Crimson Death
Page 109

   The seats were comfortable and swiveled so that you only sat two by two, but the seats faced each other in four-person conversation groups, or you could swivel and talk to the people on the other side of the narrow aisle without having to turn your head. I mean why make that much effort, right? I’d been on one flight years ago that had probably been the victim of a micro burst, which you actually couldn’t control at all. You could be properly maintained, mechanically sound, with the best crew in the world, and micro bursts didn’t care, which led me all the way back to—how was I possibly going to do eight and a half hours on a plane without running screaming up and down the tiny aisle?
   I texted all the people that I was metaphysically connected to who weren’t on the plane with me and told them, Shields up. I’d started doing that after Sin had requested I always tell them when I was about to fly. Apparently he’d been in the middle of his driving lesson when I took off and it had not gone well. All strong emotions were potentially shareable, and I really was afraid to fly. It was a scheduled, knowable moment when my emotions were going to run amok, so I group-texted everyone. Yay technology, making polyamorous relationships better since the iPhone was invented.
   Nathaniel sat beside me, holding my hand. I had a death grip on the armrest as the jet began to taxi down the runway. I was seriously working on controlling my breathing, because to panic, at least to have a full-blown panic attack, you had to lose control of your breathing first. If I controlled my breathing I could control my heart rate, my pulse, and keep myself from spilling over the edge into hysterics. I hadn’t actually cried on a plane in a few years, but I had bloodied Micah’s leg through a pair of jeans once when he was my plane buddy. At least if I bloodied Nathaniel’s hand he’d enjoy it; Micah not so much.
   “Anita, look at me.”
   I swallowed hard, still fighting to keep my pulse from trying to jump out of my throat, and turned to look at him. I was suddenly staring into those big lavender eyes from inches away. I was just suddenly calmer. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I loved him, or that he was sharing his own calm with me. Maybe it was both?
   “We’re going to Ireland to catch the bad guys, and then we get to see Ireland together.” He squeezed my hand and I realized that he was excited about the trip. It was one of those moments when I felt the age difference, or the experience difference between us. I’d never brought him on a police investigation trip on purpose. He’d been with me when crimes happened and we were suddenly ass-deep in alligators, but I’d never deliberately taken him into the lion’s den before. I suddenly remembered why. I was going to spend most of the trip looking at dead bodies and hunting rogue vampires through the city. It was like we were going on two very different trips.
   Nicky leaned across from the seats in front of us and put his big hand over mine. “We’ve got this, Anita.”
   I looked at him and felt that sense of calmness that he usually made me feel. He’d fixed his hair back so that improbable fall of bangs hid his right eye again. I looked at that one blue eye and wished I’d had a hand free to touch that long fall of bangs and let him know how much I valued that he let me see all of him.
   The plane was gaining speed. I started to tense up even with both of them touching me, but Damian leaned forward and wrapped his hand over Nathaniel’s hand where he held mine so that he was touching both of us and I was suddenly calm. I looked into those grass-green eyes and did a slow blink. Calm became something solid and sure. I felt the plane leave the ground and that spurt of fear shot through me, but Damian leaned in closer and the green of his eyes seemed to fill my vision. I was calm again, so calm.
   I could feel the plane climbing, but it didn’t seem to matter. It would be fine. We would be fine. It was fine. I was fine. I did a long blink and took a deep, slow breath.
   “How do you feel?” Damian asked in a low, even voice.
   “Fine, good,” I said, and my voice was low and even, too.
   He smiled at me and I smiled back.
   “We need to bring him on all of our out-of-town trips,” Dev said from the seat behind us.
   “I thought you were all upset that you didn’t get his seat,” Domino said.
   “I was,” Dev said, “but I couldn’t have calmed Anita down like that, so I take it back. Damian can have my seat on the plane if he can do that every time.”
   I blinked past Damian’s red hair to Dev’s white-blond, but whereas Damian’s fell down well past his shoulders, Dev’s barely touched his shoulders, and those shoulders were almost twice the width of the vampire’s. Mephistopheles—our Devil as Asher had called him—was a big guy, and would have looked bigger if he hadn’t been sitting so close behind Nicky, who made everyone on the plane except for Giacomo look smaller. Dev would probably have seemed bigger as well if he hadn’t been sitting beside his cousin, Pride, who was almost as broad through the shoulders and as wide through the chest. Pride’s eyes were rings that managed to be both pale and bright at the same time. Dev’s eyes were pale blue with a ring of golden brown around the pupils so that it was as if his eyes were hazel, if blue eyes could be hazel. Most people looked into those pretty eyes and that was all they saw, but if you knew what you were looking at you knew they were tiger eyes. It was the eyes they’d been born with, because all the pureblooded clan tigers had the eyes of their beast half permanently in their human faces. Both those faces were model handsome, Dev’s a little more square jawed than Pride’s, but all the gold clan tigers were handsome, or beautiful, as if they’d been bred for height, athletic ability, and beauty. The other tiger clans had some people who were pretty, but it wasn’t all of them; of course the two largest clans had three to four times as many members as the gold clan, so maybe it was what happened when your genetic pool was too small—everyone started to look alike. You think that would give you deformity or physical weakness, but sometimes it’s like breeding for the best racehorses. They’re all beautiful, athletic, fast as fuck, and a little high-strung. That about covered it. Dev and Pride were two of the calmest and most even-tempered, which was why they were the only two on regular guard duty with me or Micah.
   We hadn’t told Dev yet that Asher wanted to apologize to him, too. There hadn’t been time, and now didn’t seem to be the time either. I was feeling calmer than I’d ever been on a plane. Talking about Asher would upset me, and talking to Dev about Asher would probably upset me more, so fuck it. I’d keep this strange new calm as long as I could. There’d be time to discuss the vampire who broke Dev’s heart and then tap-danced on the pieces later, when we were safe on the ground. Just thinking that much started the fear bubbling up again.
   Damian said, “Anita.”
   His saying my name made me look at him and into those impossibly green eyes. The fear receded again like waves pulling back from the sea, and I was back to walking on that calm metaphorical beach. It was better than any meditation I’d ever managed to do.