Eighth Grave After Dark

I did the same. I picked up my nightgown and slipped it over my head. “Wonderful. Then show me.”

“Dutch,” he said as though in warning, turning to face me when I tried to come around again.

But I saw the long streaks of blood in the mirror. Slashes that started at one shoulder, cut across his back, and ended under his rib cage. Claw slashes that only a bear or a hellhound could inflict.

I erupted in anger. “Take off your shirt or I’ll take it off for you.”

He knew I could. He knew I could completely incapacitate him with one word. But instead of the explosion I’d expected, he stilled. His lids narrowed, but not out of anger. An emotion more like pride spilled out of him. One corner of his sensual mouth tilted up, but he shook his head nonetheless. “No. You’ve seen enough over the past few months. I won’t have you exposed to the depths of my stupidity.”

The anger inside me dissipated immediately. “Mr. Farrow,” I said, twirling my finger, instructing him to turn around, “the depths of your stupidity are the least of my concerns.”

With a resigned sigh, he lifted the shirt over his head, his muscles bunching as he did so, and turned to face the mirror. And that was when I decided to take up gardening as I planted my face in the floor behind him.

* * *

“It’s hormones,” I said when Osh brought me a glass of water.

He had apparently been headed to the bathroom for a shower when he heard a thunderous crack and the ground shook beneath his feet—his words. Surely my fall wasn’t that thunderous.

“I just got light-headed.”

He winked at me, his signature top hat back in place, since the wedding festivities were over. Reyes held a cold rag to my temple, his expression severe. I’d scared him. I’d scared me too, but not for my own sake.

“I fell on Beep.” I poked my belly, hoping she’d respond. “Do you think she’s okay?”

“Better than you, loca.” Angel had dropped in, too, because I needed to be insulted as well as disoriented and humiliated.

“Angel Garza,” I said, pointing at him threateningly. “I can do things now. Scary things.”

He raised his hands, the boyish grin he wore perforating my heart.

“Duct tape?” I asked Osh.

He raised it, then tore off a strip to tape up Reyes’s back. He’d been wearing duct tape under the dark gray T-shirt he had on earlier. I knew I’d seen odd lines across his back. But, thinking he’d healed for the most part, he peeled it off when he took a shower. He was wrong. His back bore two long slashes across it with four gashes each. One set extended from his shoulder to just under his rib cage. The other across the small of his back. The hellhounds’ claws were like razor blades and the cuts were bone deep. Which would explain my sudden but blessedly short departure from reality.

“I think if I were you,” Angel said to Reyes, “I’d stop trying to cuddle with hellhounds.”

Reyes shot him a glare that didn’t even faze him. Normally, Angel was scared to death of my husband. Clearly, they’d grown close enough in the last few months to give Angel’s mouth free rein.

“If this happened yesterday,” I said as Reyes bit down, steeling himself against the pain of Osh’s administrations, “why are you not healing faster?”

Osh answered for him. “Because he’s not sleeping. He hasn’t been in stasis for months.”

“Reyes,” I said, drawing his gaze, “you have to sleep. Why aren’t you sleeping? Eight months? How is that even possible?”

Osh applied one final piece of duct tape, then slapped it into place, causing a muted groan to escape his patient. “Good as new,” he said. Then he grew serious. “But if this gets nasty, he’ll be no use to us in this condition.” He winked at me before grabbing his supplies and leaving.

“I’ll be around,” Angel said. “Just shout if you need me.”

“Why?” I asked before he could disappear.

“Why?”

“Why are you here? What are you two up to?”

I didn’t miss the warning glare that Reyes flashed him. He chewed on his lower lip, and said, “I’m just looking out for you.”

Before I could push the subject, he vanished.

I crossed my arms over my chest and focused on my husband. “Why are you not sleeping?” I asked him, deciding to address his health instead of my curiosity about what Reyes had been up to with Angel.

He eased onto the bed, his large frame taking up most of its surface. “I can’t let my guard down.”

“Reyes,” I said, straddling his hips, not an easy feat in my current state, “Osh was right. If you don’t sleep, you won’t be able to bring your A-game should things go south out here. It’s like we’re in a pot of hot water and someone is slowly turning up the heat. We can’t stay out here forever. The hounds will figure out a way in. I can feel it.”

His mouth widened into an appreciative grin when I crawled onto him, as though completely dismissing everything I’d just said. He rested his hands on my hips. “I’m learning about them,” he said at last.

I leaned over him, tucked a lock of hair over his ear, ran my fingers along the outline of his lips. “About who?”

“The hounds. I’m learning how to fight them.”

I bolted upright. “Is that why you continued to antagonize them even after you realized the holy ground wouldn’t kill them?”