Chapter Thirty-Five

At first I expected Saxon would be irritable and sulky the whole time we were at home, at least until dark – he would probably feel a lot more like himself during the nighttime. But I’d forgotten that, except for what he’d done to save me at Logan’s house, he hadn’t eaten anything all day. So when we got home, I was briefly surprised when he said, “Do you feel like making me some breakfast?”

Not only because it was a weird way of asking, too. “Of course not,” I said, “is it any worse because it’s daytime?”

“I’m only hungry from using so much power.” As he spoke, he balled up the hoodie he’d been wearing and threw it onto the couch, so he could stay near me as I hung my coat in the closet. “From waking up, mostly.”

“Sorry,” I said, and I stared at his face for a minute, marveling that I couldn’t see that he was hungry in any way. He was breathing, he wasn’t deathly pale, he didn’t feel too still. And he looked back at me like wondering what I was staring at.

“Are you all right?” He began, and I quickly nodded.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just…” I trailed off, as I knew he picked it out of my thoughts before I could finish.

“I’m not that hungry,” he said, “not so much to be that white or anything.”

“Oh,” I said, only thinking now of how he so easily read my mind. Why couldn’t I ever do that? Granted, I’d probably handle it worse than he did, but it still irked me.

“I’d teach you if I could,” he said then, surprised. “I’d at least show you so you knew how rarely I do it on purpose.”

“Fair enough,” I grimaced, thinking it was something I tended to yell at him about. So I didn’t really say anything, but all I wanted was to take my shoes off and then we could go on the couch and he could eat all he wanted.

Automatically – as natural as my next thought – he moved to do the same thing, so instead of feeling like he was mad at me all day, instead I felt extremely close to him, as easily as breaking away from everything else and only paying attention to us.

Considering what was going on, it somehow lifted my mood quite a lot. I felt better when, just before he bit me, Saxon also seemed more normal.

And the moment when he bit me was so fantastic. As soon as my eyes slid closed I was in his mind, as a direct result of how his power was in my own head. I felt so aware of his thoughts, deeper than those that simply enjoyed the moment. It was almost like I knew what had been bothering him all day – in this case, he’d woken up thinking I was about to be killed.

I wasn’t at all expecting him to feel jealous toward Logan, though he thought it was the most natural thing in the world. In my mind, he had nothing to worry about, but in his mind, it was pretty much the opposite.

When he broke off I realized he’d drank quite a bit, as though distracted by the connection, and I was almost annoyed when he did – I wanted to try and explain how he had nothing to be jealous of, but trying to talk through it sounded like a lot of work in comparison.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” he said, staring down into my eyes from above me on the couch.

“What?” I only blinked at him.

“Me. You. Everything.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I almost can’t stop reading your mind. Like – I thought the second mark would make you so much stronger – but it’s not having nearly so much effect on you as it is me.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, thrown. “What kind of effect is it having on you?”

“It’s almost worse when you aren’t here,” he said. “When you’re here, I can feel you connecting to me, listening to whatever you can pick up. But when you’re out, it’s all I want to do – I just want to watch what you’re doing, all the time, because I can’t stop thinking about you – but I know I shouldn’t because you send me what you want to tell me.” Then his eyebrows drew together worriedly. “Do you think this makes me more crazy?”

“You’re not crazy!” I exclaimed, shocked. “Saxon, it’s just, we… maybe we both need more time to adjust to the mark, because, I mean… it hasn’t been very long since you did it.”

“I guess,” he said. “But we don’t have a lot of time to adjust to anything.”

“Tell me about it…” I touched his face, worried. “We can stay home for a while, if you want. I mean… the spell should be protecting it, I can just stay inside for a few days.”

“Every time you say that, something always happens,” he mused.

“This time I mean it.”

“Okay,” he said, “we’ll do nothing.”

So we did nothing. Well, he did nothing – I cleaned the apartment. Although I thought of about two dozen things I wanted to go out and buy, I forced myself to resist, to actually relax, to act like myself in spite of this strange, new mark Saxon had given me. He helped me clean, but it was extremely obvious that he didn’t know the first thing about it without reading my mind to figure it out. This was fine, because he wanted more practice on that front, anyway. So I was happy – the house was clean – and he was happy – I spent the whole day with him.

When it was time, we watched the press conference on television. Logan made a lot of sweeping generalizations about how everyone was so pleased at the chance to rejoin human society in a nonviolent, legal, organized way, and how it was just exactly how everyone had always wanted things to go.

“Can you tell when he’s lying, from a broadcast?” I asked Saxon, trying not to miss anything, but I had to know.

“What, Logan, lying?” He asked, with wide-eyed innocence. I glared at him until he tried again. “No, not really. Not for sure. He’s really good at it.” I knew he meant me to take this to heart, but I ignored him. I wanted to watch without having to rewind the DVR every five seconds.

What was really mind-boggling for me was the fact that he stood up there and pretended to turn pages of notes when really I knew he had the whole speech memorized. I wanted to ask him about it, though – had someone else written the speech for him? So how did he know to recite it correctly?

Cernion didn’t have to say anything, as I had expected, although one of the reporters did ask Logan why he would be publicly protecting him. Logan told him that certain arrangements had been made upon his decision to move to the city, and in this it was not so much a matter of protection as it was Logan’s own personal interest in making sure every preternatural being in the city was treated fairly. “Yeah, right,” Saxon said, at that. “Every creature including those who want to rip his head off. He’s just that big-hearted. People really believe this crap?”

I studied the screen: Logan’s ever-so-photogenic face, currently wearing an extremely believable expression of sincerity; his perfectly professional outfit, which wasn’t quite enough to distract from the inhuman greenness of his eyes; that flawless blend of human and inhuman, and had to nod. “He’s at least as believable as any politician I’ve ever seen on television in my life. And not just for werepanthers, either.”

“Fucking ridiculous,” he muttered.

His next question was about the rumors of violence and warlike battles taking place between his people and the werewolves of the city. Logan took a moment before he answered to point out that, although it may be convenient to storytelling, there was no natural born animosity between werecreatures of any race, even feline and canine. Then, he said that before the Awakening, life had been a matter of hiding and survival for every breed of werecreature, which had created tensions between the races for generations – which, he went on to say, would not be something we had to worry about, now that we were all working so hard to blend supernaturals into human society.

Every time he went to answer a new question, so many were thrown at him that I wasn’t surprised he was talking right up to the last second of broadcast time. Even the news commentators were talking about how much more there was left to do and how much more information the people wanted, and in the end I was only left with the impression that Logan had gotten his pack into the center of national – nearly worldwide – attention, and that was exactly what he had wanted to happen.

But there was no violence. No werewolves tried anything, no vampires showed up out of the blue, nothing.

It was almost disappointing. Really, I hadn’t at all expected it to go as planned. Logan was going to be so smug about this.

“I bet Cernion is going to call you afterwards,” Saxon said.

“I told him to,” I reminded before wondering out loud. “There’s no party or anything? They’re just going home?”

“If there was a party, Logan would have made you show up,” he pointed out. “Or tried to.”

I stretched out on the couch and put my feet on his legs. “You wouldn’t let me go to a big fancy party just because Logan was going to be there?”

“No.”

He was being so serious I knew he was teasing me. “I like big fancy parties.”

“I can’t let you out of my sight in a dress, Nicci. Have you looked in the mirror?”

I rolled my eyes – it was always back to jealousy issues. “Well you could come with me and make sure no one infringed on your territory. Is that better?”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms. “I’m trying not to be on camera, remember?”

“Well, then the media is going to keep thinking I’m Cernion’s girlfriend.” I kept my face serious as I went on, “Wouldn’t that make you just a little bit jealous?”

“Damn right,” he said. “That’s why you wouldn’t be able to go, either.”

This was clearly a circular discussion. I sighed in annoyance and sat up again. “You’re hopeless. And besides, wouldn’t you think a party would be fun? Somewhere with lots of food I can eat?”

He grimaced and looked away. That wasn’t what I had expected him to do. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Nicci.”

Now he was too serious. I scooted next to him again. “Why? I have to eat; I thought the fact that you could taste my food was just a bonus to you?”

“I don’t know that,” he pointed out. “I don’t know if any of this is normal. Well, it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s not. I don’t think vampires should be able to taste food again, ever.”

“It’s psychological, right?” I asked, concerned now.

“It must be.”

“Then maybe it’s part of my mindreading powers,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s not you, maybe it’s me. Maybe you just get to enjoy food again just because of who and what we are.”

He raised an eyebrow. “When are things that easy?”

“You’re the one who’s always overcomplicating everything,” I pointed out. “If you don’t know it’s bad for you, why not enjoy it?” Before he could argue, I went on, “All you’ve tried so far is frozen waffles and jam, anyway. I’m the one who got the calories and preservatives, you didn’t. Even if it is your power doing it, you’ve always been good at reading my mind, why would this be different?”

“You don’t ever let up,” he sighed. “I just mean it’s… it’s not necessarily good or…”

“It’s not necessarily bad,” I interrupted.

“But you shouldn’t eat lots of shit just so I can try it,” he said, trying a different argument. I wasn’t sure why he was picking this to fight about – more like bicker than fight, really – except for the obvious, ‘nothing ever goes right’ paranoia.

“My metabolism must be working pretty good,” I said, “because I eat nothing but takeout and cereal and microwaved crap, and I weigh the same as when I met you. I actually think I’m in better shape even though I never work out.” I felt as though it wasn’t a conversation that could ever end, though, so I added, “But if you really don’t want me to, I won’t do anything out of the ordinary routine.”

“I was wondering when you’d eat dinner,” he admitted.

Now that he mentioned it, I was getting pretty hungry. But, although I’d cleaned up and the apartment looked great again, the fridge was empty and I wasn’t allowed to leave the house to get food. I was going to resort to takeout, but instead I thought I could probably find a grocery delivery service online. But I thought it might be expensive…

“Get whatever makes you happy, Nicci,” Saxon said, out of nowhere as usual. “You just said you can eat anything. If we need money, I mean… well… I’m not planning on stealing anything, but you can’t expect me to turn into a boy scout overnight…”

He was so ridiculous, I had to laugh. “I guess petty theft isn’t so bad compared to what everyone expects you to do.”

“Now you’re seeing it from my perspective,” he said.

“But you’re not a monster,” I added quickly.

He only looked at me. “I mean it, Saxon,” I said, getting up to get my laptop. “If you don’t quit saying that I’ll have to do something drastic.”

“Oh no, Nicci doing something drastic, when does that happen?” He muttered, as though to himself. I wasn’t fooled, but I chose not to continue the topic anyway.

A lot of clicking around and I had a pretty nice selection, even for someone who didn’t like to cook. Saxon didn’t stop until he had convinced me that money didn’t matter. So I passed a good half-hour online and then a little while waiting for the order before I realized Cernion had never called me.

But should I be worried? I wasn’t his mother or anything. Did I need to check up on him? Well, then again, it wasn’t every day someone I knew was on television, calling the house was probably pretty expected.

I just didn’t trust the home line enough anymore, so I used my cell. It rang a lot, enough time for me to feel stupid for calling. As I paced around the living room idly I noticed Saxon was giving me a weird look, so I forced myself sit down at the table and stop feeling as awkward as talking on the phone always inspired.

When, finally, someone answered, it was Chancy. “Hey Nicci!” He chirped happily. “I can’t believe you didn’t hang up it was ringing forever and I ran all the way across the house!”

Yet he didn’t sound out of breath in the slightest. “Hey Chancy,” I answered, not sure what to say to the rest of it. “Is everyone home from the press thing already?”

“Well, Cernion is here, Logan sent me with him, but him and Adrian and Darius and Juliette and everyone went back to the underground, Cernion’s in the shower, I didn’t think you’d call, what’s up?”

He was so bad at phone communication. “Um,” I started, uncertainly, “I was just calling to say hi I guess. I mean, Cernion seemed so mad earlier, but I watched it all on TV – I knew he wouldn’t have to say anything.”

“Duh,” he agreed. “Do you want me to go bang on the door or something?”

“No, don’t do that,” I winced. “Just tell him I called. What’s going to happen now, do you know?”

“Well, probably in a little while everyone will go to sleep,” he said, as though it was a really, unbelievably revealing bit of information.

Sigh. “I mean in the long run.”

“Oh.” A long pause. “Well, everyone was pretty happy with how things went. Logan was talking a lot about contacting envoys. Is that a word? Maybe he said something else.”

“Envoys?” I wondered out loud. “Like messengers from other packs?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But everyone was saying they think a lot more people are going to want to join the pack now.”

“It’s already crowded,” I mused.

“Oh and also they were talking about having to get in touch with the rats and the wolves again, like, I think any kind of fighting now would just make everyone really look bad, at least that’s what he said. Nicci, when are you coming over again? I haven’t gotten to hang out with you in like ten years.”

“Not for a little while,” I admitted reluctantly. “I’m going to try and lay low for a few days. As long as the spell’s working, I mean, I need a break.”

“Aw, that sucks. I mean, you know what I mean.” He sighed long-sufferingly. “Cernion has been in the shower for a year. It sucks for him having so much fur to wash. I can’t even stand showering in human form, forget wolf form.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “You did always complain about that.”

“Well if you can’t come over can I come hang out with you then? Not today, but sometime soon I guess.”

“That ought to be fine,” I said, wondering if he was really lonely with Raziel out of town. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Okay!” He agreed. “You should rent some movies or something.”

“Sounds good,” I laughed. “But how about in the evening after dark?”

“All right I guess I can find something to do all morning,” he sighed.

“What is that supposed to mean? I know you spend the first six hours of every day sleeping in the sun.”

“That’s true!” He brightened immediately. “Okay, you’re right. I’ll come over tomorrow. Whenever Cernion comes out did you want me to have him call you?”

“It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I just didn’t want him to be mad at me for anything.”

“Okay. Well, I think I left something in the microwave this whole time, at least it smells weird now. So I should probably go check on that.”

I winced, again. He was so bad at surviving in human form. “Don’t burn down the house!”

“No worries! Bye Nicci!” He hung up before I could say anything. This was a slight improvement in some ways – using the phone wasn’t something he did very often, and he was likely to just drop it and wander off.

“You miss him a lot,” Saxon said, as I put my phone back on the table.

No sense in lying. “Yeah,” I admitted.

“At least he’s not trying to get in your pants,” he muttered. Before I could answer there was a buzz from the door, and in the confusion of putting away all my delivered groceries I forgot to retaliate with a suitably smartass remark.

It was a quiet evening at home. A normal night, even. I ate tacos and Saxon freaked out about it almost to the point where I couldn’t eat for laughing. He made me try picking information out of his mind – it was harder than he made it look, but once in a while I could say some German words as easily as though I’d been speaking it since birth. Not exactly the most useful skill, but I was really encouraged to be able to do even that much.

Saxon wanted me to practice more elemental magic, because he said it was one thing vampires had never developed a natural defense against. Of course, other than my random lightning bolts, my power had never really been naturally affiliated in that way, so it wasn’t going to be easy. And I couldn’t practice indoors, not really. I thought I could probably find somewhere in the panther underground where Logan wouldn’t mind some scorch marks on the walls, but at least for a while I resigned to practicing only my less flashy abilities.

I fell asleep on the couch after getting up so early, and Saxon didn’t wake me up until he went to bed right before dawn. Barely awake, curled up in pre-dawn darkness, it really felt to me like we were the only people in the entire world; there is nothing better.

Waking to the phone ringing was quickly becoming my least favorite, yet most common, occurrence. I didn’t want to make any attempt to answer it – I was far too comfortable in bed – but it started ringing anew right away, so I realized someone was redialing in an attempt to get my attention. I groaned in complaint as I got out from under my warm blankets and found my cell phone on the coffee table, vibrating and ringing as loudly as it could.

I didn’t know the number. But I answered anyway, unable to decide if it was a good idea or not when I was so bleary-eyed, and I already knew Saxon was still passed out so he couldn’t advise. “Hello?”

“Nicci?” A quiet, hesitant female voice.

“Hannah? Is that you?” I frowned, coming more awake as I identified that she didn’t sound like herself.

“Yeah, it’s me,” she confirmed. “Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah, but I mean,” I glanced quickly at the clock, “it’s after four, I was going to get up soon anyway.”

“I’m sorry I forgot you’re up at night,” she apologized. When she didn’t take off with another long sentence, I told her it was okay, and only then did she speak. “Well I was hoping maybe today you could come meet my son,” she ventured. “And my boyfriend, he’s here too, and I really want you guys to meet them.”

“Oh,” I said, glancing again toward Saxon. He was sleeping, or looked like he was, although not dead, so I could wake him up if I wanted. Did I want to? “I don’t know, you know, what with being in the magazines, I’m trying to stay inside for a few days.”

“Aw… but Nicci, he’s – I mean we’re going back home tomorrow, so – uh – so my folks can see the baby, you know. You really can’t do anything today? Not even for like ten minutes? You told me you’d come over.”

Shit, it was always so easy for someone to talk me into something when they knew I’d want to do it. “I don’t know…” I hesitated, and she pushed on.

“I’d come over, but, we’re staying at a friend’s apartment, just to help with the baby since I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and she has a kid, and she left him with me for a while, so I can’t go anywhere anyway, and it’s hard to keep him from shapeshifting at first, so we’re not really supposed to go out in public all that much for a month or so.”

“Oh,” I said lamely, as she rambled on and on.

“It’s almost dark, Saxon can come, maybe he can keep you out of the papers or something? Please Nicci, I just – I really want to talk to you.”

Why did this feel so weird? Just yesterday this same conversation had been easy and natural. Wasn’t it a normal thing to ask? But I felt so uncertain about it. I thought I should ask her, anyway – worst case scenario, she would make fun of me for being paranoid. “Hannah… is something wrong?”

“Yeah. I’m totally relying on my friends right now, I don’t have a lot of them you know?”

The way she answered – the ‘yeah’ and then a pause before the rest of it… “Is someone else with you right now?” I asked, feeling suspicious and worried.

“Yeah you’re right,” she said, then laughed a little fake laugh. “If you put it like that it seems so obvious.”

My heart beat harder, thinking she was a hostage – probably by Gideon or Vincent, maybe Rhiannon too – this was not good. “If you’re in trouble, I’ll come, but it’ll be a little while still. Are you going to be all right?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s fine,” she said. “Do what you have to do. But you’re coming later? For sure?”

“For sure,” I echoed, already back in the bedroom looking for clothes to wear. “Give me the address, or whatever you have to say.”

I didn’t bother writing down her response – somehow I felt I could remember. I wasn’t at all surprised that Saxon woke up as I was getting off the phone, because I was worried now and surely he felt it.

“What’s wrong baby?” He mumbled, sitting up in bed.

I didn’t say anything. I only thought about it. “Jesus,” he muttered, “one fucking day of peace would be amazing.”

“Is it dark enough for you to go out yet?” I pressed. “She said later was fine but I don’t know, she wasn’t herself, not at all…”

“Take a shower and it will be,” he replied, rubbing his eyes as he got out of bed.

“Are you serious?” He wanted me to pretend like it was a normal day?

He closed the distance between us, putting his hands on my arms. “Yes, very serious. Every time you’re upset, your sorcery goes nuts. You have to be focused, Nicci. Take a shower. If we’re going somewhere dangerous, let me feed from you, and then by the time we get there we should both be prepared.”

Why was he so logical at the weirdest times? “All right,” I relented. “Do you think it’s Vincent?”

“It’s probably Gideon,” he shrugged. “Middle of the day, besides, if it was Vincent, he’d be in her head – and you wouldn’t be able to tell she wasn’t acting like herself.”

The reality of that chilled me to the bone. “I’m scared,” I said softly, and he hugged me, hard.

“It’s going to be fine. You handled it right. We’ll go see what’s up. Hannah’s going to be fine.”

It was so wrong to hold a new mother hostage. All I could think was how another baby would be growing up without its mom if we screwed up. It was very hard to relax.

Saxon, still walking around in his boxers, with his hair sticking up from sleeping, seemed unusually calm about it. He fed from my throat and immediately soothed me. He was right about everything. But we had to assume it was a trap, and the reality of impending nightfall was a double-edged sword. Yeah, it meant Saxon could go with me, but it also meant other vampires were free to roam the streets.

I wanted to call Logan right away, but no matter how many times I tried, no one answered the house line or his cell phone. And we couldn’t afford to wait.