"You should be getting in and relaxing first with me covering you," he said in a pained voice with his eyes closed, and then slowly released her. He bent with a wince to sweep up his dirty clothes when she stepped away from him.
She stared at the multiple contusions and bruises on his body that were now beginning to angrily show. But she didn't say a word; it was that way with them. As long as they'd be in battles, one or the other of them-or both-would be coming home with wounds, if they were lucky. She was just glad that he didn't further protest as she handed him a fluffy white towel that she'd found in a hallway closet . . . his body would heal, that she could fix. Only, this time, the thing that the darkside had injured most was his heart.
Yonnie sat on the toilet seat lid with a gun dangling from his fingers. His shoulders were hunchedforward, his head hung low, as he leaned his forearms on his thighs and stared at the white bathroom floor tiles that were slowly disappearing in the steam.
"I'm worried about my boy," he said quietly to Val as she turned off the shower spray and stepped onto a small white rug beside the tub.
"I know," she replied gently, twisting excess water out of her platinum locks and then beginning to dry off her wings. "Maybe you can talk to him in the morning . . . maybe after he has rested a while . . . after Damali has tried to heal his heart?"
Yonnie looked up, his gaze holding hers. "I love to watch you do that . . . dry your wings and then spread them."
She glanced away shyly and covered her nakedness with them. "You'll have to make them invisible again so I can go out amongst the humans later."
"Yeah . . . but later," he said, allowing his gaze to take in her smooth, dark, ebony skin that damply glistened beneath her walnut-hued feathers. "They're beautiful. You shouldn't have to hide them."
"People wouldn't understand," she said quietly, looking down at the floor.
"None of us should have to hide what we are," Yonnie said quietly. "I wish I could give you this-somewhere permanent to be . . . somewhere safe. But I can't."
"That doesn't matter," she whispered, swallowing hard. "You tried. The gift is that you cared to even try."
He stared at her and set his 9mm down carefully on the sink. "You're the gift," he whispered. "You make this whole ugly war of the world go away when I see you like this. I take that image with me on the battlefield every time."
Yonnie stood and slowly walked over to her and then traced her cheek with his thumb, careful not to brush her body with his dirty SWAT fatigues. "Figure, if I die, if the darkside comes for me and the Light can't get to me fast enough . . . I'll have an angel in my mind's eye.Will see her, my woman, naked, and beautiful, and clean, and pure with her big, beautiful, sad eyes holding only me in them. I could die like that, Val . . . with that image, and not care."
"Don't die on me, Yolando," she said in a quiet, urgent tone. "Please, for the love of God, don't you die onme. "
She tried to close the space between them, but he held her away with a gentle grasp of her upper arms and yielded only to take her mouth.
"I'm dirty," he whispered into her mouth. "Just touching your arms put smudges on you again. Let me hit the shower."
She held his face between her palms. "I don't care if you've showered or not when you hold me . . . I'm just thankful that you're still alive to do that-don't you understand?"
He rested his forehead against hers. "Do you remember the one thing you said to me after we'd first met . . . the thing that destroyed a brother?"
"No," she murmured, lifting her head to look into his eyes.
His gaze drank her in, noticing that gooseflesh pebbled her arms. Trembling slightly he also noticed her breaths had become shallow like his. The sound of intermittently dripping water echoed in the small, warm confines of misted space. Suddenly, as though her cleanliness could wash away the stain of every human and inhuman horror he'd witnessed, he wanted to wash himself with the totality of her.
"You told me to be valiant, be victorious," he replied in a gravelly voice. "No one had ever asked me to be that in my two hundred years of existing. I want to always be that for you, baby . . . at least that."
"Then be valiant, be victorious now," she whispered, unbuttoning his shirt slowly, and sealing the moist space between them. "Dirty or not, conquer me."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Two uneventful days and uneventful nights had the danger of lulling the team into a false sense of normalcy. Floors had been bluing washed and blessed again. Rugs had been cleaned and anointed to make up for the team's initial invasion of the house while wearing battle boots. Shoes now came off respectfully at the door. Clothing had been purchased the old-fashioned way. Guardians ate on the back deck and front porch, playing cards and kicking it with the north-central team.
But the overall mood remained somber. A funeral was looming and the loss was visceral. The cardinal had sent black funeral limousines, which everyone agreed was best-there was no need to make a fold-away entrance that would completely freak out the unaware powers that be.
Damali looked at her husband, who had barely said two words during the uneventful wait for the funeral. She watched him deliberately fold his white, pressed handkerchief into the breast pocket of his black Armani suit so that only a quarter-inch hint of it showed. He'd worked on polishing his shoes himself, laboring over every detail until they shone like glass. And now he stood there in the mirror adjusting his tie, his expression stone, only the muscle in his jawpulsing.
Although she wanted to reach out to him, she also knew that now was just not the time. Hurt radiated off his aura in waves so profound that she could almost see them suffocating him. Yet she also knew that if she went to him right now, he'd shatter-and that would wound him even more deeply.
Right now, he needed to keep his game face on. Needed that steel grit to get through whatever he had to endure today. So she gave him his man-space, and had refused to wear black, knowing there was life on the other side of the earth plane.
Later she'd remind him that this was a homecoming. Later she'd explain why every female on the team had intuitively chosen a chakra color to wear, rather than black . . . and why she'd chosen green-the color of healing, of new life, and the heart bridge chakra.Later. All of that could be discussed later.
Right now, they needed to all go outside and get into the limos. Because, right now as he turned his back to her and walked out of the room, she could feel the black-box in his head quavering, melting, accidentally allowing her to see inside the pain he'd sworn to himself he'd never allow her to witness . . . letting her see the sacrifice that Father Patrick had made for them to hide their child.