****
We lay there for a long time, quietly curled around each other, the night air cool against our heated skin, staring up at the stars while we caught our breath. “She abandoned me.” The words came out of their own volition. It wasn’t until they were out that I knew I needed to say them.
Ian’s arms tightened around me. “Who?”
“My mother.” I leaned my head back on his shoulder. I didn’t look at him, just stared up at the endless sky as I poured out my heart, breaking down the final barrier between us. Breaking it down so that he could understand the truth that I’d come to realize while I sat up here alone tonight. The truth that making love with him had only reinforced. “Oh, she didn’t drop me off on Pinky’s doorstep and leave, not exactly. It might have been better if she had. She died when I was eight, but I really lost her when my father died.”
We sat there in silence for a long moment and when Ian didn’t comment, I kept going, knowing he was listening intently. “My mother was obsessed with my father. She couldn’t let him go. She couldn’t accept his death, and she refused to stop looking for his killer. Right after his funeral, she left the home we’d shared with him and brought me here, to Pinky’s. Then she joined the Blades. She started going to necromancers, both for leads on my father’s killers and to contact him.
“She became obsessed. Blades make decent money, but she spent every spare buck she got on necromancers. She was hardly home, and when she was, she spent her days lying in bed crying. If it weren’t for Pinky, I would have starved, or worse. At the end, she’d been going to the same necromancer for almost a year on a nearly daily basis. The information the necromancer gave her had been getting progressively more accurate. Mom was sure she was getting closer and closer to the killer, and she owed it all to the necromancer who had been channeling my father.
“The last bit of information the necromancer gave her led her straight to leader of the smuggling ring that had killed my father. He was waiting for her.” I paused.
“It was a trap?” Ian asked, his voice quiet.
“Yes. The so-called necromancer my mother had been relying on for months was a fraud. She’d actually been the girlfriend of one of the smugglers. They’d gotten wind of my mother and decided to take care of her. The woman had faked everything, pulled my mother in with her lies, and then sent her into a trap. In the end, though, my mother got her way. She died, but she killed them first.” My mouth quirked in a sad, half smile.
Ian cupped his hand under my chin and turned my face towards him so that he could brush his lips against my forehead. “That’s why you hate necromancers.”
“Yes. No. Well, yes, it was.” I tripped over my own words, not quite sure how to say what I was thinking and feeling. “I spent most of my life believing that if it hadn’t been for the fake necromancer who cheated her, my mother would alive and here with me. But I was wrong. Oh, it’s possible she would be alive, but she wouldn’t be here with me. She hadn’t been with me since the day my father died, not even when we had been in the same room together.”
“I’m so sorry.” Ian’s voice was tender and full of emotion.
The tears that had been too stubborn to fall began streaming down my cheeks. “There is nothing for you to be sorry about. I’m sorry. I’ve been holding a grudge against you and an entire group of people for something no one had control over but my mother.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry you needed your mother and she wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry I can’t take away that pain.” He kissed me again, this time our lips melting together in a passion so sweet and tender that it made my tears flow harder. I gasped and pulled away.
“Fiona, I love you and I promise…”
“No,” I cut him off. “I can’t.” My heart thudded so hard in my chest that I was afraid it would explode any second. I pushed away from him and fumbled for my clothes.
“I’m sorry; this probably wasn’t the best time to say that.” Ian’s voice was husky with regret.
I turned to him, my heart in my throat. “Don’t you understand? There will never be a good time. I didn’t tell you that to make you feel sorry for me or love me. I told you so that you could understand why I can’t love you. Not like that.” I can’t be like my mother. The last sentence was spoken only in my head. I couldn’t lose myself to him. Oh, but I could. I so easily could. I already had. But it had to stop.
“You don’t love me?” His voice was thick with confusion and irritation.
“No, I can’t,” I nearly screamed. Why was he being so fucking calm when I felt like I was coming apart at the seams?
“Can’t or won’t?” His voice was hard.
“Does it matter? Ian, there is a sixteen-year-old girl out there alone and afraid, needing me to find her, and I’m up here lying under the stars, fucking you. I need to focus, and I can’t. Perhaps if I had my head more on work and less on you, we would have found Bokor by now. Rangel would still be alive, and Millie would be at home safe with her family.” I pulled my pants and shirt on, feeling a little braver fully clothed.
Ian pulled on his pants and stood across from me, his arms crossed over his bare chest. “I see, so you stopped blaming me for your mother’s death so you can blame me for Rangel’s death and Millie’s kidnapping?”
“No, that’s just it. I don’t blame you. I blame myself. I’m too much like my mother. I let myself get so wrapped up in you that I failed to do my job. If I had been more focused, I would have caught on to Bokor’s game in time to save Rangel. I should have realized Millie would be a target, I should have protected her.” I couldn’t quit sobbing, which pissed me off and made me cry harder.
“And who died and made you queen of the world?” Ian’s voice was calm and steady.
“What?”
“I was just wondering when you became the omniscient ruler of Earth? When did the welfare of the entire population become your responsibility? When did your clairvoyant powers kick in? When did the world start revolving around you?”
Had he lost his mind? “Don’t be a jerk. I know the world doesn’t revolve around me.”
“Do you? Because you seem to want to take responsibility for every bad thing that has happened. So you either came into some sort of powers that would make it possible for you to have prevented them, or you are incredibly arrogant. Or perhaps you are just scared.” His tone was ice.
“Of course I’m scared. Millie could die,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.
“That’s not what you are scared of. You say you don’t want to be like your mother. You don’t want to love me because I make you lose your focus. That caring about me makes you not able to do your job. But that is a load of crap. You aren’t afraid of being like your mother. You are afraid I’ll be like your mother,” he said, sneering.
I wanted to protest, but he kept going.
“You already love me, but you don’t want to because you think I’ll leave you like she did. You think if you push me away now, it won’t hurt as much as it would if I leave you later.”
“Yeah, who’s being arrogant now?” I shot back at him, not wanting him to know how close to the truth he was. “You are right about one thing. I am afraid. But not of you, Master Necromancer.” I spat the last two words out like they tasted bad in my mouth. “I’m afraid because people are dead, and still more are missing. It is my job to stop this monster before more innocent people are abducted or killed.” My voice had reached near-screeching pitch, but I couldn’t seem to get it under control.
“It’s not your job to save the whole world on your own. It’s not even your job to save Millie alone. There is an entire team working to find her. And there’s me. I’m your partner, Fiona.” His voice was quiet, but hard as steel. He took a step towards me, but I stepped back, ramming my spine against the wooden workbench.
“You are right; you are my partner,” I yelled, clenching my teeth against the pain in my back. “So, act like it and get to work.
You’ve had your head stuck up my ass for days, when you could have been out doing something, anything, to find this creep. Instead, you’ve been too busy playing touchy-feely with me.”
“That’s crap, and you know it.” He was shouting now, almost as loud as I was. “This asshole is coming for you, Fiona. For whatever reason, he has you in his sights. I was ordered, by Sam, to stick to you, to protect you. You know that what’s between us has not affected my job performance. And since your memory of how things have been going down the past few days seems a little blurry, let me remind you that you came to me. You showed up at my home in the middle of the night, looking for a fuck.”
I took a deep breath and forced my voice back into a calm, steady tone, despite the fact that I couldn’t stop shaking. “You’re right. I showed up looking for a fuck. A fuck, Barroes, not love.” I saw him flinch at my words, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. “I’m a big girl, and I can take care of myself. Jarrett and Pinky are here to protect my sisters. You aren’t needed here. Go home. I’ll scry Sam tomorrow and ask him to assign us new partners. We need every person we can get on this case.”
He bent to pick up his boots and shirt, but he didn’t make a move to go.
“Leave.”
“Fiona.” His voice was soft again, full of defeat. “Don’t do this.”
“I said get out.” Even I could hear the tremble in my voice. I turned away from him so he couldn’t see the tears that had started falling again.
We stood like that, in complete silence, for several minutes, though it felt like hours to me. Finally, I heard the creak of the rooftop door opening, and then Ian’s voice, “This isn’t over.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant the fight, our partnership, or whatever else was between us. It didn’t matter.
“Yes. It is.”
The door swung shut, and a bone-deep loneliness settled over me. It was over.