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you’re at it, why not call him “Runt Hunt” like his old man used to? She had to remember that the past wasn’t important just then. What mattered was what happened—or didn’t—next. At the thought of that next , heat skimmed through her, brought by the memory of a sexual encounter that had registered Richter high. Leveling her tone so it wouldn’t betray the sudden thudda-thump of her heart, she said, “I’m just trying to help. If you want to turn me down because of what happened before, then do it. But don’t try to make me into the bad guy because I’m offering.”
    There was a long beat of silence before he exhaled. When he spoke again, his rasping voice sounded more like that of the man she’d known, or else she was getting used to the change. “I don’t want to turn you down. And I don’t think badly of you. I couldn’t. You’re the only person here that I—” Now it was his turn to break off.
    The only person that I . . . what? Jade skimmed through possibilities to settle on “trust.” Despite what had happened, she trusted him. That might work both ways. Given that he knew she’d been discussing his potential for sex magic with Strike and the others, he probably also knew she was the closest thing he had to an ally within Skywatch. “Then why the hell wouldn’t you talk to me?” The question was out before she could stop it, despite her plan to stop bringing up the past. But it had hurt when he’d refused to let her help him deal with the shock of the exorcism and the memories of what he’d done—or rather, what his body had done—while under the makol ’s control. She’d been overjoyed by his rescue, had wanted to do everything and anything in her power to bring him back to the man he’d once been, the friend she’d once treasured.
    “Because I was a godsdamned mess,” he said. “I didn’t want you to see me that way.”
    Jade wished she could see his eyes, wished the darkness didn’t leave her trying to interpret his feelings from a few clipped words in a stranger’s voice. Before, his lovely tenor had painted the old legends of the Nightkeepers into word pictures for her as they’d worked side by side. Though he was only human, he’d taught her about her own ancestors in a way Shandi had never managed, making it less about duty and more about adventure and glory, and the joy of doing something because you could . Now, though, each word sounded like an effort, each sentence a study in pain. The change made her ache from knowing she’d promised her king results in a situation complicated by human factors. “I was only trying to help you back then,” she said softly. “The same as I am now.”
    He shifted in the darkness, though he didn’t come any closer. “I didn’t want you to fix me. I wanted you to go away and give me room to fix myself. . . . I don’t want your pity, and I’m not one of your patients, damn it.”
    Ice splashed in her veins, chill and uncomfortable. “I never said I pitied them.”
    “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s reading between the lines.”
    Refusing to go there, she said, “Of course you’re not a patient. Nobody said you were.”
    “Yet you came back to fix me.”
    No, she thought in a frustrated knee-jerk, I came back to fuck you . She didn’t say that, though, because while she considered sex more entertainment than a religious experience, she didn’t like reducing it to that level. She didn’t know whether it was the innate cool reserve of the harvester bloodline, the wisdom that had come from her own experiences, or what, but romantic love wasn’t her thing. Too often in her practice, she’d seen otherwise high-functioning women lose their dreams to love, or because of its loss. The things that love and heartbreak did to otherwise normal people most definitely did not fall within the three “D”s.
    Still, as she and Lucius faced off in the darkness, the air thickened with the memory of sex, the anticipation