Lie Down with Dogs (24 page)

I dropped my hand and glared at him. “We had sex, I fried you and you quit on me.”

Maybe later, if I worked up the nerve to be honest with myself, I could admit he was right. He hadn’t been all in. Not like me. I had known it was over, that it never really started, but I had a nasty habit of holding on the tightest to dreams I wished would come true the most.

“Something happened that night.” He drew in a shaky breath. “It terrified me.”

“You could have been killed,” I said softly. “It would terrify anyone.”

“No.” He shook his head. “It was my fault.
I
initiated the circuit. That’s why it’s one-sided.”

“What are you talking about?” I studied him. “Like a simultaneous feeding or something?”

He straightened and anchored his hands on his hips, head tilted back, staring at the ceiling. “You aren’t getting it. Maybe you don’t want to. Think about that night. Knowing what you do now, think about the harpies. You didn’t know about my condition until I came back, but think about it, Thierry.”

“Sex with me fried you. You freaked out and went hunting. We broke up and then you left.”
Oh crap.
“Except...if I fried you...then you couldn’t have fed.” Shaw having sex to stay in control, that I could believe. Might even forgive. Shaw having sex for the sake of having sex didn’t ring true. He would have known I might work past physical betrayal, but not an emotional affair. I rubbed my forehead. “But I saw you.”

“They charge by the hour,” he said. “They didn’t care what I wanted as long as they got paid.”

I flashed the IV piercing my hand at him. “Maybe it’s the drugs, but this sounds insane.”

He gripped the rail on either side of my hand. “You once accused me of being certain our relationship would fail.”

“I remember.”
Spectacularly
had been his response. “You also warned me you didn’t date.”

“You ignored the warnings.”

“I wanted you.”

“No.” His knuckles whitened. “Plenty of women have wanted me for what I am, and none of their faces haunted me like yours.” Metal groaned under his fingers. “I saw what my brother had with Jenna, and I knew what it cost him. He gave up his home, his family, everything to be with her. When Jenna disappeared, he lost it. If he hadn’t had those kids...”

“I’m sorry.” I said it even knowing
sorry
was a drop in a bucket of regret. “How did he...?”

“Feed?” The edge in his voice told me he knew mine wasn’t idle curiosity. I was searching for a way to save him, and he was well aware of it. “After our father disowned him, Ian and Jenna relocated to this isolated town populated by incubi and their compeers. After Jenna vanished, the townsfolk initiated the protocols Ian and Jenna had agreed to. They saved him, if you want to call it that.”

“Compeer?” That was a new one.

“It’s what incubi call their mates,” he admitted with a grim twist of his lips. “Groups like the one Ian joined cater to incubi who have mated humans for the most part. Humans are frail, and they only get more fragile with age. Jenna was born null. Too many generations between her and magic for any gift to manifest. She’s basically human.”

“Those few drops of fae blood might have been the tipping point in keeping her alive during her incarceration.” I had my doubts whether a full-blooded human could have survived.

“It makes no sense why Balamohan would have taken her, except that her weak fae blood made her easier for him to control. I think she might have been his touchstone.”

That was a new term for me too. “What does that mean?”

“Some fae, especially the older ones, take a human each decade as a kind of tutor. Usually, they release the touchstone after their ten years of servitude have passed. The practice is barbaric and non-consensual. It’s also difficult—if not impossible—to prevent. We just don’t monitor humans that way.” He paused to scrub a hand down his face. “Jenna didn’t have a cell like yours. Balamohan kept her like a pet, chained in his office except when he sent her out for supplies, which supports the idea she was his current touchstone. Maybe the Morrigan knew he honored the practice and ordered him to stop abducting humans at the risk of exposing her. His workaround might have been to take a touchstone with a few drops of fae blood, who also fit the Morrigan’s profile as a woman with death-touched fae in her family tree.”

“It makes sense.” I tilted my head. “What about those protocols you mentioned? The ones Jenna and Ian agreed to?”

He shifted his feet, and the pained expression on his face said he had hoped I wouldn’t ask. He ought to know better by now.

“The group discovered a means of keeping incubi alive after the inevitable passing of a mate.” He dragged his gaze to mine. “From what they explained to me when I went to help with Ian, groups like theirs offer one of two options to their members. You join and sign a waiver of your rights, allowing them to save you against your will, at any cost. Or you sign the equivalent of a DNR, and they step aside and let you end your life however you choose.”

I felt like an idiot for blurting, “That’s where you went.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” His half smile encouraged me. “Not if I wanted to survive. The treatments worked for several months, but I was sick all the time and couldn’t live that way any longer.”

I set down my cup before it slid from my hand. “Except you did have another choice.”

“I did,” he admitted. “But you wouldn’t have. You would have been chained to me for life.”

“We could have made it work.” A sharp edge crept into my voice.

“You would have made it work even if you didn’t want it to, because you’re stubborn, you don’t take no for an answer, and you can’t let someone you love hurt when you can help them.” He rubbed a finger across his brow like that might help jumpstart his brain. “I fell so hard for you, I couldn’t slam on the brakes fast enough to save myself. I couldn’t chain you to me when you were so young or when I was...”

“My first love.”

“Yes. That.” His grizzled tone raised hair on my arms. “You crawled inside my head and scrambled everything my father taught me about why loving one woman is unnatural.” Shaw looked up then. “Compeer is an insult. It’s a term incubi use for women addicted to the lure. It’s the same as a human calling a man’s wife his whore.”

My teeth clicked together. “It sounds like your brother was smart to get out when he did.”

“He was,” Shaw agreed without hesitation. “Can you understand why I didn’t want that?”

“Losing family is the worst thing I can imagine.” Mom was all I had. Losing her would kill me. If being together meant Shaw had to choose me over his family, I wouldn’t have picked me either. “I get it. Really. Your family is more important to you.”

“Thierry, it had nothing to do with me. Or them. I severed ties with my family after they exiled Ian.” Exasperation spiked his voice. “I didn’t want that for
you
.”

“You’re serious.” I felt my eyes stretch wider. “You orchestrated our breakup...for me?”

Man logic for the win.

“We aren’t fated mates.” His thumb stroked the edge of my palm. “We’re as
un
fated as it gets.”

“Free will is a beautiful thing.” No divine hand moving pawns on a chessboard for us. “This doesn’t make you the smartest incubus in the realm, but I guess it really does make you mine.”

His shocked expression was comical. “You’re okay with this.”

“Okay is a stretch.” A single conversation wouldn’t banish my stockpile of bruised feelings and insecurities. Not to mention I had one husband already, and I was
not
interested in starting my own Linen-style collection. What I could do was promise Shaw I would try. “
Okay
is what happens once the IV line stops pumping me full of happy juice, and I can sit on my own couch, inside of my own apartment, and digest all this.”

“I’ll get Mai.” He still looked dazed. “She’ll want to know you’re awake.”

He lifted my hand and brushed his lips across my knuckles before pulling away.

“Hey,” I called once he reached the door. “I wouldn’t mind if you sat on that couch beside me.”

The tender smile he flashed me set my heart somersaulting. “I’ll bring the ginger beer.”

––––––––

T
wo days later Dr. Row unhooked me from the IV pole and signed off on my discharge papers. Mai had offered to drive me from the medical ward to the marshal’s office, but I used puppy eyes on the doctor to get her to support my request to walk. Five blocks would work out the kinks in my legs and back, and the fresh air would flush out the antiseptic stinging my nose and the back of my throat.

It would also avoid the whole life-flashing-before-my-eyes thing Mai’s driving induced.

Mai passed me a bottle of water. “Tell me this isn’t about my driving.”

I tossed it in the air and caught it, flipping it end over end. “This isn’t about your driving.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to choose to believe you’re being sincere and not sarcastic.”

I nodded sagely. “You have chosen wisely.”

She thumped my ear. “Have you heard from Shaw?”

“Nope.” I fumbled the bottle. “Not since the day he dumped the whole
I lied about lying
thing in my lap.”

“You believe him.” It wasn’t a question.

“I do.” I huffed out an exhale. “I was so pissed off when he got back, and then Faerie happened. I feel like an idiot for not putting it together sooner. I should have seen the gaping holes in his story.”

“Yeah, well, don’t beat yourself up over it.” She hip bumped me. “I didn’t catch on either.”

“You were too busy leading the villagers’ pitchfork brigade.”

“No pitchforks were involved.” She spread her hands. “I’m more of a trial-by-flame-thrower kind of girl.”

I rolled my eyes and kept walking.

Her voice carried to me. “Shaw knew you had doubts or his plan wouldn’t have worked.”

My head swung toward her. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours.” She raised both her hands. “He should have told you the truth.”

“He hired hookers, Mai.” I shook my head. “Who does that?”

With a put-upon sigh, Mai caught up to me and pulled on her serious face. “As much as I hate to be the one waving the
Team Shaw
flag again, I have to say this. I might need to gargle after, but you need to hear it from someone who loves you and has better fashion sense.” Her face scrunched like it caused her physical pain to endorse Shaw. “He did you a favor by leaving. You got to learn your job and have a life outside of him, and you’re a stronger woman for it. You survived without him. You controlled your powers without him, and you earned a place with the marshals without standing in his shadow, Tee.”

“Dial it down, Mai.” I flushed beneath her praise. “I put one foot in front of the other, that’s it.”

“That’s it exactly.” Her dark eyes searched my face. “I know what he did for you in the caves. It wasn’t the first time either, was it? He expected it to happen. I see that now. There I was, urging you to suck Linen dry because I thought you healed faster the more you took. If Shaw hadn’t been there...” She bit her lip. “I get it now. I do. He grounds you. Feeding is like tossing back a lightning bolt for you, and he’s the surge protector. You guys fit. I got so used to hating him I forgot that part.”

Still wearing her
I stepped in cat poop
expression, Mai brushed past me.

I let that sink in before following her. “Is this your convoluted way of giving your blessing?”

“I...guess?” She held out her hand for the water. “All that
nice
tasted bad on the way up.”

I let her take a swig to rinse out her mouth before reminding her, “You used to like him.”

She spat onto the pavement. “I did.”

“Do you think you could like him again?” I kept the question neutral. “Forgive him?”

“Forgiveness is hard,” she admitted. “How are you doing in that department?”

I rolled my shoulders. “I might have an answer for you if he hadn’t pulled a Houdini on me.”

“Our magistrates are partnering with the Southeastern Conclave until this matter is resolved. They loaned out several of our marshals to aid in the rescue. Our office is flooded. I was pulled off my usual job and given a share of the psychological evaluations to process for victims who were assigned to our office.” She took another drink. “I haven’t seen Shaw either. That could be because he wasn’t around to be seen.” She polished off the half-empty water. “Chaos.” She tossed it in a trash bin. “It reigns.”

“Wait.” That made no sense. “We’re helping the Florida outpost process those cases? What about Georgia or Alabama?”

Ours was the nearest division, yeah, but there were several closer outposts.

“Um, about that.” She made a zipping motion across her lips. “I can’t say more than I already have.”

“With one Texas marshal involved and another one breaking the case...” I cut my eyes her way.

“Puppy eyes only work on the weak. I’ve built up immunity.” Smacking my back hard with her open palm, she shoved me stumbling forward. “Besides,
I
was there too. Remember?”

“That surprised me almost as much as being rescued,” I teased.

“Hey, I might have washed out of the marshal academy, but I had perfect attendance. I know the theory. Shaw unleashed his hunger, and there was no way I was letting him come after you without me—” she coughed the words
and a silver dagger
, “—to make sure he didn’t slurp you like a juice box.”

When the marshal office came into view, I threw on the brakes and tripped over my own feet. A petite woman with silver hair wearing oversized shades, a red skort set and navy flip-flops waved.

“That woman looks a whole lot like my mother.” Panic trembled in my voice. “Mai?”

“Shaw gave you twenty-four hours. It’s been forty-eight, and you still haven’t called her.”

I spun around and spluttered, but nothing intelligible came out.

Mai took one look at my face—and my slack-jawed, bug-eyed expression—and sprinted for the relative safety of the office like her life depended on it.

“It had to be done for your own good,” she called over her shoulder as she ran.