I surged from the bed and tried to decide which of five doors led to the bathroom. I opened the nearest and blinked, staring. It looked familiar but it was hard to tell with every piece of furniture shattered. Even the walls and floors had deep gashes slashed into them, as if massive, lethal talons had been turned against them in fury.
After a long moment I recognized the bits of furniture, so similar to mine. It was the room Ryodan had tattooed me in, that I’d thought was his private chamber but was only the anteroom to the true private chamber within. Wait—what? I stood, processing the shambles. It was furnished exactly how it had been when he’d tattooed me. Holy mimicking monkeys, I’d aped his taste, not the other way around! And I hadn’t even realized it. I was the copycat. My mood soured.
I slammed that door and tried the next. A kitchen. He didn’t have my exact counters but they were damned close. I slammed that door and opened the third then stood, hesitating on the threshold.
I’d found the bathroom and it sported an entire wall of mirrors—in anyone else’s abode but Ryodan’s, those silver glasses would have made me uneasy—yet abruptly, I wasn’t in such a hurry to look at myself anymore. I had a damn good idea what I’d find.
Shaking my head, bracing myself, I stalked to the mirror.
And gasped.
I yanked up my shirt, unbuttoned the fly of my jeans, dropped them and stared, abruptly so angry I couldn’t breathe.
The only parts of me that weren’t black was half my hair, half my face, and a fist-sized spot on my stomach. My left eye was full black. Deep within fiery sparks glinted. I had a Hunter eye. Bloody hell.
I stood there a long moment, battling emotions so intense I didn’t know what to do with them. I wanted to box them. Knew I could. Simply pack it all up and get back out there in the world and see what happened next. Deal with whatever did. That was the way I lived.
“And how’s that been working out for you so far?” I muttered at my reflection sarcastically.
Not so well. Ryodan was right. Boxing the things that bothered me was, long-term, deadly. It was past time I faced things, and not just the state of my body.
I tugged my jeans back up, dropped my shirt, then stared at my reflection, eyes meeting eyes, telling myself what I’ve always told myself: it is what it is. Find the silver lining. Throw that head back and belly up a laugh. It’s just another adventure. Greet it, master it.
It didn’t work. Because it wasn’t this time.
This adventure was stealing me away from my world as surely and inevitably as Balor had been wresting my soul from my body.
My adventures were supposed to happen here, in my city, with my friends who were finally back. With Ryodan. He was here. We wanted each other. We’d finally engaged in that long overdue dance of lust and…well, who knew what else…I was being yanked from the dance floor against my will.
The thing I’d hated the most about being caged was being shut away from the world, cut off from it. I’d hungered for OLDER and OUTSIDE because, deep down, I’d had the same dreams as everyone else, only superhero-sized. I’d been raised by those dreams, unfolding on the television in front of my lonely, riveted, intensely impressionable gaze. One day I, too, would have friends, a place to belong. I’d date, maybe even go to university. Dance. Fall in young love like I did with Dancer. Maybe fall in love again. That was how it worked on those shows.
But my time was running out. Fast.
I suddenly understood how Dancer must have felt, with his damaged heart, his loathing of clocks, his refusal to wear a watch, his abject rejection of the relentless march of time.
But my heart wasn’t damaged, and Ryodan’s was immortal, and I’d had every reason to believe we had plenty of time.
One kiss and two days later, BOOM—I was untouchable. If I were a character in a novel, I’d snipe the bitch who wrote my life this way.
I fisted my hands, staring into the mirror, pressure building in my head as I realized whether I turned solid black or actually turned into a Hunter, the end result was the same.
My life as I knew it was over.
I would never kiss Ryodan. Never touch him. Never get to lose myself in passion on that big, beautiful body of his. Never get to test his sexual limits, and mine. On him, I could vibrate at my highest intensity and never have to worry about blowing out his heart. So many desires I’d hidden, guarded in my heart, believing somehow, one day, I’d get to taste them all. When it was time.
Not.
Twenty-two years. That was all I’d gotten and, holy hell, had they been crazy. Caged, lost, fractured, soon to not even be human at all.
For whatever reason, in my mind, me and Ryodan had always been a foregone conclusion. Just as Dancer was mine, so was he. It was always only a matter of time. Or so I’d believed. Some women got a single great love in their lifetime. I’d gotten two at the same time, totally different, yet both mine. I’d known it even then. Dancer’s failing heart had made my choice easier. I honestly don’t know what I’d have done if he’d lived a long life. I’ve always been torn between the two of them. And although I’d worked hard to hide it, Dancer had seen it. Called me on it. Loved me anyway. That had taken enormous courage. To love someone you knew wanted someone else, too, but had, for whatever reason, chosen you. I can’t say that I’d be capable of it. I don’t think my heart is that pure.
Then Ryodan had screwed everything up by leaving. I’d almost been done working through it. The whole grief/guilt conundrum had swallowed me whole for a while. Ryodan’s abrupt departure had pushed me over the edge. Any boxes that were about to open, I’d slammed shut again.
Somewhere in the suite a door opened and closed. Footfalls. He was here.
And the way I saw it, it was all his fault.
Once, I’d have freeze-framed out there, slammed into him, vented my anger on his body. I didn’t dare do that now.
I turned and stalked back into the bedroom and nearly ran smack into him. We both backpedaled instantly.
He looked like hell. Every muscle in his body was tight, his eyes narrowed to slits, glittering, and there was thunder in his blood. I could hear the sledgehammer of his heart a dozen paces away. His knuckles were scraped, his hands cut but already healing, no doubt from demolishing the anteroom.
“That was yesterday,” he said tightly. “Today I trashed the gym. And my office.”
“What the hell do you have to be angry about?” I demanded.
“Clarify your emotions, Dani,” he snapped. “It’s not me you’re upset with.”
“Don’t tell me who I’m upset with,” I snapped back. “I know perfectly well who I’m upset with. The person that left for two bloody years. We could have had two years, Ryodan, but you blew it!”
He snarled, “Don’t you dare try to blame that on me! You bloody well know why I left. You won’t let yourself think about it. The person you’re angry with is you.”
“Bullshit.” I fisted my hands at my sides and locked my legs down to keep from lunging at him.
“For a woman who always seizes the moment, I’m the one moment you sure as fuck never seized. And I was right there for the seizing.”
“No, you weren’t. That’s exactly my point. You left. You went off into the world and had adventures and sex and a life without me and you wouldn’t even be back now if I hadn’t wished you back and AOZ granted it, thinking the starving black beast would bite me in the ass somehow!” I exploded in a heated rush.
“You wished me back? That’s how I got here? Bloody hell, and you’re just now telling me that? Barrons and I wasted half a day trying to figure that out!”
“And if I hadn’t wished you back,” I yelled, “you’d still be out there having a life while I was here by myself, trying to handle this whole bloody city alone, turning black and slipping away and you wouldn’t even know it! You know why? Because you don’t c
are! You didn’t text or call me even once. You don’t fucking care about me at all!”
His head whipped back and he roared, hands fisting, body straining, and he morphed so swiftly into the beast that his clothing exploded off him in pieces, shirt ripping down the back, sleeves and pants splitting, falling away as he transformed from a six-foot-four, 240-pound man to a nine foot, nearly five-hundred-pound beast.
Then back to the man.
Then the beast, then the man.
Beast.
Man.
Sound of bones cracking, tendons grating.
Beast. Man. Beast again. Faster.
Back and forth he went at a dizzying speed and I watched with horror, struck by the sudden fear that he might kill himself if he didn’t stabilize his body fast, from the sheer stress his organs were undergoing in the rapid, incessant transformations. Not to mention his skin and bones! And, no matter how angry I was with him for ruining our lives, I can never stand to see that man die.
“Ryodan, breathe! Get a grip on yourself!” I cried, but my words were gasoline on his fire and the morphing sped up and he began to bay, jaws wrenched wide, then he was a man roaring, then a beast howling, such a terrible, desolate, fractured sound, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say so I shouted, “Ryodan, goddamn it, I love you! Stop hurting yourself! Don’t you dare die! I can’t deal with that right now!” Not only did I hate watching him die, I’d have to wait days, maybe even weeks for him to get back so we could finish this damned fight, and who knew if I’d even still be here?
The beast jerked, stumbled, dropped to a knee, shuddering violently, then began to turn back into a man, bit by bit, first his hands, then his arms, his shoulders, and finally his face.
I held my breath, refused to say anything, in case it pushed him back into that terrible morphing of forms again. For years I’d wanted to see the great Ryodan lose control. I’d just learned a painful lesson. I never wanted to see it happen again. I’d kill anyone who ever tested his control, protect him. Never let him break. This man was my…bloody hell, my hero and I wanted him to always stay strong and whole.
He knelt, gasping for breath, chest heaving, tatters of clothing hanging on his trembling body.
Then, chin tucked down, he glanced up at me from beneath his brows, eyes still crimson and ground out, “Never. Tell. Me. I. Don’t. Care. You can fling any other insult you want at me, but not that one. Never that one. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you. Everything.”
He lunged to his feet and stalked toward me, naked but for odd bits of clothing here and there. I yanked my gaze to his face, in no mood to torment myself further.
“Don’t touch me!” I stepped hastily back. “And put something on.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he growled. “Suggesting works better at times like these.”
“You tell me what to do all the time and it’s—”
“You never listen.”
“—not like we’ll be having future times like these because—”
“We’ll always be butting heads like this. You’re too goddamn stubborn and so am I.”
“—our time is up, Ryodan. That’s my point and it’s your fault.”
He snarled, “What did I say to you in the cemetery that night?”
“You told me you were leaving,” I snarled back. “And that I couldn’t come.”
He stalked past me, into the bathroom, and came out with a towel wrapped around his waist, dusting part of a sleeve from his arm. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. The thing you boxed. The thing you never once looked at. The final words I said to you.”
“You told me to never come to you,” I said hotly. He was getting too close and he was right, I was angry with myself and had been for a long time.
“After that. Goddamn it, Dani, what did I say right before I left? I know you heard it. I know how acute your hearing is.”
I closed my eyes. He’d said, until the day you’re willing to stay.
“You had my number! If you’d called me, I’d have come. But you didn’t.”
“You didn’t call me either!”
“You wanted my brand. You wanted to know you could never get lost again. That mattered to you. I gave it to you.”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“For fuck’s sake, because of that brand, I feel your emotions. I felt them that night in the cemetery. You may not have wanted me to leave but it wasn’t because you wanted me to stay. You wanted me to sit around, waiting endlessly, doing nothing, all for the slight chance Dani O’Malley decided she wanted to see me. I bloody well did that. I sat there four motherfucking months and you never. Once. Came. I came to find you a dozen times but you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I know exactly what you felt that night in the cemetery, I felt every bit of it. Anger that I was leaving, hurt that I wouldn’t tell you for how long. But more than anything, more intensely than all the rest, you felt relieved. You were bloody fucking relieved to see me go!”
I fisted my hands so hard, my nails bit through the gloves into my icy flesh. “What are you saying? That you went away to punish me?”
He snorted, then laughed, a bitter sound. “Never that. And I assure you, you weren’t the one being punished. I waited four months and what did you do?” He shot me a look so full of scathing fury, I flinched. “You grabbed the nearest man that looked like me and took him to bed.”
I gasped, “How do you know he looked like you?”
He smiled, baring fangs, eyes flashing crimson. “I ate him.”
My brows climbed my forehead. “Before or after you came to the cemetery?”
“Does it fucking matter? Before. Three minutes after you left him that night. And it wasn’t because he almost raped you. The brand you wanted, the spell that kept you from ever being lost, is the mark of my beast. It binds me to you in countless excruciating ways. It mates my beast to you. Do you understand that? Let me spell it out for you: my beast abhors trespassers. My beast thinks you belong to it.” His next words came out accompanied by a savage rattle deep in his chest, “And bloody hell, so do I. Or I wouldn’t have given it to you in the first place.”
I stared at him. “You put that mark on me when I was fourteen.”
“As a way to keep you alive and a promise to the woman you would one day become. It was my best shot at protecting you, keeping your fearless, impulsive ass safe. And if you’d wanted the brand as a woman, I’d have let you brand me with a reciprocal mark. If you’d chosen someone else, I’d have cut it off. But I would have kept you breathing until then.”
I protested, “But you didn’t cut it off when I was with Dancer.”
“He was a short-timer,” he said savagely. “I thought I could survive it.”
I flushed. “Oh, God, you could feel me when I had sex with Dancer! That’s how you knew I shouldn’t vibrate on him. Could you see us?”
“It’s not like that. And I wouldn’t have, if it were. I have no desire to watch you having sex with another man. I spent most of that time trying to block you two out, for fuck’s sake. I felt your passion. I felt his. I felt your heat, your need, and it almost fucking killed me. I was ready. You weren’t. I knew that. When you chose a man that looked like me you couldn’t have sent me a clearer message. Through you, I could feel Dancer’s life force. He was growing weaker every day. Had he lived, had you stayed with him, I’d have removed it. I couldn’t have stood it much longer anyway.”
“Yet you offered to make him like you,” I said, stunned.
“How the fuck do—ah, the letter from Barrons. It was from Dancer. That shit. He wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
“You told me no. Why did you change your mind?”
He shrugged, muscles and tattoos rippling. “I had a moment of temporary insanity, Dani. Fuck, I don’t know. I ju
st wanted to end your pain. Maybe I knew he wouldn’t accept. Don’t paint it honorable. I’m not where you’re concerned.”
Yes, he was. No matter how he wanted to spin it. Because I loved Dancer, despite his own desires, he’d been willing to make him immortal for me. I wanted to thank him. I would thank him. But I wasn’t done yet. He’d vanished then showed up at my door, nearly starved to death, and I wanted to know where he’d been and what had happened to him. No more secrets. We would, at the very least, be friends, by God, I wanted something with this man and friendship demands truth. Besides, I couldn’t stand thinking about him out there, never once calling or texting. That was bullshit. There was no excuse. “Where did you go? Where were you for two years?” I demanded.
“Why were you so relieved to see me go?” he fired back. “There was one emotion I couldn’t get to. You had it too tightly boxed. I’ve never been able to get into your high security vaults.”
That was good to know. I closed my eyes, steeling myself. If I wanted truth from him, I had to be willing to give it myself. But this was what had created the entire mess of my boxes to begin with. Boxes are like lies, they breed like rabbits and hop around out of control. Still, it wasn’t as if there was anything left to lose. Inhaling deeply, I opened my eyes and said, “I’ll tell you, if you tell me.”
“Agreed.”
I was silent a long moment that spun out into a longer minute. Then two. We were about to do something we’d never done before. Rather than dazzling each other with our strengths, our finest qualities, here and now, in this strange final inning of a game we could no longer play, we were baring our weakness, our faults. Something I’d never done with anyone. The world ferrets out your faults often enough, I see little point in lending a hand.
I said slowly, wanting to bite back every word, “Because duration of grief seems as if it should be equivalent to the depth of love you felt for the person you lost.” I paused a moment, struggling to get the next words out. “And I wanted to come to you shortly after Dancer died.” I’d been ready long before he’d left. And I’d boxed it the moment I felt it. Who does that? Who moves on so quickly? I’d loved Dancer. He’d deserved better than that!