As she looked into his eyes, he wanted to be even taller than he was. Bigger. Stronger. He was through his transition, sure, but compared to his dad, Murhder? He was a pip-squeak.
“You have been so good to me,” she murmured. “You have been a friend when I need one, a shelter when I had none, a well of compassion in this darkness in which I am trapped. Thus I cannot, and will not, do anything to endanger you. This has always been my quest, and it must needs remain thus.”
They stared at each other for the longest time.
Kiss her, Nate thought. Now is the moment—
Off over Elyn’s shoulder, a tiny flare of light appeared and began to move. And another. And a third.
She turned and glanced at the little galaxy that had inexplicably formed behind her. “Oh, they are back.”
Elyn extended her palm, and the flickers came to her, coalescing above her outstretched hand.
“Fireflies,” Nate murmured. “Wow.”
The glow was such that it illuminated her face, making her positively resplendent—no, it was more than that. Her silver hair and her silver eyes seemed to pull the golden illumination in and reflect it back out, so that a halo formed all around her.
Without warning, she pegged him with a hard stare. “I shall not allow anything or anybody to hurt you, Nate.”
Touched as he was by the sentiment, he didn’t have the heart to state the realness. Out of the two of them? She was hardly in a position to do any protecting.
That was his job.
Balz smelled the brunette first.
In the midst of the dense darkness inside the triplex’s book collection room, that perfume, that grape-undertoned, darkly sensual Dior scent, pervaded the still air.
“Devina?” the Mr. said through the void. “What are you doing here?”
The lights came back on, and as Balz blinked the retina sting away, he didn’t shift from the position he was in, his arms and hands still outstretched toward the Book. But he did turn his head. Between him and the Mr., the brunette—Devina, evidently—was posed like a cover girl, wearing a formal white skirt and jacket and a hat that looked like something you’d wear to a royal wedding.
“You’re supposed to stay at corporate headquarters,” the Mr. said. Then he glanced behind himself and lowered his voice. “I thought we agreed you’d never show up here unannounced. Idaho is where you have to—”
“Oh, shut up, Herb,” the brunette snapped. “And I’ve never even been to Idaho, you fucking idiot.”
“B-b-but . . .”
Devina focused on Balz and rolled her eyes. “Humans. Really. They’re all in remote control cars they think they’re driving. So fucking ridiculous—”
“Herb” marched over and took the brunette’s arm. “This is not a game you’re going to win. I want you out of here, and if you’re going to keep seeing me, you’re never doing this again. Do we understand each other. My wife lives here.”
The brunette looked down at where Herb’s hand was. And in the beat or two of silence that followed, Balz was tempted to tell the guy to let the fuck go of her—but there was no saving stupid.
“Are you touching me right now,” the brunette said in a soft voice.
Herb rose up on his tiptoes a little so he could glare down at her given her heels. “I will touch you anywhere the hell I want, and you’re leaving now.”
As Balz straightened from the Book, he had a thought that Herbieboy was going to choke on those words.
“This behavior is really not becoming on you,” Herb felt the need to tack on.
Devina’s perfectly arched brow lifted over her perfectly made-up right eye. “You don’t say. Well, wait’ll you get a load of this.”
Herb’s body flew back against a set of the display shelves, sure as if invisible hands had picked him up and thrown him across the room. And as books were dislodged from their props, and all kinds of things landed on the floor, Balz frowned. There was no noise. Nothing made a goddamn sound, not the flopping of the first editions as they hit the parquet wood, not the clattering of the Lucite stands as they fell, not the banging of the varnished planks.
Likewise, as Herb was pinned against the wall, and his mouth cranked wide to start screaming, there was no sting in the ears from the high-pitched agony, no banging as those heels kicked at the Sheetrock, no tearing as his clothes—
Oh, shit. The loose PJs poor Herb was wearing were ripping at the crotch.
But that was hardly the worst of it.
Like someone had spread-eagle’d him and was dragging his legs apart like the wishbone of a turkey, the Mr. started to rip at the centerpiece, a fault line initiating at his hey-nannies and proceeding up his pelvis, his abdomen—
All kinds of internal organ-ish stuff fell out and landed like over-boiled lasagna noodles, glossy, mushy, and disturbingly pink and brown.