Edie Spence [04] Deadshifted Read online

  I didn’t want to be the one to break the bond between us, so I lay down on top of him, with him still inside. My hair spilled over his chest, and he raised one hand to absently stroke down my back.

  “I love fucking you,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

  I grinned into his neck, where he couldn’t see me. “I can tell.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sex had swept our room free of the past, for now. I heaved myself off Asher, and he complained. He liked snuggling even more than I did. Plus, he was almost asleep. Truth be told, after a day of travel, jet lag, and vigorous sex, I could be almost asleep too.

  “Hang on. I have to do girl things.”

  I went into the bathroom and cleaned up. No blood.

  As I stood in front of the mirror, I couldn’t help but examine my belly. Despite not having any proof, I was 80 percent sure I was pregnant. Crap. Yay? Crap … yay? I poked at my stomach, which looked exactly the same. “I hope we didn’t shake things up in there too much for you. Also, sorry about the sperm. Just kick them out of the way or something,” I said. Maybe the fetus had hung an OCCUPADO sign up outside my uterus already, and the sperm were milling uselessly around outside. I laughed aloud at the idea. “Sorry, boys.”

  Asher knocked on the door. “Did you say something?”

  I gave him an innocent smile as I emerged. “No.”

  * * *

  As tired as we both were, we made a pact to stay up later. If we went to sleep now we’d only wind up awake at 3 A.M. We reluctantly hauled ourselves out of bed and unpacked. Just as I reached the end of my bags and began thinking maybe we could revisit the staying-up-until-a-decent-hour plan, another set of bells chimed overhead and Asher got one more of those looks on his face.

  “They’re starting a going-away party upstairs now. We should go up and give ourselves a tour.”

  “Or, we could just stay here?” I said with hope and exhaustion.

  “We could … or we could go upstairs where people will be dancing and drinking. And make a lap around the boat. So that we know where things are tomorrow.”

  I crossed my arms in an accusatory fashion. “You seem to know where everything is already.”

  He made a face at me. “I will admit to having touched more than one cruise employee in my past.”

  “Touched?” I said, feigning indignant surprise. “Or touched-touched? Like, with your penis?” My voice rose in horror, teasing, as I crawled back out of tickling range on the bed.

  “Hey now!” he protested, coming after me. “I can’t help it that I was a man-whore!” He paused and looked off into space dramatically, owning the moment. “Wait. That sounds wrong.”

  I started giggling as he caught up to me on the bed and held himself over me on one arm. “You know I have a troubled past, Edie,” he said solemnly, like a movie-trailer announcer. “But from here on out, I swear, my penis only has eyes for you.”

  I lost it and laughed so hard I snorted. Which made him laugh in turn, falling down to land beside me. I regathered myself first, gulping in several large breaths of air. “Okay, okay. If I say we can go on a tour, will you never tell me about your penis having eyeballs again?”

  Still naked, Asher got a silly look on his face. “But, Edie, he’s nearsighted. What if he needs to see you close up?”

  “Oh. My. God.” I rolled out of bed and threw the sheets at him with a laugh. “You’ve won. I’m going. I’m gone. Get up, or you’ll have to meet me in the hallway.” I reached down to haul on the clothes I’d been wearing before as he sprang out of bed and bowed, using the sheets like a cape.

  “We, fair lady, are at your service.”

  I opened my mouth to say something else, and then I shook my head and clasped my bra. “I don’t even want to begin to encourage your use of the royal we.”

  He grinned challengingly, and I beamed back. This was the man I was in love with. The silly, sexy man of the now. Past or no past.

  * * *

  I finished pulling on the clothes I’d been wearing earlier so as not to get anything clean funky. I could shower when we got back to the room. We held hands in the elevator on the way up to the top deck, and I could see my bed head from several unflattering angles on the elevator’s mirrored walls. I’d blame it on the sea air or something, if anyone asked. It didn’t matter really—I was with Asher. He smiled at my reflection, and I smiled back.

  An expanded version of the Maraschino in map form covered one wall. There was a tiny red cross indicating the medical center on the bottom-most floor. I’d look there for a pregnancy test tomorrow, first thing. I’d figure out some way to ditch Asher to do it—and I’d put off worrying about anything baby-related till morning time. I deserved one night of vacation at least.

  The elevator doors dinged and opened into a small landing on the ninth floor. The entrance to Le Poisson Affamé—which Asher had informed me meant “the famished fish”—was off to one side. It was a fancy restaurant where we had reservations later on in the trip—no way we could get in there, looking like this, tonight. Saloon doors on the other side led out to the deck. We walked through them, still holding hands.

  The deck outside wound around smokestacks, interrupted only by herds of deck chairs and an assortment of shallow pools. There were bars at frequent intervals, with people already partying nearby, drinks in hand, as hidden speakers pumped out music with a salsa beat.

  Asher and I wove through the people and walked the perimeter of the deck. Railings were reinforced with clear plastic walls to cut down on wind and potential lawsuits. The night breeze smelled like good ocean, clean and salty, not the stale scent of decay that Port Cavell had down by the docks.

  Asher wound his arms around me as we looked back at the receding land. It was as if it were ebbing away from us, a reversal of the tide. And as much as I didn’t trust the ocean, it was hard not to feel safe. The Maraschino was immense, and Asher was at my back. What more could a girl need? Assuming we didn’t meet any stray icebergs between LA and Hawaii, we might actually have a fabulous time.

  He squeezed me closer. “Want a drink?”

  “Nah. If I do, I’ll fall asleep where I stand.” It was as good an excuse as any for not drinking and not far off from the truth. I turned around inside his arms. “You should if you want, though.” The sooner he felt like falling asleep, the sooner I could too, guilt-free.

  He thought about it. “Maybe. It is our first night here, after all.” I nodded in an encouraging way, and he unlooped his arms around me, gave me a winning smile. “Wait here for me. It’s a big boat.”

  “Aye-aye, Cap’n,” I teased, and held on to the railing as he took a step back. The land had entirely disappeared, and the volume of the music turned up as if in triumph. It was as if it were just us—the four thousand or so of us on board—and no one else. No neighbors to complain, no police department to call. We were on a floating city, and out here it felt entirely possible there was no one else left in the world.

  A crew member tried to get people to do a coordinated dance on a nearby deck, the Macarena, the refuge of the rhythmless and their children. Parents bobbed in time with the music as their toddlers waddled along. Maybe Claire was right—this wouldn’t be such a bad tradition to have.

  Asher returned with a blended drink in hand, and I eyed its unmanly pinkness. My boyfriend usually drank Manhattans. “It’s tropical,” he informed me, offering me a sip. I snorted and demurred.

  A child broke from the pack of dancers and ran toward us, followed by a tiny brunette woman.

  “Thomas? Thomas!” She raced after him. Luckily, she was already wearing a pink velour jogging suit. “Thomas, get back here!”

  It was the sort of thing that had always made me question having children in the past—even though I’d nursed enough kids to know they were unpredictable. But I found myself grinning at the thought of racing after one of my own. There wouldn’t be much racing, because mine would be better behaved, of course—then I realized that probably
all expectant parents lied to themselves about that sort of thing.

  A man followed the woman at a distance. Wind struck up, stronger now as the sun was down—but I knew I’d heard Asher’s sharp inhale of surprise at seeing the other man.

  “That’s him,” he whispered, then handed me his drink before moving quickly to intercept the racing child. “Whoa! Hey there, kiddo!”

  The man approaching was him, him? Evil personified?

  It was hard to be scared of him when seeing Asher hold his kid made me queasy inside, in a good way.

  “Hey, hey—” Asher repeated, like he was soothing a dog, as the kid fought and squirmed. The woman caught up, swooping her child up into her arms, and smiled sheepishly at us.

  “Thank you so much!” she said, making a Q of the you. “He’s so fast, he gets into a lot of trouble.”

  “It’s no mind,” Asher said, his accent a subtle imitation of hers that he hadn’t had a second ago. I’d seen him do it before at the clinic. I didn’t know if he did it on purpose or if the strange just came to him without thinking, but it put people’s minds at ease. Who better to be your doctor than someone from your hometown? It wasn’t even entirely a lie. He’d touched someone from nearly everywhere, and held a set of their memories inside himself. He only needed to hold up a tag like a dry cleaner’s employee and wait for the appropriate past to slide itself forward for him to wear.

  The man from Asher’s past, presumably her husband, caught up as well. He was more frightening the closer he got. It wasn’t his sharp nose or his prominent widow’s peak, going gray at both temples. It was the way he took in all of us, emanating an air of disgust at the entire situation. Seeing him be cold to his own overwhelmed wife, child, and randomly helpful strangers made Asher’s story all the more believable. While the Consortium might have censured him somehow, they hadn’t taught him any lessons.

  “Thank you,” he said, as if it was a complaint, and he was accent-less. Asher gave him an ignorant smile, but it was hard for me not to stare. Testing fake blood on humans—who knew how many deaths this man had caused?

  “Oh, no problem. We’re trying to have one ourselves,” Asher went on, lying completely, his accent still on. Ironic, seeing as he didn’t know my period was late. “Hoping this romantic sea air will help things out, you know?” Asher overshared, as I began to want to die. “I’m Kevin—” Asher went on, leaning forward with his hand out. The woman shook it first.

  “I’m Liz—and this is Nathaniel,” she said.

  “Nathaniel Tannin.” Nathaniel introduced himself more formally, with no clue that Asher already knew him. I felt fractionally relieved, but not much.

  As Asher took his hand, Nathaniel looked a little pained by the common touch. Like he thought someone who looked like Asher did currently, and who, farmer-like, talked about impregnation at the drop of a hat, might also have barbecue sauce or semen stains hidden on his palm.

  When Asher didn’t let his hand go, Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed.

  “And I’m Edie.” I introduced myself with my actual name, because I’d never manage to keep a fake one straight, and so I could stop Asher from somehow giving himself away. “What’s his name?” I asked Liz despite the fact that I’d heard her shouting it after him, even over the increasingly obnoxious music.

  “Thomas. The third,” she answered, and her eyes darted to Asher-Kevin, who’d just finally let go of her husband’s hand. Nathaniel not-so-discreetly wiped his hand on his leg.

  “I have an uncle named Thomas!” I said. Asher turned to blink at me.

  You’re not the only one who can lie, I tried to say with a well-timed squint. “You remember him, right, Kevin?” I smiled at the woman. “He’s my favorite uncle, he’s just a lovely man. I’m sure your son will be lovely too.”

  “Awww, I’m sure. Thank you. Again.” Liz hefted her son up, still squirming, and gave us another shy smile as Nathaniel took her by the elbow and guided her away.

  “What was that about?” Asher asked me as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “I don’t know. You tell me,” I said.

  I expected him to have some witty retort or explanation. When he didn’t, my eyes followed his gaze; he was still watching Nathaniel blend in with the crowd.

  My stomach sank, just as the sun had, and everything came into focus. “You didn’t try to read him, did you?”

  Asher nodded quietly, and when I stared at him aghast he shrugged one shoulder. “It didn’t work.”

  I was stunned.

  We didn’t get rules when Santa Muerte stopped Asher from going insane. There were no guarantees on her services, no promises that he couldn’t fuck things up by trying to be what he once was. Asher had never pushed things before—there’d been no need, we’d been living happily, normally. That he’d do it now, and risk himself, over a ghost from his past? It was unthinkable. I’d almost lost him once before. I wouldn’t watch him do it again.

  “And what if it had?” I pressed.

  “Then I’d know why he was here. And what he was up to.”

  I pointed back the way they’d come. “He’s on a vacation with his family. Like you told me we were on. Remember?”

  “He has a daughter who’s your age. There’s no way that’s his wife, or his child.” Asher shook his head, denying what we’d seen.

  “Oh, so he’d be the first man ever to marry his secretary?”

  He frowned. “I know he had a vasectomy—”

  “So? Those can be reversed. Or he could be a stepdad. Or that kid could be adopted.” I was sputtering now. “I can’t believe you were willing to throw everything away—”

  I could see on his face that he wasn’t going to apologize, he was going to try to explain. “Edie,” he began, his voice low. “It didn’t work.”

  “What if it had? Or—what if it hadn’t, but you’d broken yourself again? Over nothing?”

  “It didn’t work!” he protested.

  “We’re a family now! You can’t go abandoning us like that!” People were staring and I didn’t care.

  “And you don’t know him like I do!” Asher shouted back. “Edie, I didn’t abandon you—”

  “I know that he’s here with his family,” I said. “And you need to act like you’re here with yours.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sun was gone now, and the night was becoming as cold as the untouched drink I still held in one hand. I handed it back to him. I was sure we looked like that couple, the ones who tied one on at the airport lounge, and on the shuttle, and in their rooms, and again on the deck. Whatever.

  “I’m going back to the room,” I said.

  “Fine.”

  There wasn’t anything left after that but to huff off. Of course we were on a boat, so I couldn’t really go anywhere, but I didn’t want to be around him for at least a little bit. And he knew me well enough to know that he shouldn’t chase me—I only left when I really did want to be alone.

  I found my room key in my pocket, and used both of the hand sanitizer stations I passed by on my way to the elevators, like I could somehow wash his betrayal off me.

  The room still smelled a little like sex when I got there. I wondered bleakly if Claire and Hal had heard anything earlier, or if they’d hear anything again on this whole godforsaken trip. I still needed to take a shower. Now was my chance.

  How dare he try to throw everything away? It might be one thing, under controlled circumstances, to test it out. Safely. Back home. Just to see. But to do it on a boat, here, in a rush, without even warning me? What if he’d broken himself again somehow and died, and left me to raise our child alone?

  I shuddered in fear and rage, then shed my clothes before going into the bathroom with the shower. The tub-shower and the toilet were in two separate rooms inside our cabin, like in an old Victorian home. I stepped inside the shower and turned on the water, then held on as the boat took an alarming turn. Between the small size of the tub, the slipperiness of the water, and the motion of the
boat, I wondered how many elderly guests broke hips on board. I was careful to brace myself against the wall. If I hurt myself in here while I was hate-showering, I’d never hear the end of it from him.

  By the time I was done washing my hair, I heard the outside door open and shut. I finished my shower, trying to think of everything I was going to say, but the second I stepped out with a towel wrapped around my chest, he spoke first.

  “What’s with all this ‘family’ stuff?”

  “Like you care” came out of my mouth in an instant, and Asher looked snakebit. I wished I could take it back so hard I said so. “I’m sorry.” I heaved an apologetic sigh. “I didn’t mean that.”

  Asher still looked hurt. “Edie, of course I care.”

  “It didn’t look like it up there, to me.” I pointed in the direction of the decks above us.

  “I’m sorry. I never should have done that, not without talking to you first, at least. That was a huge mistake.” He seemed earnest as he said it, but he also looked confused. “But what’s gotten into you?”

  “Um. You did? A couple of weeks ago.” I tried to sound lighthearted. I hadn’t sat around and thought about how this conversation would go, but even if I had, this wouldn’t have been how I pictured it. His face was still blank. I sat down on the bed. “For someone who has at least one doctor’s worth of knowledge inside him, you are very very dense.”

  He frowned, and then realization slowly dawned. “Wait. Are you trying to say you’re pregnant?”

  “I don’t know. Are you trying to hear it? I missed a pill.” I made a face at him, then sighed. “And I don’t know yet. I just know my period is late.”

  His frown deepened, and he raised a querulous eyebrow. “That’s not possible.”

  “Wow. Thanks,” I said, as sarcastically as I could.

  “No, Edie. It is literally not possible. Shapeshifter and human DNA don’t mix. Believe me. It’s one of the reasons shapeshifters can be so promiscuous. We’re never in danger of having children with humans. We also don’t get sick.”