After.

It seemed that everything in her life happened after. After torture, after escape. After revenge, after the battle. After Jaenelle, and if that stung a little in her heart of hearts no one would know it. Not even Graysfang. After all the words that could never be taken back. The small revelations that had hit again and again, body blows, every one of them. After so many kinds of danger she thought that she was too exhausted to ever be afraid again. After everything.

Surreal snorted, kicking her feet out from under her and almost stepping on Graysfang as she stood from her bed. He gave her a reproachful look and went back to his nap.

Her hands itched for something. The hilt of her stiletto, perhaps, except it gave her only token comfort. Any body part that she could have touched gave her nothing; it was a job, nothing more. A familiar job, at least. She knew her place in that, whereas here in Kaeleer she was Surreal SaDiablo, Saetan's niece. Dorothea's granddaughter. One half good, one half bad, and neither half felt as though it was truly her own.

Titian's daughter. But Titian was dead.

Graysfang lifted his head underneath her hand and her fist clenched in his fur. She noticed only when he whimpered, and then smoothed her hand down over his ruff.

"I'm sorry."

A wet nose pressed into her hand. *You feel alone.*

With the thought came understanding, empathy, the sensation of a wolf new to the pack and turning around in uneasy circles at the dissonance in howls.

*I feel alone,* she admitted. *I feel as though I'm waiting for something.*

This was less familiar to the wolf, which she sensed. After the kill came the feeding, after the feeding came sleep or play, after sleep and play came hunger and then another kill. It was a simple cycle.

She tried to put it in a way he would understand, and together they came up with the sensation of a kill over too quickly, jaws snapping around empty air but the prey falls and breaks its neck and in the next moment it's done with the energy still lingering, nowhere to go. Graysfang shook his head and whined. Yes, exactly.

"Something wrong?"

It took every ounce of control she had not to squeak, or jump, or otherwise embarrass herself. Besides, Graysfang was doing enough of that for the both of them.

"No. Nothing's wrong." Mother Night, but Daemon had suffered enough for them all. She would not tell him of the little nagging troubles she felt. Would not.

"You're lying."

Surreal fixed him with a cranky eye. Not angry or upset, only irritated that he saw into her so easily. But he saw into everyone so easily, it was why he was the Sadist. One of many reasons.

"Nothing for you to concern yourself over," she told him, and turned back to her vanity. As though makeup, jewelry, her usual armor could hide herself from him. "How is Jaenelle?"

A subtle dig, except he only smiled and seemed the lighter in mind and heart for the reminding. She had meant him to remember that he should be at her side.

"She's recovering well, quicker than Ladvarian said she would. Quicker, I think, than anyone could have hoped for."

Surreal only snorted, a sound that had real emotion behind it, this time. Healing quicker meant that she was pushing herself, and perhaps pushing herself to heal beyond the pace her body could keep. Not a wise thing to do, but with Daemon waiting, Surreal couldn't exactly fault the girl. He had waited so very long, and surely Jaenelle must feel that. Return his longing with an equal passion.

It pushed her out again, and she set the hairbrush she'd been meaning to use down with just a little more care than was needed.

"Surreal..." Low, and warning.

"Daemon."

He could press. She could press back, too, and did in her tone except that for a moment she had forgotten what she was dealing with and that was a dying mistake. She should have remembered that.

His hands were on her shoulders, lightly massaging. With heat and with tender care, enough pressure to make her head fall back and her eyes close as knots she hadn't known were there loosened and sighed under his fingers. She felt the heat from his fingertips all the way down through to her toes. Felt it like an embrace that was a total lie, embracing the lie because it gave her the impression that she belonged, for once. That this was an after that was better than the during, or the before.

"Tell me what's troubling you." He whispered it over her ear, his breath hot and smelling of stew and just a hint of wine. "Please?"

Surreal closed her eyes. Behind them Graysfang whimpered, and it still wasn't enough to bring her out of the fog.

"I should go. I should leave, go back to Terreille. I have work there, and I wouldn't be any help with the rebuilding."

Daemon's fingers tightened on her shoulders till it was more painful than soothing. She heard an indrawn breath as though he meant to speak, but whatever it was he didn't say it. His hands relaxed again after a moment, curving around her shoulders.

"I know you want me to have a place with your family, Daemon. I know Saetan wants me to be his niece but I spent too long in Terreille to be comfortable here. And that is the truth, whether you like it or not." There. A spot of defiance while his breath poured over her skin like a hot waterfall. "Whether I like it or not. I'll come back. For visits, for a time. But I can't stay here."

His thumbs brushed along the side of her neck, distracting her from what she had meant to say next. There were more reasons. More justifications, if she was to be truthful to herself at least. But there were also reasons. And she couldn't remember any of them right now.

"Everyone would be better off that way..."

Snarling. "No one would be better off that way."

Surreal tucked her head to her chest and slipped down, underneath the vanity and turned to shove the chair into him at that tone. It was instinct more than anything else. She had known as she had said it that it was one of the most stupid things she could have said, but this kind of reaction. This violence, aimed at her. She hadn't been ready for that.

He toppled backwards as she pushed the chair into him and almost fell, which gave her the opportunity to run for the door. Time only enough to tell Graysfang to stay put, it was just a tussle between packmates. Graysfang did, though his ears flattened back and his fur raised up and he whined. Packmates fighting was always bad.

Especially when it ended with one's teeth at the other's throat. Or fingers, in this case.

Surreal's eyes shut against the tears that were sliding away despite her best efforts. Not out of fear or even anger, but some nameless squirming that was taking place in the midst of her stomach. It only got worse when the stranglehold changed to something more like a caress. A caress, of course, from the Sadist. Perhaps their little ruse wasn't the best of ideas if Daemon was having a hard time laying that part of himself to rest again.

"I need you," he hissed. "Surreal." Made her name three syllables instead of two. "I need you."

It shivered her spine and sent everything tightening, a rush of liquid trickling down the back of her neck and in other places Daemon could always touch. She took a breath and found it restricted by his hand.

"You cannot leave. Can. Not. I need you here." Every syllable accented. "I need you, Surreal. I need you because you know what they do not. Because of what you have seen. I need you here, to stay. I need you to stay."

It came in staccato bursts of sound, words spat or hissed or shaken out of himself like a dog shakes its head to sneeze. It was the vehemence of it, more than the words themselves, that made it clear to her.

"All right. All right, I'll stay."

She choked the words out even though he wasn't really strangling her and they both gasped for breath when it was over. Dove into each others arms as if to rescue each other from drowning.

It wasn't sexual. It wasn't even romantic, although she wasn't sure he didn't know of her feelings for him, feelings that she would never ever speak of. One more thing to add to the list. But this was something different, this was an understanding they had of each other born of years and decades of experience. This was because she understood the Sadist in ways that Jaenelle couldn't, not yet. Because she was a woman and had a woman's understanding where Lucivar did not. Because she was Surreal, and he was Daemon, and before they had been anything else to each other they had been friends. Child and adult friends, but still friends.

Surreal's hands slid down to his elbows as his moved to her shoulder and Graysfang stuck his hand between her elbow and her side, cold and wet. It made them both laugh, a little.

"What am I going to do with you," she asked, and shook her head.

"Me?" Daemon smiled. As if nothing had ever happened. "Or the wolf?"

"Either. Both." She snorted.

"You'll figure something out, I'm sure of it."

In an hour or so of talk they didn't figure anything out, but the restlessness eased a little. She wasn't so out of place, and even if she was she still wasn't the only one who felt that way. There was companionship in loneliness. That was somewhat comforting.

But when he left there was still an after, and the room was a little emptier than it had been when he had been in it.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.