Sabrina's Clan (21 page)

He had turned his back on smithing as a means of income, but he had not altogether given up the work. This forge was the original one he had bought in the 1980s, using Damian’s stake money. When Nick had sold the big, old house in Albany and moved to the penthouse in New York, he had put the forge in storage. Then Nick and Damian had bought this old house together and Damian had returned the forge to the well-insulated and sound-proof basement…just in case. Damian’s long range planning often seemed prophetic.

What would Damian make of this current mess with Jake and Sabrina? Damian’s viewpoint was often startling. He had manipulated Nick into a relationship with both Riley and him and Nick was a master strategist, difficult to beat at chess and at life.

For a moment, Nyanther could smell her scent. Not the perfume she always wore. The scent beneath that. Her natural scent. It was often lemony, sometimes bitter, nearly always heady. Now it seemed to wreath his head and mind. It stole his breath.

He pulled off his jacket with a growl and hung it on the hook by the bottom of the rough wooden stairs. His heart was racing again.

Of course, a simple ménage wasn’t an option. He didn’t even bother to wonder if Sabrina would be willing to consider it. There wasn’t room for something like that in
his
life. He had already compromised, possibly too much, by letting Jake as far inside his shields as he had. Jake was controllable. Jake was a factor he could deal with. He could keep it at the ‘just-sex’ level as long as he needed to.

He shoved his hands into the heavy gloves and picked up the forging tongs and got to work.

It didn’t help. Even when his body grew hot enough to start sweating, forcing him to strip off the shirt as well, even when he was fully focused on the forming of the tangs and the angles of the blades, he could still feel her hand on his shoulder. Her light touch had left an imprint on his skin that burned like a brand.

Jake’s hand landed on his shoulder at almost the exact same spot and Nyanther whirled, shock swirling through him. He knew who it was. No one could wander into the basement accidentally and only Jake would touch him that way.

He had been so deeply engrossed in his own thoughts he hadn’t heard Jake on the stairs. The forge was noisy, yes. So was the hammering. That was why the basement was insulated and sound-proofed. Only, he could hear over and under those sounds.

Jake stepped away and leaned back as the hot tongs swept through the space he had been standing in. “It’s me, it’s me.”

“Sorry.” Nyanther propped the tongs’ heated points down in the sand tray next to the forge and dropped the gloves.

Jake nodded, considering him with narrowed eyes. “You’re pissed at something,” he judged.

Nyanther shook his head. “Concentrating.”

A look crossed Jake’s face. Doubt. Disbelief. He knew as well as Nyanther did that even when he was deeply focused, he could still notice a fly crawling up the wall across the room. “You’re sure?” Jake said.

“It’s okay,” Nyanther said, trying to find a tone, an expression that would reassure him. He pulled Jake closer. “Even if I am pissed, it’s not with you.” He kissed him.

His body was already heated, already working overtime. The kiss directed it. Nyanther told himself this was what he wanted, after all. The kiss lingered, grew deeper.

Jake broke it, with a breathless gasp. “And you’re
sweating
! You!” His gaze flickered over Nyanther’s bare chest.

“You object to a little honest sweat?” Nyanther asked.

Jake grinned. “I like it on you.” He pulled him back close again.

The kiss was intense. Driven. Nyanther found he was fumbling at the neck of Jake’s expensive business shirt, so he swore and ripped the thing from him in one easy tug.

Jake’s brow lifted. “I see,” he said. He pulled Nyanther’s jeans undone with a twist and flick of his fingers, then pushed his hand inside and gripped him. “Jesus, you’re so hot!” he breathed. He stroked and Nyanther gritted his jaw against the agonized groan that wanted to escape him. He was too wound up. Too close.

It took very little effort to turn Jake and lean him up against the bench. He didn’t tear his pants off, as Jake had to get back upstairs wearing
something.
He didn’t slow down when he took them off, like he might have to tease or make the moment linger. There was no time.

The tiny tube of lubricant was in his jeans pocket. He applied it and was appalled to see his hand was shaking.

Jake hissed as he entered him, barely pausing for Jake to adjust around him. He pushed back with his hips, encouraging him. “Just remember I don’t heal like you do,” he breathed and groaned as Nyanther thrust again.

Nyanther grabbed his hips and ground into him, using all his weight and his muscle to drive himself in. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sensations and listening to Jake’s breathing, reading his movements, the little shifts and twitches that were the equivalent of Braille to a blind man, speaking of his building pleasure. He was enjoying this.

Nyanther grabbed his shoulder, holding him down. He rode him even harder. His movements quickened. His climax clawed its way to life, burning nerve ends and straining his tendons as he flexed and held, the pleasure coursing through him.

Then the coldness came. It filled the now-empty places inside him.

Nyanther moved away, his limbs stiff and retrieved his jeans.

Jake straightened up and thrust his legs into his trousers in silence. He fastened them, watching Nyanther.

“Did that help?” he asked quietly.

The coldness gripped him. “No,” Nyanther said. It hurt to say it.

Jake pulled him into his arms and held him. “It’s okay,” he whispered.

Nyanther closed his eyes, his wretchedness complete.

The next day was January 6
th
, a date burned in Nyanther’s memory, deep and channeled.

Riley crept around the apartment, taking care of Chloe, not disturbing Nick and Damian, who sat staring out the windows as the snow fell.

Nyanther joined them there, taking the other corner of the sofa. Memories were crowding in, demanding and vivid. He let the memories take him, let them flow through him and away. It hurt, all the same.

* * * * *

Jake came into the kitchen a little after seven p.m., loosening his tie. He was carrying a brown paper shopping bag he set carefully on the table behind Sabrina’s laptop. “Surprise.”

“The test model?”

“Have a look.”

She pulled out the felt-wrapped bundle and undid it. The device inside looked exactly like a mini tablet. It even had the logo.

“You’re kidding, right?” She studied the thing, wondering if she had been ripped off.

Jake shook his head. “I may have mentioned that having something that looked exactly like a device millions of other people had in their carry-on would be a good thing. They took it to heart. Turn it on.”

She turned it on. The same familiar logos popped up.

“Tap the weather icon on the second page,” he told her.

She did. A weather radar screen came up, showing a superimposed map of the United States. She looked at Jake expectantly.

“Pull up the settings.”

She gasped as the drop-down screen scrolled…and scrolled. All the keys were there, the exhaustive list Nick had given her. Scent, flight patterns, size, shape, calls…. “Ohmigod,” she whispered. She lowered the tracker. “What’s the range?”

“It’s an inverse relationship, depending on the key you use. If it’s something simple, like heat traces, then you can see farther, with less certainty that what you’re looking at isn’t a herd of migrating polar bears.”

“Polar bears don’t migrate,” Sabrina said absently, tapping through the settings. “Not very far, anyway.”

“The only way we’ll be able to calibrate the useful tracking distance of this thing is to use it,” Jake pointed out. He got the milk out of the fridge and drank straight from the carton. Still holding the carton, he pointed upstairs with his long forefinger. “By the way, what is going on up there? Riley shushed me when I came in. The three of them all look like statues, sitting in the dark. It felt like a funeral.”

Sabrina’s heart squeezed. “It is, in a way.” She shifted on the chair, suddenly uncomfortable. So she got to her feet and started cleaning the coffee machine and setting it up for another pot, to give her hands something to do. “Riley’s mother, Tally…it’s the anniversary of her death. All three of them were there.”

“Shit. Damn. Really?”

“She killed the last gargoyle. Lirgon, the leader. He killed her, too. Probably it was the only way she could get close enough to him to do it.” Sabrina drew in a breath and let it out. “Damian wrote it all out for Riley for her birthday, a couple of years ago. You should ask Riley if you can read it. Damian talks about how they found Nyanther in the cave in Scotland.”

Jake looked up at the ceiling. “Riley killed Lirgon already, this time around.”

“That still leaves Andurag,” Sabrina reminded him. “And Valdeg, the little mean one. He’s the one that got Carson Connors killed. He coerced one of their friends.”

“Listen to you,” Jake said, his tone admiring. “No one would know you hate all this shit.”

“I don’t hate it,” Sabrina said. The denial was automatic.

“Just everyone who’s in it?”

“Not even that.” She shook her head. “I might have, a while ago. Anyone can get used to anything, after a while.”

Jake put the carton on the counter beside him. Later, she would have to put it back in the fridge. He was hopeless at picking up after himself.

“Did things start changing around the time we met?” he asked. His very blue eyes were almost incandescent in the low light.

Sabrina drew in a breath as the memory stung for a moment. Then she nodded. “That day, actually. I found out I could no longer have children. Then I hurried to get to the restaurant to meet the company’s biggest clients for dinner.”

Jake’s mouth opened. Then his sagging jaw flexed. “Damn, Sabrina. I’m sorry.”

She switched on the coffee machine. It was next to the fridge cabinet and right next to his hip, so all she had to do was look up at him. “It’s no one’s fault except mine. I ignored the symptoms because there was stuff I wanted to get done at work.” She shrugged.

He considered her for a long moment. Then he rolled his eyes. “
That’s
why you came home with me.”

“No, I went home with you because you were right, I was
very
drunk and I had to sober up. And you were kind.”

“I mean…after,” he amended.

She picked up the milk carton, intending to put it away, except that Jake was in front of the fridge. “I didn’t go to bed with you because I was drunk or because I’d just gotten the worst news of my life,” she said calmly, squeezing the carton. “They just gave me good excuses to do what I wanted to do.”

Jake didn’t speak. His throat worked.

“I don’t get to do what I
really
want to do, very often,” she explained. “I keep putting it off, waiting for Someday.” She shrugged. “I put off having kids then found out it was too late. It seemed like a good reason to do something else I wanted to do, instead.”

He reached up and picked up a lock of her hair that was brushing the corner of her eye. He tucked it behind her ear. It was an incredibly gentle movement. “I thought I had you all figured out that night. I wasn’t within a million miles of close.”

Warm pleasure touched her. “Thank you.”

“Although you probably
did
have me all worked out, right? Rich kid cliché on speed.”

Sabrina realized she was smiling. “It’s a good daytime disguise. Very Batman-like.”

Jake grinned. Then his grin faded. “It’s also a million miles away from who I am.”

“So I’ve learned.”

He stepped out of the way and let her put the milk back in the fridge, then caught the edge of the door as she tried to close it and shut it for her, keeping his hand there, so she was between him and the door.

Her heart leapt. She didn’t dare look at him.

“If only, huh?” Jake murmured in her ear.

Her heart was frantically throwing itself against her ribcage, almost hurting with the speed it was working at. “If only,” she whispered.

His lips pressed against her neck, close by her jaw.

Then he was gone, the heat at her back replaced by the normal air in the room. The air felt cold.

* * * * *

Nyanther stirred when he heard Sabrina and Jake talking downstairs. Between the two floors he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He did hear surprise in her voice and that roused him enough to blink in the dark and look around. Riley was not in the room.

Nick and Damian hadn’t moved. Grief radiated from them like heat from his forge.

The impulse to find someone he could hold grew powerful enough to push him onto his feet. He moved silently across the floor, unwilling to disturb the other two. He climbed down the spiral stairs to the next floor.

The bottom of the stairs faced the passage, so there was a view into the kitchen that included the fridge and a section of the apartment door next to it.

Jake was standing there. His hand was in her hair, stroking it. It might have been an innocent gesture except for the taut lines in both their bodies, the hushed stillness around them. The longing….

Nyanther squeezed his hands into fists, holding back the first murderous reaction with honed will-power. He was an old creature, driven by older instincts. He knew that fact from various painful lessons this new, modern world had dished out. If the three of them had been standing upon the Selgovae plains, the tribe would have understood if he’d killed them both.

This was not those times.

So he rode out the flash of fury, the need for violence, containing it and holding it inside himself.
Think
, he commanded.
This is about you, not them.

Then he understood. Shock, actual physical shock, struck him in the chest like a blow and he staggered. With shaking legs, he moved over to the dining table in the far corner and leaned upon it, propping himself up, trying to breathe and wait for the shaking to subside.