Tempest Reborn (Jane True) - By Nicole Peeler Page 0,58

my face over and up, to meet Anyan’s eyes. He’d let go of Caleb, letting me support him fully. He gazed down into my eyes, a thousand emotions playing over his features.

His next words moved me more than anything I could ever have heard. They told me that everything was going to be okay – that he was still Anyan and that nothing had changed about what the two of us shared.

‘Take me home,’ he said, his growling voice deliciously commanding. ‘Help me clean this shit off me. It’s like a god-damned episode of True Blood.’

Iris rushed ahead of us, darting upstairs. I heard the water turn on in Anyan’s big shower, and I blessed my friend’s considerate succubus heart.

She ran down to help me get him up to his loft bedroom, no mean feat, and then she darted off without a word. But she did pause to take my hand and squeeze it, tears filling her lovely blue eyes. She was happy for us.

Hell, I was happy for us.

‘Call my dad?’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Of course.’

Then Iris made her way downstairs and out the front door. I had no idea where everyone was going, since Anyan’s was our base camp, but I didn’t give a hoot at that point. Certainly not enough to risk this almost sacred privacy I finally had with him. The real Anyan, and not a dream.

I gave him some alone time in the bathroom as I peeled out of my blood-soaked clothes. It took a ridiculously long time to do so, as it was like shedding a second skin. Then I had to figure out what to do with the sodden bundle of nastiness. Anywhere I set them would stain, so I finally just chucked my filthy clothes out of the back window and onto the lawn below.

I could burn them tomorrow.

When I tapped on the bathroom door, I heard a muffled ‘Come in’ from the shower. Anyan was already under the showerhead, leaning against the wall as he let the water sluice off the first layer of gunk.

Dragon shit and all, I’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

Feeling ridiculously energized for someone who’d just fought a Titan, I paced forward toward the shower, practically purring. When I climbed in, the first thing I did was wrap myself around the barghest, just because I could.

I’d never take a hug from him for granted ever again.

He held me back, lowering his cheek to rest it on the top of my head. We stayed like that for a long time, the water running red beneath us as it slowly made us clean.

‘I missed you so much,’ I finally managed to choke out around the knot in my throat.

‘I missed you, too. And I’m so proud of you.’

I raised misty black eyes to his iron-gray. ‘I’ve never been so scared as when I hacked you up.’

He chuckled. ‘It wasn’t me. It was the White. You freed me.’

I shuddered with relief. I’d been so afraid that he’d been aware of the whole thing, from the first ax blow to the last.

‘Where were you?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Who knows? I was in there, but as you saw me. Trapped somewhere, in that space I built the hut. I figured it was just my mind, but I guess it was all of me somehow.’

‘Was it horrible?’

‘Not too bad. Not after you found me, at least.’ His voice was scratchy. I think it had been that bad, although he’d not admit it yet while I was still so shaken up.

I made an inarticulate noise, then reached up my right hand to try to rub some of the blood off his face. He caught my hand, kissing my knuckles.

‘I love you,’ he said. My heart swelled and broke, then swelled and broke again. The barghest was going to be the death of me at this rate.

‘I love you, too,’ I said. ‘Now let’s get you clean…’

The first round of shampooing and soaping was not at all sexy, believe you me. Anyan had bits of dragon stuck in the unlikeliest places, and it took both of us to clean him off. I wasn’t much better, although the fact I’d been clothed helped. We had to clean out the drain twice, since it looked like someone had tried to make stew in it, and I had to be careful to help Anyan keep his feet underneath him. He was still weak, and would probably be so for another day or two, even with some supernatural