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He kissed me on the forehead, then on the mouth, his handsliding along my neck under my hair. “We are not night hags to feed like vultures on other’s pain. I will bring you back to me completely when I wake tomorrow night, I swear it.”
“Don’t give your word when we don’t understand the magic,” I said.
“You are mine and I am yours,ma petite, ever shall it be so, on this I give my word.” We kissed again but this time with our hands exploring each other’s bodies, legs entwining, and then he stopped abruptly. “We cannot sleep like this.” He was right. We’d tried but my leg fell asleep, and he moved like he was dead and it was just not good. He turned over so that I was the spoon at his back. I held him close as dawn came. I felt his body tense and then relax, his last breath easing from between his lips. I’d heard enough people die to know what that last gasp sounds like, and it’s just like this except that I knew Jean-Claude would live again come night. I kissed his neck, his shoulder, his back and settled down to hold him while he was still warm in our nest of sheets.
A soft knock at the door startled me awake. I woke in a panic like I expected to be back in the coffin with Deimos. It took me a few heart-pounding minutes to realize I was in the bedroom in Jefferson County, it was Jean-Claude beside me, and we were safe.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and my voice sounded like I’d slept too long and needed water, or something.
“Nothing’s wrong, Anita”—it was Pierette—“but your family is here. They tried to call your phone, but you never answered.”
“Shit,” I said. I’d lost my phone, still didn’t know where it was.
“Do you want me to send them away?”
“No, just give me time to brush my teeth and get some clothes on.”
“I’ll make coffee and see if Nathaniel left any of his biscuits in the freezer.”
That made me smile; I missed him being here making breakfast and being all domestic. Pierette and I would have to muddle throughon our own. Though there’d be other bodyguards around. There was no way that it was only Pierette and her now-dead-for-the-day master guarding both me and Jean-Claude.
The way the house was laid out, once I stepped out of the bedroom, I’d be looking into the living room. Hopefully Pierette would have herded my family into the kitchen so I could dash to the bathroom and get dressed. I got a pair of blue jeans, socks, and then debated on the T-shirt. Solid color would look dressier, but one of my penguin shirts would amuse me. The fact that I was more worried about dressing up for my family than for my girlfriend, or any other lover who might be part of the security detail, pissed me off. I thought about grabbing one of my older penguin ones in a color that looked terrible on me, but I realized that dressing so I’d look bad on purpose to thwart my family’s expectations was still them controlling me. So what didIwant to wear? Not for my family or against my family, but just me. What did I want? I looked back at Jean-Claude in the bed. His curls weren’t as carefully styled as usual because he hadn’t had time this morning. It made me smile to know that he trusted me not just with his perfection but with his imperfection and knew I’d love him either way.
I chose a black T-shirt and a black pair of Brooks running shoes, and to break up all the black I chose a necklace that he’d bought for me. It was a yellow gold, white gold, and black enamel king penguin with the markings done so well you could tell at a glance that it really was a king penguin. The original design had been silver and gold, but since most of our sweeties had a severe silver allergy, Jean-Claude had bought the original and had it remade, adding a cognac diamond eye. King penguins had brown eyes. He’d bought me more expensive penguin gifts over the years, but nothing had made me as happy, because nothing else had looked like the species. It made the biologist in me incredibly happy.
I put the clothes on the corner of the bed, then got one of the silk robes off the back of the bedroom door. Jean-Claude’s was in black,of course; mine was red, Micah’s was green, Nathaniel’s was purple. Dev had felt left out, so we got him a blue one, which he almost never wore. Sometimes it’s about the gesture, not the having. We were debating getting one for Richard but weren’t sure what color to get. Angel had a gold robe, but it was on the back of the door to the upstairs bedroom that she considered hers. She liked more room when she slept, just like Nicky did. Maybe it was time for Pierette to have a robe, though I had no idea what color to choose.
I tucked the sheet up over Jean-Claude’s shoulders, kissed him on the cheek, and went to get dressed.
57
Once I sawmyself in the mirror, I had a moment of wondering why any person in my life had loved on me yesterday. My eye makeup looked less heroin chic and more walk of shame. I had not taken the time to diffuse my hair with a blow dryer before bed like Jean-Claude had, so my hair had dried in interesting shapes. But the hair products that got the interesting shapes also meant that I could add a little water and style it into looking like I actually planned on my curls looking like this.
The hair and the T-shirt were so close to the same color that it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. Moments like this made me understand why Jean-Claude usually put a contrasting color near his hair, but for today I liked the starkness of it. The gold chain with the king penguin pendant helped soften it a little, but maybe it wasn’t soft I wanted today. I did decide to wear my Sig Sauer .380 in an inner pants holster, appendix carry, so that you only saw a slight imprint of the holster against the fabric of the blue jeans. If I’d worn black jeans even that wouldn’t have shown. I debated on adding some blades but figured my family wouldn’t get that out of hand and they’d want to hug me. It was family—they weren’t going to grind their hips against mine, so they probably wouldn’t notice the gun. There’d be no hiding the big blade down my spine, or thekarambit under my shirt, or the straight blade, or…Girl jeans just weren’t made for blade carry. Since most girl jeans didn’t have pockets big enough for car keys or your whole hand, no big surprise that you couldn’t carry concealed easily in them.
I stared into the mirror and debated on at least some eye makeup, when I realized I was procrastinating going out to meet my family. Okay, seeing my dad and my grandma. God, I hoped they hadn’t brought her with them. Nicky had said it at the airport, I really was afraid of them. My grandmother hadn’t hit me since I was fifteen and I hit her back, and I was a lot better at hand-to-hand combat than the boxing my dad had taught me back then. Logically I was safe, physically at least, but some fears aren’t about logic.
“Fuck it,” I told myself in the mirror, and went for the kitchen.
Pierette had found some of the frozen biscuits because I could smell them, rich and buttery. I was suddenly hungry, and then I smelled the coffee and it felt like my anxiety went down at least a couple of notches. I heard my dad say, “Momma, enjoy your coffee and biscuits.” My stomach tightened and the anxiety came right back up.
“Keeping your guests waiting is rude, Fredrick. We raised her better.”
“Grandma, you saw the videos from yesterday. Anita was part of the police force that killed a dragon, a real fire-breathing dragon,” Josh said.
“All the police involved must be exhausted,” Dad said.
“Anita was kidnapped by the dragon like a fairy-tale princess,” Judith said.
I squared my shoulders back and walked through the big open doorway of my kitchen. Okay, Nathaniel’s kitchen, but he wasn’t here for today. I wondered if he’d found a kitchen to make his own with the wererats. I tried not to think too hard about him, because I needed to be present here and now for the next little bit. My family was seated around the big kitchen table with room to spare since itseated eight. The electric lights were on because the storm shutters were still closed.
“Well, she certainly doesn’t dress like a princess,” Grandma said from her seat at the kitchen table. She glared up at me as I came through the door.
“Mother Blake,” Judith said.
“Mother, you promised,” Dad said.
Andria said, “Grandma!”
