Of course, Darius hadn't seen him fight yet. But that would come. In this war, that would always come.
Tohrment's brow furrowed in the firelight. "How old did they say she was?"
Darius wiped his mouth on a cloth and felt the nape of his neck get tight. "I don't know."
The pair of them fell silent and Darius guessed that what was suddenly in his mind was spinning in Tohrment's as well.
The last thing the situation needed was a further, dire complication.
Alas, ambush or not, they were going up north to the coastal area the symphath had directed them to. Once there, they would head a mile out of the small village and find upon the cliffs the retreat the sin-eater had described . . . and they would discover whether they had been sent forth into a lie.
Or used to further a purpose that aligned both them and that whip-thin reptile.
Darius was truly not worried, however. Sin-eaters were untrustworthy, but they were compulsively self-serving . . . and vindictive even against their own young.
It was a case of nature over character : The latter made them a bad bet; the former made them utterly predictable.
He and Tohrment were going to find what they were in search of up north by the sea. He just knew it.
The question was, in what condition the poor female would be . . .
FORTY-SEVEN
When John and Xhex finally reemerged from their little slice of privacy, the first stop was the shower in the locker room. And as food was mission-critical after all the exercise, they took turns with Xhex going first.
As John waited his turn out in the hall, it was funny--he should have been exhausted. Instead, he was energized, alive, coursing with power. He hadn't felt this strong . . . ever.
Xhex came out of the locker room. "You're up."
Man, she looked hot as hell, her short hair curling as it air-dried, her body clad in scrubs, her lips red. Flashes of what they'd done together got him jazzed and he ended up backing his way through the door just so he could keep his eyes on her.
And what do you know, when she smiled up at him, his heart snapped in half: The warmth and gentleness in her transformed her into something north of lovely.
She was his female. Evermore.
As the door eased shut between them, he felt a marauding panic when the latch clicked in place, like she wasn't just blocked from view, but gone entirely. Which was nuts. Crushing the paranoia, he showered quickly and pulled on scrubs, studiously ignoring how fast he went.
She was still there when he came out and though he meant to take her hand and head for the mansion, he ended up hugging her, hard.
The thing was, all mortals were going to lose the ones they loved. It was the way life worked. But for most of the time, that reality was so far off in the mind that it had no more weight than a mere hypothetical. There were reminders, however, and the almost's, the near-misses, the oh-God-please-no's, snapped your chain and got you to stop and feel what was in your heart. Like when a bad headache was just a migraine; or when a car accident totaled the station wagon, but the baby seats and the air bags saved all the lives inside; or when someone who had been taken came back to the fold . . . the aftermath shook you up and made you want to hold on to your person to steady yourself.
God, he'd never thought about it properly before, but from the first heartbeat struck within a vital body, a bell got tolled and the clock started to run. A bargain you weren't even aware of having made was put into play, with destiny holding all the cards. As minutes and hours and days and months and years passed, history was written as you ran out of time until your last heartbeat marked the end of the ride and the time to tally wins and losses.
Strange how mortality made moments like this with her infinite.
And as he held Xhex against him, feeling her warmth amplify his own, he was rejuvenated down to his marrow, his scale rebalanced, his sum total squarely in life-was-all-worth-it territory.
His growling stomach was what parted them.
"Come on," she said, "we need to feed your beast."
He nodded, clasped her hand, and started walking.
"You have to teach me sign language," Xhex said as they went into the office and opened the supply closet door. "Like, now."
He nodded again as they filed into the tight space and Xhex shut them in together. Hmm . . . another shot at privacy. Closed door . . . loose clothes . . .
The rat bastard in him measured the maneuvering room they had, his cock twitching behind the scrubs. If she put her legs around his hips, they could fit just fine--
Xhex stepped in close, her hand going to the erection behind the thin cotton across his hips. Rising onto her tiptoes, she brushed her lips against his neck, one fang scratching over his jugular.
"We keep this up, we're never going to find a bed." Her voice dropped even lower as she rubbed him. "God, you're big. . . . Have I told you how deep you go in me? Very deep. Niiiice and very deep."