Page 15 of Remmen

Outside her apartment I took the little stair one careful step at a time. Chelsea’s window was an arm’s length off, dark. Giles’s past it, dark. The sight of them put cold water on something in me that badly needed it.

Then Anne came awake against my chest.

She didn’t startle. That’s what got me. She came up slow and warm and burrowed an inch closer first before she remembered where she was, or who she was, or one single reason not to, her cheek against me and her breath going out in a long sigh I felt all the way down my front.

She woke up the rest of the way.

She went still instead of shoving out of my arms. I set her on her own feet before she had to decide anything worse, the two of us in the dark a foot from her coworkers’ doors.

She looked up. Blood dried at her collar, hair a wreck, and I wanted her past every rule I had.

“Thank you,” she said. “For getting me home.”

Then she went up on her toes, one hand flat on my chest for balance, and kissed my cheek.

She caught the corner of my jaw. Warm. Her fingers lingered, close enough that an inch in either direction and it stopped being my cheek. Neither of us moved that inch.

Her whole small weight was up on her toes and pressed into my hand. I did nothing. Anything I did next was the end of everything, so I did nothing, and stood there and held her weight and let it hurt.

She came down off her toes. She let herself in. The door shut soft, the bolt went over, and I heard her stop just inside it and stand there a second before her steps went away.

I stayed in the street too long. A grown male in a good coat, stalled at the bottom of a stair like he’d lost the way home.

Then I walked back to mine. I’d built that house with my own hands and been proud of it. I let myself in and stood in the middle of it.

Cold ash, and me, and nothing else. It was a good house. She’d never once been in it. And standing there in the dark I couldn’t work out why I’d ever thought that was fine.

CHAPTER 6

ANNE

The sign outside the tavern was hand-painted and a bit sloppy from the warp of the wood. I’d stopped in every morning for the brew that passed for coffee, but I’d never come at night.

Unfortunately, I had a feeling that if I didn’t show up for the drinks that Chloe had invited me to, I’d find myself hunted for sport by the brides of New Knossos and I didn’t need that. And after the week I’d had, a drink would be welcome. I’d even managed to rope Chelsea into going with me. When I’d asked Giles if he wanted to come, he’d pressed a hand to his arm’s cast and made a face so heartbroken, he would have won an acting award if he were on stage.

One friend was better than none, and we steeled ourselves to head inside.

Inside was a wall of heat and noise and the biggest men I had ever been packed into a room with, which, these days, was saying a lot. The place was built for minotaurs and full of them, so it was like standing in a crowd of doorframes. Beams low enough the bulls ducked. A fire I could’ve fit my apartment inside. And down one end, obviously an afterthought, a cluster of stools sized for people who weren’t seven feet tall.

Somebody had remembered the humans existed. Bless them.

Chloe found me before the door fully swung shut.

“You came.” She had a mug in each hand and pushed one at me without asking what I drank. “Maisie owes me. She bet you’d chicken out.”

“I did not,” said the woman behind her. Human, dark curls, an easy grin. “I bet you’d come and hate it. I’m Maisie. Ignore about half of what Chloe says and you’ll be fine. Sit.”

So I sat. Chelsea got tucked in on my other side with a mug she also hadn’t ordered, and that was that. We were in. No say in the matter.

I tried the drink. It was sweet and strong and hit me somewhere around the knees.

“Oh no,” I said. “This is dangerous.”

“That’s the point,” said Chloe.

They were good, the brides. Better than me, and I did this for a living.

Ten minutes in and I knew Maisie had married the big red one with the orchard and that his name was Kazan, that she’d come out here off some nightmare of an ex, that Chloe had chased her across actual space because she’d been to Maisie’s wedding and decided on the flight home she wanted one too. I knew the fire smoked when the wind came from the east. I knew who was sleeping with who, and who wasn’t and was sour about it.