“Katherine may be feeling the remnants of the calm I sent her way as I broke our connection,” Garuda admitted in what Kitty now understood to be an embarrassed tone.
“I can read bloedzuigers’ emotions,” she said softly, shocked by how very wrong she’d been. “I didn’t think you even had emotions.”
Garuda laughed, a sound that wasn’t any less odd because it was spoken aloud rather than in her head. “Why do you think newborns are so base? It takes time to learn to master emotions when they are so intense.”
“You and me? We’re going to have a long chat. I will get answers. A lot of them.” Kitty shook her head at him. “Bet on it.”
“If I hadn’t been trying to do just that for years, I might be appropriately intimidated,” Garuda joked.
He joked?
“I’m sorry,” Kitty said steadily, meeting his eyes as she spoke. “I’ve been a bitch to you for so long.”
“Fear makes us all do stupid things time and again.” Garuda gave her an affectionate smile.
Kitty shook her head again and told Jack, “Now that this bony bastard gave me answers and medicine for Francis, we should go tend to things.” At his surprised expression, she added, “If this calm isn’t faded by the time we reach the governor, you’ll have to be the difficult one for a change.”
Garuda bowed to Jack and then turned to Kitty. “I will have a gift for you should you decide to resolve the matter of Ajani’s obsession with you. I believe we may have finally found a toxin that could solve both of our troubles. Simply speak through Styrr.” He motioned to the bloedzuiger who had just nourished him.
She glanced at Styrr, and the bloedzuiger dipped his head in a slight bow.
Garuda continued, “He is assigned to the area now and will adhere to your commands, Katherine. Tell him if you need me or the pack, and we will come to your aid. Once the toxin is ready, he can tell me where you are so I can bring it to you.” He withdrew two vials. “This is the medicine you need to add to the Verrot and give to your injured packmate. Styrr knows the correct mixture.”
“Thank you.” Gratefully, Kitty took the vials. “I am sorry for not understanding for so long.”
“I know,” Garuda said, before glancing in turn at Styrr and at Jack. “Keep her safe.” Then he was gone, leaving the Reed siblings alone in the desert with the newly promoted bloedzuiger who was stationed in their region.
And for the first time since she’d woken up in the Wasteland, Kitty felt like she might truly belong in this weird world. She felt the echo of the connection to hundreds of bloedzuigers, the fury over Ajani’s actions, and the certainty that he did not deserve the ability to connect to the bloedzuiger pack.
Chapter 31
When Kitty and Jack walked into Francis’ room with Styrr in tow, Edgar barely acknowledged the bloedzuiger or Jack. Kitty knew that he didn’t mean any disrespect to Styrr, but her newfound bonding with bloedzuigers made her want to encourage conversation. Later, perhaps, they could do that. Right now her focus was on helping Francis.
“We’re here,” she told Francis. “With medicine and Styrr, one of Garuda’s people.”
He nodded, but didn’t sit up or speak. A bloodied cloth covered his eyes, and Kitty tried not to gasp as she looked at him. By now, he should’ve been well into healing—especially with Verrot in his system. Instead, his wounds were still bleeding like they were newly made. He looked weak and listless from the continued blood loss.
“I’ll prepare the treatment.” Styrr went to the table and poured some of the Verrot into a mug and tapped out the medicinal mix into it. “He should drink first. It will help.”
Kitty poured Verrot into a second mug and carried it to the bed where Francis reclined. “I’m going to help you sit up so you can drink.”
Behind her, Jack and Edgar were speaking in low tones as Jack brought Edgar up-to-date on the events that had transpired in the desert. He finished with, “I’m going to update Melody and Hector. We’re headed out within the hour.”
A tense silence filled the room when Jack left. Both Styrr and Edgar were watching Francis. His hands were shaking as he lowered the now-emptied mug. “Who’s still here?” he asked.
“Edgar, me, and Styrr . . .” Kitty answered.
Styrr brought over the Verrot that was mixed with medicine, but didn’t hand the mug to her. “May I?”
Kitty took the empty mug and put it aside. Then she told Francis, “Lean back. I’m going to hold your face steady while we treat your eyes.”
“Do you need help?” Edgar asked.
She shook her head, and then she cupped Francis’ face in her hands. Blood and tears still trailed down one of his cheeks; her fingertips were wet with them as soon as she touched his skin. Her own eyes threatened to fill with tears. “Go ahead,” she told Styrr.
The bloedzuiger said, “It will hurt.”
“It already hurts,” Francis said, but as he opened his eyes, he pressed his lips together determinedly. Like all of them, he’d known his share of pain during his years in the Wasteland. Dying wasn’t usually a painless experience—nor was waking up after death.
With a steady hand, Styrr poured several drops into one of Francis’ eyes. The medicinally treated Verrot caused the eye to open wider, and a harsh cry of pain escaped Francis’ lips. His body thrashed, and Kitty wasn’t sure if she could hold him steady. She managed not to let go of his head, and she could see that he was trying not to flinch away. He’d bitten the inside of his lip so hard that blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
And then Edgar was beside her, holding Francis down. Once he stopped writhing, Edgar released him and grabbed a holster from the dresser. “Open your mouth,” he ordered. Francis obeyed, and Edgar shoved the leather belt into his mouth.
“Steady,” Kitty whispered. She nodded at Styrr, who poured drops of the mixture into Francis’ other eye. It soaked into the tissue of the eye as if it were being absorbed by a dry cloth. Both pupils widened so completely that they seemed to consume the irises. No color remained beyond black and red, and Kitty swallowed against the sight of her friend’s disturbingly discolored eyes.
“Again,” Styrr said quietly.
They repeated the process in both eyes, and then Francis fell into a state that appeared at first to be death, but was only unconsciousness.
“He’ll need to drink the next two days, but the eyes will only need to be treated once more.” Styrr walked over to the chair that Edgar had been sitting in when they’d arrived, and sat down. “I will need your assistance in the morning. Then you may go, and I will watch over him while his body heals. He’ll not wake for several hours.”
“But he’s alive,” Kitty said. “He’s healing, not dead.”
Styrr nodded.
“Then we’ll have to wait to go after the governor until the morning,” Kitty pronounced. “I’ll tell Jack.”
For a moment, Edgar simply stared at her. “No.”
“Excuse me?” She frowned at him. Now that she’d treated Francis, and left him under Styrr’s watch, she could turn to the next task. That was simply how things were done. “Jack’s not at his most calm right now. I’m not going to let him go alone, so he can wait and—”
“No,” Edgar repeated. “They can still go now, and you will wait here with me. Francis needs you, and Jack will be fine with the others. You’re barely upright after whatever happened in the desert; you’re not going.”
“Bullsh—”
“If you go, I’m done, Kit. Ajani is apparently more obsessed than we thought, and he’s probably working with Soanes, and Jack says you were insensible after whatever you and Garuda did in the desert. You stay here tonight, or . . . I won’t stand by while you do something stupid.” Edgar walked out, closing the door behind him.
For a few minutes, Kitty stood still in shock. She was exhausted. She couldn’t lie and say otherwise, but that didn’t mean that she liked being given ultimatums. Still . . . if the situation had been reversed, she’d h
ave been just as irate as Edgar was. If he—or Jack—had tried to walk into a potential confrontation when they were on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion, she’d have been livid. If they’d had as many threats staring them down as she did, she’d have been ready to cosh them over the head to keep them from leaving. She couldn’t expect either of them to treat her differently. Jack was so off his game that he wasn’t telling her that she needed to rest, but Edgar hadn’t missed a beat.
And he’s right.
After making sure that Styrr had everything he needed, Kitty went after Edgar. She walked into his room without so much as knocking. She stopped just inside and shoved the door shut behind her. Edgar was removing his shirt and continued to do so as if she weren’t there. He didn’t speak or acknowledge her presence as he dropped the shirt in a bucket of sudsy water. He remained silent as he retrieved a second shirt and carried it to the stone slab that now rested on the table. Two crude irons were heating in a bucket of hot coals, and next to that was a wide basin of cold water. How exactly he managed to persuade the inns he stayed in to allow him to have such fire hazards in his room she never understood.
He stood in his trousers and nothing else, but in true Edgar fashion, he gave her the same look he would’ve given if he’d been fully dressed. Then he turned his attention to the shirt in his hands. He spread it out and picked up one of the irons from the bucket of coals. Without looking at her, he asked, “Did you need something?”
In all of the years they’d spent together and apart, he’d never sounded dismissive. It frightened her. “Forgiveness?” she asked.
Edgar lifted his gaze from the shirt he was pressing. “For what? Hiding things from me? Trying to go out when you’re exhausted from magic?”
She folded her arms over her chest and stared at him. “Fine. I may be willing to admit that I was being a little unreasonable.”
He turned the shirt over and slid the heated iron over it. “Is that all? You push me away for months, but I’m supposed to be fine with you being careless?”
For a moment, she was tempted to walk away, but that reserve of calm that Garuda had given her kept her from running. “Yes. No. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Yes, you do,” he corrected.
Quietly, she said, “I’m not going with Jack tonight.”
“That’s a start.” He continued ironing his shirt for a few moments before saying, “Let me know when you’re ready to talk about the rest. I’m tired of this, Kit, so if you’re not here to set things right, there’s the door.” He gestured toward it with the iron.
Kitty turned away, feeling only marginally better than when she’d come into the room, but before she opened the door, she stopped herself. This was absurd; she was absurd. She spun back around and walked over to Edgar.
“Maybe I overreacted to your death last year. I just . . .” She felt tears threaten and blinked to keep them away. “You were dead, and all I could think about was spending forever without you. I know you don’t believe it, but I know it, Edgar: I won’t die for real. I can’t stand the thought of being here without you, unable to die, miserable forever.”
Edgar lifted the iron and deposited it into the basin of cold water. It hissed and steamed. “So you thought both of us being miserable now was better?”
She said nothing as he retrieved the second iron and dipped it into the cold water. She watched him as he ladled the water onto the coals, and then moved the bucket to the hearth, where it would not cause harm if it were to tip over. He didn’t speak either, waiting in that implacable way of his for her to answer his question. They’d had conflicts enough over the years that she knew his patience far outlasted hers.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” she asked softly.
Edgar shook his head. “If I wanted something easy, I wouldn’t be in love with you, now would I?” He motioned to the door again. “Are you answering me or leaving?”
Kitty turned her back and went to the door—and locked it. Then she turned to face him. When she did, she caught the flash of hurt in his expression: he’d obviously thought she was leaving. “I thought that if we stayed apart, I’d stop loving you, so that when you died next time it wouldn’t destroy me.”
“It destroyed me every time you died too,” he said quietly.
Kitty walked back to him and laid her hand flat on his chest. “I’m sorry. I figured I could learn to be apart from you, and then I wouldn’t love you, and then . . . when you leave me, it won’t hurt as much.”
“How has that been working out?” Edgar covered her hand with his.
“It hasn’t.”
“So you’re telling me you still love me?” he prompted.
“You know I do. I always have.” She stared up at him and asked, “Can we go back to how things were?”
“No.”
Of all the things in her life that had surprised her, this topped the list. He’d spent almost the entirety of their time apart trying to convince her that they should be back together, and now that she’d come to him and said he was right, Edgar was rejecting her. Kitty started to back away, but he wouldn’t release her hand.
Instead, he wrapped an arm around her and splayed his other hand across her lower back.
Slowly, the confident smile he’d worn for so many years spread over his face, and then he said, “I don’t want to go back.”
“But—”
“Swear to me, Kit,” he interrupted. “Swear you won’t leave me again.”
“I won’t,” she whispered.
“And the next time I ask you to marry me, you’ll say yes.”
“Edgar . . .”
Carefully, Kitty started to back away, extricating herself from his embrace as she moved.
At first, he let her. Then he swept her up into his arms. “Say it,” he demanded. “I’ve been waiting for eleven years for you to say yes.”
“Edgar, I’m not the marrying type.”
“Bullshit.” He started to lower her to the ground. “I mean it, Kit. I’m not going to let either of us be destroyed again when we can and should be together. Marriage or nothing.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’d turn me out?”
“When I ask you to marry me, you’ll say yes,” he repeated.
“It’s not like there are even proper churches here—”
“Marry me.” His lips were all but touching hers, but when she tried to kiss him, to end the discussion by distracting him, he turned his head. Gently, he whispered, “Just say yes, Kit.”
“Yes,” she promised.
Edgar caught her lips in a kiss as he carried her the few steps to the bed, lowered her to the mattress, and began unfastening her dress. When he pulled away and slid behind her, she objected. “I can just lift—”
“No. I’ve been this long without you. I want to see you and touch you.” He slid her dress down over her shoulders until it pooled at her waist. Then, with the slow expertise that had made her insensible so many nights, he caressed her and dropped kisses over her skin as he unfastened her corset so very slowly.
“I can help with the hooks,” she offered.
He laughed and slid his hands around to cup her still-covered breasts. “I like my way better.”
“You mean torturing me?” She reached back to cup him through his trousers. “There are consequences to that.”
He pressed into her hand and lowered her corset. “Thankfully.”
Kitty wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry by the time they were both undressed. Even after all of the nights they’d spent together over the years, the reality of Edgar still surpassed her memories. She arched and sighed as he kissed, licked, and nipped trails over her skin. Then, finally, she exhaled in a moan and he slid inside her where he belonged.
“I love you.” He half breathed the words.
“I love you too.” She lifted her hips to urge him to move.
He didn’t. Instead, he stared down at her and asked, “Will y
ou marry me, Kit?”
“You don’t play fair,” Kitty complained.
Slowly he withdrew himself almost completely and then with torturous slowness moved forward. “Tell me again that you’ll be my wife.”
“I will. I’ll be Mrs. Edgar Cordova,” she swore.
“Again,” he demanded.
And as long as she swore it, he kept moving.
Afterward, she was draped on top of him, feeling better than she had since . . . well, the last time she was naked in his arms.
She dozed off, and when she woke up, he was watching her with a look of complete satisfaction. She lifted her head and stared at him. “Would you really have stopped if I wouldn’t swear to marry you?”
He laughed. “No, but you aren’t ever that pliant, so I figured I’d get your promise while I could.” He pulled her up to him and kissed her tenderly before adding, “I know you, doll. You don’t break your word.”
Still straddling Edgar, Kitty sat back on her feet and stared down at him. “Don’t think I’ll suddenly get all domestic and obedient.”
“I don’t want obedient.” Edgar gripped her hips and lifted her so she was raised up on her knees. Then, staring up at her, he removed his hands and said, “I just want you.”
With a happy sigh, Kitty lowered herself onto him. Her eyes fluttered shut at the sensation, and she exhaled before saying shakily, “That works for me.”
Chapter 32
Jack was relieved that Katherine wasn’t waiting for him in the hall. He’d hoped that Edgar would convince her to stay here, but he hadn’t actually expected it. Even when she was exhausted, Katherine was far from cooperative when she set her mind to anything. Feeling too much like he’d be sneaking out—and that she’d follow on her own—he stopped at Francis’ room and went inside.
Neither Edgar nor Katherine was there, and Francis seemed to be sleeping soundly. Styrr stood, not quite leaning against the wall but near it, watching Francis. The bloedzuiger acknowledged Jack with an almost imperceptible nod.
“How is Francis?” Jack asked.