Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [107]
Sergei must have heard the despairing tone in her voice, because he put his own mug down on the counter and reached for both of her hands, holding them between his and looking her intently in the eyes.
“They will give up. Eventually. We just have to…hold firm against them. I’ve told them no for so many years now—the two of us should be able to shut them down once and for all.”
He sounded less than convinced, or convincing, but Wren couldn’t work up the energy to challenge him on it. Easier to pretend. “Damn straight. And you should have thought of that before you kept secrets. Damn it, Sergei…” She pulled her hands free, paced around the confines of the kitchen, which took her all of five steps. She ended up facing her partner again, who stood so still she could tell that he was keeping himself on tight rein, not wanting to say or do the wrong thing.
“God, we so don’t have time for this right now.” Too much else going on, things maybe she really did need to tell Sergei about. She slid her hand back into his, this time lacing their fingers together and pulling him in close. When he was within satisfactory range, she reached up to touch the end of his aquiline nose with the tip of the index finger of her other hand. “I know what you’re scared of, partner. And so do they. So listen up, and listen good. You’re mine, stupid actions and overprotectiveness and the entire deal. What you said the other night…it goes for this end too, okay? You’re stuck with me, got it? So they can go as big bad wolf as they want and it won’t do them any good. Right?”
He swallowed hard, his gaze meeting hers like a physical impact. “Right.”
“Right,” she echoed softly. Okay, breathe, Valere. Breathe! And then let go of fingers, let go of partner, step away…and breathe!
But she couldn’t seem to let go of his hand. It was too warm, too firm, too…right. And the look in his eyes was making promises she hadn’t heard…or given…yet.
“So,” he said finally, an ironic, self-aware, self-mocking smile turning his lips at the corners. “Did you make any headway on figuring out how to force the ghost back into the stone?”
“Yeah.” Speaking seemed to release her muscles; she slid her fingers out from his and took a step back, turning to reclaim her now-cooled coffee. “Lemme show you.”
She led the way back to the office. It was the same as it ever had been. The same as it was just a day before, a week before.
And it wasn’t. At all.
Wren wasn’t sure she liked this new awareness; the feel of him a step behind her, the same emotional sense of him, but now coupled with a physical location. She’d always thought of him as a man, as an attractive man, as, hell yes as a sexy man.
But now he was…
Hers.
She thought about that for a while, as she sat down in front of the computer, and smiled, an expression disturbingly similar to the one on Sergei’s face earlier.
Yeah. She could live with that.
“Okay, here’s the deal. It all depends on how they actually got him into the cornerstone in the first place. If he was willing or not, I mean. Also how they actually did it, but intent is really key.”
Sergei leaned over her to look at the screen, his hand on the back of her chair. A part of her brain noticed, but the rest was focused on what she was explaining to him.
Partners, she thought. First and foremost. Anything else—if there really was anything else—is gonna have to wait.
nineteen
The last of the rain had moved out into the ocean overnight. Wren woke to discover that Sergei had, at some point,