“I came to finish…the lost spirit in the desert…” She gestured vaguely behind herself. “I was stopping in. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

She said the statement hard, so that he would know she hadn’t wanted to find him there. She wasn’t going to flaunt her feelings, but neither could she hide them in their entirety.

“Faith, come inside. I…I have something for you. I didn’t know if you’d ever come back here, but I hoped you would…so I…I brought you something.”

“I really don’t need anything,” she said, feeling awkward again as he reached out to take her hand and pull her toward the house. He led her upstairs, back into the suite he had used when they’d last been there. She stayed in the living area. She didn’t think she could bear looking at the bed where they had made love so thoroughly. Where for a vignette of time, they had meant something intimate to each other.

He went into the room briefly and came back to her.

“I went back and packed up all my things…brought them back here. I figured that I need to stay around here. Since I can go out into daylight I can be of real use around here. And I’ll be certain to get my adrenaline fixes around here, that’s for sure. So anyway, I-I found something…something that Docia once gave me when she was a little girl and I guess I could never throw it away.”

He handed her a red heart-shaped box with a ribbon around it. She could tell by the heft of it that it was empty, void of all the chocolates that might have been inside of it at one point for some distant Valentine’s Day. The box was worn and beaten in along its cardboard rims, the foil embossing flaking and faded.

Utterly puzzled, she pulled the ribbon and opened the box, knowing already there wasn’t anything inside. She held the two pieces of the box, one in each hand, and looked up at him in confusion.

“It’s my heart,” he said quietly. “Old, battered, empty.” He reached to run a gentle thumb along the line of her jaw. Everything about him changed in that instant as he drew her closer to himself. “I’m giving it to you so you can fill it up. I know it’s going to be hard to do, since I don’t make things easy, but I was hoping you’d take on the job. Rescue me, the way you rescued Jackson. All in.” He cleared his throat. “I know it’s selfish of me, and I know I have no right to ask. I’m pretty used up and worthless in the emotions department right now, but…” He trailed off, but she waited patiently as he searched for his next words, for his cautious feelings.

“I can’t promise you anything but this minute, this moment right now,” he said softly, pulling her in tight and close. “None of us have anything for certain besides this minute. None of us should promise what we might never be able to give because the next minute after the promise we could be gone, leaving it empty and unfulfilled. And I couldn’t do that to you,” he said as he pulled her cheek to the fervent, breathy press of his lips. “When you walked out…when I realized you’d left me entirely, at first I thought, for just one second I thought, thank God. That will make things easier. And the very next instant I knew I was wrong. I knew…I knew I’d been wrong all along. Wrong not to share myself with you, wrong to sell you short, wrong to push you away. I realized the last thing I wanted to do was go on without you. I know you left because I drove you to it, but please, please let me make it up to you. One day at a time. Don’t ask me to let you go again because my heart couldn’t possibly take it. I love you and I will never betray your trust like that again. Now, my heart is in your hands, Faith,” he said, holding her hands where they were holding the silly cardboard box. “Do with it what you will.”

Faith felt heated tears burning into her eyes as the intent behind the gesture was suddenly made so clear to her. It was stark in the words he had used, and brilliantly seared across his scroll. That single, glorious word. Love. Then came devotion. Then more and more words, all the same, all running over with his emotions and his feelings toward her. She had never seen anything so bright and beautiful in all of her life. She laughed shakily, a blink of her lashes sending tears haphazardly over her lashes, gluing his gently pressing lips to her cheek. He kissed the salty fluid away.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice harsh. “Don’t cry. I don’t mean to hurt you. It’s just…it’s just the best I can do.”

She laughed again, this time with more genuine mirth. She pulled back so she could look into his eyes, their warm brown looking troubled and confused. He didn’t know how to reconcile her tears with her laughter. He couldn’t figure out what she was thinking.

“Leo.” It was all she said before walking away. Just his name. And for that instant he thought his chest was going to rip wide open, leaving him bleeding at her feet. To know she was turning her back on him hurt more than he had ever thought it possibly could. Even more than the first time she had left. In all the times he’d given the “It’s not you it’s me” speech to women as a means of escaping their emotional attachments, he’d never imagined himself ever being on the other end of it. He’d never understood until that instant how horribly painful it was. How cold and callous and unsympathetic he had been when utilizing it.

He should have turned and walked away. Scooped up his shattered pride and ego and cut his losses. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe. He watched her move to the desk in the room, reaching for a stack of Post-it notes and a pen. She wrote something on the Post-it, stuck it onto the inside of the old, ridiculous box, then replaced the cover. Confused and numb, he took the box from her when she held it out to him. Unable to do anything else, he opened the box and read the Post-it.

Faith loves me.

Stunned, he read it twice more before looking up into the luminescent yellow of her eyes.

“See?” she said. “We’re off to a very good start.”

“I…” He was speechless. He was soaring and heart-sore and empty and full all at once. He had never felt anything like this swirling storm of emotion before in his life. He had thought he would never let anything touch him that deeply. The only thing that had ever occupied his heart had been his mother, Jackson, and Docia. It simply didn’t know how to function with the enormous emotions being stuffed into it and dragged back out of it.

“Faith, I don’t know what I did, or where I did it…I don’t know how fate could possibly think that I deserve you.”

She took the box from his numb fingers and laid it very gently on the table next to her, as if it truly was his heart and must be handled with all due care. And that was when he realized she would always take care of it that thoughtfully. That carefully. Not the stupid cardboard box, but the stupid thing beating in his chest.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he ringed an arm around her waist and dragged her up against his body, squeezing her so tightly a little meep squeaked out of her. He covered her mouth with his, anchoring himself in the softness of those plush lips. He drank deeply from her, felt the way she breathed hard against him, felt the way she clutched at the fabric of his shirt at his shoulders, pulling it so tightly he could hear threads popping in protest.

She was so alive. So strong and so damn beautiful it hurt just to think about it, never mind lay his eyes on her. How had he not seen it from the very start? How could he not have felt this feeling the very moment he’d first seen her?

“I realized I needed to stay here. I’m just human, but Jacks and Docia need people around to protect them in daylight. That sounds like a job I can do. And it lets me stay near the people I love. I asked if you could stay too…if…if I could get you to, that is. We’re building something here, a force of Nightwalkers and humans…a force needed if we’re going to fight Apep. You would be a valuable part of that.”

Faith laughed at him. He was pitching the idea at her like he was trying to sell it. As if she would want to go anywhere where he wasn’t.

“I think that’s a perfect idea,” she said, smiling through another rush of tears. “Just…perfect. Now make love to me.”

“Very well,” he said, sweeping her back up against his body and kissing her so deeply she was breathless. “Your wish, as always, is granted.”

EPILOGUE

Apep was eating banana peppers. For some reason he was craving the hottest, spiciest foods imaginable. It was ridiculously delightful. Cravings meant that his pregnancy was well on its way and was advancing quite properly.

It was a disappointment to have lost Chatha, but there were always more lackeys to be had. The Wraiths, for instance. Although, none would quite have Chatha’s special touch. But he would avenge Chatha one day. Actually, Chatha had nothing to do with it. He would set those people down a peg before they got too cocky. Yes, he would. But this time he would take the time to prepare and plan. After all, he couldn’t just rush in with him being in such a delicate condition. He might have to wait until after the pregnancy altogether before doing something about it. Then he and his son could lay waste to all of them. They could rout out every Nightwalker on the planet!

In the meantime, he was going to look into how to reverse his curse. Yes. It was a very good idea to be prepared should the need arise.

A very good idea indeed.