A Rush of Wings

34 All that Could’ve Been

“HEY.”

Heather looked up toward the doorway. Dante leaned there in leather and latex, one hand braced against the threshold. Fluorescent light winked from the ring in his collar and from the rings on his fingers. A half smile tilted his lips, lit his pale, gorgeous face. He raised his shades to the top of his head.

He still stole her breath away. She suspected that he always would.

Beyond him, in the corridor, nurses and CNAs stared, wondering who paid hospital visits wearing leather and bondage collars, wondering just what had wandered in from the frozen night.

“Hey,” Heather said.

She pressed her hands against the mattress, meaning to ease up, but then Dante was there, arms around her, helping her, his hands hot against her skin. Pain rippled through her and she caught her breath.

“What’s wrong?” Dante asked. “Do you need—”

“No. It’s okay.”

Dante looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes searching her face. Then he inhaled deeply. He pulled the chair close to the bed and sat. He waited. Heather was pretty sure he knew what she was going to say—or, at least, suspected.

Reaching a hand over the bed railing, she grasped Dante’s hand. A smile ghosted across his lips. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. She glanced out the window, at the room reflected in the black sky beyond, and the two people in that room, holding hands and keeping silent.

Heather thought of the mystified surgeons: the worst of the damage to her aorta and her left lung healed or closed off, or miraculously cauterized. She should’ve bled to death in minutes. She remembered the taste of Dante’s lips, the amaretto taste of his blood; remembered the cool fire he’d breathed into her.

None of which Heather could tell the surgeons. Or the investigators from the Bureau dispatched to take her statement, debrief her and uncover the truth. Or at least an official version of the truth. She knew better than to mention Bad Seed; she only discussed her hunt for a serial killer and how she’d finally found him.

One thing she knew for certain—her career with the Bureau was over. Her decision, one she hadn’t voiced yet. The powers that be would be happy to file her away at a desk in an obscure city; would, in fact, prefer it.

Heather kept Dante from all of them. He’d saved her life. Even without that, she’d never hand him over to federal wolves. Hadn’t Johanna Moore been wolf enough?

Johanna Moore. What Dante had done…Heather couldn’t wrap her mind around it. What had he done?

Dante cups Moore’s face. His hands tremble. Glow with blue light. Blue flame. His hair snakes up into the air. Energy crackles. Heather’s skin goose bumps. Her hair lifts. She smells ozone.

Blue light shafts into Moore’s body, explodes from her eyes, her screaming mouth. She…separates…into strands, wet and glistening, mingled blue and red. Dante unthreads her, separates every single part of her.

Johanna Moore spills to the tiled floor.

Energy continues to whip from Dante, blue tentacles snapping into the air and altering everything they touch. A counter twists into dark, heaving vines thick with blue thorns. The dart gun slithers into the shadows.

Dante’s beautiful face is ecstatic—like it had been when he’d torched the Prejean house.

In that moment, Heather had been terrified of Dante. Of what he could do. His potential. Yet…had Dante been a voice for his mother? For all of Johanna Moore’s victims?

“Talk to me,” Dante said.

Heather shifted her gaze from the window. Smiling, she squeezed his hand. He burned against her palm. Felt fevered. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Ça va bien. I’m good.” Dante held her gaze, his own open and unwavering. “Talk to me, Heather.”

She nodded. Talk might help. “What you did to Moore…what…how…?”

“Dunno,” Dante said. He trailed a hand through his hair. “I’ve never done…that…before. The song you said you heard? It’s tied to that. I feel it inside.” He touched their linked hands against his chest, above his heart. “It’s like fingering the strings on my guitar, like composing on my keyboards.”

“Is it a nightkind or a Fallen ability?”

Dante stared at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

“Your father told me,” Heather said.

Dante nodded, then looked away. A muscle flexed in his jaw. After a moment, he said, “I’m pretty sure it’s a Fallen thing. I used to think it was nightkind, but…” He shrugged.

“Can you control it?”

“Not always. No.” Dante looked at her, reflected light gleaming in his eyes.

“Were you controlling it then?”

“More or less.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I didn’t have an outcome in mind,” he said, voice low. “But I wanted to finish it—end her fucked-up game.” His thumb once again rubbed back and forth across the back of her hand, a soothing gesture—for them both, she had a feeling.

Dante was nightkind and Fallen, and a killer. More than enough to send most women—sane women, anyway—screaming into the night. But there was so much more to him—a boy wishing his princess night-night, then walking into a basement alone; a man struggling with his emotions as he spreads his jacket over a friend’s body and sits beside her so she won’t be alone; a lover fitting against a woman like no other ever has—body and heart—asking her to stay.

It’s quiet when I’m with you. The noise stops.

Run from me.

Did either of those statements reflect Dante’s true center? Or did both? Had his life ever been his own? Heather scanned his dark eyes, his beautiful face. In spite of all he was or, maybe, because of it, he’d somehow captured her heart. Not knowing which scared the hell out of her. She needed answers. She needed a chance to catch her breath.

“Where is this going?” Dante said, watching her. His thumb was motionless on her hand. “Heather?”

“I want you to go home,” she said quietly. “I’m heading back to Seattle as soon as I’m released. There’s gonna be a ton of shit to deal with.”

“You don’t hafta deal with it alone.”

“Yes, I do.” Heather slipped her hand from his, grasped the cool metal railing. “Dante, I do. I’ve got things to think about—to sort through. I need a little distance. A little time. Nothing’s what I thought—what I believed it was.”

A half-smile tilted his lips. “Nothing and no one. Believe me, I understand.”

Heather cupped a hand against his face. “I bet you do.”

Closing his eyes, Dante leaned into her touch and closed his hand over hers.

“You need time, too,” she murmured. “You more than anyone.”

“Don’t tell me what I need.” Dante’s voice was rough, raw.

“Pigheaded,” she whispered.

Despite his denial, his life, his world, had been ripped apart—his hidden past, revealed. Did he know any of it yet? Would De Noir tell him? Should she?

“Has your father said anything about Bad Seed?” She slid her hand from his face.

Dante’s eyes opened. Something flickered in those dark depths—pain, maybe grief, maybe rage—then vanished. “No. Elroy told me. But I can’t hold onto it.” He shook his head. “No matter how hard I try.”

Jordan. That hurt. “Oh, Dante, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” A smile brushed his lips. He pulled his shades from the top of his head, slid them on. “Not your fault.” Standing, he bent over her and brushed his lips against hers.

“This doesn’t need to be good-bye,” Heather said against his warm lips. “I care about you, you know that, don’t you?”

“I care about you, too,” he whispered, tracing a finger along the edge of her jaw.

Heather closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Dante was gone. But the feel of his lips lingered upon hers; his scent hung in the room. She pictured him walking out into the snow-covered night, alone.

She had a feeling he didn’t expect to see her again. She’d known his leaving would hurt, just not how much. And it did, heart-deep—sharp and unrelenting. Tears slipped hot down her cheeks, into her ears. Folding her arms across her eyes, she wept.

For all the voiceless dead Elroy Jordan had left behind.

For justice unrendered.

For Dante.

She thought of all that could’ve been—traveling between New Orleans and Seattle; Dante creating music, touring, putting his past together. She might become a victim’s advocate, a PI, something to help those who could no longer speak for themselves, and—together—she and Dante could work to heal his wounded mind and help him find the redemption he sought.

Could still be. Nothing’s written in stone.

Penance.

Could he be redeemed? She believed he was worth the chance. She just needed to find out if she was strong enough to give him that chance. And herself.

I won’t walk away from you.

A song wisp suddenly curled through Heather and, for a moment, she thought she heard Dante’s voice, smoky and low, burning like a flame in her heart: Shhh. Je suis ici. Always.