The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(65)

“I never would,” I said on an impulse, regretting my words as her smile faded.

“Pretty words I’ve heard before. Always empty in the end. Daniel, why did you call me tonight? Of all the places you could have sought shelter, why here?”

I hadn’t figured that out myself. Only that calling her was the first impulse I had, that her voice was the first I wanted to hear.

“I wanted to see you,” I said.

She rose, cradling her glass as she slowly paced the floor, looking up to the ceiling.

“I told you at the restaurant,” she said, “it doesn’t work. We can’t be…anything. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

“I don’t see why.”

She whirled to face me, suddenly furious, her eyes blazing copper. “And I don’t see why you don’t run! Why you don’t lay awake in dread of the ruin I could bring upon you and everyone you hold dear! I could use my magic on you. Bind you to me, reduce you to a mindless slave. I could do it right now and you couldn’t stop me. I could do it right now.”

The smell of sulfur and jasmine filled the room. I sat very, very still.

“I’ve done it to other humans,” she said, seething with rage. “For the rest of your days, you wouldn’t have a single thought in your head that I didn’t put there, and you’d love it. You’d thank me for it. You’d be anything I wanted, and you’d never betray me and you’d never, ever leave!”

I heard the pain on the edge of her anger. I knew that song by heart.

I set my glass on the end table and stood up. She watched me, her hands hooked into claws and her fingernails gleaming like razors, shuddering as if she could barely restrain herself from tearing me apart.

I walked up to her, heart thudding against my rib cage, and met her gaze. Then I reached up and brushed my fingertips against her cheek.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I whispered.

Caitlin turned her face away. When she looked back, her moist eyes were forest green once more. She started to say something then stopped, her voice hitching. She looked at my arm and touched the bloody rags.

“We need to do something about this,” she said softly. “You’re going to get an infection.”

She led me into her bathroom. Her shower, a glass-walled stall sporting two facing showerheads and a long bench of polished marble, sat opposite a free-standing tub big enough for three people. A wide picture window beside it looked out over the Vegas skyline. Caitlin gestured for me to sit on the broad rim of the bathtub while she rummaged through pristine ivory cabinets, digging out some first aid supplies. She laid everything out next to the faucet. Then she straddled my lap.

I opened my mouth, but Caitlin touched a finger to my lips and unbuttoned my shirt. She paused, folds of fabric gripped in her slender hands, and looked at me.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” she asked, and I knew she didn’t mean fresh bandages.

“Yes.”

She tugged my shirt off, letting it fall to the floor. I winced as the rags peeled away next, the ugly wound stark under the overhead lights.

“I am the prince’s hound,” she mused, giving the cut an experimental poke. “Most of the people I deal with are either terrified of me, plotting to kill me, or both. I don’t have friendships. I don’t have relationships. I’m not very good at them.”

“I’m game if you are,” I said.

She held up a bottle of peroxide and unscrewed the cap, making sure I knew what it was. She curled one arm around my shoulders. With the other, she poised the bottle above my wound.

“This is going to hurt,” she said.

I nodded. “I can take it.”

The peroxide seared the open cut like a branding iron, bubbling in the wound. Caitlin pressed her lips to mine and swallowed my gasp of pain with a desperate, hungry kiss.





Thirty-Three



I put my good arm around her waist, holding her close as the burn of the peroxide gave way to the fire in the pit of my stomach. She dropped the bottle, letting it clatter and spill in the basin of the tub, embracing me with mad fervor. We clutched each other like drowning sailors clinging to a life preserver.

Caitlin pulled away to mop at the cut with a pad of gauze. “This really needs stitches,” she said. “I can drive you to the ER, or…”

I looked in her eyes. “Or?”

She seemed almost bashful as she shrugged. “I could do it. I mean, if you wanted me to.”

She wanted to know how far I’d trust her, maybe, or just how much I could take. The answer was easy.

“You do it,” I said.

She smiled with a glimmer of what might have been relief. Still straddling my lap, she opened a small sewing kit and threaded a slender needle, taking her time.

“Relax,” she said, holding the needle up to the light and testing the tip against her finger. “I’m good with needles.”

Caitlin leaned in for another kiss, gently tracing the tip of the needle down my throat, across the curve of my neck.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a local in that kit?” I asked with a nervous laugh. She grinned and touched her forehead to mine, murmuring softly.

“No anesthetic in my home. I don’t believe in it. I think I do have a way to make the procedure easier to bear, though.”