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The turquoise stone lay against his bare chest, serving as a reminder that, not long ago, I was afraid to accept love or any kind of tenderness. I had needed time to learn how to trust again, and apparently, so did Jesse.
With a loss of what to say, I stepped into his space and wrapped my arms around his rigid torso. His hands remained stiffly at his sides, but his chest gave a gentle sigh against my cheek.
I didn’t know what I was doing trying to juggle the physical and emotional needs of three men. I had the experience of a fifteen-year marriage, but that was hardly the same thing. If Joel were here, he’d tell me to listen to the song, my tactile interpretation of love, like the tingles across the skin, the bounce in a step, and the involuntary pull of a smile.
Jesse remained stubbornly tense in my embrace, and I had a sudden urge to change that. I grabbed his waist, didn’t exactly dig my fingers in his sides, but I put some wriggling pressure there, right along his ribs.
He jumped around like crazy, trying to wrestle free of my tickling fingers. And there, shining on his face, was a shocked—but no less gorgeous—smile. “Why did you do that?”
I shrugged, smiling with him.
He brushed away the hair that had fallen across his forehead and stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
Roark’s hand found mine, drawing my focus to him and the memory of when I’d found his tickle spot. I smiled up at him. “Remember when we were in the bunker—”
“When ye dug your bloody toe in me ribs?”
We’d shared our first kiss that night. Not even a year had passed since then. It felt like an eternity ago.
His thumb stroked my knuckles. “Jaysus, ye were a temptress.”
“And you’re still a prude.”
He chuckled, though we both knew he’d been the one doing all the tempting.
As silence settled in, the three of us stood at the concrete ledge, watching the dark horizon. No one made a move to climb off the roof, each of us rooted in our thoughts.
Mine centered on Michio, agonizing over his lonely nights, his confrontation with Aiman, and his craving for blood. My blood. How long could he go without it? What were the ramifications?
But despite the ache in my chest, logic told me if anyone could defeat Aiman, that person was Michio. Aiman had made a fatal mistake biting one of my guardians. He’d created a powerful enemy, one who would risk his life to save mine.
I swallowed around the mass of emotions in my throat. “What are you guys thinking about?”
“The bug on the island,” Roark said. “No sustenance for two years, and the whole time, just a shallow moat away from freedom.”
Jesse picked a brittle chunk of concrete off the ledge and flung it into the field below. “A small obstacle for a creature so hard to kill.”
“There’s power in water,” Roark said thoughtfully.
Yeah, but unless his god decided to flood the planet again, or the fertile man at my side put a fatalistic baby in me, the future was fucked. Didn’t matter if we found and cured every nymph out there. Since the aphids couldn’t starve to death, their numbers would evolve while ours faded away.
Forever outnumbered, scraping by and counting our every breath. What kind of life were we fighting for?
I woke alone on a musty mattress, wearing one of Michio’s t-shirts that no longer carried his scent. That exotic scent, filled with memories and anguish, punched me right in the gut.
Sucking in a breath, I squinted through the glare of the morning sun that penetrated the open door of the animal clinic. A week had passed since we’d moved the mattress in there. A week since Michio had vanished from the roof.
Given his speed, he could be on the other side of the country by now. But maybe, just maybe, he never left Georgia.
I focused inwardly, searching for a warmth of electricity, the low hum in my veins I’d never noticed until it was gone, until Michio was gone. Was it some kind of supernatural connection? A sixth sense to help me locate him? I didn’t know how to explain it, only that I couldn’t feel it now. I couldn’t feel him.
He could be dead.
The hollowness in my chest constricted painfully as I imagined him sleeping alone and unprotected. Then I pictured him fighting the Drone, clenched in a bared-teeth lock of bodies, choking, punching, and spinning through the air like an out-of-control bullet against the force of the Drone’s wings.
Michio was a badass, but the Drone was so much more. Michio wasn't using his overeducated brain, running off into the night, thinking he could smite the Drone’s brand of evil. Dumb, arrogant man. Didn’t he know he couldn’t face the Drone without me by his side?
