Dearest Virgin Scribe… she was in love with him.
She had fallen in love with this male.
When had it happened?
“Autumn.” His voice grew more forceful. “What’s going on?”
The “when” couldn’t be pinned down, she decided. The shift had occurred millimeter by millimeter, the engine of change driven by exchanges between them both big and small… until, similar to the way the lovely night fell and laid claim to the landscape of the earth, what began as imperceptible culminated in the undeniable.
He bolted up to his feet. “I’ll get Doc Jane—”
“No,” she said, holding out her hand. “I am fine. Just tired, and satiated from the food.”
For a moment, he gave her his strawberry look, that discerning eye of his narrowing and locking on.
Clearly she passed muster, however, as he sank back down.
Forcing a smile to her lips, she motioned to the second tray, the one that still had the silver covers over its dishes. “You should eat now. In fact, perhaps we should get you some fresh food.”
He shrugged. “This is fine.”
He popped the berries that hadn’t been good enough for her into his mouth as he revealed his dinner, and then ate everything that had been left behind on her tray as well as all that was on his own.
His attention diverted was a good thing.
When he was finished with his meal, and the remains of her own, he took the trays and the stands and put them outside in the hall.
“I’ll be right back.”
With that, he disappeared into the bathroom, and soon the sound of running water drifted out to her.
Curling onto her side, she stared at the closed drapes.
The lights went out and then his quiet padding came across the carpet. There was a pause before he got upon the bed—and for a moment, she worried that he had read her mind. But then she felt a cooling breeze against her and realized he’d lifted the covers. For the first time.
“Okay if I join you?”
Abruptly, she blinked back tears. “Please.”
The mattress dipped down and then his naked body came over against her own. As he gathered her in his arms, she went willingly and with surprise into him.
That odd, ambient chill went through her again, bringing with it a sense of foreboding. But then she was warm, even hot… from his flesh against her own.
He must never know, she thought as she closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest.
He must never, ever know what beat within her heart for him.
It would ruin everything.
Winter
FIFTY-THREE
As Lassiter sat at the base of the grand staircase, he stared upward at the painted ceiling some three floors above him. Within the depiction of warriors astride stallions, he searched the painted clouds and found the image he was looking for, but did not want to see.
Wellsie was ever farther back in the landscape, her form even more compact as she huddled into herself in that field of gray boulders.
In truth, he was losing hope. Soon she would be so far off into the distance that they wouldn’t be able to see her at all. And that was when it was over: she was done, he was done… Tohr was done.
He’d thought No’One was the answer. And, you know, back in the early fall, he had gotten psyched that all was resolved. The night after Tohr had finally bedded that female good and proper, she had arrived at the dining table without her hood or that awful robe on: She had been in a dress, a cornflower blue dress that was too big for her and lovely nonetheless, and her hair had been loose around her shoulders, a cascade of blond.
The pair of them had had an accord that came only after two people banged the crap out of each other for hours.
He’d repacked his clothes at that point. Hung around his room. Paced for hours, waiting to be summoned by the Maker.
When the sun had set again, he’d chalked it up to administrative delay. When the sun had risen once more, he’d started to get worried.
Then, he’d become resigned.
Now, he was in panic mode.…
Sitting on his ass, staring up at the figment of a dead female, he found himself wondering the same thing Tohr had so very often.
What more did the Creator want out of this?
“What are you looking for?”
As a deep voice interrupted him, he glanced across at the male in question. Tohrment had obviously come out from the hidden door underneath the staircase: He was dressed in black running shorts and a muscle shirt, and had sweat slicking his skin and dark hair.
Aside from the postworkout drips, the guy looked great. But that was what happened to ’em when they were well fed, well fucked, and unharmed.
The Brother lost some of that hale-and-hearty as their eyes met, however. Which suggested that he had the same worry just below his surface, lingering always, a chronic concern.
Tohr came over and sat down, toweling off his face. “Talk to me.”
“You getting any more dreams about her?” No reason to proper-name the “her.” Between the two of them, there was only one female who mattered.
“Last was a week ago.”
“How’d she look.” As if he didn’t already know. He was frickin’ staring at her right now.
“Farther away.” Tohr took the towel from around his neck and stretched it taut between his fists. “You sure that maybe she isn’t just fading into the Fade.”
“She look happy to you.”
“No.”
“That’s your answer.”
“I’m doing everything I can.”
Lassiter glanced over and nodded. “I know you are. I totally know you are.”
“So you’re worried, too.”
No reason to answer that one.
In silence, the pair of them sat hip-to-hip, arms dangling off their knees, the metaphorical brick wall they were standing in front of blocking any horizon.
“Can I be honest with you?” the Brother said.
“Might as well be.”
“I’m terrified. I don’t know what I’m missing here.” He rubbed the towel over his face again. “I don’t sleep much, and I can’t decide whether that’s because I’m scared of what I’ll see—or what I won’t see. I don’t know how she’s holding on.”
The short answer was that she wasn’t.
“I talk to her,” Tohr murmured. “When Autumn is asleep, I sit up in bed and stare into the dark. I tell her…”
When the guy’s voice cracked, Lassiter wanted to scream—and not because he thought Tohr was being a pussy. More like it hurt that badly to hear the agony in that voice.
Shit, sometime in the last year he must have developed a conscience or something.
“I tell her that I still love her, that I’ll always love her, but that I’ve done what I can to… well, not fill her void, because no one can do that. But at least try to live some kind of a life…”
As the male continued to speak in soft, sad tones, Lassiter was struck with a sudden terror that he’d led the guy wrong in some way, that he’d… shit, he didn’t know. Fucked this up, made a bad call, sent this poor, sorry bastard in a wrong direction.
He reviewed everything he knew about the situation, starting from the ground floor, building the logic tier by tier, reconstructing where they were.
He could find no faults, no missteps. They had both done the best they could.
In the end, it appeared that was the only solace he could take—and didn’t that just suck ass. The idea he might have even inadvertently harmed this male of worth was so much worse than his version of purgatory.
He should never have agreed to this.
“Fuck,” he breathed as he closed his aching eyes. They had come so far, but it was as if they were chasing a moving target. The faster they ran, the farther they traveled, the farther away the end seemed to become.
“I’ve just got to try harder,” Tohr said. “That’s the only answer. I don’t know what else I can do, but I’ve got to go deeper somehow.”