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I ignored the niggling guilt that nagged at me because I'd managed not to tell
her that I'd marked her, for better or worse, as a part of us all.
I made love to her, and showered with her, and kissed her goodbye, loving her
more than I'd thought possible and at the same time longing for Green to help
me make it right.
Green
What he can't heal
God, Goddess and other, what a day. Green threw open the door to his
many-roomed wooden home and began to disrobe. His white canvas briefcase went
on the glass table in the entryway, his white brocade coat on the maple coat
rack, other clothes, also white in linen and silk, cascaded over the white
tiles as he padded to the back bedroom. He returned to the living space, bared
feet padding on the hard wood floors, still naked but pulling a wooden comb
through yellow, yellow hair that fell past his hips. He had a body of
alabaster perfection as did all the sidhe; David, but leaner, six feet, five
inches of skin so pale and hairless that it must be touched to be believed. In
a bound and a swirl of sunshine colored hair, he leapt across the pale wood
floor and landed on his white brocaded couch.
The couch looked out the bay window that wrapped around three quarters of the
hill wherein the house itself resided. The living room was immediate to the
front entry, and most of the activity of the house passed through it, but it
was really only a fraction of the place itself. Green had built his hill like
the fairie mounds at home, with the addition of the darkling which had no
windows and a giant car port in the basement, that had used to be a stable
back before there were cars. The wrap around window itself overlooked a
canyon, silver in star fall, looking cooler than it actually felt outside. The
immediate grounds before the drop off managed to stay 65 or so degrees
Fahrenheit...but only people who'd been invited there knew that for certain.
Green stretched on his couch, innocently sensual the brocade was fine, and
satin, and his body appreciated even the tiny prickling of the linen in the
bottom of the embossment. His clothes were finely made, always, but
nothing nothing was better than being naked. All elves felt that way, and
Green was a high elf, all sensations intensified. Food was better, skin was
better, sex was better. High elves have it very, very good.
The phone rang, and he sighed. There was a price to pay for being one of the
most powerful preternatural beings in Northern California. Answering the phone
99% of the time, whether or not one had been on a six day road trip to check
out various investments, was part of the price.
"Green." His phone voice was very So-Ho gone yank, because he found that was
most effective, but the accent changed depending on his mood. He'd been alive
for a long time accent was all a state of mind.
"Green...Green, its Arturo." Green felt his eyebrows arch to his hairline.
Arturo sounded panic stricken. Tall, deadly, easy-going Arturo panic and
Arturo were as likely a match as salt and honey.
"What's the matter?
Arturo laughed, almost hysterically. "The matter is all over me." He all but
giggled. There was a breath, audible, strong and controlled, and Arturo
started again. "The were-kitties...the babies...they were we were standing at
the gas station, just talking...and Mitchell just...just exploded, man. Adrian
and I just stood there, taking his report and all of a sudden Renny
changes...right there at the station and takes off...she stopped at the bushes
and mrowlled, sort of desperate, and Mitchell looked at her...surprised, you
know, and then...he just...exploded...all over me...all over Adrian..." In the
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background, Green became aware of retching noises, and a low, miserable voice,
swearing to ward off hysteria.
"Wait a bit, mate...who the fuck is that in the background..." Green
demanded...Arturo was shaken, obviously, but it didn't sound like one of his
people there, and he, Arturo should know better than to let an outsider hear.
"Cory." Arturo said..."She's Adrian's.
"Since bloody when?" Green was indignant he'd been out of town six days...and
he didn't want to think about Mitchell, a sweet kid with a harsh past and a
girlfriend who'd followed him into the preternatural half life just to keep
him clean. He especially didn't want to think about Mitchell's innards
apparently dripping off the walls of the Chevron mini-mart.
"Since she covered up a body to protect Adrian...dammit Green, focus. I need
you here, man. Cory's hooking up the pressure hose, but something did this.
Something bad, and there's a half-grown kitty out there who needs us.
Focus. Good boy, Arturo, that's why you're my second. Green took a deep
breath. "I'm exhausted I have to take the bike." He said, breathing deeply and
thinking, finally.
Arturo choked on a breath of his own. "That's fine, man. Adrian's got to be in
bed by dawn sometime before then." The phone clicked dead, and Green swore,
not sure which was harder to wrap his brain around Mitchell Hammond, dead, or
Adrian, in love.
The ride through the foothills should have been beautiful, full of trees and
red dust, and a warm, pine smell that was home to Green now. It wasn't. After
the white leathers had come on, so had the responsibility and Green was
surprised to find himself very angry.
There weren't that many preternatural beings left. Maybe too many by mortal
figures, which calculated none at all, but the world was losing its sense of
wonder. Books helped to hold back the encroaching tide, but as man exploded
over the planet, and scientific knowledge obliterated superstition, a harsh
and constant light was being shed on beings too fragile to even view the dawn.
To lose one of them a recruit, even destroyed by magic, was a dreadful loss.
By the time Green got to the Chevron station, the only being he could see was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]