Elise stayedwith her parents well into the night, citing the need to help them clean up and make sure they were all right. Cal didn’t mind, though he would have preferred they were both back in her apartment. He’d adapted to having a home quickly. Rather than feeling confined like he thought he would, he’d only grown more possessive of the space and of the woman who resided there.
He couldn’t say the same thing about her childhood home, though. Even after Bob and Rachel retired to their room, he felt uncomfortably restricted in the unfamiliar space. Cal was sure that part of it was due to the fact that things were oddly tense between Elise and himself.
There was too much to say, too much emotion roiling between them, and her family’s home was not the place to safely work through the minefield between them. By silent agreement, they didn’t bring up their previous conversation, nor the way Elise had completely shattered his world in the annex.
When he stood by the open back door, half-dematerialized and ready to escape the confines of his flesh and his frustrations for a while, they shared a look heavy with understanding.
“I’ll see you at home,” she whispered, stretching onto her tiptoes to brush a kiss across his lips.
Cal felt that peculiar pressure building again. It was an ache in his chest, like an acute longing for her had metastasized into real pain. He kissed her more firmly, always hungry for her, and reassured himself that, come tomorrow morning, he would have the tools necessary to renegotiate their deal. He would make her his. There was no other option.
The terms had changed. He didn’t want a temporary mate. He wanted forever, and he’d go to any lengths necessary to get it.
* * *
FROM THE DESK OF ELISE SASINI, AN EXCERPT FROM THE MANUSCRIPT THE SHROUDED CITY:
Cal won’t tell me about what exactly happened during his year in Solbourne custody. I don’t blame him. My father was a war correspondent for nearly sixty years. After the war ended, he worked full time for The Light. Being a journalist in the 1980’s through the 2000’s was a dangerous venture. Thaddeus II’s crackdown on the press reached its peak then, and my father was one of many journalists to find themselves in the bowels of a Solbourne dungeon.
My father was held for three months after writing an article about a series of disappearances around the city. He was bold — or foolish — enough to outright speculate that they were politically motivated, and he paid the price for it. My father won’t talk about his time with the shadow Patrol, either, but it haunts him.
Like with Cal, I can see the truth that can’t be spoken. My father’s knee has never been the same, though he blames his pain on gout, and he hasn’t taken his shirt off in front of anyone but my mother in forty-five years. Cal won’t go near an open flame if he can help it, and I’ve started taking longer routes on the m-lev to avoid having to take him underground. He’s never said a word, but when we glide through the tunnels, I can feel his fear sticking to me like a second skin.
I’m not sure if it's the abhorrence of pity or a desire to forget about their trauma that makes them reluctant to share the details of what happened to them. Maybe it’s a protective urge to save their loved ones from knowledge that can only hurt them. I don’t know.
Cal is open about other things, though. When I asked him how he feels about the current regime, he simply shrugged. He doesn’t seem to hold any ill-will toward Theodore Solbourne or any of the Solbourne family. He is more forgiving than I am.
Cal’s eyes, swaths of inky black, are placid when he explains,“They are not their father. I don’t hold his sins against them anymore than you hold the sins of my birth against me, even if I think you should.”
He is a tangle of contradictions, my mate. He is an eminently practical being, and as such, he is aware that his guilt is illogical, unfounded. When he says things like that, I am reminded again of his complexity — as well as my desire to throttle a select few people.
Guilt thrives in him, eating away at a soul that is good to its deepest foundations. If I could carve the guilt out of him with my hands, I would. I can’t, though. Perhaps someday he will let me replace his oldest companion with something softer, kinder, but it is not today, nor tomorrow.
For now, all I can say is, “Tell me more about the people you’ve saved, Cal.”
* * *
Kaz’s favorite bar was a shithole called The Broken Tooth. Deep in the seediest part of the Tenderloin neighborhood, it was as unassuming as the shattered glass in the gutters. At four AM, a cleaning bot would sweep away the sins of the night from the street, but the bar would remain, and its patrons would simply replace what was swept up. Sometimes it was glass, usually it was cigarette butts, and occasionally it was blood. Even in the capital of the squeaky clean Protectorate, filth and violence would always have a foothold.
Cal understood why Kaz picked this particular dive bar as his favorite haunt. In the middle of a web of underground Markets — where black market goods, drugs, and desperate people passed from hand to hand — it was the perfect place for the head of the Solbourne’s intelligence force to keep his eye on the pulse of the EVP.
Not many people knew that Kaz was perhaps the single most dangerous man in the territory, nor that he controlled a vast underground network of informants and spies. Even fewer knew that he was not just an orcish mercenary hired to keep the sovereign safe.
He was Theodore Solbourne’s half brother, and despite his outward appearance, he was every bit as elvish and single-mindedly ruthless as the rest of his family.
When Cal stepped into The Broken Tooth’s hazy interior, he found Kaz sitting at the far end of the sticky bar, a green bottle of beer clasped loosely around the neck with two clawed fingers. Cal peered closely at his friend’s hands, more curious about them than he’d ever been before.
Now that his focus had shifted to being mated, he was terribly curious about the subject on the whole. He only knew the bare minimum of orcish mating habits and nothing at all about elves, since they kept everything secret. That never bothered him before, but now he felt compelled to know more. Perhaps there was some secret to their success he could uncover if he dug far enough.
Sliding onto the stool next to his friend, Cal asked, “When you find your mate, your hands will turn black, yes? Like your claws?”
Kaz grunted and lifted his beer to his lips for a harsh swig. His claws, naturally glossy black, looked extra sinister against the glass of the bottle.
A staticky blues song played over the sound of low chatter. A hunched figure was smoking in a far corner, gaunt face turned toward an old feed screen showing the latest arena fight. With just a glance to his right, Cal could immediately tell that the three vampires sitting in a booth by the grimy window were having a very serious discussion. A look to his left took in the were woman behind the bar, her mismatched eyes keen and her face lined with age, as well as the patron she spoke to, a fellow were with shaggy brown hair and a pale, sweaty face.
Turning his attention back to Kaz, Cal thought, The Solbournes don’t even need me anymore.
Truly, what use did they have for him when Kaz could blend in so well with the shadows and the people who dwelled there? No one in the bar would ever think he was half a step away from the Protectorate’s throne.