would have,” I added heatedly. “Within a few months at most. You could have texted me, checked to see how I was. But you never did. Not once,” I said bitterly. “Your turn. Where did you go? And why were you starved when you got back?”
He smiled faintly, mirthlessly. “I never went anywhere, Dani. I never left at all. I was right here in Dublin the entire time, beneath your feet, under the garage behind Barrons Books & Baubles.”
“What?” I exploded.
“You walked above me once, feeling lost. I tried to send you a thought but the pain was so intense by then, the hunger so consuming, I’m not certain it got through. It was either make Barrons imprison me in a spelled cage I couldn’t escape, where he’d once contained his son, or cut my brand off you, and risk you getting lost. I was never going to risk that. If you’d called me, Barrons would have released me. If you’d used IISS, it would have bypassed the spells holding me.”
I stared. He’d been locked in a cage for two years? Barrons’s son—what the hell? I knew nothing about a son! I filed that away for future questions. Right now all I could think about was Ryodan trapped like an animal, as he’d once been so long ago as a child. As I’d been. We both knew the hell of cages. I would never go back into any kind of prison again. Couldn’t imagine any reason to willingly commit myself to two years of isolation, locked up. Oh, God, the whole time I’d been so angry that Ryodan had left me alone, he’d been alone, too, suffering! He’d been starved because he hadn’t eaten for two years, shut away in the ground!
“I turned into the beast shortly after Barrons completed the final spell, and never changed back again. I knew it would happen when I went in. We can only go so long without eating. After that it was madness. I lost all sense of time. Marked moments by your most intense emotions. My beast raged every time you fucked. My beast wept every time you cried. With some small part of my brain, I kept thinking you’d call and it would end. I’d be free. We’d be free. Together.”