FIFTEEN
Sebastian jumped back into consciousness a few scant hours later when a cold hand touched his arm, which was hanging off of the side of his bed. Jerking awake, he looked across the dimly lit room into Aspen’s face. She was awake and reaching toward him. Sebastian quickly sat up and moved across the small space separating the two of them, his heart hammering in his chest. “Are you okay?” he whispered, urgently. “Are you in pain?”
Aspen shook her head slowly from side to side, gently wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue. Her eyes slowly blinked as Sebastian pulled himself out of bed and went to the bathroom, filling a hotel cup with cold water. Russell was snoring softly as Sebastian entered back into the room, bringing the cup to Aspen’s bedside. He knelt there as he carefully lifted Aspen’s head to the cup. She put a weak hand down on the bed to brace herself as Sebastian helped her drink. She swallowed painfully before she lowered herself back on the bed. Sebastian’s heart beat in his chest as he saw her eyes, half closed, looking up at him in the shadows of the darkened room. She was alive, and she was healing. Relief was a welcome sensation after hours of worry. Sebastian took her near arm with the IV needle it in and looked at the cuts that had been at her wrist. They were healed over, and only a faint pink line remained. He let out a breath he wasn’t even aware he had been holding.
Aspen whispered something he couldn’t hear. He lowered his head closer to her, inclining his ear toward her lips. “Thank you for saving me.”
Sebastian shook his head as he turned again to look at Aspen. “No. Don’t. If I had listened to you, you wouldn’t have been there.”
“I thought…,” she said, swallowing thickly. “I thought I could find Auster, talk to his Temple, find out if Mars was innocent so Psyche would release him.”
Sebastian nodded. It was almost exactly like he had thought. “Auster was there?”
Aspen closed her eyes, a pained expression on her face as she tried to remember. “I don’t know. There was darkness and a heavy wind. Then something hit me. When I woke up, I was tied to the altar, and there was so much blood all over…” Aspen’s voice shook.
Sebastian hushed her and held her up for another drink, considering. If there was a gust of wind like that, Auster was certainly involved. However, if he struck out against a member of Mars’s Temple, Mars may not be involved after all. So why had he been at the coffee shop right before the demon attack? Aspen sighed heavily as she lay back down. Sebastian helped her and arranged the blankets over her. “Are you still cold?” Aspen shook her head slowly, her eyes drifting closed. Sebastian held her hand as she struggled to keep her eyes open. “Rest now,” he said. “You can sleep for a few more hours.”
Aspen nodded, already drifting away as Sebastian watched her with a furrowed brow. He didn’t fall back asleep. He just watched Aspen as she slept, trying to figure out the puzzle. He would need to ask Aspen some more questions soon, but for now she just needed to heal.
Two hours later, Sebastian shook Russell awake, and they assembled all of their belongings. Carefully supporting Aspen, Sebastian and Russell moved her to the car. She wasn’t able to walk yet, but she was conscious as Sebastian slid her across the back seat. He had her wrapped in his coat with his sweat pants over the shorts she was wearing. He made Russell stop at the first store they could find to pick her up a blanket and pillows. While Russell did the shopping, Sebastian sat in the passenger seat, filling another IV bag with his blood. Aspen quietly watched from the back seat.
“It’s amazing we can share blood.”
Sebastian nodded. “Lucky, I’d say. I don’t know how bad you would have gotten if we couldn’t give you more blood to heal on.”
“Why do you have that stuff?”
Sebastian checked the bag at his feet. “For my research.”
Aspen’s interest perked up immediately. “How does it work?”
Sebastian glanced behind him, barely hesitating before he replied. “So far, I take my blood and use it to make a dissolvable tablet. You have to be really careful because once the blood touches the air, something changes it. It loses its potency. The first batch I tried only made mortals happy for a couple hours, which really pissed me off. I spent seven months on that first batch of pills.” He grimaced. “Then I started trying different methods of adding my blood, and I figured out it couldn’t be exposed to air.”
“And you put it into pill form?”
“Yes. I had to have something that would dissolve with contact to fluids, so I tried a lighter placebo, not unlike a nitroglycerin tablet. That worked really well. After spending three months perfecting that one, I ran into Alex at Berlin.” Sebastian smiled at this. “So it went mostly well, I guess you could say.”
Aspen whispered from the back seat. “I’m sorry about what I did to Alex.”
“Don’t be. It’s my fault too. If I had been more careful, Russell would have turned her and none of this would be an issue.” He hesitated before he turned to look at Aspen. “Alex died.”
Aspen gasped. “She did?”
Sebastian nodded. “Yesterday. Her funeral is tonight at Temple. If we hurry back, we’ll be able to make it. I think that’s important to Russell. He’s been really hard on himself about it.”
“They’re giving her a funeral at Temple?”
“I was surprised too. Psyche is taking this really hard. This is the first mortal to die at the hand of a Golden Arrow. Psyche wanted to give her the honor of a Temple funeral.”
Aspen looked out the window at the oncoming sunrise. “Your research could change everything.”
Sebastian finished prepping the bag and then climbed over the console to the back seat where he hung the bag from the utility hook next to the back door. He glanced into Aspen’s face as he started running the IV tubing again. “I wasn’t sure, before I met you, that Lead Arrows would be interested in my research.”
“What? Why?” Aspen nearly lifted herself off the seat.
Sebastian hastily reached over to steady her. “Whoa, whoa! Careful there! What are you doing?”
Aspen shook her head, her confusion showing on her face. “How in the world could you think that Lead Arrows, of all Arrows, wouldn’t have an interest in your research?”
Sebastian shook his head, quizzically. “I guess…I donno.” As he thought through his reasoning more, he looked back at his task to avoid her eyes. “I guess I thought you enjoyed the personality of your jobs, you know? The … struggle of it.”
Aspen gasped and tears jumped to her eyes. “You think we’re monsters.” Sebastian started and looked up. The expression on Aspen’s face was agony. He immediately regretted having said it, or even buying into the prejudice of the Lead Arrows in the first place.
“I’m sorry.” He grasped her hands with his own. She began to shake as he slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Hey, hey! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean I think you’re all monsters. Golden Arrows have always wondered why you use some of the methods you do to meet quota.”
Aspen shook her head, looking out the opposite window. “I don’t understand.”
Sebastian sighed. He didn’t want to get into this in a department store parking lot in the back of an SUV, but he couldn’t think of a good way to get out of it now. “I’ve heard Lead Arrows have sex to pass on their ‘gift’. I’ve heard you also start fights, spread it through blood.”
Aspen snorted, shaking her head. “Did you ever consider those are things that happen because we’ve passed on our gifts?” Sebastian swallowed and watched the side of Aspen’s face. A large tear rolled over her left cheek. He itched to wipe it away. Aspen sighed. “Some of the mortals we turn…get very violent. They try to kill us. That’s why we always carry weapons. Always. Some get really depressed. If we didn’t show them affection, they’d kill themselves on the spot.” Aspen looked at Sebastian. “What would you do if every mortal you ever touched was filled with hatred or despair?”
Sebastian closed his eyes, considering her words. He was an idiot. Why had Golden Arrows been led to believe Lead Arrows had been chosen to do their work because they enjoyed the nastiness of it? Aspen was obviously in misery. Suddenly, he felt guilty his part of the “gift” wasn’t more burdensome, to put them on even ground. Sebastian wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed her to his chest as he leaned his chin on her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ever assumed.”
Aspen’s muffled, teary voice floated up to him. “That’s why it’s so important you finish your work. If you figure this out, I’d never have to worry about carrying weapons in my purse when I go out. I’d never have to look into the eyes of a man that is ready to shoot himself in the head and think of the right things to say to make him stop. I’ll never have to kiss someone I could never love because of some stupid quota. I’d be able to sleep at night.”
Sebastian pulled back and looked down at Aspen. She wiped her tear-streaked face and looked at Sebastian. He nodded. “You’re right. That also explains why you were following me that night. Your whole world would be changed by this.”
“All of us.” She shook her head. “Frankly, I couldn’t figure out why a Golden Arrow would try to find another way to serve.”
“Well, our job is no picnic either. What is it Lead Arrows say about us?”
“That you’re a bunch of playboys, heartbreakers. You enjoy the game of it, have multiple affairs, lure mortals with sex.”
Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “And now?”
Aspen considered. “I’d heard all the same things about you that you had heard about me. Now that I think about it…it’s probably for the same reasons, isn’t it?”
Sebastian nodded. “Not everyone takes it well when we leave. The last girl I left cussed me out in the middle of a restaurant and slapped me twice before storming out. That was almost nice. The one before insisted that I was cheating on her, then dissolved in tears and drug me to bed. By the time she woke up, she’d forgotten all about me. The one before that pulled a knife on me.” He smiled. “We may be dealing with love, but there is a fine line between love and hate in our business.”
Aspen nodded, the rising sun glowing in the tinted window behind her. Sebastian was very aware of the curve of her in his arm, the tickle of her black hair on his wrist. Silence hung in the back seat like fog. Suddenly, Aspen’s glistening lower lip jumped into his vision, and he felt his stomach tighten. His mind jumped back to the night before, to the swell of her breasts against his chest. Her lips fell open, and he could have leaned forward just an inch or two to kiss her. He probably would have too, if Russell hadn’t chosen that moment to open the front door, thrusting an armful of shopping bags into the front seat. Sebastian and Aspen both jumped apart, like naughty children. Sebastian hastily moved from the seat to the floor board, straightening the tubing from the IV bag as Aspen lay back down, clumsily. Russell climbed into the front seat, throwing a glance toward Sebastian’s back.
“Everything okay back there?”
Sebastian looked into Aspen’s face and was rewarded with a sheepish smile that warmed him from the inside. He grinned back, like a kid that got a cookie out of the jar without getting caught. “Yep, we’re good.” He lifted Aspen’s IV arm to give it a quick kiss that was shielded from Russell’s view by his back. Aspen’s grin changed into something deeper than play as she watched him. Russell tossed a pillow into the back seat which wacked Sebastian in the back of the head. “Hey!”
Russell laughed. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes before taking the pillows and blankets from Russell, tucking them under and around Aspen, covering her well. She’d need to keep her temperature as close to normal as possible and just let the blood do its work. After he made sure she was settled, he crawled up to the front seat. He was careful to keep his face as blank as he could while Russell started the car. A few moments later, Sebastian looked over to see Russell grinning at him.
Sebastian frowned. He was surprised how much effort it took to not grin like an idiot. “What’s your deal?”
Russell shrugged and turned back to the road, still grinning. Sebastian shook his head and looked out the window. His eyes were heavy. He’d only slept a couple of hours. A yawn surprised him. Russell looked over. “Go ahead and get some more sleep. I’ll wake you up if I need to trade off.”
Sebastian nodded and looked behind him as he carefully lowered his seat. Aspen’s eyes were heavy, her skin still pale. “Are you comfortable?” She nodded, and Sebastian grinned in reply, sliding down in his seat. Less than three miles later, he was asleep.