any lingering way.
Snap was watching me. “You like her,” he said in his direct, well-meaning way. “Quite a bit.”
I yanked my gaze back to him. “You did too,” I felt the need to point out. “You and her…” I didn’t know how to describe the bond that had appeared to be forming between the two of them, partly because those sorts of tender feelings weren’t my domain… and partly because remembering that fact sent an uneasy twinge through me.
“Come on,” I said to distract him. “Let me show you the best view we can get from this thing.” I motioned to him and leapt into the shadows. The least I could do after my trick was give him a more enjoyable experience to make up for it.
Snap trailed after me into the shadow around the small sunroof positioned over the hall. From the top of the RV, the suburban landscape we were passing through sprawled out on all sides, every bit of it visible without us needing to move an inch. The clear blue sky and the warble of the wind faded as they reached our senses through the patch of darkness, but I’d take that dulled view over risking a tumble in my physical body at the speeds Omen drove at.
A serpentinely slim presence beside me, Snap made a sound of approval. For a few minutes, we simply crouched there, taking in the sights of the mortal world with the colors of early fall whipping past us and the faint tang of gasoline rising from the freeway.
“It’s too bad the mortal can’t join us up here,” Snap said. I felt his attention shift to me. “Why is she particularly important to you?”
I suspected he was really asking why she’d mattered so much to him. Was that the way to get through to him—to remind him of the devotion she’d enflamed?
“She’s proven herself to be a—how would you put it?—a particularly fantastic being of any sort,” I said. “She’s been standing up to and sticking it to the people who collect shadowkind for years. Even when we turned up in her home out of nowhere, she held her own and refused to be intimidated. You saw just now that she doesn’t put up with any crap from me.”
Snap nodded. “She protects all of us in every way she can.”
“That’s one way of putting it. But she’s hardly all severity like Thorn. She has a playful spirit to her, a bountiful capacity for amusement and enjoyment…” I had to smile, thinking of her absurdly switched-up songs, all the banter we’d exchanged. Of the passion that radiated from her in the bedroom, so eager both to give and receive pleasure…
Maybe I’d answered the question he’d actually spoken as well.
“It’s hard not to care about her, even when it’s not the wisest idea,” I finished.
Snap was silent for a moment. “What’s unwise about it? Everything you’ve said makes her sound like a worthy mate, if you wanted one. Is it not accepted for shadowkind to have relations with mortals? I thought I’d heard of others forming bonds, from talk in the shadow realm—maybe I misunderstood.”
“It’s not that,” I said automatically. “I’m just not made for that sort of connection. My nature is to focus on bodily gratification.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that, but you seem to be affected by her words and feelings as well.”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is she wouldn’t want a being like me.”
I had the sense of Snap blinking at me in confusion. “Why would you say that? I haven’t noticed her treating you differently. Did she say that to you?”
“Well, no, I just—”
I cut myself off, feeling vaguely ridiculous that I wasn’t managing to hold my own in a debate with Snap of all beings. I could even play out his counterarguments in my head. There was another woman, I’d say, and he’d reply, What does that have to do with Sorsha? Do they share the same mind? And I would point out—
I didn’t even know what else I’d point out. The truth was that Sorsha hadn’t ever treated me as anything less or different because of my inclinations. Last night… She’d offered up an experience that was all about pleasuring me without a second’s hesitation. She’d seemed to revel in the bliss she’d provoked.
Remembering sent a flare of heat through me that wasn’t entirely lust.
How could I say she was yet another mortal woman who’d see me as little more than an extremely extravagant vibrator when