That's when the tears started flowing in earnest. What was there to say? Yeah, true, he'd had near misses with were demons, female vamps, even Juanita and probably a bunch of shit she'd never know about... but, still.
"I knew it!" he yelled, not waiting for her answer. Carlos stalked away from her, punched the door, and stalked back to her. "Damn! That's it, no more arguments, you're moving in with me--period."
She just stared at the man. How in the hell was she gonna move in with him, now, and risk a possible catastrophe? It was that, or abandon her muse forever, which, strangely, she wasn't exactly ready to do. However, Carlos's deadly accurate male instinct unnerved her. She picked at a lame excuse and offered it to him slowly. "Let's not jump to conclusions, baby, we should--" "No, Damali!" he hollered. "I have never heard you put out a fear SOS like that since we've been together. Ever! That shit ran all through me, you were pleading with Jesus to save you, girl. You and I have been to Hell, done master vamps together, freaking demons from every level, and you were never cold-bloodedly afraid, like that. So, whatever blew through here had to be serious. It had to be something you and I have never dealt with, right?"
"It was," she said quietly, and went to the tub to calmly let the water out. Man, if this was what he felt when he'd almost gotten with that Amazon, or got temporarily freaky with 'Nita, she would never say a mumblin' word to the man for his past indiscretions. She vowed from this point forward to live in the moment, no signifying, no mild references, nada. Cold busted. All she could think of was what would have happened if a few more moments had passed, if she'd totally just lost her mind... for him to walk in on that... there would be no words. Humiliation made her face burn. "Then my point remains."
She nodded and kept her back to Carlos, watching the water swirl down the drain and all her dreams along with it.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
A war party had convened in her living room. Damali sat on the large, overstuffed African-print chair by the window studying the texture of threads in her jeans. The fabric of her light cotton T-shirt felt like sandpaper against her skin. The noise level was deafening as her people argued about what could have possibly invaded her home.
True, she had been the one to accidentally send an SOS, but it still didn't seem to warrant all of this. She was emotionally exhausted and could now only imagine how Carlos must have felt trying to explain the inexplicable to a whole squad of amped warriors, especially about his many highly personal transgressions.
She cringed as the misinformation ricocheted around the room and her people formed flawed theories about an incident too delicate to fully disclose. Her body was still on fire. She needed space, time to mull over what had happened privately. Part of her just wanted to blurt out the truth and send everybody home; the other part of her just wanted to crawl under the rug. Now, with a full- scale investigation underway, their concerns led to queries that bordered on what felt like an inquisition.
Ironically Carlos had been the one to show her how to totally detach and mentally distance herself from probing questions. She'd seen the brother do it a hundred times. He'd just get silent, look off in the distance, and set his jaw hard. When he went there, nobody could break through, not her, not Mar, and not even Father Pat. There was a certain level of compelling wisdom in saving one's personal sanity at a time like this. Dang!
The song that had blistered her mind continued to pop and sizzle within her brain. The voices of her team were becoming very far away.
Stanzas opened up a sanctuary for her to escape through, and put up a wall blocking anyone's invasion. A sassy, irreverent little tune threatened to make her smile as she abandoned the sad one for a more upbeat melody to make herself feel better.
Damali kept her gaze on the threads in her jeans, focused on the varying hues of blue. The entity that visited her had that same color running through his aura. She was almost humming. She could visualize herself strutting across the stage, linger wagging to an up- tempo beat, telling some phantom