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“Oh, you’re ready. Trust me.” But as I leaned in for another kiss, someone pounded on the door.
“Delilah! Shade! We need you downstairs, now.” When Menolly spoke in that tone of voice, everybody jumped. “Get off your asses and hurry!”
Whoa. I hadn’t heard her that upset in a long time.
We scrambled up and adjusted our clothing, then hurried downstairs. Menolly was already back in the kitchen when we came dashing in. Camille was there, along with Smoky, Trillian, and Vanzir.
“What’s up? Please tell me not another explosion.” Shade and I accepted mugs of tea from Trillian.
“We got a call from Chase. There’s been an ugly incident. We have to get down to the FH-CSI.” Camille jumped up and yawned, grabbing her keys.
“What’s going on?” A voice from the kitchen door startled me. I whirled around to see Marion standing there, clutching the terry robe tightly around her. She’d borrowed it from Menolly.
“Yet another incident. We have to roll. You and Douglas stay here. Just go back to bed and get more rest.” I patted her shoulder. She bit her lip, then nodded. She looked so tired and so lost.
As Marion vanished back to the parlor, Camille let out a long breath. “She’s gone through so much. The loss of her sister. The loss of her house.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re doing this. For people like Marion. To keep the Tregarts—and their boss—from turning this world into a far worse hell than it already is.” I swallowed my self-pity. So I’d only had three and a half hours of sleep. At least we still had our house to come home to.
Camille motioned to Trillian and Smoky. “We’re leaving Morio at home. He still gets tired easier than usual. I’m making him stay home to sleep.”
Vanzir, who was eating a toast and peanut butter sandwich, yawned. “I’ll stay here, too. Shamas is still asleep. He has to get up in an hour to go to work and he needs to be on his A-Game while he’s on duty. Man, two hours of sleep isn’t enough for even me.”
“Rozurial’s still crashed out.” Menolly shrugged. “He looked so peaceful when I went down to the studio to wake up him and Vanzir, I decided to let him sleep. That way Roz and Morio will be fresh later today in case we need down time. We might want to sleep in shifts from now until we catch Van and Jaycee, so we always have fresh blood. And speaking of blood…” Menolly glanced at the clock. It was nearly five thirty.
“Maybe you’d better stay home, too. We don’t know how long we’ll be out and it’s almost dawn.”
She nodded. “Right. I’ll stay here and finish going through the last pages of the day planner and phone book. I don’t want to get caught out in daylight and, knowing what’s happened lately, if we get caught up in something big, I could fry.”
Nodding, I picked up my keys and backpack. Shade and I headed out to my car, while Camille, Smoky, and Trillian headed to hers. As the clouds parted to let the luminous dark through, I breathed in the crisp air. February was a grueling month in the Seattle area. Rainy, cold, sometimes a snowstorm, wind and gloom…the city streets never seemed as gritty as they did on a cold February night.
Shade stared out the window as we sped along. After a few minutes, he turned to me. “I love you. You know that, don’t you? I’ve loved you for a long time, far before you met me.”
I smiled, keeping my eyes on the road. “I do. And I love you.”
“How much do you love me?” The tone of his voice suddenly took a solemn turn. I darted a glance his way. He was looking bemused, staring at the windshield wipers as they slashed back and forth.
Unsure what he was up to, I hesitated. “I said I love you. Um…you want me to stretch my arms and say this much?” When he remained silent, I chewed the inside of my lip, then said, “Where’s this going?”
“Where it’s going is to the subject of that ring I gave you when we first met. The one you put on your finger to summon me to your side?” He pointed to the chunky smoky quartz that I hadn’t taken off since I first slid it onto the ring finger of my right hand.
A funny feeling shifted in my stomach. “Yeah?”
“I told you then, you’d be making a choice. And you made it. Do you regret it? Even a little?”
Suddenly feeling short of breath, I shook my head, praying he wasn’t going to break up with me. Sometimes love wasn’t enough to conquer differences. Sometimes…“No, I’ve never regretted it. You help me feel complete. If this is about the room—I promise, I’ll be less of a slob.”
Another pause while I fretted.
Then: “In a way, this is about the room, yes. But not what you think.”
“What is it?”
“Just…this. I figure, since we’re sharing a room and sharing chores, and sharing a bed…and since our master has chosen us for each other and it’s turned out to be a match made in heaven…then why don’t we make it official? Promise me that—when you’re ready—you’ll become my wife?”
Tears blurring my eyes, I pulled over to the side of the road and parked. As I turned to Shade, my heart began to swell. Here was this man who wanted to share my life with me. Who accepted me for all of my faults and flaws. I turned to him. “You and the Autumn Lord are the two loves of my life.”
They were both halves of the same whole. One was eternal, one was on my realm. My lips trembling, I reached for him, struggling against the seat belt, and kissed him long and deep. After a moment, I pulled back and took his hands in mine. “I never want to disappoint you. I want you in my life always. Yes, I’ll marry you. I’ll be your wife.”
