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“I am… very sorry,” he whispered.
As the words came out of his mouth, he was aware that only he knew their full significance. Only he knew he was apologizing for being a coward. For being ashamed. For… needing an external impetus to act on his heart’s desire.
“For what do you apologize,” she said.
“Running from you.” And himself. “I don’t… I’d like to stop running. That’s why I’m not going anywhere. That’s what’s changed.”
Funny, that demon had robbed him of so much, but she’d given him a kind of gift as well. If allowing himself to fully fall for Rahvyn got them all where they needed to be with Devina? Then yes, he did feel as though he had permission to be selfish and express his emotions, let himself go.
Kind of a fucked-up way to heal, wasn’t it.
Rahvyn leaned her hip against the mattress. “What about the others.”
“You mean Eddie and Adrian?” As her face tightened, he switched his grip and stroked the inside of her wrist. “I’m not worried about them and neither should you. I’ll take care of it.”
“All right,” she said as she nodded.
A strange sensation uncoiled in his chest, warm and loose, and he went with it. “I think it’s time for me to get out of this bed.”
With a groan, he sat all the way up and started shifting his legs out from under the thin sheets. Things were going great—until his bare feet hit the floor and he realized he was naked.
“Ah…” He glanced around. “Clothes.”
“Oh.”
The flush that hit Rahvyn’s face put color back in her cheeks, and he had to fight not to reach up and touch her hair—and then his eyes lingered on her lips. He wanted to kiss her. He always wanted to kiss her.
Except even as an anticipation thickened his blood, memories of Devina came between them, sure as if the images and echoed sensations were bricks that were tangible, his revulsion the mortar that made solid that which was all in his mind.
Fuck you, Devina, he thought.
“Can I take you somewhere beautiful?” he said hoarsely.
Squaring her shoulders, Rahvyn cleared her throat. “You do not have to be nice to me just because I tried to help.”
“That’s not why I’m being nice to you.”
Rahvyn opened her mouth. Then closed it again. When she crossed her arms over her chest, he could feel the distance return.
“Indeed, I am more accustomed to your departures than your presence,” she said roughly. “Therefore you will understand my hesitation. The only thing more painful than your leaving is the prospect of getting further attached only to have you disappear once more.”
“Further?” he prompted.
“I have made no secret of my…”
When she shook her head sharply, he hung on, hoping to hear the words he wanted her to speak. That was such bullshit, though. She was right. He had been more reliable for his absences than a male who deserved her inner thoughts.
“I haven’t stopped thinking of you,” he said. “I might have been gone, but I took you with me.”
She looked up. “For true?”
He nodded slowly. “On my soul, for true. And I just want to take you to a place that’s peaceful. There’s been too much drama tonight. Too much… pain, for too long.”
And that was the God’s honest on so many levels.
Rahvyn tensed her shoulders, as if she were leaping off into waters that might prove to be too shallow. “I would like that.”
Lassiter started to smile. “After I get some pants on, of course.”
* * *
This place was a fetid mess.
Back in downtown Caldwell’s seedier zip code, where most of the structures were abandoned and humans with good sense didn’t venture out after dark, Lash regarded the entryway of a filthy, four-level walk-up with all the enthusiasm he’d have greeted an outhouse in the wilderness. The building was Victorian in derivation, with bays on each floor that extended forward, and ornamentation at the eaves, but the shithole showed every bit of its age, city sludge striping down its facade, chips out of its stone steps, slates missing from its roof.
As a cold breeze weaved around his legs, a woman screamed an obscenity somewhere behind him and there was a crash. Then the wind changed direction and he caught a whiff of human urine and rotten food.
Imagining that stench in August, he reflected on how he had grown up, in a mansion full of doggen, every need anticipated and tended to, the decor gleaming of generational wealth, the voices in the grand rooms soft and accented with the proper lilt that only came with distilled knowledge and privilege—
A blaring horn cut through his replay of things long past, and then a vehicle barreled around a corner a couple of blocks down and headed in their direction.
“I want that SUV,” he ordered his subordinate. “Get it.”
“What?”
For a split second, he nearly slapped the dumb bastard security guard he’d turned outside Devina’s version of Bergdorf’s. But both his hands were busy with his duffle bags of stolen weapons and gear. The Dick’s Sporting Goods they’d broken into and five-finger-discounted had dressed them both properly and given them some basic armaments. It hadn’t done shit for the raw material that was not in the dipshit beside him.
