Kim Harrison - Unbound

As she stepped over him, she could still see her feet, her normal human toes, her pedicure. She didn’t have hooves. Yet.

Eavan was blood-covered when she walked into her house. Cillian didn’t bother asking if Brennan was alive. He couldn’t help glancing at her legs, though. Are they going to change? He wasn’t sure if such a change was immediate or not.

“Nyx?” she asked.

“Sleeping now. Muriel is with her. She says everything will be fine.” He didn’t know if he should reach out or what to do. If Eavan had been human, he’d have offered a shoulder to lean on; if she was a friend, he’d have offered an embrace. She was something else, so he settled for words: “Are you going to be all right?”

Eavan nodded. She dropped a stack of files on the table. “I didn’t know what you needed, so I brought these.”

He came to stand beside her. “Do you need anything?”

“A shower.” She looked lost, but resolute. “I’m a mess.”

He forgot his misgivings, his professionalism, and his common sense. He wrapped his arms around her and held on to her. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t crumble into sobs, either. For a moment, she stayed stiff, and then she relaxed into his embrace. Drying blood, some of it hers, streaked her skin. Traces of tears on her face made it apparent that she had cried, just not where there were witnesses.

“You should run, Cillian,” she whispered. “Being around us is unsafe.”

“I’m not going anywhere yet.” He wasn’t sure where he’d be or when he was going, but until his supervisors assessed the files she’d brought, he was untethered. “My assignment was to come to Raleigh. Until I get new orders, I’m here.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to be around monsters.” She didn’t move away from him as she spoke. “Nyx won’t force you to stay, and Daniel isn’t around to investigate.”

“He’s gone?” Cillian hadn’t wanted to bring it up, but they did need to deal with it. “If he’s dead, I’ll call it in, and the C.D.A. will clean it up.”

She nodded. “He’s dead.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “You—”

“Hunted him. Brought Nyx there. Left her in a room with him.” She made a bitter sound and stepped away. “No, it’s not my fault at all.”

She walked past him, ignoring the rest of her family and heading into the room where Muriel and Nyx were. She stopped in the doorway and bowed her head. “Forgive me, Grandmama.”

Cillian watched for a minute, and then he took the files with him into the sitting room to call the office. “I’ll be staying in Raleigh for a while,” he said when his supervisor answered. “I need a cleanup and containment though.” He filled them in, and then sat down in the gaudy room and started to read. There was plenty to do in Raleigh.

Eavan stood in the doorway and looked down at her matriarch. She’d always been imperious, seemingly invincible, and terrifying. Seeing her weakened was heartbreaking to Eavan. Why was she weakened by him? Why couldn’t Nyx kill him? Eavan realized that she had done what her matriarch could not. It wasn’t a comforting feeling to be the better monster when Nyx was the competition.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Later there would be time for questions; later there would be room to think about the unpleasant truth that she was going to need to make peace with being a part of her clan. Right now, all that mattered was that her family was unbroken. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be a fool, Eavan. You didn’t injure me.” Nyx opened her eyes. “Is he dead?”

“Yes.”

“By your hand?” Nyx wasn’t any less fierce for being injured.

“Yes,” Eavan admitted.

“It was worth it then. Now, if you want to make me happy, go celebrate with Cillian. Call it a cure for your guilt.” Nyx closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Eavan stood there for several moments. Some things never change. Her grandmother was still the family matriarch, still focused on her personal agenda, still determined to save Eavan from dying from the “disease” of mortality.

Quietly, with only Muriel for a witness, Eavan walked over and kissed her grandmother’s forehead and whispered the same words she used to whisper as a girl: “You’re such a bitch, Grandmama Nyx.”

Nyx smiled but didn’t open her eyes. “Love you, too, Evvie.”

After her shower, Eavan sat in Nyx’s room and flipped through a manila folder she’d found in Daniel’s office, one she hadn’t given Cillian. He had looked up when she walked past the sitting room, but he hadn’t followed her into Nyx’s room.

Eavan flipped through the pages and stared at the names:

Christophe, James

Imlee, D—?

McKinsey, Rachel

Wall,???

There were more than a dozen pages on different people and other thicker packets of information that made no sense to her.

She wasn’t meant for a normal life, but that didn’t mean she had to give up hope of everything she’d believed. Maybe Nyx was right: maybe she couldn’t deny what she was. She was a murderess, a daughter of glaistigs, but she was also daughter to a long-gone human father. She’d commit a few murders to keep her appetites in control. She wasn’t going to become fully glaistig. There were choices left to her—not as many as before Daniel, but still enough that she could keep hold her of her humanity.