“It’s okay,” he said. His tone brought my gaze firmly back to him. He was quiet beneath me—okay, so he was a zombie, so that was easy—but nothing about him was threatening, or rushing. Rushing me, or rushing out the door. He didn’t seem angry or mad, or scared, or anything else I’d been afraid he’d be right now. “Whatever you want. It’s okay,” he repeated. He smiled, not too hard, not too wide. Just a gentle smile. A safe smile. A soft smile. Damn.

“I also don’t want to die in two days and not have had sex with you,” I admitted.

He laughed, and reached up to cup my face in his hands and bring it back down toward him.

“Then don’t,” he said, half a second before he kissed me.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Zombies are good with their lips.

Ti held my head in place, like I was wild or fragile, and kissed me gently. His lips brushed mine again, then pressed more firmly. I gasped a little bit; my busted lip still stung.

“Sorry, my cut—”

“Stop apologizing,” he whispered. Holding my head, he pressed kisses on my forehead, kissed on top of my closed eyes, kissed down my right cheek. He tilted my head up, stroking along the line of my chin with his thumb, and kissed me underneath my jaw, where my pulse was pounding, I knew it, kissed down the path of my carotid until he reached the collar of my sweater, and pulled this down, until my collarbone was exposed. His hands found the bottom of my sweater and pulled it up slowly, and I was dying to help him take it off me, but I worried about breaking things, somehow ruining this trance. I sat still, his lips working across the vee of my throat, my breath coming in short gasps, biting down on the moans I wanted to make.

Ti crept my sweater ever higher, until I had to raise my arms to free it, and I was sitting there exposed on his lap, in only my jeans, lanyard, and bra. I reached up and pushed my lanyard back so that my badge would hang behind me.

And I realized I’d rocked down into his lap without meaning to. I was pressed against him, near, but not near enough yet.

He dropped my sweater on my floor, and his hands found the clasp of my bra, after swatting my badge aside. It was undone in an instant, and he slid the straps off my shoulders, pulling it down. My apartment was cold. Ti tilted his head down and found my breasts. And then I had to moan.

Zombies are good with their teeth.

He bit my nipple, halfway hard, rolling his tongue across my flesh on the inside of his mouth. The gentleness of his kisses was gone now, replaced with a need to know me. To taste me. He bit me till it almost hurt, in the fullness of my cleavage, in the roundness of my breast against my ribs, one breast, then the other, his teeth against one pert nipple at a time, leaving teeth marks on me for an instant before they faded, with nothing but my memory of my burning need to prove them there.

And I could feel Ti, trapped inside his jeans, hard. I rocked forward into him as his bristles scraped against my skin, switching from one breast to the next. I rode against him, still too clothed.

His hands found one another at the top of my jeans. They undid the button, unzipped the fly. He looked up at me with his golden eyes. And then he reached up to hold me, pick me up, and lay me down on my living room floor. He grabbed hold of my jeans and underwear and tugged, bringing them sliding down to my knees. I reached up for him, expecting him to pull off his jeans and join me—I knew he wanted to, I could clearly see the outline of his cock. But Ti grabbed for my jeans again and pulled them off me, one leg at a time, and then beheld me, naked there before him, himself between my legs. He reached forward, pulling his hands down my stomach, and pushed my thighs wide.

Zombies are very, very, very good with their tongues.

I curled up against Ti on the open expanse of my floor. He was still wearing all of his clothing, petting me like I was some exotic beast. Perhaps, compared to him, I was.

“I think I know your name, Edie,” Ti said, running his hands up against the badge’s plastic, it and its lanyard the only shred of clothing I had on. It lay against my chest now, up between my breasts.

“Just humor me, okay?” I said. Were the Shadows watching this? Feeling this? Voyeuristic bastards. I snuggled nearer, because his flannel was warm. “You have too much clothing on.”

He made a negating noise.

“No, really. I refuse to be the only naked person here.” I reached up and cupped his chin. I ran my hand higher, and his scars made my fingers play in unexpected ways up the plane of his cheek.

“I just didn’t want to scare you.”

I sat up and pushed him down onto my floor with both hands. “Scare me, Edie Spence, dragon-killer? Girl who is at least nearby when the dragon gets killed? As if such a thing were possible,” I scoffed.

“You never told me about a dragon,” he said, as I reached for the top button on his collar.

“I have unexpected depths.”

I didn’t meet his eyes. Instead I watched what I was doing, unfastening one button at a time, leaving the flannel in a straight double row till it was tucked into his jeans. Then I reached up and in between it, pushing his shirtfront aside, like I was opening a present.

Ti’s skin was mottled, a calico of humanity, possessing every color, from the raw pink of newer scars down to the rich flat black that I suspected eventually his healed skin would become. There were ridges, waves, where new met old, and older, all across his wide strong chest, down his flat stomach, to where I couldn’t reach yet in his jeans.

“How many times have you been hurt?” I asked him, marveling over each intersection where his stories were written on him, tracing each fold. When I looked up, his eyes were watching my face.

“A lot. I don’t remember them all.”

“That’s good, I suppose.” I followed line upon line down his body, making a game of it, gathering the courage to go further—

“You’re not scared?”

I flushed, but when I looked up at him I realized my secret was still safe. “Not of scars, no.”

His face turned away from me, to look at my wall. “I also can’t feel much.”

“So you can’t feel me? Or feel this?” I asked, leaning in to kiss his chest. He reached up and caught the back of my head, holding me to him. I kissed him again.

“I—I remember the memory of touch. Sometimes I think that’s what it is that I feel instead. Memories of times I’ve been touched before.”

“That’s poetic. But also very sad.” I grabbed a fistful of my hair and played it down his stomach, left a trail of warm breath at the edge of his jeans. “Nothing?”

“Not much,” he said, his voice heavy with sorrow.

I reached a hand down and pulled clawed fingertips up the inside of his thigh. “Nothing?” I asked again, from the vicinity of his waistband. I raked my hand up the inside of his other thigh, and then seated it between his legs, rubbing what I found there.

“Some places were burned less than others,” Ti admitted, arching his back slightly.

“Ooooohhh,” I said. “I love a challenge.”

My doorbell rang, twice in quick succession. I thumped my head down onto the still-closed button of Ti’s jeans. “You are kidding me.” I shook my head, and began unfastening the buttons as the door rang again.

“You’re not going to get that?” Ti asked, sitting up, pushing me back.

“No.”

“It might be important.”

“This is important,” I said, making an expansive gesture.

“This,” Ti said, making my gesture back at me with a rueful grin, “isn’t going anywhere. So go get your door.”

I got my legs underneath myself. “Fine. But if it’s my brother, I reserve the right to kill him.” The doorbell rang again. “Just a minute!” I yelled, then looked back at Ti. “You, stay here. I will be right back. Stay put.”

He grinned. “I wouldn’t want to end up like the dragon.”

“Precisely.” I made a face at him and ran into my bathroom to pull on my robe. Then I went back out to my entryway and looked out through the peephole. Maybe I was lucky and it was a misdelivered pizza.

Just outside, pacing in a circle, I saw Asher.

“We don’t want any,” I said, through my closed door.

“Edie, open up,” Asher commanded.

“Why?”

“We need to talk.” He rapped once on the door, in frustration. “Open up already.”

“Dammit to hell.” I opened up the door, and he immediately shoved his foot in so I couldn’t close it. “I was sleeping, Asher. I work night shift. What’s this—”

“I went to Y4 this morning, and saw my relative there.”

“So?” I said, trying to close my door, regardless of his foot.

“Stop that,” he said, putting an arm out against the door.

I gave up on closing him out and let the door swing wide. “You could have texted me, or written a letter, or, I don’t know, sent flowers, or something.”

“I talked to the social worker about our patient. And he told me about your situation,” Asher said, his British accent clipped by anger. “Everything.”

“Hypothetically, right?” I sardonically joked. My eyes met his for a moment and saw his features there burble and switch. It could have been my imagination, or a shadow, or who knows, indigestion—but I recognized the final face and the emotion it portrayed was earnest.

“Edie, the shapeshifter you saw was my friend. He was spying on the Zver, passing for one of their daytimers. When they caught him they passed him around like a toy until they broke his mind. They’ll do even worse to you.” He stepped back and held out his hand. “I can save you if you come with me, Edie. But you have to come now.”

I was barefoot and my robe offered no protection against the cold. It’d been freezing and then some last night, and the sun wasn’t winning any fights this afternoon.

“I can’t—”

“We have safe houses all over the country. Only a few such facilities like Y4 exist—in rural areas, we take care of our own. I can transport you away from here, set things in motion. After that, you never even have to see me again, if you don’t want to.” His empty hand traveled up to cup my cheek. “Though I’ll admit that that thought makes me the slightest bit sad.”