They arrived at the gallery ten minutes before the guards changed shift, and Riley, already seriously scared, just about jumped out of her boots. Fábio Natan was sitting on a bench at the top of the first landing, watching everyone who entered the gallery, a sketchbook in his hands.
“Relax,” Nick murmured. “He’ll never recognize you like that.” He picked up her hand and squeezed it.
She glanced at him and did another small double-take, as she had been doing ever since they had left the apartment. Nick was not Nick at all. He was wearing a knitted cap pulled down low over his ears, wraparound sunglasses and what looked like three day’s growth on his cheeks and chin. A long-sleeved Ed Hardy tee shirt, and very baggy black jeans that looked like they were only barely hanging onto his hips completed the outfit, along with a very heavy, large crucifix swinging from a silver chain around his neck. He’d thrown a sleeveless black denim vest over the top of it.
But the most startling difference was his eyes. He wore brown contact lenses and every time he took off the glasses, she was astonished all over again at the stranger looking back at her. It wasn’t just the eyes. It was the attitude, the demeanor. The swagger. Nick had disappeared, and a lanky, lazy, street punk was shuffling along next to her, his hips swinging in time to unheard music.
But her own appearance had shocked her when she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as they’d left the apartment. She wore the boots Damian had bought her, but everything else was pure gang whore—purple pantyhose and a short, tight denim skirt that she didn’t dare bend over while she was wearing, and a black leather bra top with a mesh tee shirt over the top. Nick had bundled her real hair up under a wig of spiked hair that was blonde at the ends and black as midnight at the roots. He helped her slide black contact lenses over her eyes. She’d applied masses of mascara and eyeliner to her eyes, and black eye shadow and dark lipstick, and blinked at herself in the mirror. It was a stranger blinking back.
Nick added big chunky silver earrings that hung to her shoulders and a cheap green faux fur coat that came down to her knees and itched despite the thin lining.
“I look…” She grimaced at herself.
“Different,” Nick said flatly. “Even if Natan took our photos with that cell phone, they won’t even twitch when they see you.”
She shuddered. “I look ugly,” she breathed. “That’s what it is.”
Nick rested his hand on her shoulder. “I can still see you behind it all.”
Riley turned to look at him without the mirror. “Really? Because I can barely see the real you.”
He slid on the glasses. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, babe. Pick up y’shit and let’s get out of here.”
Startled—again—she followed behind as he slouched his way to the apartment door. Their walk to the gallery was an education. People actually stepped around Nick. Some even crossed the road when they saw him coming toward them. Women slid their hands under the arms of their male companions.
No one looked at Riley. No one even noticed her. She was almost invisible because everyone was watching the dangerous man beside her.
By the time they turned into Vandam Street, where the gallery was located, Riley had relaxed and was beginning to play along. She was the gang tart, with her man, and no one would mess with her while she was with him. She straightened her spine, stuck out her chest and began to strut a little. She worked hard to hide her smile, because she felt totally ridiculous. But people were taking Nick very seriously indeed.
When she saw the gallery, she remembered why they were there, and her amusement died. They were there to kill a gargoyle. A creature that was eating humans. Nick was going to kill the demon that had murdered Damian. This wasn’t play at all.
Now, as she stood in the foyer of the gallery, her hand in Nick’s, she took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m fine,” she told him.
“I’ll get tickets,” he told her.
She cocked her hip, crossed her arms and looked bored while Nick murmured to the ticket clerk and bought a pair of tickets for the exhibition. The clerk looked nervous, her eyes darting over to the security guards manning the walk-through screen, as she pushed the tickets and program under the glass partition.
The security guards were also watching Nick, even as they were processing visitors through the walking-through frame. He was naturally drawing their attention, like filings to a magnet.
Riley looked around, making it look casual. Indifferent.
Natan was also watching Nick as he swaggered toward the guards.
Nick wasn’t going to bring the tickets to Riley. She was expected to run over to him. As she looked at him, he jerked his head, a silent command that she get her butt over and join him. She flounced over, and he silently shoved a ticket at her, and pushed at her shoulder, indicating she should go first through the scanner.
Riley handed her ticket to the guard on the near side of the frame and he silently tore the ticket in half and gave her back the stub. It was odd not to get even a smile from a man, and she worked hard not to show her surprise or discomfort. She stalked through the frame, head up, knowing there was nothing on her body that could possibly set off any alarms.
She turned to see Nick dropping his sunglasses into the plastic tub in front of the guard. Then the crucifix, followed by the heavy silver rings on his fingers, and the belt holding up his jeans. He grinned at the guard and held out his ticket.
The guard took it, ripped it in half and handed it back, all without smiling or taking his eyes off Nick’s face.
Nick shoved the ticket stub into his back pocket and walked through the frame. It stayed silent, but the guard with the manual scanning wand waved him over. “Step over here, please, sir.”
Three guards were picking suspiciously through the jewelry Nick had dropped into the tub to have passed around the frame. They were frowning, turning the pieces over, and giving them more than the usual scrutiny.
The guard in front of Nick passed the wand up and down his body and in between his legs. He was also frowning, not happy that there was nothing to set off the metal alerts.
They’ll be focused on the suggestion of gang trouble and won’t look anywhere else, Nick had explained when he had first outlined the reason why they would be dressing to draw this sort of attention. It seems like we’re drawing attention to ourselves, but what we’re making them focus on is the illusion we’re painting, and that is all.
Finally the guard stepped back and nodded. He didn’t apologize or thank Nick, but that would have involved loss of face.
Nick winked at the guard.
Red flushed up the guard’s neck, into his face, but he stayed silent.
Nick waited for the other three to finish with his jewelry, then put it all back on again, including the sunglasses. He cracked his knuckles, clicked all four fingers in a waterfall staccato and pointed at the guards with both forefingers. “Later,” he said.
Riley drew in a deep breath and let it out. She didn’t know if she wanted to howl with laughter or throw up. The expressions on the face of the guards was priceless.
She hurried after Nick as he headed for the stairs. He was already five steps up when she reach them, and climbing two at a time with his long legs, the saggy jeans flapping around his limbs. She clambered after him, glad that the cheap fur coat came down to the back of her knees, giving her at least a little dignity as she climbed the stairs in such a short skirt.
Natan was watching them both as they moved up to the landing. Nick angled to the right, heading for the turn and the staircase that led up to the gallery on the next floor. Riley followed him, which allowed her to naturally turn her head away from Natan. She kept her gaze on the steps, watching her footing, or on Nick’s back.
Then they were past Natan, and moving up the second half of the flight, heading for the second floor. She could see the feet of the gargoyles already, and people wandering among them, looking small and insignificant between the dark stone giants.
They reached the gallery level and Riley looked at the clock. “Eight minutes to go,” she murmured.
“’Kay,” he replied and wandered off without looking at her.
For the next few minutes, Riley toured the exhibition, gazing up at the gargoyles in frank wonder. She stayed away from Lirgon. She didn’t think her nerves were up to facing the leader of the clan just yet. The time was soon approaching when she would be challenging him directly.
When she rounded the hulking stone mass of one of the gargoyles that Damian had told her was not one of the Stonebrood clan, she found herself face to face with Natan, his notebook under his arm.
“’Scuse me,” she said, and went to step around him.
He stepped sideways to block her way. “I know who you are,” he said softly. “The disguise has fooled everyone else, but I carve shapes for a living, and your face, you see… You should have changed the shape of your face if you wanted to hide from me. It’s so very nearly perfect in symmetry.”
She put her hands on her hips. Bluff. It was all she had left. “Who the fuck are you, mister?” She could hear Sabrina’s indignant Louisiana accent in her head, and injected it into her voice. “You’d better get out of my way if you don’t want me to scream down this building right now.”
“Trouble, babe?” Nick had come up behind her.
Natan shifted his gaze up to take in Nick, then looked back at her. “Your face, and his height and build. Together that is conclusive. You’ll notice I haven’t called the guards this time?”
Riley didn’t know how to respond. Nick also stayed silent.
“What happened to your friend, the one Jeremiah shot?” Natan pressed.
“He’s dead,” Nick said flatly.
Natan closed his big eyes. “That…was not what I intended,” he said softly.
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you bargained with the devil,” Nick said in his own voice.
Natan swallowed. “You said he was a…a demon, not the devil.”
“Who do you think he works for?” Nick replied dryly.
Natan was squeezing his notebook convulsively. The pages tore at the edges and crumpled with each contraction. “The police…I told them nothing. I lied and said you were kids looking for cash.”
“Why?” Riley asked.
Natan looked at her. “Jeremiah,” he said flatly. “He shot your friend just to hurt you. It was…it was….”
“Evil,” Nick finished.
“Yes,” Natan agreed.
“Help us,” Nick said quickly.
“Help you do what? Why are you even here?” Natan asked. “Jeremiah said you would come, but I didn’t believe you would be that stupid.”
“I’m here for Lirgon,” Riley told him. “But Nicholas is here for the creature you call Jeremiah. His real name is Azazel, Natan. He must be stopped tonight, or more people will die.”
“And who is Lirgon?”
She pointed to the carving behind Natan. “That is. He is the leader of the clan. You carved him and Azazel brought him back to life. For the past ten days he has been feeding on human flesh and tonight I have to send him back to the earth where he should have been all along.”
Sweat glistened on Natan’s forehead. “You’re going to destroy my sculpture?”
“I’m going to destroy a killer, Natan, just as he rises from his sleep. A killer that you had a hand in creating.”
Natan seemed to be on the verge of protesting.
“Do you want me to show you what Azazel’s gun did to Damian, Natan?” Nick said, his voice harsh. “Do you want to see what concentrated gargoyle toxin does to the victim? It’s not pretty, you know. Normal toxin takes about twelve hours to petrify the target. Azazel has beefed it up. Damian was dead inside ten minutes and he didn’t die peacefully. His skin turned black and the edges of the wound were rigid, like solid lava. You could see the toxin burrowing under his skin—”
“Stop! For god’s sake, stop!” Natan breathed, his eyes very wide and glassy. His face was white. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. For several minutes he just breathed hard. “I thought it was inspiring, to know about…demons. About this other world. I thought it would help my work. I actually felt superior because I knew and no one else did.” He looked woebegone. “But it doesn’t work that way at all, does it? It’s a responsibility.”
“Yes,” Nick said flatly.
Natan nodded. He wiped his forehead. Then he took another breath. “What can I do?” he asked Nick. “I can’t fight,” he warned. “I am a natural coward, and I am very good at it.”
“You can be two warm bodies, though,” Nick told him. “You have security privileges, don’t you? You can bypass the scanning frame at the front door?”
Natan nodded.
Riley looked up at the clock. “Four minutes,” she told Nick.
“Leave the gallery right now,” Nick told Natan. “Go out the way the general public does, through the security frame. Then wait about five minutes and come back in using your security privileges. Have a coffee, draw a picture, anything you like. And then, sometime before gallery closing time, leave the gallery again, using the public exit, through the security frame. Then go home, Natan. Stay there, and don’t come back here tonight. Not if you’re the natural coward you say you are.”
Natan frowned, thinking it through. “You want the security counts for bodies in to match bodies out.”
“Yes,” Nick said.
“You’re staying here, to wait for the gargoyles to…what? Wake?”
“Rise,” Riley told him.
Natan squared his shoulders. “All right. I will do what you ask.” He turned and hurried away.
“Three minutes,” Riley warned.
Nick turned and walked in the opposite direction.
Riley went back to studying the gargoyles, but it was a pretense this time. She was steadily counting down the minutes. After what she thought were about three minutes, she drifted out to the edge of the gallery floor and looked around, as if she were looking for Nick. The security guard who had been standing over by the edge of the stairs was heading downstairs. His duty shift was over.
She turned and weaved her way to the back of the gallery and the service corridor and hurried down the corridor to the ladies’ washroom and pushed inside. It was a single facility and built wide enough for wheelchair access. She shot the lock.
Quickly, she shed the prickly coat, the net tee shirt, her boots and the purple pantyhose. She was wearing socks over the top of the pantyhose, which she also stripped, and she put those back on once the pantyhose were removed. From the oversize pocket in the coat, she pulled out a far more modest and traditional tee shirt, which she put on over the leather bra. She pulled the skirt farther down her hips so it covered more of her legs.
The wig went into the pocket the tee shirt had emerged from. From the other pocket she removed a packet of pre-moistened towelettes and used them to remove most of the make-up she wore. With a deep breath, and careful probing, she removed the contacts from her eyes. The contacts and the awful earrings went into the pocket with the towelettes. She rolled the coat up into a tight bundle.
Then she climbed onto the basin, reached up and pushed aside one of the ceiling tiles. She threw the coat up into the ceiling cavity, and replaced the ceiling tile.
She put her boots back on, feeling much more like herself, and shook her hair out.
When she came out of the washroom, she knew she looked totally different. Only someone who may have noticed her boots would have made the connection between the brassy chick who had strolled in on the arms of the trouble-maker ten minutes ago and the brunette who wandered the gallery by herself. Everyone who may have noticed her boots was now off-duty.
As she paused at the flat, glass-topped display case with biography materials on Fábio Natan and the history of gargoyles, Nick passed by on the other side. Like her, he was utterly changed in appearance. The cap, jewelry and stubble were gone and his hair was back to normal. The denim vest, tee shirt, and baggy jeans were now lying on top of the ceiling tiles in the men’s washroom, just as her clothes were. The tailored trousers, leather belt and slim collarless shirt he’d worn beneath looked slightly rumpled, but not enough to even come close to calling him scruffy. He’d straightened up, and squared his shoulders and now he’d removed his contacts, he was back to being Nick again.
He didn’t even glance at her.
Riley looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes before closing time.
Nick’s appearance at the display table meant he had prepared her hiding place for her. She moved away from the display table, taking a wandering path back to the service corridor, glancing around at the exhibition. No one was taking any notice of her. She was normal. Ordinary. Nothing like the potential trouble that had sashayed in the door half an hour ago.
She moved into the corridor once more and hurried down toward the fire escape end. The janitor’s closet was one of the last doors on the right before the metal door. She noticed that the wires Damian had severed over the top of the fire escape door had been repaired.
Riley glanced once more over her shoulder as she reached the closet. No one was passing the corridor opening. No one was looking at her. It was just her mental state. She breathed deeply and opened the closet. The door knob rotated slackly in her hand. Nick had wrenched the locked door open earlier for her.
She slipped into the tiny closet and shut the door behind her. The ruined lock would not lock again. She would have to take care of that when the guards came by to check after closing.
By running her hand along the wall very gently, she found the light switch and flipped it. A low wattage light showed her the four foot by three foot space she stood in. There were a couple of folding yellow plastic warning signs for propping over the top of puddles and spills when members of the public were careless with their drinks and beverages, and a mop and squeeze bucket tucked back into the corner, underneath two unfinished wooden shelves holding cleaning supplies. The faint scent of pine lingered.
She picked up a yellow warning sign. It was surprisingly tall when it was folded flat. She jammed it under the handle of the door.
Then she pulled the mop bucket out from under the shelves and turned it around so that the roller section was facing her. It would make a good temporary seat. She tested it carefully. It took her weight.
So she reached up and switched off the light, plunging herself into thick blackness and carefully felt her way back to her stool. With some careful fumbling, she perched on the rollers.
Her breath sounded extraordinarily loud in the dark. She also became aware of the world beyond the door. People wandering the exhibition at the end of the corridor. The squeak of running shoes on the wooden floor. The hush of people conversing in a public place. The rush of warm air through the central air ducts.
Nicholas would be squeezed into the cupboard they had chosen for him to hide in by now.
Riley recalled Nicholas’ eyes, his body against hers, and a montage of moments from the last two days. Instructing her in the finer points of swordsmanship, a small furrow between his brows. Standing naked at the warded windows of the apartment, his arms crossed, watching the street below with a brooding air, hatching plans. Listening to her with total concentration and being surprised into a laugh, then letting himself go and really laughing, his head thrown back. Waking up to find him crouched next to the bed, watching her, his eyes so blue she could drown in them.
Riley had not suspected the icy Nicholas Sherwood had been protecting a passionate, intense, loving, human man, but in hindsight, she might have guessed. He let the shield down for no one but Damian. And now her.
Total trust, her mind whispered. This was what Damian had asked of her. Now Nicholas had given it to her, unasked. She realized with jolt that she could—would—do the same. She would do anything that Nicholas asked of her, even if he asked her to give up her life for him. For Nicholas, she would pay that price. If Damian were alive, she would gladly include him in that life-debt, too. But no one else. She understood, now, what Damian had meant about degrees of trust. Now she understood how Nicholas had given Damian his complete and unquestioning trust that night.
Just thinking about Nick roused her and brought her nerve endings alive. This was the first time they had been apart for longer than a few minutes and she missed him. It was like an ache in the chest. She wanted him. Her pussy crawled with fevered need, clamping in on itself. Her breath shortened.
She clutched at the mountings of the rollers, staring into the dark. She wasn’t afraid of the dark at all, even now when she knew there really were monsters that moved out there. But she wanted Nicholas. She wanted to feel him against her.
How long until closing time? How long until full dark? Nicholas had the better time-sense. He would know with utter certainty when the sun had set and would be the one to emerge first. He would come to find her.
Riley knew, though, that she wasn’t going to last in this tiny space. Not alone. Not without Nick.
When the doorknob shifted slightly, the broken metal pieces of the lock rolling inside it, she nearly gasped out loud in shock and slapped her hand over her mouth to hold it in. It couldn’t be the guards doing their closing-down rounds. Not yet.
She stared at the place where the sound had come from.
“Riley, let me in.” It was Nicholas, his voice almost soundless.
She nearly sobbed her relief. She stood and turned the light back on, and pushed the bucket out of the way, back under the shelves, then unhooked the caution sign from under the door. As soon as she moved the sign, Nick pulled the door open, pushed inside with her and shut the door. He kept his ear to the door, listening for a moment. Then he relaxed and turned to face her properly.
“Good idea,” he said and jammed the caution sign back under the door. He twisted hard to do it, for with both of them in the closet, there wasn’t enough room to turn around. He was already pressed up against the door.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“You called to me,” he told her. His fingers traced her jaw. “So I came.”
Riley was far too close to him to be able to put her hands on her hips and challenge him that way. She glared at him. “What do you mean, called?” she demanded suspiciously.
His fingertip followed the line of her mouth, his eyes following the trail. “You want me. I could smell it. Sense it.”
Riley caught his wrist and squeezed, making his hand come to a stop. She pulled his hand away from her mouth, bringing it to her shoulder and out of harm’s way, and waited for his gaze to focus on her eyes. Only when she had his complete attention did she speak. “You’re good, Nick. I know you can pick up my pheromones from dozens of paces away. But you’re not that good. You’re lying.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Tell me why you’re really here. What brought you here?”
Nicholas drew in a breath. Let it out. “You,” he said flatly.
“But…” Riley began.
“No pheromones. Nothing, Riley. I…” He hesitated. “I just couldn’t stay away.”
She slid her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. In the confines of the tiny closet, that was all the movement the space allowed. She pressed her mouth against his neck and licked, and felt him shudder. “For days you have been telling me that business is business, Nick. We’re two hunters who happen to be working side by side. Nothing personal.”
His hands were on her back. Then one slid into her hair. The other down to her hips to hold her against him. “I know,” he said simply.
“We watch each other’s backs, but as soon as we start worrying about each other beyond that, we become a liability and we might as well draw targets on our own backs.” She kissed the underside of his jaw.
His hand slipped underneath the hem of her skirt and stroked the delicate flesh between the backs of her thighs. Instantly, heat flashed to her pussy and made it ripple. She gripped the front of his shirt in her fists. “Not fair,” she whispered.
“All’s fair…” He kissed her as his fingers pushed higher, up against the fabric of her panties, making her groan against his mouth.
His fangs had descended and were protruding just a little beyond his normal teeth. Deliberately, Riley slid her tongue over the ends of them. They were razor sharp, but if she did it softly enough, it didn’t hurt. She stroked the points again and Nick gave a breathless moan. His hand clenched hard in her hair. His cock was iron-hard against her hip and she felt it jerk and throb.
Hot-cold drops of liquid oozed onto her tongue. Riley swallowed before she considered the wisdom of doing that. The effect was instantaneous. Her body was engulfed in hot flames, torrid need gushing from every pore.
“No, Riley. Hush…silence, my lover,” Nick murmured, his lips covering hers, as she scrabbled at his shirt, moaning with desperate desire.
She understood the need for silence, but her hands trembled as she pulled at his shirt. She wanted him naked. Now. Her head throbbed with the simple idea, but her fingers would not cooperate.
Nick took over, swiftly removing the offending items. As he worked Riley shed her own clothes. Her fingers were clumsy, but she managed to remove everything but her boots. There simply wasn’t the room to take them off and before she could think of how she might, Nick picked her up, his hands around her waist. He simply lifted her straight up into the air, giving a hint of his incredible strength.
Then he brought her sliding slowly down the length of his body, until his cock pushed against her cleft. Riley dug her fingernails into his shoulder as he slid into her. She was so wet with juices there was no resistance at all, but the feel of his wide head burrowing into her as he lowered her onto him was so exquisite she began to buck and squirm in delight.
Nick held her as her first orgasm ripped through her and her pussy clamped around him in vice-like contractions. His own breathing was labored.
When her pussy walls relaxed their grip on his shaft, he wrapped her legs around his hips, and thrust into her with heavy, hard strokes.
There was enough of the effects of the aphrodisiac left that Riley could feel every touch exaggerated, playing upon her sensory inputs like an amplifier. She held onto Nick, fighting to stay silent, to not scream out her pleasure at the top of her lungs. She was melting. Falling to pieces around his pounding cock.
Her second climax hit after only a few thrusts, but this time Nick didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He was feeding off her excitement, and driving toward his own nuclear-level explosion.
Riley could barely draw breath. Even as the climax ebbed, she could feel Nick’s cock swelling inside her. The head flaring and pulsing as he came close to his climax. Every nerve ending she had was hypersensitive and alert, receiving all signals only as pleasure.
“Ah, Riley!” Nick breathed. “Only you!”
Her senses reeled. Her third climax began as his cock pumped and jerked in her pussy. It throbbed behind her eyes, and made her throat and neck hurt as she clamped down hard with her jaw to stop from screaming her heart out. Nick’s heavy groan was rich reward for keeping her silence. She might have missed it otherwise.
When she thought it was safe to open her eyes and try to focus them, she looked at him. “You’re still a liar.”
“Yes,” he agreed, his chest lifting and falling quickly as he recovered his breath. His shoulder wore fine scratch marks from her fingernails and he glanced at them and smiled. “Don’t look so horrified. They’re honorable war wounds.” He lowered her to the ground.
“Do they…hurt?” she asked as she dressed.
He laughed softly. “Not even for a moment.” He paused from buttoning his shirt to kiss her. Very gently. The blue of his eyes looked rich in the low light of the cupboard and she knew even from just a few days it meant he was mellow and at his most human and vulnerable. “Stay with me, Riley.”
She couldn’t look away from his eyes. She knew what he was asking. There was enough honesty between them that she couldn’t even prevaricate with a stupid question like “stay here in the closet?” or pretend to misunderstand.
“Forever, Nick? Or just for my life?” Her heart was racing.
He swallowed. “I think I would prefer forever, because I hate goodbyes. But I would not force that on you. It’s a curse…and a blessing. I was not asked when I was turned.” He brushed her hair away from her temple. “I won’t ask you, because I would be asking for selfish reasons. If you want to be turned, you must ask me for it.” He picked up her hand. “But, I do not want you to ask now. Not for a while. I just want you to be you. To be human and to stay with me.” He kissed her hand. “Can you do that?”
Tears pricked her eyes. “If I stay, we can’t hunt together any more, Nick.”
He drew a breath. “No. Your father understood that better than I. He had the right of it when he refused to hunt with your mother. I’ll finish your training. I’ll give you every skill I know. But we must find different partners.” His hand tightened around hers. “You’re staying, aren’t you?”
“Did you doubt it?”
His expression was solemn. “There was always the possibility. I find the humans I’m closest to are often unpredictable, even after all this time. My own feelings get in the way of seeing them clearly, I think.” He lifted her hand to his cheek and rubbed the back of her fingers against it. His eyes closed. “I resented your mother’s bond, Riley. I hated her for it. You should know that. If I could have found an honorable way to break my word to her, I would have. It terrifies me to know how much happiness I would have lost if I had found a way to punish her for dying and leaving us alone, Damian and I.” He opened his eyes. “But by dying, she gave me something I would not have had otherwise.”
“Me,” Riley concluded.
He grinned. “I think Tally would have enjoyed that irony. She knew precisely what she was demanding of us when she made us swear to protect you if Lirgon rose again, and I think she might even have predicted to herself what the end result might be if Lirgon’s rising was far enough in the future. I don’t break my word once it’s given. Nor did Damian.” He pulled her against him and tucked her head under his chin. “Ah, Riley, I can see by your expression that you’re wondering what you’ve bitten off. I can go back to being surly if you’d prefer.”
“No, thank you,” she said swiftly. “I like you this way. I just keep waiting…to wake up.”
“You are awake, Snow White,” he murmured. “This is as real as it gets.” His hand caressed her cheek. After a minute, he said. “Was it so very bad a childhood, Riley?”
She sighed. “Physically, no. I wasn’t beaten or abused, and I’ve heard stories far worse than mine. I was lucky, in that respect. My friend Sabrina—you met her in Pittsburgh. She’s a foster kid, too, and she had it way worse than me. But even she shook that off. We both agree that it’s the loneliness that’s the worst. Not being loved or wanted by anyone. Knowing that the families who take you in are only doing it for the money and that they don’t really care about you at all, that there isn’t anyone who gives a shit… It weighs you down and it gets worse, year after year, until you want to explode with it, especially if you get moved from home to home, to home.”
Nick’s arms tightened around her. “Christ…” he said thickly.
“Don’t,” she said quickly. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. This is just how it was supposed to happen, Nick. If it didn’t, then I would have grown up with you and Damian around me all the time, and you would never have seen me as someone you could love. Not really love. Not like this. I’d live all those years in foster care all over again, just to stand here in your arms and know I get to do this for the rest of my life.”
He touched her lips with his finger swiftly, then reached over her shoulder to turn off the light. As the closet plunged into darkness, she felt his arm move under her shoulder, and knew he was holding the doorknob with an iron grip so it would feel locked when the guards tested it.
The guards were doing their closing rounds.
It was a long time before she heard sounds of anyone approaching the closet, but Nick’s hearing was much better than hers. There was a brief rattle of the doorknob, then nothing.
Nick relaxed. “He’s already left the corridor. It’s Friday night, and the Knicks are facing Dallas at seven. He’ll be rushing home for the game.” His voice was very soft, almost subliminal.
“How do you even know he likes basketball?” Riley demanded.
“I’m guessing. But he’s heavy on his feet, so he’s overweight. Probably from too many sedentary pastimes. And that was a very superficial security check. He’s in a hurry and it’s not hockey season.” He chuckled soundlessly. “It makes it easier for us. Let’s hope he’s taking his workmates home with him for beer and pizza.”
“How soon until sunset?”
He breathed in, almost like he was sampling the air. Perhaps he was. “The sun is already touching the horizon. Lirgon will need to guard against too early a rising. Gargoyles rise at full dark, not at sunset. Ten minutes, Riley, and you will get to meet the monster that killed your parents.”