City of Souls by Pettersson Vicki

Author:Pettersson, Vicki [Pettersson, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Published: 2009-12-10T17:46:23+00:00

We dropped to the platform bed tucked in the crow’s nest after that…it was either that or fall over, but the rightness that had slid over me upon climax enveloped me again as I nestled in next to Hunter. I was sore from the give and take, the aggressiveness and the surprising desperation in our lovemaking. I was also feeling the effects of my fight in Midheaven, and the passage both there and back, but nestled into the crook of his left arm, staring up at a ceiling of faux stars, I sighed, and every muscle relaxed.

Unlike Solange’s planetarium, this ceiling offered up a faulty version of the night sky. Hunter didn’t only track constellations, but “frozen stars,” dead ones, black holes. I’d wondered at that once, thinking it strange, but right now I had no energy to even care. I fit so well at his side, and was so relieved to be safe and home—not to mention out of those chaps—that I immediately began to drift off.

“How do you feel?” Hunter’s voice reached out to me like a breeze, hesitant and shifting. It was a similar question to the one he’d asked the last time we’d been tented beneath this improbable sky.

What do I make you feel?

At war with myself, like there’s something lacking…and violence…

I knew my answer had been hurtful, but at the time it had also been my truest reaction to the shock and sadness of having witnessed Ben and Regan together. Though rephrased, by asking the question now, Hunter was again opening himself to that hard answer, obviously hoping it’d changed.

My hesitation spooked him. He edged away, turning his back to me, but I caught his hip with my palm and spooned his body with my own, feet and knees and hips and chest an echo of his male strength. So complimentary, I thought, drawing closer. It made me honestly wonder why we were so often at odds.

While he remained silent, waiting, I traced the tattoo on his back with my fingers, trailing the shadowed side of the yin/yang symbol before running my index finger along the dueling words on each side: fear and desire.

“You make me feel…”

You make me feel like touching myself in the dark. You make me feel like whispering your name for no reason. You make me wish to put need and lack and violence behind me.

He turned to me, determined to face whatever I was going to say.

I offered up a watery smile, my fingers going tentative on his arm. I whispered, “I feel like me.”

Like I could be me—the good and the bad, the fabled and fallible, the Light and the Shadow—and still look in the mirror without shame. The jerk of his head revealed his surprise, but his relieved sigh told me it was the answer he’d been seeking. I stroked his arms, feeling the fine hairs there, the soft skin, the hard muscle underneath. I’d go back to Midheaven, I thought, like he could still hear it, and risk soul and powers and life for you alone.

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