Taming the Beast

His back was turned, and he had his fingers laced through his hair as he paced by the heater. He turned to her, brow furrowed and eyes dark with barely suppressed rage. “Does that sound right to you?”

“Is that what they were?” she asked gently. “Yes. That’s what they were. That’s what they did, and perhaps many here still behave the same way. Do I condone the behavior?”

He stared unblinkingly at her, nostrils flaring and fists clenching at his sides.

She wanted to take those fists and smooth out his hands. She wanted to set her thumbs against his palms and rub until his desire to clench them abated. She wanted to make his anxiety go away, and not only because his disquietude was affecting her, too. He’d been hurt by their people. That much was obvious, and she didn’t think that was fair for him.

Yet another reason for me to leave this place.

“Well?” he spat suddenly, making her press a hand to her chest in shock. “Do you?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “No. I don’t enjoy hurting other people. I don’t like the way I feel when I do. Some actions linger on the psyche for far too long, and I’d prefer to keep my slate clean.”

He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and then let the air out.

In and out.

In and out so many times that Mary’s fingers had started to go numb around the settee’s edge she’d started clenching at some point.

He laid his head to one side, then to the other, swallowed hard enough for her to hear, and then straightened up. “They must hate you too, then.”

She twined her fingers and shrugged, but didn’t take her gaze from his. She wanted him to know she wasn’t only hearing him, but really listening to him. She suspected there were few people he had who were willing to do the same. “I don’t think they hate me, but I wouldn’t say I’m the most popular person in Fallon, either. My father was very protective of me. I imagine I have a certain reputation because of that.”

“I haven’t heard of that. I don’t believe I know anything about your father at all.”

“That’s not surprising. He was the kind of guy who liked to fly below the radar. Do you understand what I mean?”

Andreas nodded curtly and started pacing again. “What did he do?”

“Professionally? He was a private detective. He took all sorts of cases, and I imagine he knew a lot of things about a lot of people, and they would have preferred that he didn’t know them. He was impeccably discreet, though. If word ever got out about the things he discovered, the leak was through no fault of his.”

“Sounds like he was an honorable sort.”

“Yes, he was. I miss him.”

“Where is he?”

“He died. Cancer.” She hated saying that word. It had practically turned into a curse word for her.

Andreas stopped. Turned. “I’m…sorry.”

“Me, too.” She looked down then and twirled her thumbs around each other. “I’m sorry he didn’t live long enough to see all the magic coming back to our kind. He was fascinating by magic of all sorts. In his free time, he used to do research on the groups who still had some.”

She smiled and thought about the piles of dusty books he’d collected at auctions and estate sales. Old, arcane texts no libraries anywhere had copies of. They were unique and irreplaceable.

“For a long while after he died,” she said, “I didn’t want to go into his house. I finally did, and only because I needed to check that the sprinklers were off and such. I had to bribe myself to actually start going through things there. His office looked almost as cluttered as this place.” She crooked a thumb toward the mounds of mess in the basement.

“Truly?” Andreas inquired.

“I’m only exaggerating a little. Anyway, I need to get the place cleaned up and put on the market. I can’t keep paying two mortgages. He’d wanted me to go ahead and sell the place when he was in hospice, and I lied and told him I’d started the process. But I just couldn’t.”

Andreas sat next to her, keeping a couple of inches between them, but close enough that his energy prickled at the bare flesh of her cheek, her neck, her hand.

The warmth was back.

“You finally will?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll just brace myself and get it done. Who knows how long that’ll take me? I needed three weeks just to get through everything and decide what to keep, what to throw away, and what to find new homes for.”