Chapter Forty-One
Garwald's Pub was a bleedingwasteland.
True, six hours ago the town of ??ran? had been under Om R?u siege, but shouldn't the bar have been packed out because of that, all and sundry itching to get pie-eyed and forget the whole sordid hash? Just as well the place was deserted. Pandra didn't fancy a crowd of folk gawking at the unprecedented of sight of her and Thomal out together, on a date, of all the blooming things.
The whole situation seemed surreal.
Heseemed surreal, like a prince out of a fairy book or some such, the soft overhead lighting turning his hair to corn silk, the green in his shirt bringing out aquamarine highlights in his eyes, and the smile he kept aiming at her rather intimate. Even the wound on his face, now swollen angrily and heading from red to marbled black, worked for him, making him look more masculine.
Thomal led her to an inconspicuous booth in the back, despite the lack of populace, and guided her into a seat. "Everyone's gone to ground," he told her as he slid into the side opposite. "The thing about Varcolac, when threatened we fight like hell, but afterward we hole up with our loved ones. Males especially need to keep wives and kids in our line of sight, assure ourselves they're all right."
"You're a protective lot." She smiled wryly. "I've noticed."
"Take your average, run-of-the-mill Varcolac, and you've got a very protective guy. Remove all women from his life and his chance to procreate, then return the possibility of a family back to him in the form of extremely hard to find women, and his protectiveness shoots into the stratosphere."
Luvera arrived at their table with a friendly expression, nothing at all unusual about her, as if it was bog-standard to see Pandra and Thomal sitting together. No gawking from the bar mistress, at least. "I can't believe someone actually showed up tonight," she chuckled. "I was getting ready to close."
"Oh, hey, we don't want to hold you up," Thomal said in a conciliatory tone. "I know you're probably tired."
Luvera was four months pregnant, an amazing turn of events, considering Alex—a non-Varcolac who couldn't scent his mate's fertile time—had managed to get his wife—a Varcolac female who only ovulated about twice a year—with child in under six months. Proud papa was certainly strutting his stuff around town over that accomplishment.
"No, I'm fine," Luvera said. "I've got some inventory to do, anyway." She glanced between them. "Can we keep it simple, though? A couple of beers and pretzels, maybe?"
"Brilliant for me," Pandra said, even though a better decision probably would've been to abstain from alcohol altogether. Her R?u beastie was jiffling about inside her tonight, eager to come back out after being released earlier in O??rat, then afterward, pumped up with enchanted surgery drugs and her nasty immortality ring. But, feck it, the day had been a ruddy pisser. She could let herself get half-cut, at least.
"I'm cool with that, too," Thomal said.
"Great. I'll be right back." Luvera reached over and gave Pandra's shoulder a soft squeeze. "Glad to see you're fine, by the way." She bustled off.
"Okay, so are you ready?" Thomal asked, a mischievous glint entering his eyes.
"Come again?" The playful expression on her husband's face was nearly curling her toes. "Ready for what?"
"We're going to ask questions to get to know each other better."
"Are we now?" She cocked a single brow. "You mean like favorite food, favorite song, that sort of thing?"
"No, that'd be boring. Things like, best childhood memory, worst date. Personal stuff."
"Personal? Gads, sounds like a mare."
"A what?"
"That's short for nightmare."
Thomal chuckled. "Come on. It'll be good for us."
Soft music began to pour out of the bar's speakers, a mellow song by some woman—Norah Jones, possibly.
"You go first." His chuckle settled into a smile that could've made angels weep. "Tell me a memory from your childhood, a good one."
"Well, lawks, there are so many to choose from." She sighed, thinking back, then latched onto the first thing that popped into her mind. "I had a pony when we lived in England." She perked up. That was a grand memory, right? Every kid wanted a pony.
"Whoa, you lived in England?"
She tossed him a sardonic look as she gestured to her mouth. "The accent."
"I just thought…" He shook his head. "Never mind. Where in England did you live?"
"In a smashing mansion on the Sussex coast." Sitting back in her booth, she traveled back in time and wandered the hallways of her childhood home, seeing the gleaming hardwood floors, exquisitely crafted furniture, flowered wallpaper, soaring mullioned windows with views of magnificent gardens and gentle green hills, long hallways with rows upon rows of doors…one door in particular. She halted before it. "Ah, here's a memory." In her imagination, the door loomed larger than life, like a portal Finn McCool might use to come and go. "In that mansion, like in any other place we've ever lived, my father had a den, a room he kept all to himself, extremely private, entrance strictly forbidden. I was about eleven, pre-pubescent and full of my own invincibility, and I took a dare from my older brothers to sneak inside."
The sides of Thomal's eyes crinkled with amusement. "Uh, oh."
"Mind, I didn't get caught. I beetled it in and out, I was so scared."
Luvera swept by, dropping off two foaming beer steins and a basket of soft pretzel nuggets, then whisked off.
"While I was inside," Pandra went on, "I saw on the shelf behind my father's desk a framed photograph of a toddler girl, sitting on a lawn and holding a red ball: Toni—I knew it instantly. Only her. None of Raymond's other children had the honor of making it into his precious man-lair." Pandra took a sip of her beer, licking the foam from her upper lip. "It was then that I knew I wasn't my father's favorite, after all."
Thomal's chin went down. "That's your good memory? Seriously?"
She picked up a pretzel nugget and nibbled on it. "Aye, it took all the pressure off, see. Right-o. My turn to ask. Best kiss?" The name Hadley appeared before Pandra's eyes in fat balloon letters. Hadley was sweet and nice and affectionate. She would've been a great wife, a fantastic mother to my children. Pandra wanted to pop the letters. With a knife.
"No way." Thomal laughed again. "I'm not answering that. A gentleman doesn't talk about other women with his wife."
"You're a gentleman now, are you?"
His lips slanted. "I have my moments."
She snorted. "I'll let that one go for now. Here's another. Most embarrassing memory?"
"Ah, hell." Thomal sat back, rolling his eyes. "Okay. When I was ten, my dad caught me in the bathroom trying to jack off, sweating bullets, my face all torqued up in pain."
"Jesus wept—ten?"
"I know, I know." He made a face. "Dad obviously thought he had a few more years before he needed to explain the Varcolac dick blockage sitch-o to me. I got the lecture right then and there, of course."
"Cor blimey, did you even have pubes, yet?" She tossed the pretzel nugget into her mouth and licked the tips of her fingers.
Thomal watched her closely. "Um…you know, I'm not saying. Back to me. How'd you get the scar on your belly?"
Her hand froze in the act of reaching for another pretzel, her fingers twitching over the basket. Raymond sauntered toward her, the tap of his Gucci loafers pounding through her teeth. What a perishing disappointment you turned out to be, Pandra. She felt the slimy ribbons of her intestines snaking through her hands, and—Flushing, she set her palm back down on the table. "Pass."
"No passing."
"You passed on the kiss question."
"That was different."
"Bollocks."
"I didn't want to offend you."
"Awww, I didn't know I was so sensitive."
His eyes danced. "You are. Definitely. Now, c'mon. I'm trying to get to know you, right?"
"By rooting about for a bad memory?"
"Looking for both sides of your story is all."
"Aren't you flaming generous."
"I am. Feel free to unload on me. Ease your burden."
She sniffed. "I'm not burdened, mate."
"Ah, ha. Then the story about your scar should be no big deal to tell."
She glanced down, the lure of Thomal's teasing, handsome face filling her chest with an unexpected pressure: eight months' worth of cobras squirming around to get out, no doubt. "Very well, you want a bad memory?" She raked her focus back up to him. "Here's one: I was eleven, snuck into my father's den on a dare, and found out that I wasn't his favorite anymore." A fluttering tightness rolled up her throat.
Thomal's eyes darkened to cobalt, the gold around his pupils like rings of fire. "Sounds like a helluva day," he said softly.
She trembled with the sudden urge to wipe the tenderness off Thomal's face with her fists. An expression like that could cultivate too much hope inside her chest, tempting her to let her cobras escape, to be free of them at long last. She'd be a prize idiot to do that. There wasn't anything about this night, him, that she could trust. How many times had he barged into her bedroom, feed on her without a single word, then turned around and walked right back out? For crying out loud, a handful of hours ago, she'd been Dirty Pandra to him.
She trembled again. Everything that writhed inside her, every emotion that hurt and injured and plunged her soul into defeat, ate through the spaces between her ribs and tore out of her. "You want more of the nasties?" she asked sharply, a snarl reverberating inside her head. "Here's a stand-out memory: remember the time you told me you hated me for ruining your happily ever after with Hadley? How about that one?" she spat.
He startled, a muscle in his cheek twitching.
"I know I deserved your anger and hatred at the time, Thomal. But now here you are, asking me to dive headlong into intimacy with you, spill my guts, when I know I'll always be your second choice. How can you even—?"
"You're not." Deep grooves set into the sides of his mouth. "I said that about Hadley being so great to hurt you. I…Pandra, I…" He turned his head aside, his Adam's apple bobbing as he clearly struggled for the right words. "You wanted to know about my best kiss?" He brought his turbulent gaze back to her. "I don't have any good ones. And do you know why? Because I always pick the wrong women, always, even going back to my first kiss. It was with Trinnía. You know her?"
"??ran?'s hairdresser," Pandra said. And probably the most dishy Dragon Varcolac in existence, besides Jennilith. Figured.
"So you've seen her. She's a damned piece of fluff. A great girl, yeah—no offense to her—but that kiss was like, Jesus, so ridiculously careful. Lips all nicey-nice, when what I wanted to do was crush her against me and get my tongue going hard and wet with hers. And with Hadley…? Even worse. I had to walk on tiptoes around her all of the time. I hated it, but couldn't admit that she was wrong for me because I was so in love with the concept of her, or what she meant: wife, sex, family, blood that didn't taste like a drunk's upchuck. Then Fate came along and picked you for me: the absolute best mate. A woman who's tough enough to call me on my shit and kick my ass back into line when I need it, but who's also soft enough to crawl around on the floor playing with a bunch of school children. Someone who's strong enough to come out the other end of a sucky upbringing with the fight still left in her. But who did, definitely, get battered down by a doucher of a father, and so could stand a husband who really wants to make her happy."
She stared at him as needles of emotion pricked at her tear ducts. If he was expecting a comment, he wasn't getting one. Her throat had started to shrink roundabout his admission that Hadley was the wrong woman for him, and had battened down completely when he'd said he wanted to make her happy.
"Don't let all these months of my hard-headedness cloud the truth of what I'm saying to you now. Okay? Please."
A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye and forged a path down her cheek. She pressed both palms over her face. Arr, what was this? She couldn't remember the last time she'd cried.
"Oh, shit. Please, don't cry, Pandra."
Another sob wrenched out of her, and another. She tried to choke back her tears. This was ludicrous. What would Raymond say if he saw her like—? She immediately cut off the thought. Sod him! She'd gotten herself into a sorry state because of too many years spent keeping her feelings locked away. Sod him! Sod him! Sod him! Pressing her palms more firmly to her face, she wept harder.
"That's it." She heard Thomal shift along the stretch of his seat. "I'm coming over to your side and hugging you, because, seriously, you're killing me with this."
She felt the vinyl of her booth give, and then Thomal's warm body was next to hers, his arms enfolding her in an embrace. The gentleness of his touch was both foreign and welcome in one amazing instant.
She hiccupped. "If you ever hurt me again…"
"No way," he came back. "Not happening."
"I realize that you might sometimes, by accident." Tears gushed uncontrollably, soaking her palms. "But if you ever do it on purpose, I'll quit you, Thomal. I swear it. No second chances."
"You have an absolute deal on that." He drew her closer.
She sank against him. Her lips wobbled and her spine shook. Bugger me. "Why did you have to snub me for so bleeding long, you god-awful toe-rag?"
"I'm so sorry," he whispered against her brow.
A spasm of pain clutched her sternum. Cobras, cobras, so bloody many. They twanged out of her, fast and straight, like cartoon snakes miraculously transmuted into arrows. Her heart expanded and filled her chest, taking up the space left beyond. She nestled her face into one of Thomal's sturdy pectorals, his scent filling her nose. She loved how he smelled…although tonight there was an unwelcome hint of strangely scented soap about him. But underneath that he was pure Thomal, a scent of darkness, almost like a foreign spice, and danger, like polished steel, but also earthy, natural smells, like what color and light and texture might smell like if those things had scents.
Warmth flooded her veins, spreading calm through her. Her stomach did a punch-front forward flip and round off cartwheel—gymnastics again, like when she'd seen him in his shaggable glad rags in Rufskin. She sniffed back the last of her tears. "I have a term," she said, taking some of his shirt in her hand and rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger.
He ran a palm lightly down the curve of her back. "Whatever it is, I'll do it."
"I want us to have sex."