“Well, I ran down this hallway.”
“And?”
“And Jarl caught me. He tried to kill me. He was saying all this stuff about how it was all my fault and I'd killed Jimmu. He was strangling me. Anyan hauled him off.”
Ryu's fists clenched, and he stared like I'd been caught shagging a football team and the photos would be in tomorrow's tabloids.
“I was pretty beat up. Anyan took me out to the pool to heal me, where you found us.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I couldn't, Ryu.” It was my turn to plead. He had to understand. “You're an investigator; you go after the bad guys. I know you would have tried to take on Jarl. And who am I to them? They would never have believed me.”
“They would have believed Anyan Barghest,” Ryu said, a bitter edge to his voice.
“Not in this,” Anyan responded gently. “You know this would have been too big.”
Ryu sat quietly, while I fidgeted.
“You took on Jarl,” he said finally, but not to me.
Anyan shrugged. “He wasn't expecting me. And he was distracted. He really wanted to see Jane dead. Which is why I think this is such a bad idea. Phaedra is Jarl's second, now that Jimmu's gone. You know how she resented the nagas, how she did whatever she could to gain Jarl's favor. Even if she wasn't ordered to get revenge, which I think she probably was, she's got to see killing Jane as a free ticket to Jarl's affections. So even if Jarl hasn't actually ordered her to try to kill Jane, Jane is still not safe around her.”
Ryu stayed silent. He was staring at me again. I flushed, squirming beneath the accusatory weight of his gaze.
“You're right, Anyan,” he said finally, in a heavy voice. “We shouldn't risk Phaedra's trap except as an absolute last resort.”
Oh, gods, I thought. Why does he have to be all reasonable about this? I wanted Ryu angry, arguing, not sounding like…
Like I've just stuck a dagger in his heart, I realized.
“Babe,” I said, “I'm willing to do it. I am. We can keep an eye on Phaedra. We can make sure she doesn't pull anything—”
“I know, Jane,” Ryu said, not meeting my eyes. “I know you're willing. But only as a last resort. And in the meantime, we should keep you away from Phaedra—”
“And she needs more training. Have you worked with her at all since she's been here?” I winced at Anyan's words. I hadn't trained, and Ryu and I had talked about the fact that I was getting behind.
“No,” Ryu said, gritting his teeth. “We haven't been training.”
“Well, that changes now. Tomorrow I'll work with her. She needs to learn to use her shields for more than just defense. She needs—”
She needs to apologize to her boyfriend, I realized.
“Anyan, that's enough,” I interrupted, shooting the barghest a beseeching stare. After a second, he nodded, turning to leave.
“I'll, um, leave you two alone. But tomorrow, be ready to train, Jane.” I saluted, but his back was already turned.
“I saw that,” he rumbled. So I gave him the finger.
“That too,” he said, as I went to shut the door behind him.
I stood there, my hand on the doorknob, gathering the courage to turn around and face Ryu.
But he beat me to it.
His hands were gentle on my shoulders as he turned me around.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“For the reasons I said, Ryu. I knew you'd do something. But I also knew there was nothing either of us could do.”
“It's me, Jane. How could you lie to me?”
I wrapped my arms around his trim hips, pulling myself into him. I hugged him hard, my cheek pressed into his chest.
“I didn't think of it like that. I promise. It's just, when it happened, Anyan thought it would be the best thing. And I understood why. I didn't know you well then, but I knew you wouldn't be able to let it go. All I could think of was that man the nagas had killed just to cover their own backs. They killed him, and chopped his body up, and dumped it out of a sack like it was a bunch of old clothes going to a garage sale.” Ryu ran his fingers through my hair, and I nuzzled at his chest before raising my head to look into his eyes.
“I'm sorry, Ryu. I never meant to keep anything from you. I just didn't want you to end up in a sack,” I finished lamely.
He stared down at me, his gaze searching. Finally, he sighed and bent his head to kiss me.
“No ending up in sacks,” he agreed as his lips met mine.
“Well, not all sacks,” I said, after we'd shared one of Ryu's patented “toenail scorching, ohmigod why are my eyeballs rolling in my head, and when did my hair curl?” kisses.
“The sack is still an option,” I murmured into his mouth as he carried me upstairs and to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The river's energy flowed through me as I concentrated. The ropes around my wrists were just tight enough that I couldn't squeeze my hands through, but not tight enough to hurt. I probed at the knot with my power, but it resisted me. I switched tactics, imagining my power as a knitting needle rather than a finger. I slipped it through the knot finally, and I felt my bindings slacken. When I mentally, and magically, widened the circumference of the needle, I was free.
“Excellent, Jane,” the barghest rumbled as he leaned over to pick up the length of rope coiled on the cold ground behind me.
“Again,” he said, only this time he bound my ankles.
I wouldn't have thought we were at the place in our friendship where it was appropriate for Anyan to tie me up, but apparently desperate times called for a little bondage. This exercise was the first step in getting me to understand how I could physically manifest my power, and it was a helpful trick to know in case I ever did get captured.
It was also really difficult, and I'd wasted oodles of power learning the basics. So I'd also gotten a swim out of training with Anyan, and the experience of cavorting in the Charles River had been awesome. Okay, a little gross, as it was a city river, but the water had its own distinctive force that felt really different from the ocean. I shivered, remembering how it spoke to me of earth and man and boats and the slice of oars and meandering…
“Too tight?” Anyan asked, slipping a thick finger under the rope at my ankles to loosen it. I shivered again, telling myself it was still the river's voice echoing through my body, whispering to me of all the places it had visited.
“No, it's fine.”
The barghest smiled at me, a little ruefully. “Good. And no hands.”
I nodded, going in and finding my power and working on the knot at my feet. It was a different knot, I realized. I'd done a little sailing around Rockabill and knew there were many knot permutations. This was a clever one, and I wasn't going to be able to muscle through it like I could the others. I opened my eyes to shoot Anyan a withering look. He merely shrugged, as if to remind me that the cookie was already crumbled. I sighed, feeling martyred, and began to probe.
It was hard because my ankles felt farther away than my hands. That, coupled with a knot I had to pull rather than just poke at, meant I sat on the ground for a long time before I was finally free.
Anyan retrieved the rope and went to tie me up again, but I stopped him.
“My ass is frozen. Or asleep. Next time you decide to draw me into your sadomasochistic fantasies, can you at least bring a chair?”
He gave me the stink eye, but he took off his leather jacket and laid it on the ground.
“Thanks,” I said, settling myself on top of the jacket. It helped.
“Okay, now I'm going to truss you up. Like a pig.”
“Really? Like a pig?”
“It's what one trusses, Jane. I'm not calling you a pig.”
“Can't we just say that I get the knots and move on? Do we have to make like pigs and truss?”
“Pigs aren't the ones who truss. I truss; you get trussed.”
“Because I'm the pig.”
“In this exercise, yes. You're the pig.”
I lay down on my side, still grumbling. I'd lost my earlier enthusiasm about my chance to train with Anyan. It was like a workshop with Dominatrix Nell. I stuck my arms and legs in front of me, feeling less like a pig and more like an ass.
“Arms and legs behind you, please.”
“Pigs don't get trussed with their legs behind them,” I pointed out as I shifted so I could stick my arms out behind me, folding my legs up so they were near my arms. “You'd break their piggy spines if you did that.”
“Well, this is how I truss when I truss people up,” Anyan said, as he commenced roping me.
“Do you truss people often?”
“You'd be surprised.”
For a second, I thought we were flirting but then I remembered that he was tying me up on the icy banks of the Boston University Beach. Cheerful banter had to be a prerequisite for such situations.
“You're lucky I'm flexible, dog breath,” I muttered as he tightened the bindings. They hurt a bit this time.