House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(73)

“Garret,” he snaps, in his growling, animal’s voice.

“Before that.” I let him take another sip. He frowns at the taste.

“Glassclaw.”

I let him finish his tea, and Jannik eases him down and ties the ropes that hold him back in place. We snuff the candles, and I lie in the dark as close to Jannik as he can bear. The second-hand pain I’ve been feeling is dulling now, and I grow drowsy from the lady’s gown in his tea.

“You shouldn’t have asked his name,” Jannik says, his voice thick.

I can barely manage to answer him. Sleep is tugging me down. “Why’s that?”

“Because now he’s a person.”



*



We sleep through morning in a sweaty, dream-shifting haze. I keep waking, hearing the crows in the gardens then waking again, hearing the crows in the gardens. It’s disorienting.

Breakfast tea is brought, and I groggily let myself be dragged to unwilling consciousness. Jannik is fast asleep next to me. I touch his cheek, now dark with a growing beard. Under the fine wire prickles, I can feel the walls of his house rebuilding. Or see them. It’s a strange feeling, half-imagination, half-submergence in an-almost reality. I can feel his thoughts eerie and alien, like listening to sand moving through the desert, a hiss that sets my teeth on edge.

“I can hear you thinking,” Jannik says from the pillow. “I don’t sound like sand.”

I draw my hand back, as if struck. “How is it that you know the very words I think, but all I get is something that doesn’t even sound alive?”

He sits up, his face twisting as he moves with careful slow stretches. “I told you why. Work on your house.”

“You’re in pain, and I can barely feel it.”

“You can, actually. You just don’t realize it.”

I sit up and glance over the edge of the bed. Merril is still sleeping, looking for all the world like something three days dead. I slip one leg out from the covers and poke him with my toe. He mumbles and turns his head slightly. “What do you mean?”

“It’s why you’re so tired, you’re compensating for me.”

“Or it could be all that scriv I took.”

“And scriv normally left you feeling like you’d been dragged behind a wagon over the cobblestones of Pelimburg?”

Damn Jannik for being right. I never truly considered just how much this bond could affect me. What might have happened if Jannik had not been kept alive? I know, I just don’t want to face it. There’s my problem.

Jannik slips one arm around my waist, pulling my body closer to his. His breath is warm and a little damp against my neck. “Harun will call us if anything happens. Stay a little longer.”

I hold his arm down with my own, hanging on to him, hanging on to me. There it is, thrumming under my lowest ribs, a gnawing pain. It’s his, not mine. “Jannik?” I twist in his arms to that I can face him. “Do you?” I don’t even have to say it, merely think of the night we bound ourselves together, and the feel of his teeth sliding into my flesh, painful, but a pain that left me delirious, wanting more.

His breathing changes, turns fast and shallow, and when he does bite down in the lowest part of my neck, instead of feeling my pain, he eclipses it with his own desire.



*



Harun meets me alone for breakfast. A very late breakfast. I am wearing a demure, high-buttoned dress of silvery-grey, and I note with sly amusement and a modicum of relief, that Harun keeps unconsciously pressing the tips of his fingers against his own collar.

“Sleep well?” he says to me as he butters toast. The smell of a full repast hangs in delicious savoury waves all around us.



My morning with Jannik has left me ravenous, and more than a little faint.

“Sit down,” he says. “Eat.”

I do as instructed, while ghost-like servants set plates and tea things before me. “No one came in the night?”

“Not a mouse. Isidro sat watch with me. He’s asleep now.”

My heart is beating faster. “I – expected–” I shake my head. It seems that somehow Isidro and Harun have mended their differences, and that Isidro has relinquished any claims he felt he had on Jannik. But it is all so easy and neat, and I know well that no matter how smoothly the surface may be embroidered, when it comes to emotions, underneath will be a snarl of knots and ragged stitches. We must pretend that it doesn’t exist so that we will not mar what we have. Better that we move on. There are other thoughts to occupy us. Whatever else happened last night, Harun did dine with Garret, and there are things we could learn from that. “How did your meeting with Eline go then?”

He shrugs. “It was almost pleasant. We *-footed around politics and money and didn’t so much as breathe a word about bats.”

“And Carien?” I draw a pot of blackberry jam closer and slather my toast with the sweet dark mess.

“She barely spoke. Seemed anxious to get back, but her husband was doing his best to ignore her. I think, if anything, she felt out of place – was expecting there to be female company, or at least, more guests than simply themselves.”

“It must have looked a little odd,” I concede.

Something should have happened by now. I was sure Eline would make a move as soon as he discovered the vampires gone. It’s not as if he would have any doubt where to turn his attention.