Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [102]
“He won’t hurt me,” she said quietly. “So don’t push me away from you for my own protection. If you don’t want me, that’s something else ... but don’t do it because of that.”
He brought up a hand to the side of her face; the touch brought back memories so powerful that she had to take a step back to the wall of a building behind her, for support. “I want you,” he whispered, and he moved closer to her. Pressing her back against the coarse brick as he kissed her, his entire soul focused upon the act. It wasn’t a gentle kiss, like last time, but something hard and desperate and hungry. It was fear and loneliness and desire all wrapped up together, and when he finally drew back from her she could feel herself shaking from the force of it, and from the heat of response in her own body.
“You’re making a big mistake,” he warned her. Running a finger down the line of her throat. She trembled as he touched her, and wondered just what she was getting herself into.
“Maybe,” she whispered. She was dimly aware of a couple walking by them, muttering in low tones of their disapproval of such a public display. The fruit vendor was still watching. “I’ll try to learn from it, all right? So I can do better the next time.”
Then he kissed her again, and this time there were no passersby. No street vendors. No Hunter. No anything.
Only him.
Twenty-one
Tarrant lay on a velvet couch in the basement of Karril’s temple, not breathing. His torn silk clothing had been replaced by a heavy robe, rich and plush and festooned with embroidery. Somehow it made him seem that much paler, that much more fragile, to be in such an overdecorated garment. His eyes were shut and his brow slightly drawn, as if in tension, but that was the only sign of life about him. That, and the fact that his hands grasped the sides of the couch as if fearing separation from it.
The scar still cut across his face, an ugly wound made uglier still by the aesthetic perfection which surrounded it. No other wound had remained on his body but that one. He had healed even as Damien had healed, the marks of imprisonment and torture fading from their flesh as they wended their way back to the world of the living. All except that one.
“I had blood brought for him,” Karril told Damien. “and I think he drank enough to keep him going. If he needs more, I can get it. Don’t offer him yours.”
“Why? Is there some special danger in that?”
The demon looked sharply at him. “War’s been declared, you know. Maybe not in words as such, but it’s no less real for all that. Keep your strength up, and your guard. You’ll need them both.” He reached down to Tarrant’s face and laid a hand against his forehead. “He’ll wake up soon, I think. I’ll leave you two alone to talk about ... whatever.”
“There’s no need for that.”
“Maybe not for you, Reverend. But for me?” He sighed. “I’ve broken so many rules it’s a wonder I’m still here to talk about them. Let’s leave it at that, all right? From here on you’re on your own. I’ve taken on enough risks these last few days to last me a lifetime.”
With a nod of leavetaking he turned away, and started toward the stairs.
“Karril.” He drew in a deep breath. “Thank you.”
The demon stopped. He didn’t turn back. It seemed from his posture that the words had shaken him.
“He was a friend,” he said at last. “I wish I could do more.”
His velvet robe brushing the stairs as he ascended, he exited the cellar and shut the heavy door behind him. The silence he left behind was thick and heavy, and Damien breathed in deeply, trying to ignore its ominous weight. On all sides of him, racks of bottles rose from floor to ceiling, punctuated by ironbound casks and small wooden crates. He hadn’t asked what the latter were for. He didn’t want to know. It was bad enough taking shelter in the cellar of a pagan temple, without also implying approval of its contents.
There was nowhere else to go, he explained silently. To Tarrant, to the Patriarch, to himself. Nowhere else we could be safe, for the hours it would take him to recover.
Hell. There was a time when even that argument