“I want coffee,” Gage said, but the women were already headed back to the house.
“Bet you do. Quinn’s right about the scar,” Fox added. “Nothing’s ever scarred us since the blood brothers ritual.”
“None of us had a demon try to take a bite out of us either,” Cal put in. “It’s never been able to do anything like that before, not even during the Seven.”
“Times change. Give me a hand, will you? Let’s just start with sitting up.” With his friends on either arm, Gage managed to make it to sitting. Where his head spun for three wicked revolutions. “Jesus.” He sat, with his head braced by his updrawn knees. “I’ve never felt pain like that and I’ve had plenty of pain. Did I scream?”
“No. You went white, dropped like a stone.” Cal swiped sweat off his own face.
“Inside I was screaming like a little girl. Where’s my shirt?” he demanded when he lifted his head and realized he was naked to the waist.
“We had to rip it off you, get to the wound,” Fox told him. “You didn’t move, not a flicker, Gage. You were barely breathing. I swear to God, I thought you were gone.”
“I was. Or nearly.” Cautiously, Gage turned his head, pressed fingers to the scar on his shoulder. “It doesn’t even ache now. I feel pretty weak, a lot shaky, but there’s no pain.”
“You need to sleep. You know how it goes,” Cal added. “It sucks you dry, that intense a healing.”
“Yeah, maybe. Get me up, will you?”
With an arm slung around each of his friends, Gage gained his rubbery legs. When half a dozen steps toward the house left him kitten-weak, he accepted he’d need that bed. But there was satisfaction in his belly as he looked at the empty porch rail.
“Bastard blew that rock to hell and back.”
“Yeah, he did. Can you make the steps?”
“I can make them.” In fact, he was smiling through gritted teeth when Cal and Fox all but carried him into the house.
Since he was too tired to fight off a trio of females, he drank the tea Cybil foisted on him. And he dropped onto the bed with its freshly smoothed sheets and plumped pillows.
“Why doncha lie down with me, sugar?”
“That’s sweet, honey.”
“Not you.” Gage waved off Fox, pointed to Cybil. “Big brown eyes there. Fact, maybe all the pretty women oughta lie down here with me. Plenty of room.”
“What the hell did you put in that tea?” Cal demanded.
“Secret ingredient. Go ahead.” Cybil sat on the side of the bed. “I’ll stay with him until he drops off.”
“Come on over here and say that.”
Smiling, Cybil waved off the others, then angling her head, studied Gage’s face.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he mumbled.
“Hello, handsome. You’ve had a busy morning. Go to sleep.”
“Pissed you off.”
“Pissed you off back. That was the plan.”
“Damn good plan.”
“Risky, potentially stupid plan.”
He smirked. “Worked.”
“You have me there.”
“Didn’t mean that shit about your father.”
“I know. Shh.” She bent down, kissed his cheek.
“Maybe meant some of the other shit—can’t remember. Did you?”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“She said—Ann Hawkins said—you’d cry for me. That it would matter. You did. It did. You brought me back, Cybil.”
“I gave you a jumpstart. You did the rest. Gage.” Shuddering once, she laid her cheek against his. “I thought you’d die. Nothing’s ever scared me like that, or torn at me like that. I thought you’d die. That we’d lose you. That I would. You were dying in my arms, and until that moment, I didn’t realize that I—”
She lifted her head, broke off when she saw he’d fallen asleep. “Well.” She drew a long breath, then another. “Well, that’s probably excellent timing for both of us. No point in humiliating myself or putting you on the spot by telling you, at a weak moment for both of us, that I’ve been stupid enough to fall in love with you.”
Taking his hand, she sat with him a little while longer as he slept. And she wondered if she’d find the way to be smart enough to get over him.
“Do you think you must?”
Slowly, Cybil lifted her gaze from Gage’s face, and looked into Ann Hawkins’s. “Well, last but not least.” It didn’t surprise her she was so calm. She’d been waiting for this, and she’d seen much more shocking things now than a ghost by a bedside on a June morning.
“Do you think you must?” Ann repeated.
“Must what?”
“Close your heart to what you feel for him. Deny yourself the joy and the pain of it.”
“I’m not a fan of pain.”
“But it’s life. Only the dead feel nothing.”
“What about you?”
Ann’s lips curved. “It is not death. My own love told me that. There is more than the dark and the light. So many shades between. I feel yet, because it is not finished. When it is, one thing ends, another begins. You are young, and may have many years in this life, in this body, in this time. Why would you live it with a closed heart?”
“Easy for you to say. Your love was returned. I know what it is to live loving someone who can’t or won’t love you back, or not enough.”
“Your father was consumed by despair. He lost his sight, and couldn’t see love.”
What’s the difference? Cybil thought, but shook her head. “This would be a fascinating conversation over a drink sometime, just us girls, but at the moment we’re more into the life-or-death mode around here. You may have noticed.”
“You are angry.”
“Of course I’m angry. He nearly died today, nearly died in my arms trying to find a way to stop something that was pushed on him, on all of us. He may die yet, any or all of us might. I’ve seen how it might be.”
“You haven’t told them all you’ve learned, all you’ve seen.”
Cybil looked down at Gage again. “No, I haven’t.”
“You will see more before it is done. Child—”
“I’m not your child.”
“No, but neither are you its. Life or death, you say, and so it is. Either the light or the dark will end with the Seven. My love will either be freed, or be damned.”
“And mine?” Cybil demanded.
“He will make his choice, and so will you all. I have no one but you, my hope, my faith, my courage. Only today, you used all of those. And he sleeps,” Ann murmured, looking down at Gage. “Alive. More than alive, he brought back from death’s shadow another answer. Another weapon.”
Cybil got to her feet. “What answer? What weapon?”
“You are an educated woman with a strong and seeking mind. Find it. Use it. All is in your hands now. Yours, his, and the others’. And it fears you. His blood, its blood,” she said as she began to fade, “our blood, your blood. And theirs.”
Standing alone, Cybil again looked down at Gage. “His blood,” she said quietly, and hurried out of the room.
Fourteen
WHEN GAGE WOKE HE DIDN’T JUST WANT COFFEE, he wanted it desperately. He sat up first, testing, and when the room stayed steady, stood. No weakness, no nausea, no dizziness. All good news. And no odd euphoria, he realized as his mind tracked back.
What the hell had she put in that tea?
As much as he craved coffee, he wanted a shower more, so walked into the bathroom and stripped. In the mirror, he studied his shoulder, poked at the puckered crescent marring the skin. It was odd having a scar after all these years, a tangible reminder of those keen, feral teeth tearing into him. He’d broken bones, been stabbed, shot, burned, and not a mark to show for it. But Twisse, in the form of that little bastard, manages to get a quick bite, and it appeared he’d be carrying the scar from it for the rest of his life.
However long that might be.
He showered, dressed, and headed out in search of coffee. He stopped at Cal’s home office where both Layla and Quinn were hunkered at a computer. Both looked up, both gave him the let’s-have-a-look-at-you once-over.
“How are you feeling?” Layla asked him.
“I want coffee.”
“Back to normal then.” Quinn’s look brightened into a smile. “Should be some downstairs. Cyb’s down there, and you might be able to sweet-talk her into fixing you something to eat if you want it.”
“Where’s everybody else?”
“They ran into town. Various errands.” Quinn glanced down at the computer, and the clock in the bottom corner. “They should be back any minute. Maybe I should call Cal, just have them bring food back. Cyb’s burrowed, and might not be sweet-talked into cooking all that easy.”
“I want coffee,” he repeated, and walked away.
She didn’t seem especially burrowed, Gage thought when he saw Cybil at Cal’s kitchen counter. She had her laptop, her notebook, a bottle of water, but she sat right out in the open. And whatever she was doing, she stopped when he came in.
“You look better.”
“Feel better. Couldn’t have felt much worse.” He poured the last cup of coffee, wished someone else would make a fresh pot. And so thinking, turned to study her. “How about making fresh coffee since I almost died?”
“Doing ordinary, routine things, such as making fresh coffee, would probably make you appreciate life more.”
So much for sweet talk, he decided. Since there was a bag of Fritos on the counter, he dug in. “What was in the tea?”
She only smiled. “About four hours’ sleep, apparently. Someone dropped by to see you while you were out.”
“Who?”
“Ann Hawkins.”
He considered, sipped coffee. “Is that so? Sorry I missed her.”
“We had a nice chat while you sawed a few off.”
“Cute. What about?”
“Life, love, the pursuit of happiness.” She picked up her bottle of water. “Death, demons. You know, the usual.”
“More cute. You’re on a roll.” And on edge, he mused. However well she masked it, he sensed nerves.
“I’m working on something that popped into my head when we talked. We’ll go over it when I nail it down a bit more. She loves you.”
“Sorry?”
“She loves you. I could see it in the way she looked at you while you were sleeping. And by the expression on your face now, I see that kind of talk is uncomfortable for a big he-man like you. But that’s what I saw on her face, heard in her voice. For what it’s worth. Now, go find something else to do and somewhere else to do it. I’m working.”
Instead, he crossed over, grabbed a fistful of her hair and tugged her head back so he could crush his mouth to hers. The moment flashed, then spun, then held. He felt another hint of dizziness, another taste of euphoria before he released her.
Her eyes opened, slow and sleepy. “What was that about?”
“Just another ordinary, routine thing to help me appreciate life.”
She laughed. “You’re cute, too. Oh the hell with it,” she said and pulled him against her to hold on, to lay her head on his shoulder where the demon’s mark rode. “Scared me. Really, really scared me.”
“Me, too. I was going. It didn’t seem so bad, all in all.” He tipped her head back again. This face, he thought, these eyes. They’d filled his vision, his head. They’d brought him back. “Then I heard you bitching at me. You slugged me, too.”
“Slapped, that time. I slugged you before, during our brilliant performance on the deck.”
“Yeah. And about that. I don’t remember us talking about punching.”
“What can I say. I’m a genius at improv. Plus, it seriously and genuinely pissed you off and we needed plenty of anger to sucker the Big Evil Bastard in. Your plan, remember? And you said we’d all have to get rough and real to make it work.”
“Yeah.” He picked up her hand, studied it. “You’ve got a decent right jab.”
“That may be, but I believe it hurt my hand more than it hurt your face.”
He closed her hand into a loose fist, then brought it to his lips. Over her knuckles he saw those gorgeous eyes go wide with shock. “What? I’m not allowed to make a romantic gesture?”
“No. Yes. Yes,” she said again. “It was just unexpected.”
“I’ve got a few more, but we made a deal early on.” Intrigued by her reaction, he rubbed his thumb over the knuckles he’d just kissed. “No seduction. Maybe you want to close that deal off, consider it old, finished business.”
“Ah . . . maybe.”
“Well then, why don’t we . . .” He trailed off at the sound of the front door opening, slamming. “Continue this later?”
“Why don’t we.”
Fox strode in first, carting a couple of bags. “Look who’s back from the dead. Got food, got stuff, got beer. Couple of twelve-packs in the car. You ought to go out, give Cal a hand bringing the rest in.”
“Got coffee?” Gage demanded.
“Two pounds of beans.”
“Grind and brew,” Gage ordered and walked out to help Cal.
Cybil looked at Fox, who was already pulling a Coke out of the fridge. “I don’t suppose you’d take that and go away, and take the rest of your kind with you for an hour.”
“Can’t. Perishables.” He pulled milk out of one of the grocery bags. “Plus, starving.”
“Oh well.” Cybil pushed away from the laptop. “I’ll help you put those away. Then I guess we’ll eat, and talk.”
SHE WASN’T REQUIRED TO COOK, WHICH CYBIL felt she was often cornered into doing. Apparently Cal and Fox had decided it was time for their own backyard barbecue. There were worse ways to spend a June afternoon than watching three good-looking men standing over a smoking grill.
And just look at them, she thought as she and the other women set bowls of deli potato salad, coleslaw, pickles, and condiments on the picnic table. As united over patties as they were over war. Just look at all of us. She paused a moment to do just that. They were about to have a backyard picnic, and in the same backyard hours before, one of them had bled, had suffered. Had nearly died. Now there was music pumping out of Cal’s outdoor speakers, burgers sizzling on the grill, and beer frosty in the cooler.
Twisse thought he could beat them, beat
this
? No. Not in a century of Sevens. It would never beat what it could never understand, and constantly underestimated.