“And yours.” He squeezed her.
“I think she would have been remarkable.”
“She is remarkable. A soul can’t be killed, Ruby. The energy just goes elsewhere when the mortal form can no longer contain it.”
“But I want her here.”
“I know.” Crossing his arms over her chest, he held her close as she wept. She was grieving, letting go. Leaning on his strength to do it. Pressing his face into her hair, he shared that sorrow with her. “Do you think she would have been a princess, wanting bows in her hair and her room all in pink?”
“Probably. Since pink always makes me think of Pepto Bismol.”
As a teenager, Ruby had been a tomboy, his shy girl with alert eyes, always wearing jeans and T-shirts on her slim, boyish form.
“Nope.” Ruby changed her mind. “I’m thinking cowgirl. She’d love horses, and I’d have to fuss at her to take off her boots before coming in the house. We’d live somewhere with lots of land so she could have her horse. She’d probably want to rescue horses, and before we knew it, we’d have a herd. And her daddy could ride horses everywhere, since that’s what he likes. He’d put her on the horse in front of him and trot off to Walmart when I needed some groceries. They’d put in a hitching post for him.”
He grinned. “I like the sound of that. Of course, when she hit her teens, her Aunt Raina would get hold of her and turn her into a Goth, just to torment me.”
“All girls go through their rebellious stage.”
“Any chance Raina will get out of hers before she collects Social Security?”
“You like her. You know you do.” Ruby stroked his forearm, her chin angling up as he placed a kiss on her throat. When she stayed in that position, unconsciously seeking more, he accommodated her, taking a nip that caused a sexy little tremor.
“I think you like that.” His hand slid under her shirt, found soft skin and stroked. “And this.”
She swallowed under his mouth, and he set his teeth there again. “Derek.”
“I want to put another baby inside of you, Ruby. I want to see you and her grow together.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m afraid of it. I couldn’t stand to lose one again.”
“I know. But that won’t happen. I won’t let it.”
There was a question she wanted to ask him, even knowing it could shatter this fragile truce between them. But she had to ask. “Derek…. you have the power to resurrect, don’t you?”
Years ago, she’d overheard Mary, talking to a fellow witch about Derek. He’s a man with the powers of a god, but he’s inflicted a code on himself so he never considers himself a god. Of all the extraordinarily unnerving—and irritating—things about him, that rates at the top.
That was the first hint of it. But there was something else that had happened as she was growing up, something that made her almost certain of his answer now. Almost.
Long before any of this was relevant, what Mary had said had made Ruby’s heart swell with pride, thinking of the great and noble character of the man she loved. When she’d had her encounter with Asmodeus, that pride had turned into bitter resentment, near hatred, thinking that if he’d been here, he could have saved their child. She’d cursed his absence in the Fae world, his inability to be reached when she needed him most, on so many levels.
He’d gone silent and still behind her. Somehow she knew his eyes were locked on that floating sphere. “Yes, I do, Ruby,” he spoke at last. “But not for this. It’s a very limited, very restricted magic.”
“If I’d gotten to you sooner, would it have made a difference?”
“Ruby, don’t do this to yourself. To us.” He tightened his arms around her. “I’m begging you, don’t sabotage us with your grief over what might have been.”
She closed her eyes. “I need to hear the honest answer, Derek. I know it doesn’t change anything, and I know about Fate and natural cycles, and all that, but I just need to hear it.”
“In order to be what I am, I have to live by a code. There are lines I can’t cross, no matter what. I can do certain things to help, but other things I can’t, even when I’m capable of them.” He was giving her the answer the best way he could, she knew. It didn’t make it hurt less.
“So, yes,” she said quietly. “You could bring her back to life.”
“At a cost too dear to you, to her, to all the world.”
“What about my kitten?”
He sighed. “That’s how you figured it out.”
“I wasn’t sure, until now. But yes.”
When she was ten, she’d acquired her first pet, a stray orange tabby kitten. Mary had let her keep it as long as it wasn’t underfoot, and for the first time in her life Ruby had something that loved her, slept in a ball against her chest, the little purr matching her heart’s thump. In a moment of carelessness, Mary had left the side screen door of their Washington brownstone open, the place they’d been living at the time. The little tabby, whom Ruby had named Sirius, had gone outside to chase butterflies, right under the wheels of a car on the busy city street.
She hadn’t brought the kitten to her mother, of course. She’d learned not to expect any nurturing from that source. So she’d gone to the dining room, hidden underneath the table with its long tablecloth that gave her some privacy, cradling the lifeless body in her lap. It had been a glancing blow, so Sirius wasn’t bloody or mangled. He was just a limp body, the neck broken. He’d of course voided his bladder, so she had him wrapped in a towel.
Derek had arrived an hour before, had been meeting with her mother. As if he’d felt her distress, she’d barely settled in her shelter before she’d heard his approach from the upstairs rooms. His boots stopped by the table, and then he crouched down to see her. Ever since the big man had been visiting her mother, getting insights into this or that future event, he’d always looked at her with such kindness and understanding in his eyes, as if he knew how lonely she was. That day, she didn’t hesitate. She’d crawled right into his lap, crying her heart out with that little body cooling in her hands. And then suddenly, it wasn’t cool at all. Sirius had stirred groggily, making a soft, distressed mewl, and Derek had smiled, patting away her tears.
“See, girl? He was just knocked out for a bit. He’ll be just fine.”
And he had been, living for a wonderful additional nine years, until he died suddenly of an aneurysm.
Ruby vividly remembered that limp body, the lolling neck. “You brought Sirius back to life. Why was that different?”
“I have to weigh the cost and impact of a resurrection. That one…. the cost was one I could pay, and the impact was something the world could handle and adjust to.” He nodded at the sphere. “This is not. Though I hate to tell you that. I wish like hell I could give you what you want.”
“You can give me what I want. You just…. won’t.”
Derek remained quiet. After a long moment, she sighed, deep and long. “Maybe, right after…. I would have hated you for that. I did hate you, because I guess I knew. But I also know why. And maybe…. I probably won’t ever say it again…. it was good you weren’t here.”
Derek turned her so she was looking up in his face. It was the last thing he’d ever expected to hear her say, because he was damn certain he’d never stop castigating himself for not being there. “Why, baby?”
“Because….” She tangled her fingers with his on her hip, looking down at them. He didn’t know why she couldn’t look at him until she spoke. Acknowledging her own value was hard for her. Even that day with the kitten, she’d cried so silently, not wanting to disturb her mother.
“Because if you love me the way you say you do, in that moment, when everything was so terrible and final-feeling, I don’t think you could have stopped yourself. Whatever the repercussions.” She looked up at him then, tears in her eyes. “Gift of the Magi–type stuff, right?”
At his cautious nod, she continued, “And I guess, the same way the world could handle a kitten coming back to life instead of our child, it was better for me to give part of myself to Darkness than you.”
Truth could be stark and heartbreaking. But he refused to accept it. As he wrapped his other arm across her chest, he held their joined hands against her breast. “No, baby. That kitten and Rose, they were both valuable to the world, for different reasons. I thought…. No, I knew, if you didn’t have that kitten, when you were on the cusp of womanhood, with no sense of love or value, we might have lost you altogether. The world agreed. With our baby….” He hesitated, his throat thickening. “Yeah, I would have. I would have done anything, given you anything, to keep you from feeling that horrible loss. But we’ve always been better, stronger, together, Ruby. And you have to take that into account. I think before I did it, you would have stopped me. Because you have a better grasp of the natural order than any witch I’ve ever met. That’s why you knew how to twine Light and Dark together— because you understand them both so well.”
He sighed. “There are dangers to altering order, always. Knowledge of that is one of the things a wizard spends most of his time learning.”
“Under that kind of thinking, our baby was meant to die.”
“No. Not necessarily. It simply means sometimes what’s done mustn’t be undone. No matter how much we wish otherwise.”
She looked back down at their hands, her fingers still twisting with his, agitated. Her brow furrowed. “I need to cry a little more now. Is that okay?”
In answer, he tucked her head beneath his jaw and wrapped himself around her, bracing her body as the tears came.
WHEN SHE WAS DONE, THEY LAY LIKE THAT FOR ANOTHER hour or so. She dozed. Derek watched the sphere, dozed some himself. He woke to find her studying his face, and he cupped her jaw, stroking her hair along her temples. After a time, he laid his forehead down on hers, and they both closed their eyes, feeling truth and loss, love and hope, slowly twine around them, keeping them silent and still, but more aware of each other than they’d ever been.