Page 79 of Outside the Veil
Diego, for whom he had battled a monster, for whom he would move the very stars if he could, his love, his light…yet with all his knowledge and the centuries behind him, he had no inkling of what to give him. He so wanted to see Diego’s eyes shine the way Miriam’s had, those eyes the color of rich, dark loam, so expressive, so often sad.
For the love of his life, and of several earlier lifetimes, a painting simply would not do. He needed to make a grandgesture, to find some way to show him how his heart sang thinking of Diego, his brave, kind, passionate, brilliant Diego.
He stretched cat-like and wandered out in search of Diego, whom he found in the den watching the picture box.The teevee, he reminded himself. A beautiful young woman wailed over her presumably dead lover in the picture. Diego sat clutching a pillow to his chest, jaw clenched, a sure sign he fought against sorrow.
Finn flung himself onto the sofa and pulled Diego’s head against his shoulder. “Why do you watch things which cause you pain, my hero?”
“I’m sorry,cariño.” Diego snuggled close, relinquishing the pillow to wrap his arms around Finn’s ribs. “Why are you wandering around the house naked in the dead of winter?”
“I’m quite warm from being under my little sun. You”—he poked at Diego’s chest—“are ducking the question.”
“It’s a good play, but it always gets to me. They’re so young and so in love. They should have been happy.”
Finn winced as the girl plunged a dagger into her breast and fell across her lover to die.Naught but a story, only playacting. “What causes this misery?”
While Diego related a brief account of the story, Finn struggled to understand the details. It all seemed so convoluted and unnecessary. “Why didn’t she just go away with him? If they knew they were life-mates, why this strange, secret marriage? Why marry at all? It only seems to cause anguish and strife. All the screaming.”
“You’ve been watchingBridezillasagain, haven’t you?”
“Perhaps a bit.”
Diego tipped up his face to give him a soft, tender kiss that shot lightning right down to his toes. “It’s not always like that. Promises between humans are important. The promise to be faithful, the promise of forever.”
“Even when they often break these promises?”
Diego let out a soft chuckle, though Finn could feel the sadness rolling from him in waves. “Even so,corazón.The human heart is absurdly optimistic. When you love someone, you trust them, and believe with all your heart that the promise will be kept. Which makes the story that much sadder, because those two intended to keep their promises, but fate still ripped them apart.”
Finn gripped Diego tighter, an ambush of memory tightening iron bands around his chest.
“Close your eyes, Finn! Do not watch, love! They cannot force you to watch!”The roar of flames, the stench of searing flesh and oh, dear goddesses, the screams of his beloved as he burned alive…
“Finn…Finn!” Diego had his head in both hands, searching his face in a worried way.
“It’s all right, my heart. I’m well enough. An old recollection, nothing more.”
“You went white as frost. I thought you were fainting. The bad one?”
“Yes, love. That one.”
“There are no witch hunts anymore,querido. I’m here with you again.”
“It only took seven hundred years,” Finn grumbled.
“Might not have if you hadn’t gone into the Dreaming for so long.”
“Your pardon, my hero. I am sorry.”
Diego pushed him back until he lay flat on the couch. “You can show me how sorry you are, then.”
They made love as they had not in weeks, slowly and tenderly, exploring every part of each other as if it was the first time, lingering over every sensitive point in an exquisite game of sensual torture.
When Diego, sated and exhausted, finally lay asleep with his head on Finn’s chest, Finn fell back into his ruminations. He drifted in the twilight state of half sleep, bits of conversation and memory skittering over his thoughts. His eyes snapped open on a sudden revelation.
“Of course,” he whispered. “I am such a great fool.”
He waited until after dinner and another bout of mating, after which Diego again fell into a sound sleep. Then he slipped from their bed and out of the front door, into the chill black of midwinter’s night. He stopped on the front porch to undo the little glass light container, what was it called?Bulb. Just in case Diego woke and came searching for him, he didn’t want to reveal his efforts until morning.
The cold affected his body not a whit, clothed or not, except for the irresistible lethargy he already felt creeping in on soft feet. He would need to hurry, or risk falling asleep before he finished.
