Page 73 of Muzzled

“I owe you so much more than that,” he said quietly, tucking his sunglasses into the neckline of his shirt. “But the shade will continue to hunt you if you run before we take it out. And I guarantee you will be full feral within the month if that happens.”

She took a step back, ignoring the flash of guilt accompanying the hurt crossing his face. “What happens if I go feral?”

“You’ll kill indiscriminately until you’re taken down. Men, women, children. It won’t matter to you by that point.”

“And you’d be the one to do it, to hunt me and put me down,” she whispered, tightening her hold on her purse. “Like a rabid animal.” When he didn’t reply, she looked up at his red-rimmed eyes. “You would though, right? You wouldn’t let me do that. Wouldn’t let me become that.”

He swallowed hard and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

A group of teenagers and younger children clamored past them, jostling for position as they spoke over each other excitedly.

“Promise me you would,” she said, watching as one of the boys knelt down long enough for a smaller child to hop on his back. “I can’t… it’s not in me to kill.”

He took a deep breath and nodded, his jaw set. “I promise.”

Hooking her purse over her shoulder, she ran her hands through her hair. “Do you remember what you told me at the Flats about your damaged love line?” she asked, looking up at the sun. “That Bo’s wife would’ve died if she’d fought the Fates and chosen him? This is it, isn’t it? None of us had a choice in this. You, me, the shade, the Pirithous.” She could hear his shoes on the pavement as he approached her and stood at her side. “This was in the cards the whole time.” When he didn’t respond, she hooked her pinky finger around his and walked toward the new Maestro’s site on the festival street.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ryan stood behindMicah, memorizing her expressions while she watched Logan complete his piece with a flourish and bow for his audience, unaware his mentor was observing him with pride and satisfaction glazed with a hint of sadness.

“Why don’t we go up there?” he whispered into her ear, one eye on the showman as he began the bidding.

She shook her head and tightened her hold on his hand, lifting her phone up to snap a quick picture of her former assistant. “I’ll send him this. He’ll know why.”

He looked at the photo and smiled. “Kid’s too thrifty to let a navy mat go to waste, hey?”

“And on my Cerberus print,” she huffed, elbowing him. “You should eat him. Put that on your list.”

She led him away from the crowd, giving wide berth to the restaurant they’d been in an hour earlier, their meals going cold as they hammered out as many what-ifs as they could before steeling themselves for a destiny neither of them wanted. His chest still ached from the physical pain of answering her questions and weathering her accusations, the emotional turmoil she unleashed in clipped, detached statements a harsh reminder of his own attempt to remain collected and calm in their final hours.

She’d finally bitten into a cold fry, then dropped it to her plate and looked up at him. “We can’t control the outcome, but we sure as hell control the journey. And my journey doesn’t include choking back tears and cold french fries. Let’s go.”

And with that, she’d dragged him back outside to the first jewelry stand she saw, her eyes lighting up at the matching sets she insisted would look amazing against the choker she had back at the motel.

“Ryan?”

He snapped out of his daze and looked down at her as she paused by a clothing stand and looped two garments onto her fingers. He pointed to his preference. “The blue one.”

Holding the shirt up to the light, she tilted her head and examined it as one might a work of art. “I’m not sure I trust your taste,” she muttered, bringing it closer for inspection. “You own one style of shirt, one style of button-down, one style of jeans, and one style of socks. In one color.”

“I’m an efficient dresser and shopper,” he countered, holding out a black-lace tank top. “You’d look amazing in this.”

Setting the blue shirt down, she grinned. “Yes, I would.”

When he pulled out his wallet to pay, she stepped in between him and the vendor, holding her own money out.

“It’s not like I’m going to be needing it,” he argued as she got her change back. “In fact, what I do have I’m leaving to you.”

“But not right now,” she stated. “Right now, you need it. Right now, we aren’t thinking about tomorrow. And right now, you can use the money you didn’t spend here to buy me a slice of tiramisu.”

Properly put back in his place, he shoved back the cresting wave of melancholy and did his best to keep up as she wove through the crowds toward the dessert truck.

*

Micah fell ontothe motel bed, her packages bouncing off the mattress and onto the floor. “My feet are killing me,” she groaned, rolling onto her back. “Why did you let me talk you into a river valley walk? We could have driven past the statues and gotten the gist of them instead of marching across hell’s half acre.”

Ryan cocked a brow and crossed his arms. “But you would have missed out on the opportunity to climb all over them if we’d stayed in the car. What was it you said? You wanted to mold yourself to the art to fully experience it?”

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