She leaned her cheek against his back and encircled his waist with her arm. He could barely breathe as she ran her hand over his chest in a comforting gesture.
"I have no regrets, Zarek. I hope you feel the same way."
He leaned back against her and tried not to let his aching heart overshadow what they had shared.
"How could I regret the best night of my life?" He laughed bitterly as he remembered everything that had happened since Jess had shaken him awake. "Well, except for the Terminator who's after us and the goddess who wants me dead and-"
"I get the picture," she said with a laugh. She nuzzled his neck, sending chills over him. "It does seem hopeless, doesn't it?"
He thought about that. " 'Hopeless' implies that at one time there was hope. And that's another word I don't understand. Hope only exists for people who have choices."
"And you don't?"
He toyed with a strand of her blond hair. "I'm a slave, Astrid. I've never known hope. I just do what I'm told."
"Yet you never have."
That wasn't exactly true. As a human, he had never dared open his mouth to protest anything. He had taken beating after beating, degradation after degradation, and done nothing.
It was only as a Dark-Hunter that he had learned to fight.
"Do you think Sasha's okay?"
Her sudden change of topic surprised him. "I do. Jess is a whiz with animals. Even Katagaria."
She chuckled at that. "Why, Zarek, I do believe you are learning to comfort someone after all. I half-expected you to say you were hoping he'd be lying dead in a ditch somewhere."
He looked down at her small hand on his skin, resting just above his heart. It was true. She was taming him.
Changing him.
And it scared him more than the monster that was out to kill them.
Thanatos he could deal with, but these emotions...
He was helpless before her.
"Yeah, well, with any luck he'll be beyond all help."
She laughed at that, then kissed him lightly on the back. She pulled away to dress.
Zarek watched her, his heart pounding. What was it about her that made him want to be something more than what he was?
For her, he actually wanted to be decent. Kind.
Humane.
Things he'd never been.
Forcing himself up, he tossed his old clothes into the trash can and pulled new ones out of his wardrobe. At least he no longer had the hole in the back of his coat. He took a couple of minutes to button her into one of his old parkas.
"What's this?" she asked as he draped it over her shoulders.
"It'll keep you warmer than your coat."
She put her arms through the much-too-long sleeves while he gathered up gloves, hats, and scarves for them.
"Where are we going? Won't it be dawn soon?"