Thorn Queen (Dark Swan, #2)(40)

Dorian.

I sighed. He was a problem, one I kept thinking would go away but didn't. I needed him, and we both knew it. So long as I did, he was going to use that as leverage to keep seeing me and taunting me. For the most part, that annoyed me. I hated being part of his games. Yet, at the same time, there was always something irresistible about Dorian, something that made me laugh in spite of the exasperation he so often caused.

And, yeah...I hated to admit it, but no matter how much I loved Kiyo, and no matter how much I'd washed my hands of the romance between Dorian and me, there was still a part of me that would probably always be attracted to him. Our night together still haunted my dreams. His hand on me earlier today had woken a lot of those feelings, and I couldn't help but imagine again how easy it would have been for him to slide that hand up my leg....

"Eugenie?"

"Huh?" Kiyo's voice startled me out of my indecent thoughts.

"What are you thinking about? You have the weirdest look on your face."

"Oh, well, I..." I was totally astonished when the next words burst out of my mouth. "How come we never have any foreplay?"

Kiyo's hold on the steering wheel momentarily faltered, and I feared we'd run off onto the shoulder. He quickly regained control. "What are you talking about? Of course we have foreplay. Remember that thing I did with the honey last week?"

"Yeah, I guess. But that's more the exception than the norm. We always just kind of jump right into it."

"You never really seem to mind."

He had a point. "No...I mean, it's always good. It'd just be nice to...I don't know. Expand our horizons."

"I'm okay with that," he said after several thoughtful moments. "I'm up for anything. It's just my...well, instincts, I guess, that tend to drive me right toward the main attraction."

I knew what he meant. The problem with spending part of your life as an animal was that you picked up some of their traits. Foxes in the wild didn't really devote a lot of time to foreplay.

"I don't really mind. I'm just saying that I'd like to shake it up."

He fell silent for a while. Finally, he asked, "Does this have anything to do with Dorian?"

"Why do you say that?" I asked blandly.

"I don't know. More instinct." His dark eyes narrowed as they focused on the road. "I'm not stupid, you know. I know you slept with him."

I jerked my head in surprise, unable to attempt any sort of denial. I'd never technically lied to Kiyo about what had happened with Dorian, but seeing as we'd been broken up at the time, I'd never really felt the need to go into detail.

"How do you..." I couldn't finish the question.

Kiyo gave me a rueful smile. "Dorian used to watch you like a starving man who wants meat. Now he looks at you like he wants seconds."

I didn't say anything. No response came to mind.

"It's okay," continued Kiyo almost amiably. "I know it happened when we were apart. What's past is past-so long as it doesn't mess with our present."

It was rather magnanimous of him, and I felt both grateful and guilty. "It's in the past," I agreed. "It has nothing to do with anything anymore."

The first shaman Roland had directed us to was a guy named Art. Like Roland and me, Art lived in his own piece of suburbia, in a large house that hardly looked like it belonged to someone who battled spirits and gentry. The sides were painted a sunny yellow, and the yard-which bore the signs of daily tending-was even ringed with a white picket fence. I could hear children playing down the street.

In fact, Art himself was out in the yard, weeding flower beds as the afternoon light turned orange. I pegged his age around thirty or so. A red snake tattoo coiled around one of his arms while a stylized raven showed on the other. No doubt there were more under his shirt. He glanced up and smiled when we stopped beside him on the house's sidewalk.

"You must be Eugenie," he said, standing up. He brushed dirt off his gloves and looked apologetic. "I'd shake hands, but..."

I smiled back. "No problem. This is Kiyo."

The two men exchanged nods of greeting, and Art directed us around the side of the house. "Roland said you wanted to chat, right? How about we sit down in the back? Let me clean up, and I'll go get us something to drink."

Kiyo and I followed his direction and found ourselves sitting at a cute, umbrella-covered table in a backyard even more lush than the front. Though a bit more humid, Yellow River's climate wasn't that far off from Tucson's, so I could only imagine the amount of water and labor it took to maintain this greenery. A funny thought came to me, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"What?" asked Kiyo. He'd been watching a hummingbird dance around a red-flowered bush that flanked the house.

"I was thinking I need Art to come do landscaping in the Thorn Land."

"I think that might blow your cover."

"Likely. I don't even know if he crosses over very much."

"If he does, it's probably only a matter of time before he finds out and tells Roland. Actually, it's only a matter of time before anyone does that."

I made a face. Roland knew a lot of shamans, all around the country. "Yeah, I know."

Art stepped out through the back patio, gloves gone and a new shirt on. He set down a small cooler, carefully sliding the glass and its screen shut again. The drapes hanging on the other side of the patio were blue and purple watercolors laced with silvery threads that I envied after my own had been ripped up by a storm I'd inadvertently caused. Between his excellent decor and yard, I was feeling like a lame homeowner.