He hadn’t disintegrated like everyone else did when I lost my shit. That earned him significant brownie points in my book, even though I suspected he wouldn't understand the reference. Nor did I understand who he spoke to when he waited afterward, murmuring softly as though he prayed, though I didn’t think he was the prayerful sort. No, we were gods amongst these mortals. Not above them in any way, but…apart.
Unlike them, as we were unlike all others.
Even his friend who seemed to have immersed himself in the culture of this world and all it had to offer. I wondered if he had always been that way, or if he, too, had struggled with a sense of time and place and where he stood within existence, once.
Or not.
Maybe one day we’d be on good enough terms for me to ask. Or maybe I’d ash him before I got the chance. Who really knew?That was the story of my intimate life right there: fall in love, have a snog, pile of ash.
My sex life, summed up in three dot points.
I’d never made it to third base, because intimacy caused that same flash/bang result my stone man experienced first-hand.
“So why aren’t you ash?” I asked the inside of my crypt.
“Why don’t you come out and we can work it out together?”
I started when he answered, not realizing he’d been listening so hard to my internal ruminations, as though he could read my mind all along. “It’s not nice to eavesdrop,” I snapped.
“It’s not nice to incinerate someone when they’re offering you protection,” he rebuked me softly.
Amber eyes met mine through the larger cracks in the stained marble. I swore the gaps were bigger than they had been the night prior as I crouched over the cold slab. My fingers traced the name etched into the stone that had worn away from floods the raised dais didn’t protect decades before, no matter the designer’s intent.
“It’s a failsafe,” I muttered, creeping forward, until my fingertips pressed to the outside. Another flash, a little ash, and I stood in the night air beside him, reeking of stale graves and death. “It always fails to keep me safe."
Hard, thick fingers hesitated a breath from my cheek before they made contact. His touch was warm and firm, as before, and he sought permission before his skin grazed mine. I nodded once, and didn’t pull away. Because I felt like I knew this man, despite his hulking size.
And he wassafe.
“So you're not going to ash me this time?” The corners of his mouth lifted momentarily.
I shrugged, just to let off some steam on my sassy side. “I mean, I might. If you let that stoic nature of yours come out to play. Your stone could use a little tan on the other side.” Iwiggled my pointer finger in a circle, indicating he should turn around like a rotisserie chicken on a skewer.
He laughed, long and full bodied. I liked that sound, and wondered what it would be like to listen at closer quarters, with my ear against that great, heavy chest of his.
“I might be a bit pasty on my other side,” he conceded, wiggling his backside.
I bit back a laugh. “I’m not sure I can deal with a smiling stone man,” I admitted, circling him, and checking out the goods he offered. Nothing had changed about his well over the mid-six-foot-five-inches range and brick shithouse ranking shoulders that stayed as still as he had in his stone form until I completed my inspection. I bit my lip and made my first confession since he had been nice and held to his promise of returning to see me. “I don’t know your name.”
“Dolion.”
My lips made his name in silence as I tried it out.He’s definitely from a different time.We had that in common.Those citrine eyes lit on me as I completed my rotation around his heavy body—not an inch of fat anywhere on him that I could fathom—and I cleared my throat as well of my mind, of filthy thoughts. Clearly, I’d been deprived of male company, or any company, really, for far too long.
“Did you need me to say it again?” His eyes tracked my movement, tracing the shape my mouth made.
I shut my lips tight and shook my head.
His lips quirked. “In that case, I should sleep.”
“Sleep?” I broke my vow a fraction of a second after making it. “But you just got here.”
“And now I know that you are safe, perhaps you will return the favor. I have been awake for too many hours, and this body is…tired.” He leaned against my crypt, his shoulders dropping slightly.
I frowned at his posture. “Is that a…thing?” My frown deepened when his expression matched mine, and I shook my head. “You haven’t been around for a while, have you?” I murmured.Gotta watch the references with this one.Actually, it was kinda a breather to drop the current language with this man and drop back into an older style of speech that I hadn’t used in a long time. “Let’s give this a go. I might be a little rusty,” I warned him, though those amber eyes never wavered in their focused gaze, despite the way he shifted restlessly against my crypt. “You need rest after being up for the day, then?” I clarified.
He nodded, leaning his head back against the marble. “I used to wake at night, roam the bayous with Sebastian. My vampire friend,” he said, his voice near a thin whisper. “Back when…” Dolion’s voice trailed off.
I bit my lip.Don’t pry, don’t pry.“Back when what?” I asked softly.
