Chapter Seven

USUALLY, RAVI ONLY takes runs in the morning, but even after his bi-monthly bouts at the fencing club, he’s still left with a tangled knot of restlessness and exhaustion lodged under his skin. Every night since Manhattan, his dreams have only gotten worse. His sleeping mind kept imagining how much worse things could have gone there, maybe had gone in another timeline, maybe would still go if Cayenne decided to turn back time and undo everything. And then inevitably his dreams shift, warping into memories of want denied and desires fulfilled, a hot tongue running over his collarbone and elegant hands pushing apart his thighs.

So here he is, running a few more high intensity intervals in the early October evening, at the park nearest his apartment, trying to overwork both his body and brain and tire himself out enough to sleep.

It’s nearly sundown by the time he walks back to cool down, using the long sleeve of his compression shirt to wipe his brow, legs pleasantly twitchy from exertion. The route is quiet today, not as many fellow joggers as usual, and only a few spandexed bicyclists. Ravi slows down to admire a new graffitied mural that wraps around the side of a closed coffee shop and into the narrow alley lane. Atlanta has a vibrant street art scene, and a few local artists use this block as their regular canvas. Ravi’s annoyed to see that someone has tagged over part of the mural, obscuring the design with jagged, hastily done lettering. Then he freezes in his tracks, heartbeat running wild and unchecked.

Your Monsoon has been spray painted on the corner of the coffee shop in bright purple letters half his height over the existing graffiti.

Ravi’s eyes dart, checking his six. After a few minutes of no movement but the usual passage of cars and the occasional unconcerned pedestrian, he sidesteps toward the alley, his pulse galloping. He peers around the corner, ducks back, peeks a second time. No movement. There is an odd faint light a few dozen yards down the brick-lined alley.

On the opposite corner, next to Monsoon, a simple arrow points further into the alley.

Ravi follows the arrow.

The thought occurs to call one of his teammates to back him up; he doesn’t. A second thought insists he should arm himself first before going in; he doesn’t. The third thought yells, what the fuck are you doing, this is a trap, this is bait, be smart for once in your fucking life, keep your shit on lockdown, kid.

He ignores it.

The source of the odd light is from a lit candle in a hurricane glass set at the edge of a small chalk circle. Pocket watches have been placed along the chalk. On the wall above the circle, a scrawl of violet paint reads: Please? I’ll be good.

Ravi isn’t sure how long he stands there, frozen in indecision. Maybe minutes, maybe hours.

He steps in.

After blinking back the nausea, Ravi spins around in a tight, guarded stance. He’s alone in a small living room, the furniture modular and suited for compact spaces, more European in design than he’s used to seeing in Atlanta. In place of the alley, a full window faces out onto the street. It’s still evening, and Ravi can see over the nearby rooftops that the skyline has been redrawn with new shapes, more crowded with unfamiliar buildings. More lights, more ads, the quick dart of flying drones.

He’s in the future.

A gasp jolts him out of his wonderment, the sound of indrawn breath achingly familiar. Cayenne dashes into the room, hastily raking their hair into place. As soon as they see Ravi they skid to a halt, green eyes round and wild. They exhale shakily, taking an abortive half-step toward him.

“Ravi,” they say, shading his name with a million unsaid meanings.

He didn’t expect to feel like this. Like no time had passed since that night on Harry’s roof.

“Cayenne.” He swipes his tongue over dry lips. “What do you want?”

They try on a hesitant, uneven smile, the shape not quite fitting on their face. “You visited me, sweetheart. I should be asking what you want.”

That’s what got Ravi in trouble in the first place, thinking that what he wants matters. He keeps his face impassive, arms crossing over his chest. “I want to know why I’m here.”

“My little circle was only an invitation, mon chéri. You’d know better than I why you accepted. I suppose…curiosity?” They sidle a little closer, smile fitting better now, more genuine. “You know what they say about le pauvre petit chat.”

“But satisfaction brought it back.”

“Quoi?”

“Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. Everyone forgets that part of the idiom.”

“I suppose it holds true enough if you have nine lives. Most of us only get the one, oui?” Their smile fades, and the naked, open sorrow on their face hits Ravi like a sudden slap. “Ravi…I am so, so sorry.”

He shakes his head, breath coming harsh and fast. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“But I…” They run a hand over their face, looking as tired as Ravi feels. “Guilt. Regret. Remorse. How does anyone live with those terrible things inside of them?” They press their hands over their chest, then pull them back as if expecting their palms to be filled with blood. They look lost, vulnerable.

Ravi looks away and swallows hard. “You once told me it’s surprising what you can live with.” More meaningful now, knowing Cayenne used to be a hired killer for a syndicate of supernatural criminals.

“No doubt this will shock you, but past-me is an idiot.” With a self-deprecating laugh they run a hand through their hair, rumpling it into a fetching mop. “This is true no matter if we’re talking about me ten years ago or me ten minutes ago.”

They smile, open and yearning and sincere, and it’s bait, Ravi knows it’s bait, but the knowledge doesn’t help. He aches to return the smile, to set a hand to their cheek. To let his hands relearn the curve of their spine, trace the folds of their ear with his lips, to feel their skin flushed and wanting against him…

“Why are we here?”

“I…I just wanted to know that you are okay, mon amour.” Cayenne wraps their arms around themself, a half-done embrace, looking up with beseeching eyes. “I needed to see you.”

Ravi keeps his arms crossed over his chest, as if that could be any kind of shield against them. Usually, monsters have a weakness hunters can exploit to take them down: silver, or salt, or a particular type of magic, all kinds of things. For Ravi, everything about Cayenne is a weapon; their magic, their soft words, even the way they stand there separate and apart and alone, so easy to want to comfort—all his weaknesses honed into one beautiful strike.

He takes several steadying breaths. “The only reason I came is because I want you to stop. The things you’ve been doing, you’ve…you’ve been making my work harder.” They almost collapsed an entire branch full of agents, and it’s far easier to swallow his pride when others’ lives are on the line, when more still may be endangered. “Please, Cayenne.”

Their head tips to the side in mild interest. “The things I’ve been doing? What things are those, mon trésor?”

He scoffs. “I’m not falling for that again.” Back on Harry’s rooftop, he’d caused Isabella Cattano’s skiing accident by telling Cayenne about a personal grievance against her. They’d taken umbrage enough to exact revenge on his behalf. Ravi’s fault. “I’m done giving you ammunition to use against me.”

Cayenne groans loudly. “It’s not against you, Ravi, I’d never hurt you. It’s against those fucking monsters you work for. Why can’t you understand this?”

“Because they’re not monsters, Cayenne, they’re people. And yes, people are—”

“Flawed, oui, and people make mistakes, but guided on the right path, etcetera, etcetera, I know, darling, but if you would just listen—”

Body outrunning his sense, Ravi snakes forward and grabs their wrist in his hand. They gasp and go still, looking up at him with mingled hope and wariness.

“You’re rewinding this,” Ravi hisses. Their impatience is a dead giveaway.

Dropping some of their wounded pose, Cayenne lifts their chin, pulse throbbing under his fingertips. “Let go of me.”

“Not if you’re going to keep doubling back.” He feels ill, and not just from the jump forward in time. “You can’t keep doing this to me,” he says, voice breaking. “How many times have we had this talk?”

They jerk their wrist, though not hard enough to break his grip. With all their lethal capoeira moves, they easily could if they truly wanted to get loose, so this too is just another ploy. Fuck, he’s so easy to manipulate. He wants to kick himself. “Just stop, Cayenne.”

“You can’t make me do anything, ravageur,” Cayenne goads with a sneer. Their pulse has gone jackrabbit quick under his fingers, and they’re breathing hard, eyes flashing like bright leaves in moonlight.

“Obviously,” Ravi grits through his teeth. “If I could, I’d make you get out of my life.”

Cayenne rears back as if he had struck them, blinking against tears. He feels like the lowest kind of worm. “You are my life, Ravi. Everything I do, I’m doing for you, my love.” Arm going lax under his grip, they move close enough for their scent to fill his nostrils, that same warm, spicy cologne he’s had dreams about hitting harder than Val’s hammer. “If you’d just trust me, you’d be so much happier.”

Ravi’s throat dries out, and his own voice sounds as muted as if it’s coming up from miles underground. “I did trust you. And even if I could forgive you for…” He can’t bring himself to say it, can’t even think the words, for a single heartbeat can’t see anything but ashes floating on water. “But you lied to me. The whole time, you knew. You knew I’d find out, and you chose to—” He gasps for air. “I let…I let you see parts of myself that I’ve never shown anyone before. I trusted you.”

“More the fool, you, my love. I told you not to, didn’t I?”

“So, it’s my fault? That I didn’t listen?”

They bite down on their lip, looking up through lowered lashes. “I wish you’d just hit me, already.”

Recoiling, Ravi stares in disbelief. “What?”

“You’ll feel better,” Cayenne remarks as lightly as if commenting on the weather. “I’ll feel better too, I must admit, sweetheart. A little well-deserved punishment, no?” They wink, leaning in close enough that he can feel the heat of their body, hear the slide of tongue over lips. “I want you to, darling. Can you be a good boy and do that for me?” The low, sultry croon hits him hard below the belt.

Shocked and stung, Ravi drops their arm and steps away. “You…you can’t talk to me like that anymore.” He drags the back of his hand across his mouth, shaking. “I don’t want to hit you. You…still think I’m just some thug in a suit? You know me, know how I was raised, and you think I’d want…”

Cayenne closes the distance until they are inches away. Their tattooed hand on his chest, slender fingers set right over the claw-shaped scars hidden under his shirt. Their eyes bore into him, deep, searching, sincere.

“I do know you, Ravi. I know you. I see you. And you know me, my love.” They snatch up his hand and place it over their own heart. It thrums wildly under his clammy palm. “Nobody is ever going to know either of us the way we know each other, Ravi. Nobody can give you what I can. Please. Come back to me. I’ll make it all up to you.”

Ravi’s arm is numb and won’t respond as he tries to pull it back. His feet are locked in place, made of stone. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

In a slow glide, Cayenne runs both hands up Ravi’s shoulders. It might as well be some kind of magic, the way the sensation saps away his strength. He’s got nothing in him, can’t move, can’t push them away. He can barely breathe.

Cayenne licks their lips, their mouth red. “My beautiful boy. I can say I’m sorry a hundred times, but it won’t ever change what I did. What if I tell you something else instead, hm? Say that a hundred times? I will, mon cher.” They lace their fingers behind his neck, trapping him in place, and he shivers as their breath gusts hot across his throat. “I love you.”

“Stop,” he whispers, no louder than an autumn leaf skittering over the ground.

“I love you, Ravi.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Liar.” Their smile is a slow curling thing of soft lips and sharp teeth, a hairsbreadth from his throat, close enough to bite, as the words spill across his jugular; “I love you; je t’aime; ti amo; main tumse pyaar—”

Ravi buries his fists in their hair and grinds their mouths together, more attack than kiss, a desperate bid to stop the unbearable tumble of endearments.

Cayenne gasps into Ravi’s mouth, familiar and sweet, and he feels truly awake for the first time in weeks.

“There we go,” they hiss against his tongue, triumphant. Their teeth are sharp on his lip, nipping wildly, breath hot and quick. They twine their hands up into his hair and cleave tight, lithe body fitting against him like the sea to the shoreline.

Fuck, but they feel good, overwhelmingly good, as if they were carved to fit against him. Ravi sinks, drowning, sucking on their tongue and grabbing fistfuls of their shirt. Cayenne surges forward, walking Ravi back until his shoulders hit the wall. They moan into him, holding his jaw open with tight, grasping fingers so they can devour him, swallowing his breath and leaving him lightheaded. They smile, rake their nails down his chest, and dive a brazen hand straight under the waistband of his joggers.

Later, he can at least take the barest solace that he does push them away. It’s a close thing, but he manages it.

“Fuck,” he growls, hands braced on their shoulders, trembling at the effort of keeping the distance. Grappling for words, for any scrap of his tattered willpower to cling to, he gasps, “Undo it.”

Panting with want, Cayenne sways forward, stopped from resuming the kiss only by Ravi’s firm grip. They roll their eyes. “Make up your mind! You don’t want me to rewind, you do want me to rewind. You’re so inconsistent, mon trésor.” They touch the tip of their tongue to their lip and grin, face flushed lotus pink. “You kissed me.”

“Undo it,” he breathes, a note of desperation creeping in.

“No,” they scoff.

Cayenne’s shoulders are the only thing holding him up. Ravi bows his head, hair falling into his eyes as he drags in breath after breath. “Cayenne…”

Sagging a little, Cayenne sighs and sets a hand to their tattoo. It flashes and Ravi feels that familiar tug in his gut, head briefly set to spinning. They now stand apart, back to the positions they had been in a handful of minutes ago.

“There,” Cayenne says with a pointed showman’s flourish of their hand. “Did that help, my sweet? Did that undo what we have done?”

Ravi drags a trembling hand over his face. He can still feel their nails on his scalp, still taste them in his mouth. It’s only a memory in his mind, but it feels as real as anything.

“No.”

“No.” A wolfish grin. “So, what harm if we do it again, hmm?” They move in.

Ravi steps back, hands going up. “No.”

Reluctantly Cayenne pulls to a halt, crossing their arms with an annoyed pout, as if Ravi was acting very silly. “All right, all right. I can wait. Here.” They fish out a red phone from their pocket and hold it out to him. “So, I don’t have to draw chalk circles all over Atlanta every time we want to speak, mon amour.”

“Stop calling me that,” he hisses. Each endearment is another needle under his skin, his willpower already dangling by a thread. “I don’t want to speak with you, I just want…” He’s not sure how to end that. I want you gone? I want you to help me fix The Trust? I want you to take us back to the way things used to be, to spin us all the way back to before I knew the truth?

“Just…take the phone, Ravi.”

“No.”

The phone clatters to the floor. Cayenne yanks on their hair with both hands, sending it into a disordered mess. “Arrgh, you are so frustrating! I just want us to be happy, why is this…” They turn away from him, arms crossed, drumming their fingers against their elbows. When Cayenne turns back to him, their expression has gone flat and serious. “You may want to ask your little friends if they’ve been keeping any secrets from you, dearest.”

“What are you talking about?”

Their shoulders rise in a graceful shrug. “I’m sure it’s not for me to say.” They take a small sidling step toward him, arching their head back, hair sliding into a fiery tangle, pale throat exposed. “Just stay the night, my sweet. Just one night. I know you want it too. I’m not going to beg. We can snatch away a few more hours of happiness together. No past, no future, just like it was back at the lake house. Like the kiss we just didn’t have. One night, then I’ll take us back to before, so it won’t count. Hm?”

It’s only due to the memory of those ashes that Ravi has the strength to say, “No.”

“Okay, you called my bluff. I will absolutely beg; please, Ravi, let me make it up to you.”

He stares at them, then barks a sharp, joyless laugh. “Make it up to me?”

Cayenne’s shoulders drop, and it’s like a mask has fallen away. Harder at the edges, their words all sharp corners and angles, slanting him a bladed smile. “Do you think I had to do this?” They wave a hand behind him at the circle. “Set a snare and vainly hope you’d keep to your regular route for your little jogs, darling? Anything you’ve seen me do, anything I’ve let you see, you must realize I can do much, much worse. You can have Constance set any kind of magic spells to keep me from finding you all that you wish, chéri.” With a placid smile, they say, “Fairly simple to remove her from the equation, one way or another.”

Between one word and the next Ravi goes utterly still.

Instantly Cayenne holds up their hands with a disarming grin. “Ah, no, not a threat, mon tigre, whatever do you think of me? I am merely saying that I’m not doing my worst. I’m trying to be better. For you.”

“This is you trying?” Ravi manages in a strangled voice, dragging in air.

Cayenne’s face scrunches up in exaggerated disdain. “Ugh, I know, I’m not very good at it, am I?” Another small sideways step toward him. “If you helped me, I think I could be better. My north star, my guiding light.” They break into an achingly handsome smile.

That’s…more tempting than it has any right to be. Side by side, what they could accomplish? Being together—really together. Their combined strengths and abilities.

Was the inevitable price of love betrayal? How should Ravi know? He has no frame of reference to know what’s normal. It’s a common enough refrain in pop culture—that love hurts, love is pain, love is a battlefield, love is a knife in the back.

Fuck, he can still taste them on his tongue.

“I don’t…” He swallows, teeth catching his lower lip. “You would listen to me?”

“You’ve inspired me, Ravi.” Cayenne steps closer. “Je suis ton monstre.”

His gaze locks on theirs, his will wavering, steel melting into quicksilver.

And there on their face, the face he’s come to know so well, is a tiny, nearly imperceptible shift. The tapered end of their eyebrow lifts just slightly in interest, marking a bullseye.

Ravi tips his head back and puts his hands over his face, heart sinking down to his feet. “I can’t believe that I… Fuck, Cayenne, how many tries did it take to find that tactic?” He drops his hands, a bitter laugh on his lips. He should be furious, but instead he just feels exhausted. Wrung out and empty.

Cayenne tsks. “You’re so difficult, mon amour.” They pick up the dropped phone. “Look, Ravi, if you do want to get in touch, or if you’re in trouble in any way, this will be under that little garden statue at the lake house.”

He rallies, scraping together a bit of fire. “You might as well throw it in the fucking lake.”

A fond smile. “So fierce, mon tigre. It’s very attractive.” Their eyes sweep over him, hungrily. “Don’t try and claim you don’t miss me. You’ve always been so honest with me.” Cayenne drags their plush lower lip between their teeth, head at an inviting tilt. “Here’s some honesty in kind: I miss you, Ravi, so much it’s like I’m missing a piece of myself. I miss touching you. I miss the way you smell. I miss the taste of you, the way your body is always so—”

“Stop,” Ravi begs, stepping back. His shoulders bump into the wall behind him. Trapped. Cornered.

Cayenne’s lips purse into a rueful bow. “I suppose I can’t entice you into one little tête-à-tête for old time’s sake, can I?” They don’t reach for their tattoo, but their hand does twitch minutely, as if on instinct.

Swallowing dryly, Ravi shakes his head. “Can I entice you to help me fix The Trust instead of tearing it apart?”

They laugh, long and derisive. “Hmm, fuck me good enough, and I’ll think about it.” Their tongue flashes, pink and wet, over their lips. “Can’t ask for fairer than that.”

Ravi turns his face away, more disgusted with himself than Cayenne, at his body’s reaction. “Then I guess we don’t have anything else to talk about.” He forces his feet to move, back to the chalk circle.

“Wait…Ravi, wait. Don’t go, s’il te plaît, I’m sorry.”

He whirls around. “You’re free and clear, Cayenne. I didn’t tell The Trust about you. You got away with it. So just go. Stay out of my business, out of my team, out of my life.” Funny how the words taste like lies on his tongue, even though he’s certain he means them.

“Why don’t you go ask your little teammates if they are staying out of your business, pet?”

“I’m not your pet,” Ravi chokes, and walks back out into the past.