Page 155 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
We surveyed song after glorious song in search of the ballad Pete had originally requested. He disliked a majority, sometimes snubbing a song altogether after just the opening verse.
“You’vegotto be kidding me, dude,” I argued after he’d vetoed another song. “This song is iconic—one of the best pop songs ever—and you won’t even hear it the whole way through?”
“Next,” he repeated, bored to death.
I huffled but moved on.
“These blokesagain?” Pete grumbled after a time. “Such mediocrity. Why must you keep subjecting yourself to it? Are musicians so scarce on Earth?”
“No. This group just happens to be my favorite, so I own every song they’ve ever sung.”
“And what, pray tell, do they look like, Shorty?”
Clearing my throat, I lifted my chin. “Not important, Pete.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I love their voices.” Their handsome faces, toned bodies, and charming personalities influencednothing!
Pete’s gaze shifted away, rife with skepticism.
“I do!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Just—shut up!”
He rumbled, amused, as I skipped forward in my playlist.
As the song surfing drew on, the two of us grew quieter, our eyes heavier. When at last I heard the dulcet piano chords beginning “Know My Love,” I had enough energy only to bump Pete’s shoulder and whisper that this wastheone.
His long-lashed eyes already shut, he grunted once in reply and angled toward me. The change in his wide mouth was infinitesimal. I wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t all dreamy-eyed and studying him. His lips curled in the faintest display of tranquility as Delaney’s sultry tones graced the earbuds. Peace descended on his body. His every muscle relaxed—his tension melting like cheese over a burger. After that night, I sensed that even in finding the ballad as sublime as he did, he’d never let his guard slip in the presence of anyone else. He only did so now because he was with me.
Because he trusted me.
My Goddess, Petetrustedme.
I supposed that made sense. After all, I’d saved his life. Once from the Fomorians, then again from infection. He’d also confided things in me that Olea insinuated most other harbingers wouldn’t. Things I hadn’t recoiled from—the lethality of the predator or the blood on his hands. Or from the demon lurking inside the murkiest parts of his soul.
Most of Pete’s past would repel people. But I could accept the things he’d been forced to do in his past, the things he was forced to do now, for the sake of the man I’d come to know. He’d done the same for me, after all. Listened to my deepest anxieties and responded with acceptance and understanding. Maybe because he’d sensed the same thing I had. That on some level, we—an unladylike princess and an assassin with a conscience—were kindred spirits, both of us thieved of our previous lives and striving to find ways to cope with the grief of our new ones. Our hearts forever searching for home. For family.
That’s when I realized something profound. And startling. As we lay there, an arm’s length apart with a wriggling dog between us, surrounded by an unfathomable darkness that only grew closer the sleepier Pete got, I felt more connected to the harbinger in that chaste moment than I’d ever felt with anyone else in my life.
I fell asleep with this thought echoing above the refrain still crooning in my ear. And when the dark finally devoured me, I welcomed it like a friend.
Twenty-Six
Thehystericalbrayofa donkey woke me at dawn.
Disoriented at first, I flailed until I ripped the clinging oblivion off me like a sheet. I then goggled up at a tangerine sky bordered by blooms that looked as if they’d been painted with watercolors. My head fuzzy and aching (my duly earned hangover, I presumed), I took several moments to find my way off the bedroll. No sooner had I stood than was I tackled back to the ground by an enormity of heaving muscle.
“Don’t make a sound,” Pete panted against my ear, his rough hand muffling my screech. His beard scratched my temple. “Don’t fight me, Shorty.”
What the fuck are you doing?I wanted to demand as I kicked beneath him.Get the hell off me!
For goodness sakes! If he’d wanted to pounce on me, why hadn’t he just done it the night before when I was drunk and giving him sex eyes? His morning sneak attack made no goddamn sense!
Until I saw it—a tiny, glittering beacon floating through the departing mist. A celestial gift sent from the devil just for me.
