“I want to weep for that child. I want to thank her for her sacrifice, and promise her that we won’t let her down. But at the same time, I’m so damned angry at her. I hate knowing that she took on adult responsibilities—a husband, a baby—and bailed when things stopped being fun. I saw too much of that in the outside world.” Exhaling, she stared at her free hand, which had formed a fist. “And I hate that I’m seeing my father as a victim. I don’t know him, but I know the type.” She had counseled people like him over and over again, albeit mostly women. “I don’t . . . Shit, I don’t know. I hate being inconsistent when it comes to her, but I can’t seem to stop myself from pitying the girl I think of as Vennie while resenting the person who was my mother, when her only sin, really, is not matching up to the image in my head.” She glanced at Lucius, expecting him to look baffled—or worse, concerned for her mental health.
Instead, he nodded. “I get that, I think. It’s Nightkeeper versus human. On one hand, she was following the writs, putting the greater good ahead of her family, and you know you should respect her, maybe even celebrate her, for that sacrifice. But on the other hand, you’re the family she left behind, which has to hurt. What’s more, everything you’re being told now suggests that this wasn’t a onetime thing; it was another in a long line of grandstanding stunts, which devalues the whole family thing even further. But you know what?”
She met his eyes, feeling somehow chastised yet relieved. “None of it matters worth a damn, because knowing about the past doesn’t change who I am. I’m not my mother or father, and I’m not Shandi. I’m me.”
“That’s right. And you’re a strong, wonderful woman anyone should be proud to have as a daughter.
. . .”
If she hadn’t known him so well, she would’ve assumed he’d finished his thought. Because she did know him, though, she tipped her head. “And?” Say it. Tell me you’re proud to be with me, that there’s more here than just the sex magic.
But instead, he rose to his feet. “And I’m proud of you for the iceball stunt, regardless of the property damage.” He lifted a shoulder. “It looks like we both got what we wanted, doesn’t it?”
She tried to see past his guarded expression, but couldn’t. Or maybe there wasn’t anything more to see? For a moment, she was tempted to ask him point-blank where he saw the two of them going, whether it was more for him than magic and fringe benefits. But she didn’t dare. If he’d been the same man as before, she might have, but he was different now, more independent and far harder to read.
And what if he didn’t share her feelings? Skywatch was a small place, and her running to the university wasn’t an option anymore. Not with her talent starting to show itself. So instead of pushing him, or revealing herself, she nodded and found a faint smile. “Yeah. We got what we wanted.”
Something flashed across his expression, there and gone too quickly for her to parse. He said only, “Maybe I’ll see you later?”
Recognizing that “later” had become their shorthand for “are we still on for sex?” she nodded.
“Yeah. See you later.” But her throat tightened on the words. And when he was gone, she burrowed back into bed . . . and pulled the covers over her head.
Lucius stalked back to his cottage, telling himself he’d done the right thing. He’d wanted to prod her into reconciling—or at least trying to reconcile—with her winikin. What was more, he’d managed to keep the conversation away from their relationship, which had become a suddenly thorny problem, and in a way he never would’ve anticipated.
He’d sensed the shift in her the previous morning, had known when things had gone from lust-only to tenderness, from “that feels good” to “what are you feeling?” A year ago, maybe even a few months ago, that would’ve had him doing cartwheels through the busted-up great room. Now, though, he didn’t know what to do with it. Did he care about her? Absolutely. But the more time he spent around the mated mage pairs, and the more recent events had forced him to think about family ties, the more he realized that in the past he’d done crushes and affection, occasionally even loyalty, but not love.
He had loved his family growing up, he supposed, in a love-but-not-like sort of way. Or had that been coexistence rather than love? His older brothers had tormented him, his father had cheered them on, his older sisters had put bows in his hair, and his mother had pitted them all against one another in a subtle battle of passive aggression he hadn’t recognized as such until he was well away from the whole mess. He’d escaped to UT, floundered a bit, then eventually found his place with Anna. He’d leaned on her, idolized her, and thought for a time that he loved her. But his feelings for her, like the brief flashes of affection from his few lovers, which he’d taken too far, too fast with scant encouragement, hadn’t been the sort of bone-deep emotion that had spurred Vennie to sacrifice herself so her husband and child might live, or that had embittered Shandi so deeply that she’d carried the fear and resentment with her for decades. He’d never felt that way. More, he didn’t think he wanted to, because wasn’t it really another form of possession? He didn’t want to have to think of someone else; he was just starting to figure out how to think of himself.
That was why he’d ducked Jade’s almost-offer just now. Always before, she had guarded herself so carefully, protected herself so fiercely. The last thing he wanted was to peel those layers back to find the woman within . . . and realize he was incapable of letting himself be equally vulnerable to her.
He wanted her. But he didn’t want to be owned by her. And that was what love translated to, wasn’t it? Ownership.
They could be friends. They could be friends with benefits. They could even be lovers. But he wasn’t interested in falling in love, not anymore. And for a guy who had always thought he was someone who fell too easily, that was a hell of a thing to figure out. Especially when he and Jade were finally lovers. Things were changing too fast around him, inside him, for him to make any sort of commitment. At least, he hoped that was what had happened, because he hated to think he’d been chasing something half his life, only to figure out that once he had it, he didn’t really want it after all.
“In a different lifetime,” he murmured, but didn’t bother continuing, because in another lifetime he and Jade never would have met. And it was this lifetime that they needed to make matter, and not just for their own sakes. Which was why, instead of turning around and heading back to her room, as so much of him was tempted to do, he let himself into his cottage and locked the door behind him, not so much to keep anyone out, but as a symbol, to let himself know he was staying there.
Everything was just as he’d left it when the big boom from the mansion had interrupted him: a garbage-bag tarp was spread in front of the TV, waiting for him to man up and do what needed to be done. Sacrifice. There had to be magic inside him. He wouldn’t have gotten into the library without it, regardless of the sex or the new moon. It was in there somewhere. He just had to get it out. The magi needed Kinich Ahau. They needed the Triad. They needed more from him than he’d given them so far.
Flipping on the TV, he woke his laptop, which projected another of the images he’d been studying.
Similar to the one that had been on-screen the other night, this one showed a scene from the ritual ball game of the Maya, with masked, shielded players clustered around the ceremonial rubber ball that symbolized the sun. He hit the “back” arrow a couple of times, returning to the painting that had overseen his and Jade’s barrier transitions. He stared at the glyphs coming out of the musician’s conch-shell instrument, the ones that were supposed to be gibberish, but that Jade thought were something else.