Chapter 6 #4
Then I reached out and gripped it between thumb and forefinger.
He could feel the thrill rushing through him, just like Jerry had said. The excitement. The knowledge that he was—they were—doing God’s work.
He was jittery, tapping his fingers against the plastic of the headlight, his foot bouncing on the pavement as he waited, watching. Looking for the sign that God would send.
Preacher Dale told them that God would make clear the way. That God would shine a light for them. To show them what to do. Where to go.
So he waited for the sign.
It came sooner than he expected, his eyes catching sight of pale skin and long legs pushing through the crowd.
The creature—for so Preacher Dale had reminded them they were, not people, but creatures—bumped into a woman carrying a tote bag of groceries on one shoulder.
She staggered a little, glaring after the creature.
Her hatred to his will.
God’s will.
The memory stopped there, and I let go of the plastic before I was drawn into the next one. “That’s all it has from the driver,” I told them. “But there’s a fragment of memory from the… victim.”
Raj’s skin took on a greyish cast, and Hart swallowed visibly. “Jesus,” the elf breathed. “Do you—is there anything helpful to it?” he asked.
“His spine was damaged, I think,” I said, remembering vividly the memory of pain. “And then nothing.”
“Fuck,” Hart hissed.
Raj looked down at the plastic, clearly not meeting my gaze. “I—no,” he said softly. “I don’t think that will be necessary at present.”
“Rayn?” Raj asked, spinning ramen noodles around his fork.
“Yes?” I looked at him over the rim of my bowl, having just taken a sip of the savory-salty broth.
“Did you see—hear—whatever his thoughts… when he died?” His voice was tight and tense.
I set down my bowl, managing not to spill any, despite the sudden tremor that afflicted my hands.
“Yes,” I whispered, staring down into the bowl with its swirls of noodles, beads of oil or fat, and colorful specks of carrot, pea, chicken, pepper, scallion…
It was easier to look at my food than at Raj.
“What—what was it like?” Raj asked. “Dying?”
I shuddered. I couldn’t help it. “Lonely,” I whispered. “And terrifying.” I pressed my hands against the table, trying to steady my mind by grounding my hands.
One of Raj’s big, warm palms settled over one of mine. “Are you okay?” he murmured.
I sighed. “I’m… fine,” I answered, exhaustion taking hold of me. A glance up at Raj told me he thought I was lying. Or delusional. “Or I will be,” I amended. “Eventually.”
“When we catch them,” he said.
I swallowed. “That would also help,” I agreed.
He squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry I asked,” he said softly.
I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
“I am sorry,” he repeated, and he sounded it.
“It’s okay,” I told him, squeezing his hand back. “But I would like to stop talking about it, please.”
He blinked, surprise flitting across his face. “Of course,” he replied quickly. “What would you like to talk about instead?”
I didn’t know what to say, and pulled my hands back so that I could pick up my bowl again, if only to give myself something to do. “I don’t know,” I half-whispered, bringing the bowl back to my lips.
“Okay,” Raj replied, drawing out the word as he thought. “How’s working with your sister?” he asked.
I looked up at him as I set the bowl back down, then picked up a fork to twirl in the noodles.
“I like it,” I answered him honestly. “It’s…
nice to share that with her. To have something to share with her.
” A lot of the time, it almost felt as though Violette was the older of the two of us—she had so much more experience of the world than I did, even if I was six years older.
But at Beyond the Veil, I knew the answers to almost all of her questions—it was nice to be the one who knew things, for once.
Raj was nodding. “My sister, Meena, is five years older than me,” he said, and I could hear affection in his voice.
“She was already in school when I was born, and Mata always whisked her away to the kitchen or shopping or to do ‘girl things,’ and it felt like I never got to do anything with her.” He shrugged, his cheeks shading slightly darker.
“Not the same at all, I know,” he said, sounding a little chagrined.
I swallowed my mouthful of noodles, feeling a smile tug a little at my lips. “A little,” I acknowledged.
“But also not really,” he replied with a grimace. “I—I’m just really good at sticking my foot in it around you.”
“Sticking your foot in what?” I asked.
He huffed out a little bit of a laugh. “My mouth,” he replied. “Putting your foot in your mouth is an expression that means you’ve said or done something stupid—inconsiderate.” He sighed, stabbing a pea pod. “I do that around you a lot, unfortunately.”
“I do that a lot, too,” I replied. “Except I don’t know I’ve done it half the time.”
He offered me a little smile. “You don’t around me,” he said. “Not nearly as often as I do.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But I do awful things.”
He frowned. “Like what?”
I waved my fork a little. “Invade your head. Repeatedly.”
“Rayn…” He trailed off, and I almost said something else, but then he kept going.
“You can invade my dreams anytime you want now,” he said, finally, and I looked over at him, skeptical.
“Really. I know I— Well, it wasn’t that I didn’t like it,” he half-mumbled, his cheeks going dark again.
“I liked it. It just… made things difficult.”
I was studying him, my head tilted to the side, trying to understand what he was saying—not the literal words, because I knew what all of them meant, but I had the feeling there was something more to it. Something I was missing.
He let out a little laugh. “I—I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing you,” he admitted. “And I definitely liked that part of those dreams. I just… The FBI is really strict about fraternization rules.”
“Fraternization?” I repeated.
He nodded. “Dating people you work with, whether on your team or witnesses or consultants.”
“Oh,” I said, already worrying that the fact that we were dating now was going to get him into trouble.
“It’s okay,” he said quickly, probably reading my thoughts on my face. “I talked to my boss after—well, once we started actually dating. So that he’d know that it was a thing.” He twirled his fork in his noodles. “There was some paperwork, but it’s fine.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I hadn’t meant to make more work for him.
He smiled. “I’m not,” he said. “You’re worth some paperwork.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that.
Raj snorted. “That sounded better in my head,” he said. “You’re worth a lot more than paperwork.”
I offered him a smile. “I still shouldn’t have done it,” I said softly. “Pulled you into my dreams.”
“Maybe not,” he replied, but his tone was mild. “But in hindsight, I’m glad you did.”
“Really?”
He chuckled. “Really. Because once I stopped freaking out about the fact that you’d done it, I realized that if you were in control of the dream, that meant you wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss you.”
“I did,” I whispered.
“Do you still?” he asked, pushing his bowl—still partly full—out of the way.
I nodded, suddenly breathless.
He pushed my bowl out of the way, too.
He reached out, one big, warm hand cupping the back of my skull, pulling me toward him until he could claim my lips with his.
Lips turned to tongue and a little bit of teeth, and I let out a small, involuntary noise as he tugged at my lower lip.
I was the one who moved out of my chair, ignoring the sharp pain as my hip bumped the corner of the kitchen table.
His hands gripped my hips, pulling me closer.
I straddled his hips, my arms around his neck as he kept kissing me, his hands pulling my shirt out of my slacks so that the hot skin of his palms slid up my bare spine.
I wanted him so badly.
“Rayn,” he breathed, his breath warm against my neck in the split second before his tongue ran down the column of my throat.
I dropped my head back, giving him even more access.
He let out a low, thrumming growl, nuzzling against the side of my neck, hands climbing my bare back.
I took my arms from his neck and began to fumble with the buttons of my shirt, and he growled again, pulling his own hands out from behind me, grasping the placket of my shirt, then jerking it sharply.
Buttons clattered against the worn wood floor.
“Raj!” It was only half an objection—to the fact that I’d have to find the buttons and reattach them, because I didn’t have the budget to buy more work shirts.
“I’ll fix it later,” he rumbled, tugging the shirt from my arms even as he went back to nuzzling the skin between my shoulder and neck. Then he nipped at my collarbone, and I gasped.
“Raj,” I whispered.
“Want you,” he rasped, the words a little slurred. Then he lifted his head, looking up at me, and his eyes were pure molten gold, the pupils wider than they should have been.
Maybe it should have frightened me, the fact that his teeth were sharp and his eyes inhuman, but it sent a thrill ripping through me that started in the center of my chest and went straight to my cock.
And then his hands slid down my back, and the sensation of claws tore a shudder from me. He didn’t break the skin—he wouldn’t. Never would he break my skin. But he raised ridges, and it was glorious.
“Yes.” The word came out as a breath, barely loud enough for me to hear.
He heard me.
Or, rather, I assumed he did, because he picked me up, those big hands under the backs of my thighs as he carried me out of the kitchen, across the main living space, and into the bedroom.
He lowered me to the mattress—I don’t know how because I wasn’t really able to pay much attention—and immediately covered my body with his, his mouth capturing mine as his fingers fumbled with the button on my slacks.