“Thierry and Matthew did teach me the basics.” So had Misha, but none of them had prepared me for patrolling, because no one thought I’d end up doing that. But I knew the rules. Mainly because the rules were kind of common sense. “They talked about...stuff.”
“Did you listen to them?”
“Of course,” I said, affronted.
A deep, raspy chuckle radiated from him. “Yeah, not to sound like a lie detector, but I’m going to have to say that’s false.”
“Okay. I had a wee bit of a hard time paying attention, because I’m easily distracted and suffer from chronic boredom. Like right now. I’m bored. With this conversation,” I tacked on. “So, I’m suffering.”
“Not as much as I’m suffering right now.”
My frown grew until I felt like my face was going to be stuck like that. “Do I even want to know what that means?”
“Probably not.” He was closer now, no more than a foot away. “I get it.”
“Get what?”
Zayne’s pale gaze caught mine. “I get why it takes hours for you to fall asleep.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know how he was aware of that.
“And I get why you’re so angry.”
Drawing in a sharp breath, I took a step back from Zayne, as if I could put physical distance between what he was saying and me. “I’m not...” I shook my head, not wanting to get into this conversation with him. “I’m not angry. I’m actually hungry.”
“Really?” he replied dryly.
I arched an eyebrow. “Why do you sound like you don’t believe me?”
“Maybe because you ate two hot dogs from a street vendor less than an hour ago.”
“Hot dogs aren’t very filling. Everyone knows that.”
“You also ate fries and half of my falafel.”
“I did not eat half of it! I had, like, a bite of it,” I argued, even though I’d had two...or three bites. “I’d never had a falafel before and I was curious. Not like you can find them in the hills of West Virginia.”
“Trin.”
“And beating the crap out of the Raver in an inhumane and indecent manner burns a lot of calories. Whatever I ate has been used up and I’m now in a caloric deficiency. I’m starving.”
He crossed his arms. “I don’t think that’s how calories work.”
I ignored that. “We can go back to that place and get you another falafel,” I said, starting past him. “I might get one myself. Then we can falafel together.”
Zayne caught my arm, stopping me. The warmth from his hand and the jolt of the contact was unnerving. “You know you can talk to me, right? About anything, anytime. I’m here for you. Always.”
A lump formed in my throat, and I didn’t dare look at him as I felt the drawers start to rattle again.
Talk to him?
About anything?
Like how I hadn’t really known Misha? Hadn’t known that a man I’d loved like a brother had not only hated my guts but had orchestrated my mother’s murder? Tell him how I hated Misha for all he’d done, but somehow still missed him? How I wanted desperately to believe that the bond had been responsible, or that it had been the demon Aym or this Harbinger creature that had caused Misha to do such horrible things? Did Zayne think I could tell him that what I feared most was that maybe the darkness in Misha had always existed and I’d never seen it, because I’d always, always been so wrapped up in myself?
Or I could tell him how eternally grateful I was that the bond had saved his life, but that I hated what that meant for us—that there could be no us—and how guilty I felt that I could be selfish enough to wish he wasn’t my Protector. Tell him how much I missed Jada and her boyfriend, Ty, but that I was avoiding her calls, because I didn’t want to talk about Misha. Or how I had no idea what was expected of me. How I was supposed to find and fight a creature when I didn’t know what it looked like or what its motives were, in a city that was completely unfamiliar to me. Confide in him that I was afraid my failing vision would continue to worsen to the point that I could lose my ability to fight, to survive and to be...to be independent.
Should I share with him that I was terrified that he would die because of me, like he almost had that night at the senator’s house?
Pulse racing like I’d been running a mile, I shook my head. “There’s nothing to say.”
“There’s a whole Hell of a lot to say,” he countered. “I’ve been giving you space. You needed that, but you have to talk about this. Trust me, Trin. I’ve lost people. Some to death. Some to life. I know what happens when you don’t get the grief and the rage out.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper. I turned toward him then, stomach churning. “I’m fine. You’re fine. We could be so much closer to eating a falafel, and you’re delaying the deep-fried feast.”
Something fierce flared in those pale wolf eyes, making them momentarily luminous, but then he let go of my arm and whatever it was...was gone.
A heartbeat passed and then he said, “We’re going to need to stop by my place first.”
A breath of relief punched out of me. The cabinet in my head stopped shaking. “Why? To get you another shirt?” I started walking toward the street. “We should start packing extras.”
“I need a new shirt, but we need to head back because you smell and you need a shower.”
“Wow.” I looked at him as he fell in step beside me. I could make out a half grin on his face. “Way to make me feel self-conscious.”
As we reached the sidewalk, I looked both ways before stepping out, so I didn’t get run over by someone in a hurry. I blinked rapidly, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the brighter streetlamps, headlights and lit storefronts.
Didn’t really help.
“Smelling you is making me all too conscious.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“What does He have to do with your stench?” he teased.
“You didn’t seem to have a problem with the way I smelled back in the alley,” I pointed out. “You know, when you picked me up and held me like I was in one of those things people use to carry babies around.”
“The smell clouded my judgment.”
A laugh burst out of me, and under the brighter streetlights, I could now see that there was definitely a grin on his face. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
“It is.”
I pressed my lips together, deciding it was best to ignore that altogether. Zayne stuck close to me as we walked toward his apartment, him on the side closest to the road and me within arm’s reach of the buildings. Walking this way made it easier for me to keep track of people so that I didn’t walk into them. I’d never told Zayne that, but he’d seemed to pick up pretty quickly on my preference.
“By the way, what did you roll around in back there?” he asked.
“A puddle of bad life choices.”
“Huh. I always wondered what that smelled like.”
“Now you know.”
Despite the fact I smelled rank, another laugh tickled the back of my throat as I looked at him again. The black shirt he had on was a mess, but his leather pants held up under the constant shifting from human to Warden and back again, which must be why he wore them when he patrolled.
And I was not complaining about them. At all.
I imagined that, between my smell and his half-shirtless appearance, we were drawing a fair amount of attention. Then again, I was sure people had seen stranger things in this city and had definitely smelled worse. I wondered if anyone realized what he was.
“Do people recognize what you are?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“Not sure, but no one’s ever seen me in my human form and asked if I was Warden,” he answered. “Why?”
“Because you don’t look like other humans.” I knew that Wardens rarely shifted in public. It was for privacy and security, since there were people out there, like those Children of God fanatics, who believed Wardens, ironically, were demons and should be slaughtered.
He tucked a strand of hair back from his face. “Not sure if that’s a compliment.”
“It’s not an insult.” I thought I saw a smirk before he turned to scan the street.
“How do I not look like other humans?” he asked. “I think I blend in.”
I snorted. Like a piglet.
Hot.
“You couldn’t blend in if you covered your body with a paper sack,” I said.
“Well, I definitely wouldn’t blend in then,” he replied, and I heard the grin in his tone. “Walking around in a paper sack would be kind of noticeable.”
The image of Zayne in nothing but a paper sack immediately formed in my thoughts, and I felt my cheeks flush. I hated myself for even putting that into the universe.
“You don’t blend in, either,” he said, and my chin jerked in his direction.
“Because I reek like I imagine a moldy butt smells?”
Zayne laughed, a deep rumbling sound that created interesting little flutters in the pit of my stomach. “No,” he said, stopping at a busy intersection. “Because you’re beautiful, Trin. You have this thing. It’s this spark from within. A light. There isn’t a single person out here that can’t see that.”
9
I was waiting for Zayne in the center of the mats, sitting cross-legged, and, instead of stretching, I was daydreaming about a different life where it was okay for Zayne to tell me I was beautiful. Granted, this spark or light he was claiming everyone and their mother could see probably was my grace and not my stunning physical attributes.
“I have an idea,” Zayne announced as he strolled out of the bedroom.
My gaze dropped to Zayne’s hand. He held a strip of black material. I raised my brows. “Should I be worried?”