Tempt the Stars

fey, hell, kill the humans, too. It’s not like they need them anymore if they’re invading the hells anyway—”
    “They’d need them to feed their precious herd,” Caleb growled. “There’s no way they would—”
    “If they want to feed their cows, they can do it with creatures like we saw on Rosier’s world. If even the incubi can control them, the gods’ll never have to worry about rebellion. They’ll never have to worry about any—” He broke off as I got up. Because it was either that or start screaming.
    “Where are you going?” Casanova demanded.
    “Somewhere else!”
    “Cassie—”
    “No,” I told him as he grabbed for my wrist. And missed, because he was drunker than he’d been in the bar. “I can’t, all right? I just—I
can’t
.”
    “It’s okay,” Caleb told me. And then grimaced, because it wasn’t and we both knew it. “Just . . . sit back down.”
    “I don’t want to sit down!”
    “It’s not like you have a choice,” Casanova pointed out. “Where else are you going to go?”
    I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. I just knew I couldn’t sit there and listen to them argue when there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about any of it. I was staggering with exhaustion, but I couldn’t sleep, either, not with Pritkin in there pleading for his life. And it didn’t look like there was enough left in that bottle to get me drunk.
    I didn’t know what I wanted.
    “I know how you feel,” Caleb said, and took my hand.
    He didn’t grab it or yank on it or even trap it, which, in the state I was in, might have sent me over the edge. The fingers were slightly open, the hold loose. I could have pulled away at any time.
    And so, perversely, I didn’t want to.
    “I feel the same way,” he told me. “I’ve known John over fifteen years. He’s saved my ass half a dozen times, and I’ve returned the favor maybe half that many—”
    “I think you might have evened the score today,” I said, a little unevenly.
    “Maybe.”
If this works out
remained unsaid. “But there’s nothing I can do for him now. Except wait. They’ll have a decision when they have a decision, and John’s going to need us then. And we need to be here for him. All right?”
    I nodded, because I suddenly couldn’t say anything. And let Caleb pull me back down on the sofa, or whatever it really was. I didn’t know, but it was comfortable, and then he pulled me onto his shoulder, which wasn’t. But I didn’t mind right then.
    “Sorry,” Casanova said, which might not have meant anything. But then he handed me the bottle again.
    “It’s okay,” I told him, looking at it blearily. “I think I’ve had enough.”
    “No such thing,” he muttered, glancing around. And upended it.
    *   *   *
    I woke up on something hard. I tried punching it, because this pillow had seen better days. But it didn’t seem to help.
    So I punched it again.
    “Ow,” someone said mildly.
    My eyes opened, and I found myself looking at something that might have been a knee. I blinked, and it came more into focus. Yes, it was a knee. A very dirty, denim-covered knee that also appeared to have been drooled on.
    I raised myself up slightly. And realized why my pillow had been so damned hard. My head had been resting on someone’s thigh, and whoever it was hadn’t skipped leg day.
    I turned my head the other way and saw a stomach. I frowned at it, which wasn’t fair, because it was a nice stomach. Flat and hard, and with the beginnings of the deep V of muscles sometimes called an Adonis belt above the loose top of the jeans.
    But there was something wrong with it anyway. And that included the sculpted, lightly furred chest above. And the rocklike shoulders above that. And the face—
    My body came upright abruptly. Maybe a little too abruptly, since the room did a lazy spin around me. But I didn’t care, because I’d finally realized the problem: the body was right, but the skin was wrong. Instead of Caleb’s rich mocha, it was pale and sun kissed and—
    I grabbed one of those oversized shoulders and shook it as hard as I could, which meant I maybe jiggled it a little. “They released you?”
    An eyebrow rose. And damn it! Everybody could do that but me.
    “No,” Pritkin told me. “They’re in deliberations. They didn’t seem to feel they needed me for that.”
    “Oh.” I sat back, waking the rest of the way up. And checking him over.
    He looked okay. Well, actually that was a lie.