* * *
“I know you’re probably tired of hearing me,” Chris said into the mobile, “but I’ve left three voice mails, Sam, and now I’m getting worried. Call me, say you’re okay, and I’ll quit bugging you.”
Chris left the phone on the bunk as she went to the closet and took out a T-shirt and jeans. Stripping out of the dress was a relief; as beautiful as it was, she didn’t think she could ever wear it again, at least, not in front of anyone except Jamys.
He loves me. She couldn’t stop that thought, or the idiotic smile it summoned from her lips. He’s loved me ever since we met. A fairy godmother couldn’t have done better by her with a thousand waves of a magic wand.
The rabid little organizer that inhabited her soul wanted to make plans, but Chris felt curiously detached about the future. If she and Jamys were able to make it work, they’d definitely have problems—some rather large, especially when she began aging and everyone who saw them together assumed she was his mother, or his grandmother—but there were plenty of ways to turn back time. Alex Keller had been a plastic surgeon before she’d been changed to Kyn; when the wrinkles came, Chris could probably talk her into doing some strategic nips and tucks.
The Darkyn were incapable of reproducing, so they’d never have kids. Chris thought babies were cute, but she’d never once felt the urge to start popping them out. Adele and Frankie had done too good a job as nightmare parents while destroying her childhood; her biological clock had been smashed along with it.
As for plans, Chris suspected she’d be better off living in the moment, and making the most of every night she spent with Jamys. She couldn’t do anything about death, so she’d devote herself to making their life together amazing.
The motion of the boat under her feet changed, first slowing and then shifting to a subtle bob. Above her head, Jamys’s footsteps moved from the helm to the port side, and she heard the drag of rope across the deck.
Chris climbed up to see the silhouette of palm and mangrove trees against the moon, and the silvery path of the narrow pier leading from the boat across a small cove to an island.
“This is Paradise?” she asked Jamys as she went to help him with the last of the mooring lines.
“Paradise Island,” he corrected, and without warning scooped her up into his arms. “The owner of the boat suggested we might enjoy visiting his house here.”
“I bet he did.” She wriggled a little as he stepped from the deck to the pier. “You don’t have to do the bride-over-the-threshold thing. We’re not married, and I can walk.”
“You agreed to become my kyara, my human wife.” He brushed his lips over hers. “So, yes, in the eyes of heaven, you are my bride, and we are newly wed.”
Jamys carried her the entire length of the pier, across a curving walkway of cut bleached coral studded with mollusk shells, and up to the front door of a very modern-looking beach house. Slightly overgrown bushes with dark green leaves flanked the entry, the frame of which had been inlaid with different types of antique brass compasses. The door opened easily and he stepped inside with her.
“I guess on an island you don’t have to lock up when you leave,” she said as he set her back on her feet, then lifted her face as rosy light illuminated them. The source, flame-shaped bulbs enclosed in seven garnet-colored glass floats hanging from an artfully draped old fishing net, brightened the hall enough to show a keypad next to a large framed mirror.
“I have the disarm key.” Jamys went to put it in.
Chris walked up to the mirror, which had been framed with weathered, carved deck planks. Primitive gold-painted cutouts of the sun, moon, and stars adorned the frame’s top and sides, but someone had carved words into the bottom plank: Do You See What I See?
The automatic lights and the mirror’s question made her feel slightly uneasy, but as she moved into the next room, she spotted a tiny light near the baseboard that flickered from red to green, and bent down to examine a small metal box similar to those she’d had installed in the Winterheart Suite. “I think he has the lights controlled by motion sensors.”
Hurricane lamps and hanging lanterns provided illumination for the front room, which had been furnished with a sturdy bamboo living room set upholstered in palm-frond green. Bookcases built into the walls held a bewildering assortment of new and old paperback books. Chris went over to read some spines, and saw they were arranged in a specific order.
Jamys moved around the room. “What does he read?”
“Dark fantasy novels.” She glanced back at him. “He’s got them arranged by subject matter.” And something was wrong with that, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what. “He’s got novels about angels, demons, ghosts, psychics, warlocks, werewolves, witches. . . . Hey.” She plucked a new novel from the shelf. “This one doesn’t come out until March. How did he get it before the rest of us?”