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"Don't tell me," Nikki said, nudging her forward. "Tell your husband."
Dahlia lengthened her stride until she caught up with the guys only to find that Thane was quite a bit more stable. He was also blushing brightly enough that he couldn't just explain it away. From the mischievous look on Roarke's face, she could guess why.
"Are you trying to corrupt my husband?" Dahlia asked, moving in to wrap her arm around Thane's waist.
He draped his around her shoulders in response, having clearly let go of Roarke at some point. "Oh, claiming me now?"
She merely reached up to toy with the bracelet on his wrist. "That's what this is for. I have to protect you a little, right?"
"Just promise that I can take him hunting with me again?" Roarke asked, putting an intentionally pleading tone to his question.
"Yes," Dahlia promised, looking up at Thane to make it clear her words were really for him. "If Thane wants to feed some eidolon, then that's his call. If anyone tries to take from him without his consent, I will break them."
"And fucking humans with a friend?" Roarke pressed. "Because, you know, he doesn't need to feed."
"Anyone he fucks," she clarified, "is his decision. I do not have the right to say I can do it, but he can't."
"Good to know," Roarke said before slowing his steps to drop back with Nikki.
Which left Dahlia and Thane alone. The Des Moines streets were mostly empty, but not barren. The streetlights glowed softly, giving the trip a cozy feel, and insects made the night almost noisy. Somewhere a few streets over, the sounds of traffic could be heard, and the scent of flowers was in the air. There had to be a rather nice garden somewhere, but Dahlia couldn't see it. Thane just let his fingers brush across her shoulder in a distracted caress. They made it almost a block in silence before he decided to break it.
"I think I fucked up tonight," he said, the words a little soft.
"I promise you didn't," she assured him.
"Diseases, Dahlia," he clarified. "I might not be able to get a girl pregnant, but picking up some random stranger in a club? Unlike you, I can get sexually transmitted infections. I have no fucking clue how to juggle all of this, because I'm assuming that you can't feed through a condom, and..." He grunted, giving up on that line of thought. "I have a new name. Roarke gave that girl yet another fake one for me. I had sex with another man." His head twitched. "I mean with, notwith."
Dahlia was biting her lips together in her struggle not to laugh. "So you're straight and just had a threesome."
"That," he agreed, latching onto her way of saying it. "And I just..." He blew out a breath hard enough to puff his cheeks. "You were hot, though. Seeing you like that? I thought I'd hate it."
Clearly, he wasn't completely sober, but he wasn't drunk enough to be slurring. The strange thing was that she liked what he was saying. When he and Roarke had come into the alley, she'd been confused. Jealousy had come next, but that was easy to ignore. Then she'd braced for him to blow up. Most men didnottolerate their new wife sleeping with someone else. Instead, Thane had made it into something sexy.
With Mei, it'd been so easy. Dahlia couldn't even remember when they had figured out how to balance their need for vitality with their affection for each other. Still, six hundred years was a long time to get stuck in a very comfortable habit. With Thane, everything was different.
The truth was that Dahlia barely knew him. Sure, she'd had sex with him a few times, but it wasn't like they'd ever had the chance to sit down and have a deep, introspective conversation. The closest they'd ever come was trading information about the eidolon and the Inquisition. That wasn't exactly a winning recipe for a relationship. Hell, the two of them didn't exactlyhavea relationship.
And yet Thane kept treating her like they did.
It was too soon, too fast, and for all the wrong reasons. Sadly, life didn't exactly work that way. This was the chance she had with him, and the strangest thing was that she actually wanted to have a chance. She honestly liked Thane. Fuck,Meihad honestly liked Thane. He was everything she'd ever wanted in a warrior, and she knew a fight was coming. A big one.
For the rest of the way home, she picked on him about his drunken threesome with his new supposed cousin. He laughed. He blushed. He even tried to pick on her in return, but with each step back to their apartment, Thane got just a little more sober. Roarke and Nikki followed, but they kept walking slower and slower, letting the distance between the couples increase. By the time Thane and Dahlia were climbing up the stairs to her third-floor door, Thane was little more than tipsy. She, however, was confused, so she decided to tackle it head on.
The moment the door was closed and locked behind her, she just asked, "What are we doing?"
Thane just kept walking towards the bedroom. "About what?"
Her answer came out as little more than a breath, and she wasn't sure if the word was for her or him. "Us."
The bathroom door closed in the bedroom, and she was sure she wasn't going to get an answer. She also wasn't brave enough to ever ask that again. This whole thing was complete and total insanity. What the fuck had she been thinking? She had just married an inquisitor. Worse than that, the only one who'd ever come close to killing her!
So she headed into the bedroom and took off her heels. In the bathroom, she could hear the faucet running. When she'd said that things were too quiet, that was what she'd meant. Just the sounds and subtle disturbances of having another person surviving around her was all it took to make her feel like she was no longer alone. It was enough, wasn't it?
But when she went to take off her dress, the faucet shut off and the door opened. Without needing to be asked, Thane made his way over and helped her lower the zipper down her back. His hands were chilled against her skin, his face was damp, and his eyes were much clearer than they had been before.
"I married you to change your name," he said, proving that he'd heard her earlier. "It sounds safe that way, like it's detached from everything else. It also completely ignores the fact that I want you to be safe. I want to make sure that the Church can't hunt you down and destroy you the way they do everything else." Once the zipper was completely released, he stepped around to face her. "Dahlia, I married you because I like you enough to want you to live."
"What are we doing?" she asked yet again.
