Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(60)

Nothing mattered anymore, not their eons-long struggle, not the destruction of the Deceiver, nothing. Guards poured into the room. With an expert flip, he reversed the stiletto in his hand, positioned it and thrust it into his own heart. The gush of warm liquid flowed over his fingers, and his body settled beside hers on the bed.

Then he knew no more.

In the bathroom, Michael curled on his side and pressed a hand to his chest as his heart kicked in wild arrhythmia. He was aware, as if from a great distance, of strong, slender arms circling him, a feminine body pressing against his side and fingers pressing against his carotid artery.

Michael, Mary said in his head. He turned his head away at the intrusion, pressing his sweating cheek against the cold, tiled floor.

Broken.

Radiance cascaded into him. It surrounded and filled him, and soothed his heart back into rhythm. He gasped as it drenched the raw shards of darkness inside, and his spirit gulped at it with ravenous eagerness. He didn’t think he could ever get enough.

Michael. She pulled him onto his back and passed a hand over his hair. I have been looking for you.

Her serious, blue gaze was very different from those great, lovely dark eyes from so long ago, but he would still know her anywhere. Anywhere. He gasped, I have been looking for you.

She was stronger than she looked. She drew his upper body up and cradled his head against her shoulder. I would have loved to learn how to milk a cow.

And I would have loved to make love in the winter, and steal flowers in the spring. He closed his eyes. He had never been a man of peace, except with her.

She rocked him. The memories are terrible, but they are in the past. Don’t let them consume you. Acknowledge them, and let them go.

He nodded. Her physical scent and psychic energy mingled in his senses until he didn’t know where one began and the other left off. It was all the same: warm, fragrant, golden. It nourished him with a lavish, lustrous generosity. Twisting up, he wrapped an arm around her neck. “This was why you didn’t want me driving.”

She laid her warm, soft cheek against his. “You didn’t seem to remember, and—well, I knew how hard my memories have hit me. I would have protected you from them, if I could.”

“I needed to know.” He nosed her neck and rested his lips against the healthy, vital pulse in her throat. Alive, she was alive again.

She pulled back and cupped his whiskery cheek. “I’m going to run you a bath,” she said. “And I’m going to find you some clean clothes. Are you hungry?” He shook his head. “No? All right. Then afterward we’re going to rest, Michael. Mike. Does anyone call you Mike?”

Nobody called him anything. Only Astra knew that his name was Michael. He stood when she stood and let the soothing patter of her voice wash over him like a gentle rain. “You can call me whatever you like,” he said.

She put the lid down on the toilet and pushed him toward it. Obediently he sat.

“Can I? Mike,” she said. Her voice was thoughtful as she turned to start the water running in the bathtub. She bent to test the water’s temperature with her fingers then adjusted one of the knobs. The new T-shirt came just over the curve of her ass. She glanced over her shoulder with a small, calm smile. “Trevor.”

“Aloysius, even,” he said. “Or hey you.”

Whatever she called him, he would always answer.

She straightened and flicked water from her fingers. “I think Michael suits you best. We’ll stick with that.”

“All right.” He leaned against the back of the toilet and let exhaustion sweep over him.

“I found your razor and shaving cream earlier,” she said. She pulled the items out of the medicine cabinet behind the mirror over the sink. Her gaze ran down his lax posture. “You’re too tired to shave, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. He was so tired, he could lie down and die if he thought it would offer him any chance at peace.

“Not to worry. I’ll do it for you, if you’ll let me.”

Incredulous, he watched her wet a washcloth with warm water. After coaxing him to tilt back his head, she placed the cloth on his cheeks and jaw. Then she squirted a mound of shaving cream into one small, capable hand. She lathered his face, rinsed her fingers, turned off the bathwater, and started drawing the razor over his skin with such a light, deft touch he barely felt it.

He regarded her in mute amazement. He couldn’t remember anyone doing such an intimate, caring thing for him before. Certainly no woman had ever done so. Perhaps one or two might have wanted to, but he had always rejected female overtures with a clinical efficiency. Relationships bred vulnerability, and he had known from a very early age he wasn’t going to lead a normal life. Besides, all the women he had met had been too pastel.

“Mary,” he said when she turned to rinse the razor under a trickle of warm water.

“Yes?”

His grave gaze met hers. “Are you fussing now?”

The corners of her eyes crinkled as she looked down at him. When she drew the razor across his cheek, it felt like a caress. “I think we can say I’m officially fussing now.”

* * *

WHILE HE WIPED his face with the washcloth, Mary found clean clothes for him and set them beside the tub. She had to step between his long, outstretched legs in order to move around the tiny bathroom.

A spark lightened his sober gaze. He took hold of her forearm, and she stopped moving. Watching her steadily, he stroked the callused ball of his thumb along the sensitive skin inside her elbow. Sexuality shimmered between them again. She gave him a crooked smile back, shook her head and slipped out of the room so he could bathe in private.