Page 47 of Vanish Into Light

He was at the door when Beck said, “Lance.” And he froze. “Proposition still stands.”

When he glanced over his shoulder, Beck was bent over Gavin, still, and Rose was shifting a candle to provide better light.

Lance had trouble swallowing. As he left the room, the afternoon unspooled in his brain, an unwanted, ugly replay of all the ways he’d made mistake after mistake. The ways he’d gotten distracted.

Beck had seemed to suggest that he was being drawn in by powers outside himself. That perhaps any creature from hell was too magnetic to resist.

A terrifying, and illogical thought.

But if he got bogged down in logic, he wouldn’t be able to explain any of his military career.

He was scowling to himself by the time he stepped, naked and cold, beneath the hot spray of the shower in his room. Slowly, the shaking eased; his muscles unclenched, and, as the chills faded, exhaustion of every kind swept over him.

He hated that he didn’t trust his own thoughts anymore, that he didn’t feel in control as he once had.

Hated that he kept turning with the expectation of seeing Beck’s winged silhouette parting the steam, come to kiss him and take him apart again.

Most of all, he hated that Gavin had gotten hurt. He wanted to blame Beck, but it had been Beck’s touch that chased away the drug-like haze that had driven him to drop his guard in the first place. Beck that had allowed him to shake off whatever influence Damien had exerted over him.

He’d never thought to be this vulnerable, especially not in this way.

What’s wrong with me?he wondered, staring down at his feet on the tile, the water sluicing over them on its way to the drain.

The purest things corrupt the easiest.

He stayed in the shower until his fingers and toes pruned; until he thought he must surely be about to run out of hot water.

After, wrapped in a towel, he swiped a hand through the condensation on the mirror and regarded himself. The same dark hair, dark eyes, and square jaw stared back at him, just as they had that morning, and every morning since puberty hit him like a truck. Same wide shoulders, and narrow waist, and heavy layers of muscle. The same him that had been printed on posters and rendered, badly, into a cheap action figure. A Golden Knight – and the outfit’s golden boy. The good leader, the good subordinate.

Just all aroundgood.

He’d never stopped to question what that might mean, exactly, or if it was even true, deep down. But Beck wasn’twrong. He’d wanted to help Rose, had seen the potential in her, yes…but mostly…mostly he’d just felt this achy tug in his gut, and he’d wanted, and his pulse had quickened in a thrilling way that it never had with anyone else.

He’d been with women, had liked a few of them, had even thought about settling down, in that nebulous way that people do when they think it might be for the best. But he’d never felt a pull the way he did with Rose. Never.

And Rose, he had long denied, but was now finally beginning to accept, was a package deal. She always had been; Beck had always been the specter in the corner of the room, the weight at the back of her mind, the name on her tongue.

And now Beck was here in the flesh, straight from hell, and Lance realized, as he stared as his own somber face, that he wasn’t confused. He was in denial again. And look where that had gotten him today.

He washed his face. Pulled on the Company issue sweats he’d brought along in his pack. Spent a solid five minutes breathing, questioning.

Do I…?

Should I…?

But what if…?

He ought to go downstairs and sit vigil over Gavin. Ought to find Tris and Gallo and apologize to them for his lapse today. Ought to radio in to Bedlam and tell her that they needed backup, that they were playing with a side of hell he’d never encountered before.

Instead, he walked slowly out of his room, and down the hall, and knocked.

NINE

The slow plink of water dripping into water echoed through the bathroom, bouncing off the once-shiny black tiles. The tub was cast iron, claw-footed, and reminded her achingly of the one at the old townhouse, where she’d first made a home with Beck – and with Kay, who he had mentioned tonight, and who Rose had been helpless but to think about, watching him carefully stitch Gavin back together. She remembered a fire roaring in the kitchen hearth, blood-stained sheets on the table, and Kay’s muttering, and cursing, and her precise fingers as she nimbly repaired the damage Beck had suffered out in the rain-lashed night. Remembered how pale he’d been, already touched with fever, and how, when there was nothing else to do, she’d nearly fallen over, exhausted and weak from standing up all night.

She knew Beck’s thoughts were on the past, too, as his dripping hand lifted out of the water and his fingers skimmed up and down her arm. She lay reclined back against him in the bath, the hot water loosening the day’s tension, his chest warm and strong against her back, his heart thumping steadily against her shoulder blade. His wings were folded up neatly behind him, acting as a sort of cushion, propping them up. Beneath the steaming water, she could see her legs, and his – and the black length of his tail, lazily stirring the water every so often, so that small waves lapped at the side of the tub.

Silences had always been comfortable between them, and this one was, now, but Rose felt the faint traces of something unsaid in the brush of Beck’s finger pads. Heard the little breaths he took that heralded speech – but which didn’t go anywhere.

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