him in by himself.
As usual, she left without making a sound.
“Lassiter,” Tohr hissed into the bathroom mirror. When there was no reply, he splashed his face with cold water again. “Lassiter.”
As he closed his eyes, he saw his Wellsie in that gray landscape. She was even farther away from him, off now in the distance… harder than ever to reach as she sat so still among those boulders of gray stone.
They were losing ground.
“Lassiter—where the fuck are you?”
The angel finally made an appearance over on the edge of the Jacuzzi, a box of Freddie Freihofer’s chocolate-chip cookies in one hand, a long-tall of milk in the other.
“Want one?” he said, jogging the calorie payload. “They’re right out of the fridge. So much better cold.”
Tohr glared at the guy. “You told me I was the problem.” When all he got was chewing, he had the urge to feed the whole box to the bastard. At once. “She’s still there. She’s nearly gone.”
Lassiter put the spoil-your-dinner aside, like maybe he’d just lost his appetite. And when he simply shook his head, Tohr had a moment of panic.
“If you’ve bullshitted me, angel, I’m going to kill you.”
The other male rolled his eyes. “I’m already dead, idiot. And might I remind you that your shellan’s not the only one I’m trying to get free—my destiny is hers, remember. You fail, I fail—so I’m not incented to fuck with you.”
“Then why the hell is she still in that horrible place?”
Lassiter threw up his hands. “Look, man, it’s going to take more than a couple of orgasms. You’ve got to know that.”
“Jesus Christ, I can’t do much more than I am—”
“Really.” Lassiter’s eyes narrowed. “You sure about that.”
As their stares clashed, Tohr had to look away—as well as reassess any privacy he assumed he and No’One had.
Fuck that; they’d had a hundred orgasms together, so…
“You know as well as I do how much you haven’t done,” the angel said softly. “Blood, sweat and tears, that’s what it’s going to take.”
Lowering his head, Tohr rubbed his temples, feeling like he was going to scream. Fucking bullshit—
“You’re going out tonight, yeah?” the angel murmured. “So when you get back, come find me.”
“You’re with me anyway, aren’t you.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s meet after Last Meal.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
“You say you want help—well, I’m going to give it to you.”
The angel got to his feet and sauntered toward the bathroom’s door. Then doubled back and got his frickin’ cookies. “Until dawn, my friend.”
Left by himself, Tohr briefly considered the merits of punching the mirror—but then figured he might endanger his chances of going out and finding some lessers to kill. And right now? That prospect was the only thing keeping him in his own skin.
Blood. Sweat. Tears.
Cursing, he took a shower, shaved, and went out into the bedroom. No’One was already gone, likely so that she could make it down to First Meal separately from him. She did this every night, even though the show of discretion couldn’t possibly fool anybody.
You know as well as I do how much you haven’t done.
Damn it to hell, Lassiter probably did have a point—and not just about the whole sex thing.
As he thought about it, he realized he never explained himself to No’One. Like, there was no way she didn’t know that he’d had a nightmare again—him popping off the bed like it was a toaster and moodying around was a neon sign in the room. But he never talked about it with her. Never gave her an opening to ask about it.
He didn’t really talk to her about anything, actually. Not his work out in the field. Not his Brothers. Not the ongoing struggles the king was having with the glymera.
And there were so many other distances that he maintained…
At his closet, he ripped out a pair of leathers, stepped into them, and—
The waistband jammed at his thighs. And when he pulled them again, they stayed put. Yanking them even harder, they… split at the fly into two halves.
What. The. Fuck.
Goddamn pieces of shit.
He grabbed another pair. And ran into the same problem—his thighs were too big for them.
Going through his closet, he checked all his sets of fighting clothes. Now that he thought about it, things had been getting tighter lately. Jackets constricting his shoulders. Shirts ripped under the armpits at the end of the night. Thighgate.
Glancing over his shoulder, he caught his reflection in the mirror over one of the dressers.
Damn, he was…