Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [18]
You’re an idiot, Andri, you know that? The after-image of her face was burned into his soul. You could have said something useful. You could have made some kind of beginning. Though the fragile appeal of her was new to him, he was no stranger to games of attraction. If this had happened in the days before, he would have had her address by now and probably a tentative date as well. Had this project so unmanned him that he couldn’t even manage that?
Good God. He laughed bitterly, mirthlessly; the sound devolved into coughing. I don’t even know her name.
It was just as well. What did he have to offer a woman, anyway? Restless, distracted days. Bitter, frustrating nights. No, he had better reserve his attention for the whores who asked for nothing but money, and opportunistic wenches who could be purchased with gifts and small talk. That was his venue now, the comfort and prison of his new existence. Better stick to it.
God, those eyes....
With effort he pushed himself away from the wall and began the long walk back to his hotel. It was just as well, he told himself. Women like that usually had a man already, and if they didn‘t, there was probably a good reason for it. He had enough problems of his own to deal with, didn’t he?
He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself, cold despite the warmth of the city streets. The pills would help him. Little black pills. They were waiting on his dresser, a kiss of velvet oblivion. Under their influence he could forget it all for an hour, an evening, an eternity. The pain. The confusion. The fear.
And the girl.
Trembling, he hurried back to the hotel.
For a long, long time after Andrys Tarrant left, Narilka stared at the door in silence. Her heart had been pounding all the time he had been there; only now, with him safely gone, did it resume its normal beat. Only now could she begin to breathe normally, as if nothing whatsoever were wrong.
That face. So familiar. Those eyes... she could picture them cast in a paler hue (silver, cracked silver, the color of ice and sunlight) and that was enough to transform them, because in all other ways—in shape, in expression—they were the same as his. Just as this man’s hair was the same (golden brown, fine as silk), only Andrys Tarrant had trimmed his in a stylish cut, indisputably modem, while the other had let his grow to the shoulder. And so it was with so many other features: token differences, superficial, which only served to highlight the uncanny, unnerving resemblance between the two men.
The Hunter.
She remembered him from the Forest, that terrible, fear-filled night. Remembered his eyes burning black with hunger, his power so chill and fierce that it froze the very air in her lungs as she drew in a breath to scream. Not a man but a demon—a cold, cruel god—whose eyes were doorways into another world, a world of such terrible alien beauty that even as he threatened to devour her, even as the fire of her life flickered weakly before him, about to be extinguished, she longed to be drawn into his private night forever. Mystical, magical, secretive night. Violet light and unearthly music and tides of fae so subtle that the roar of a single breath would drown them out....
And now there was Andrys Tarrant. Here. In her world. Alive in a way the Hunter was not, solid and real in a way he could never be. Capable of living and loving with a human heat—
Gods. She shut her eyes and tried to focus on something else. Anything else. That’s not a healthy reason to want a man and you know it. She had enough trouble with men already without asking for more, didn’t she? The type of man who was attracted to her was usually looking for a victim, not a lover, and she had fended off enough of that kind to last her a lifetime. The last thing she needed now was another bad relationship.
But his haunted eyes (green, not gray, and so alive!) stayed with her for hours, and the memory of his presence was still warm in her flesh when she finally closed up the shop for the night.
Three
The Hunter flew west