“Thirsty?” When I nodded, he reached for the soda, popped the tab and offered it to me. Another cookie ended up in my other hand. He shifted behind me, resting back against the headboard. “I could sleep like this.”
“Really?” I alternated between my cookie and my Coke.
“Yeah.” His arm tightened around my waist.
I grinned. “I think I could, too.”
“Minus the cookie and Coke.”
“I’d cuddle them.”
He chuckled, and that felt even better, but then he dropped his head to my neck, nuzzling there, sending a wicked little shiver down my spine. With no rules, Zayne was cuddly, touchy and sweet. Part of me wasn’t surprised to discover that. It was Zayne after all, but I was still a little surprised—pleasantly surprised. I never thought I’d be the type who enjoyed the causal touches or kisses, the way he was holding me so close, but I did. And I didn’t just enjoy it, I lo—
A cold, sharp slice swept through my stomach as I swallowed the last bit of chocolate. I didn’t just like any of this. There was a far stronger emotion that seemed even more dangerous to acknowledge now.
Nothing had happened yet, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a consequence waiting patiently for us around the next corner. No matter how right or beautiful what we’d just shared felt, it was forbidden, and as much as I hoped Zayne was right, that this rule was just a method of control, I feared he might be wrong.
Beyond that, our lives were... Well, either of us could bite the bullet tomorrow. This Trueborn—the Harbinger—was deadly. Zayne could die, and I...
“Hey,” he said softly, hand brushing my arm.
I closed my eyes, trying to stop the bombardment of fears, but it was like a floodgate being breached.
The Coke left my hand, ending up on the nightstand. Cool, damp fingers curled around my chin, turning my head toward his. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” I smiled, not wanting to ruin this.
His gaze flickered over my face. “Talk to me, Trin.”
Talk to me.
How many times had he said that to me? How many times had I blown it off, because talking meant giving breath and life to fears? It had always been easier to keep all of that neatly hidden away, but easier wasn’t always better.
It wasn’t always the right thing to do.
“I’m just... I’m scared that something is going to happen,” I admitted. “That there will be a consequence for this.”
“There might be, Trin.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re supposed to say something that reassures me. Not freaks me out more.”
“What I’m supposed to say is the truth.” He brushed his thumb along my lower lip. “Look at me.”
Opening my eyes, I was immediately snared in his pale gaze. “I’m looking.”
“No matter what happens, we’ll face it together. I didn’t kiss you without considering there could be a risk. I didn’t share with you what we just shared believing nothing could come from it.” His eyes searched mine. “I knew there was a risk for us—and there is an us. I also know that you’re worth the risk. That we’re worth the risk.”
A ripple of pleasure danced its way around my heart. “You always say the right thing.”
Zayne grinned at me. “You know that’s not true.”
“You say the right stuff a good ninety-five percent of the time.” I reached up and touched his jaw. “Together,” I whispered. “I like that. A lot.”
His hand slid up to cup my cheek. “Happy to hear that. If you didn’t, things would get a whole lot more awkward and annoying for you.”
“How so?”
“Because I have no plans of letting you go anytime soon,” he said, moving wickedly fast. Before I knew it, I was on my back and he was above me, his lips brushing mine as he said, “So, I’m glad to hear we’re on the same page.”
Then he kissed me, and yeah, we were definitely on the same page.
* * *
Zayne was perched on the parapet of one of the hotels not too far from Federal Triangle. In his Warden form, wings tucked back, he was a fearsome sight.
All day I’d kept waiting either for things to become weird between us or for an Alpha to randomly show up and mete out punishment.
Neither happened.
Well, things had been a little...goofy when I’d woken up this morning, all tangled up with him, and on and off throughout the day. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Wake him up, or somehow maneuver my way out of the bed without waking him? I’d suddenly been extremely concerned about morning breath. Zayne woke before I could make up my mind, kissing my cheek before rising. He’d beaten me to the shower. Later, when he walked past me, dropping his lips to the side of my neck instead of tugging gently on my hair or messing with my glasses had been a pleasant behavioral shift, but he had left me blushing and stammering. Training had started off normal, but the moment one of us got the other on the mat, we ended up staying there, kissing, touching, until Peanut drifted into the room and then back out, screaming something about his eyes.
When we’d started patrolling, I’d wondered if it would be weird to hold his hand as we walked. I hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to do that.
But we hadn’t spent the whole day training or making out. We’d planned for the Harbinger. I had come to accept that Zayne had been right all those days ago, when he’d said we wouldn’t find the Harbinger until he wanted to be found. Once he came around again, we needed to get him to talk, because if we took him out, we wouldn’t know what was going on with Bael and the senator and those spirits trapped in the school. And if the Harbinger had been the one to set those wards, he could possibly be the only one able to break them. So, we needed to make ourselves available.
We needed to be alert.
And we needed to be patient.
The latter was not a part of my skill set.
Under Zayne’s watchful eyes, I was treating the narrow ledge of the building as if it were a balance beam. I thought that perhaps he had about four separate heart attacks each time I misstepped.
“Do you really need to do that?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“The correct answer would be no.”
Grinning, I pivoted like a ballerina, eliciting a harsh curse from Zayne. “It’s practice. That’s what I’m doing.”
“Practice for what? Earning a new world record for how many times you can make my heart stop?”
“Besides that, it helps me work on my balance when I can’t see.”
“And that can’t be done when you’re not several hundred feet in the air?”
“Nope. Because I can’t mess up when I’m up here. Down there, nothing bad would happen if I fell.”
“That would be the point,” he replied dryly.
“Don’t be such a worrywart. I know exactly how wide this is. Nine inches.” I carefully made my way back to him and stopped a couple feet away. I looked down, unable to see the width of the ledge or the shape of my boots. “The ledge is like my field of vision. Well, except the edges here are straight and not like a wonky circle where things are sometimes clear and sometimes blurry. Everything else is...” I lifted my arms. “Shadows. It’s weird, because sometimes it’s not even black. It’s like gray. I don’t know. That might be the cataracts.”
“Do you think it’s possible to get them removed?”
“My eyes?”
“The cataracts.” He sighed.
I grinned again. “The last doctor I saw said they were actually protecting my retinas in a way, and until they’re causing a real problem, they wanted to hold off on talking about surgery. There are a lot more risks involved with operating on people who have RP, and more possible side effects.”
“I hate to think what might classify as a real problem.”
I snorted, thinking that while I’d adapted the best I could to the restricted vision, the cataracts often annoyed the Hell out of me. “If they cause a lot of pain or fully obstruct my central vision, I guess.”
“But you said your eyes hurt before.”
“Yeah, but it’s manageable. More of an achy feeling and that probably has nothing to do with the cataracts. I mean, not directly. I do think I need to have my eyes checked, though.” Tipping my head back, I looked up at the sky. It took me a moment to see the distant, faint glow of one star and then another. “I had edemas once before. They could come back.”
“Macular edemas? The swelling behind the retinas?” he asked, surprising me once more with his own independent research. “That could be what’s causing your eyes to ache. We need to make an appointment. Call Thierry and see if the doctor they took you to could hook you up with someone closer, like the Wilmer Eye Institute over in Baltimore. They’re a part of Johns Hopkins.”
He really had done his research.
“We’ll just have to be careful,” he continued. “As long as there’s no genetic testing—”
“They’ll have no idea I’m not completely human.” I lowered my arms, inching closer to Zayne. “Though, can you imagine if they did test? The look on the geneticists’ faces when they got an eyeful of my DNA?”
He laughed. “They’d probably think you’re an alien.”