Page 42 of Lucky or Knot
I buried my face in his hair and held him, temporarily safe from the world, knowing as I did that I’d inevitably need to let him go.
Chapter 14
It shouldn’t have surprised me that Raven turned out to be one of those people who looked beautiful even when he’d cried his heart out into a rough T-shirt. Actually, he’d gotten as puffy-faced and creased around the edges and disheveled as anyone else, objectively. Maybe it said more about me than it did about him that I could’ve worshipped his swollen lips and reddened eyes and the damp, pink tip of his nose until the end of time.
Yeah, it definitely said more than a few things about me.
But after he’d peeled himself off my chest, and I’d kissed him for a while and mumbled the kind of nonsense people say at times like that, I reluctantly had to let him go. As I’d known I would at the beginning of that stolen hour of petting him and kissing his hair and taking comfort in the fact that no one could hurt him while I was there.
Knowing didn’t make my chest ache any less, or quiet the growing storm of panic that’d started to echo around in my skull.
“Stay with me,” I said, because I couldn’t help it, as he started to fuss with his hair, pulling down the sun visor to peer into the little mirror there. “We’ll deal with him together. You can’t go back to him.”
I might lose my mind if you go back to him.
He glanced at me, and it took him a moment to tear his eyes away. I knew I had to be looking grim: glowing eyes, pale around the mouth, clawed fists clenched, barely restraining myself from a roar that would’ve shaken the strip mall’s foundations.
“I already have gone back to him from you, twice.” He twisted his hair together and fastened it, and then passed hishands over his face, muttering something I didn’t catch but that made my ears feel like someone had poked them with a feather. When he took them away, the traces of his tears had vanished. “And I need to do it again. If I don’t fulfill my obligations, my magic will wither, and there won’t be anything left of me for you to keep.”
“I don’t give a fuck about your magic. You think that’s why I want you?”
Raven flicked the visor back into place and turned on me, eyes flashing. “My magicisme. You of all people should understand.”
That hurt, unexpectedly deeply. “You wouldn’t have any use for me without my alpha magic, is that what you mean? If I were a human guy?”
“It’s a moot point, because I never would have sought you out if you were a human guy. No, don’t look like that. You also, ah.” A dark flush had crept up from his neck and stained his cheeks, and he avoided my eyes as he said, “There’s more to you than that. If you lost your alpha-ness, you’d be as—what you are. Even though you’d probably miss it terribly, and that’s what I meant when I said you’d understand. But if I lost my magic, that’s the entire fabric of my being. There’s nothing else. I’m not partly human, the way you are. I mean it, Tony. I’d die.”
Sincerity rang in his voice. For once, Raven wasn’t feeding me fae half-truths. I nodded. “Then I won’t ask you to stay, but…be careful.” Don’t ask, don’t ask…I couldn’t stop myself from fishing for that hinted-at compliment, pathetic as it was. “And what am I? With or without my alpha magic?”
Raven reached out, brushing his fingers down my cheek, the saddest smile I’d ever seen teasing at one corner of his mouth. Whatever he’d done to his face, it hadn’t fixed him completely, and his upper lip still had that soft, trembly look to it. His mouth had tasted like salt and misery when I kissed him afew minutes ago. It felt like years ago already.
“You’re an exception,” he said, and whisked his hand away, opening the passenger door and slipping out before I could even process the words, let alone respond to them.
He shut the door behind him and strode across the parking lot toward his own car, hand in his pocket and already beeping it open.
My muscles and joints locked into painful rigidity with the effort of staying put.
But he was right. He had to go back for now, and killing Cunningham would be…I watched Raven get into his car, back out of the spot, and pull away. He didn’t turn his head to look at me, but his hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
A last resort, I decided. Killing Cunningham, with the associated risks of being killed for it by his guards or his friends, or of going to a supernatural supermax prison for the rest of my life, would be my last resort. Raven would be free. He could use his magic to scoot back to his own world, either via Endless Sky or some other portal, and any guilt he felt over my fate wouldn’t last forever.
Not that I wanted any of that to happen. But I’d committed, now. Made a choice. And I’d see it through no matter what that entailed. My glimpse of Raven’s face as he drove away fighting back a new wave of tears made that a certainty.
I waited a few minutes, until there was no chance at all of my catching up to him on the drive back from Summerlin, before I started the car and headed home.
***
Sometimes, when I had a seemingly insoluble problem, I had to exhaust myself until I couldn’t think anymore. With my conscious mind out of commission—and let’s not kid ourselves, it wasn’t all that useful most days anyway—my unconsciouscould range far and wide, ideally coming back with a solution I’d never have come up with if I’d wracked my brain about it.
Two days of working doubles at Lucky or Knot certainly exhausted me, keeping me dancing and gyrating and glittering from noon to four AM on Tuesday and Wednesday. But when I woke up around lunchtime on Thursday, stomach growling and glitter still visibly clinging to my eyebrows when I staggered into the bathroom and peered in the mirror, no bright ideas had appeared.
In the shower, I leaned down with my arm braced against the wall, staring at the water swirling past my toes, and took a few deep breaths.
We had time to come up with something. Raven hadn’t told me exactly how long he’d been with Cunningham, but if he’d only started seriously hunting for a way out recently, it couldn’t be more than a few months, I didn’t think. A long time when you were in a situation like his, but in the grand scheme of things—particularly for a magical being with an indeterminate lifespan—not something to panic over. A few more weeks while we worked something out would be fine, even a couple of months, although every second of Raven in Cunningham’s hands and bed and control would be a hell of Raven’s misery and my fury and terror.
But he’d be fine. I had to believe it. I’d hire a shaman to help, maybe. Find a rogue fairy who didn’t mind breaking his people’s stupid rules. Figure out a way to kill Cunningham without getting caught, now there was an idea.
So I got out of the shower slightly more hopeful, and much less glittery, than I’d been in days.
