“Then you being alone with her—”
“We’ll be safe on the boat once we’re beyond reach of shore. We won’t be carrying any tenebrae evil with us.”
Archer’s jaw worked. “Still, the isolation . . .”
“I suspect you’ll be taking some time with Sera.”
The other talya shrugged. “I see your point. But what about your arms?”
“Maybe I won’t wring her neck.”
With a hint of a smile, Archer said, “Then you’re a stronger man than I.”
In the pre-predawn stillness, the glassy water reflected the marina lights like a second world—dark and perfect. To sink beneath would upset the flawless skin.
Jonah dragged his gaze off the mysterious depths and gave Archer the code to get through the locked gate. He followed Archer, who held Nim in his arms, to the Shades of Gray. As Archer descended into the cabin, Jonah fired up the motors.
Archer returned a moment later. “I put her in the bunk. How are you going to—Oh.” He watched Jonah slip out of the bandage around his half arm and work the throttle with the end of his stump. “The teshuva’s gotten to work on the bone already?”
“Enough,” Jonah answered tersely. He figured the other man would understand what remained unsaid. He tried to force down the heat in his face. He never used the ugly knob of flesh where someone might see. “Although I’d appreciate if you cast off.”
“ ‘Go away’ is what you mean,” Archer said. “Don’t worry. No wise-old-man advice before I leave. I obviously suck.”
Jonah’s lips quirked. “Try that tack with Sera, and she might actually apologize to you.”
Archer snorted. “Check in when Nim wakes. When you bring her back, we’ll be onshore to make sure it’s safe.”
And if it wasn’t? For the briefest moment, Jonah thought of leaving the city behind, setting south for the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, or heading north to find the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Atlantic. A new adventure. One where he never set foot to land again.
Would Nim trade her stilettos for flip-flops?
He waited until Archer recoiled his lines and stood ready to jump to shore.
“Whatever happens,” Jonah said, “it’s too late to let her go.”
The boat was drifting, and he knew the other talya wanted to return to his mate, but Archer hesitated. “Too late for whom?” With the help of his demon, Archer launched himself to the dock. He turned and lifted his hand in a wry salute. Jonah answered with his stump, and Archer shook his head.
Jonah turned away and set his course.
CHAPTER 18
She came awake with her pulse racing in a disorienting double beat. Where was she, with this creak of wood and humid tang? Had she passed out in the bathroom with the sink faucet running again? That time, she’d roused with tap water halfway up her nose, which taught her to always pass out in bed. Now she was naked—that part she was used to—but she was wrapped in a bedsheet with a striped pattern she didn’t recognize. She sat up and hit her head on a ceiling that was much too low.
A boat. She took a calming breath and caught the scent that settled her heartbeat into a single, steady beat. Jonah’s boat.
She slumped back and hit her head on the wall behind her.
Jonah peered down through the open hatch, silhouetted against the bright sky behind him, his bare toes curled around the upper step. With his appearance, the scent of sun and water strengthened. “I thought I heard you moving around.”
“What . . . ?” Her voice cracked.
He stepped down into the cabin, and she forgot for a moment what she was going to ask. Had the missionary man been left behind? Here, instead, was the adventurer. Bare chested, with his sandy hair tousled by the wind, he looked like some dashing, carefree sailor, too cavalier to bother with piracy.
He rummaged through the mini fridge and returned with a can of lemonade. But he couldn’t hold it out because his good arm was strapped to his chest.
She sat up again, clutching the sheet to her chest. At least she remembered not to bonk her head this time. “You fell!”
“I got up again.” He ducked to sit down on the berth beside her.
“We both did.” She took the can, then extended her other hand out in front of her. Narrow white scars crisscrossed her palm, almost invisible except where the light hit just right. “I couldn’t make it let go.” Her words caught again in her throat.
“Drink. You need the sugar.”
“Got vodka to go with it?”
“Your head doesn’t hurt enough?”
She grimaced and touched her hair. The dreads were bound into one thick snarl where the feralis had grabbed hold. She popped the tab on the can and took a long swallow. The tart sweetness tasted like heaven. “Why are we out here?”
His hesitation was so minor, she almost missed it. “You need quiet to recover.” When she narrowed her eyes, he sighed and added, “By quiet, I mean no more hordes of tenebrae.”
Her fingers dented the can. “They’re still out there?”
“Maybe. Somewhere.” He hesitated again, longer this time. “I tried calling Archer for news, but we’re getting some etheric interference.” She took a breath, and he interrupted. “Don’t worry about the tenebrae. They might be out there, but we’re even farther out here.”
“If the demons can’t get to us, what’s interfering with your cell phone?” He didn’t answer, and she said flatly, “Me.”
He shrugged, awkward with the bandage.
“God, I almost killed you, Jonah. You should’ve thrown me over the rail while I was out.”
He tugged again at the constricting gauze. “You make it sound so easy with no hands. Plus, you woke up for a bit a while ago. Don’t you remember?”
She tipped her head against the wall. As if she’d knocked the memory loose, she vaguely recalled the weight of him beside her on the bed, the whisper of his breath against her cheek. No groping hands, though. Now she knew why. “You said everything was okay.”
“Since you weren’t unconscious anymore, I even believed it.”
How could he say that with even his good arm bound tight? She rolled her head against the wall to look at him. “I don’t remember how you got us out alive.”
“Don’t thank me. Our league brothers arrived to save the day just as we got free from the feralis.” He grimaced. “And by ‘free,’ I mean ‘plummeted to our uncertain death.’ That was thanks to me.”
The note of bitter self-censure in his voice made her wince. “Better a free and uncertain death than what that feralis had planned. I think it wanted my scalp for its collection.” She rubbed at her temple. “I remember falling, but not landing.”
“No doubt you knocked the teshuva offline for a moment when you hit the ground.”
“And now I’m back, broadcasting on all channels, calling all demons,” she said. “Maybe if you hit me in the head a few more times, we could change stations.”
“From bad to worse. That’s what happened to Corvus. We thought he died in a fight last winter, but he came back, his human half crippled and his djinni less inhibited than ever.”
She snorted. “Who would’ve thought humans could have a mitigating influence on evil.”
“And on good too.” He leaned back next to her. “Cyril Fane’s angel would have cast us back from whence we came, with extreme prejudice. Fane himself didn’t want to get guts spattered on his pretty car.”
Nim looked down at the can in her hand, twisting the tab in a circle until it broke off. “You haven’t yelled at me for that yet.”