How Beauty Loved the Beast

chapter Twenty-One



The Underlight was eerily silent as Hauk and Jolie approached the main doors. He’d given Jolie the slender vial of liquid antidote to carry so he had both of his hands free. The too-small pants he’d scrounged off a downed guard barely gave him room to fight, much less pocket a precious few ounces of liquid.

Jolie had filled him in on everything from Travis’s departure to Ananke’s plan to infect the whole Underlight. There’d been no sign at Ananke’s headquarters that their location had been leaked, so this unnatural quiet wasn’t what he’d expected to find.

He motioned for Jolie to scoot back. “I’ll open it. Be ready to run.”

“From what? Empty space? It feels...” She didn’t finish the thought, but he knew what she meant. It didn’t feel like anyone was alive behind the doors.

He took a sharp breath and reached for the knob. He’d come back from the damn dead to save this place. Failure was not acceptable. “Ready?”

Jolie caught his eyes then looked him over again with that same awed stare that broke his heart. She wanted him back, and she wanted him like this. The whole package, legs and skin and everything. He didn’t blame her. Only a few hours into being whole, he couldn’t imagine going back, no matter what the incentive.

Finally she nodded. He opened the door.

The citizens of the Underlight lay in tangles on the floor, as if they’d fallen where they stood, struck down by an instantaneous killer. Brayden stretched into the doorway, one hand reaching toward them, eyes closed and mouth gaping.

“Oh my God,” Jolie murmured, voice hushed in shock.

Hauk kneeled by his best friend. “He’s breathing.” Relief poured through him.

“They’re asleep?” Jolie rushed past him and rested her hand on the back of another. The shallow but steady rise and fall showed that that woman, too, was asleep. “What the hell?”

She stood and caught his eye. Almost as one, they said, “Tally and LaRoche.”

Quickly they made their way to the lab. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he heard the sounds of sleeping breaths and noticed the minute movements of life in the friends and associates they passed. The Underlight was full of people, all of them unconscious.

Jolie gave an uneasy laugh. “I’m pretty sure this is the wrong fairy tale.”

“What?” Hauk asked.

She shook her head.

The lab door was not only shut but sealed tight. Mercy lay in front of it, empty gun in her hand. Several Citizens surrounded her, each with a dart stuck somewhere in them. Hauk knew that pose too well. She’d fallen making her last stand.

Glad that she’d merely fallen asleep, Hauk reached over her to bang on the door. No answer. He banged again, louder.

Mercy groaned. Jolie dropped down next to her and shook the girl’s shoulders, but she didn’t wake.

Finally Tally’s face appeared in the window. She opened her mouth in a scream and backed away.

“Tally!” Hauk yelled. “Open the damn door!”

LaRoche appeared with a gun aimed at the glass.

Hauk dropped to a crouch.

“What’s wrong?” Jolie asked.

“I don’t think they recognize me.”

Jolie popped up. “Of course they don’t.”

He reached for her. “They’ve got a gun. Get your ass...”

But instead of a gun rapport, the door opened a crack.

“It’s me and Hauk,” Jolie said. “We have the vial. What the hell happened?”

The door opened wider. “Hauk?” Tally asked. “Where is he?”

Jolie pointed down. Hauk waved up. Tally contemplated him for a moment, pixie-cut hair sticking up in random points and dark circles showing how little she’d slept. Her eyes widened in recognition, and she face-planted on his chest. “Ohmigod!”

“Your boyfriend got the gun on him still?” he teased.

She swatted him. “What happened?”

He motioned around at the sleeping bodies. “We have more pressing concerns than my face.” But the question made him uncomfortable. He’d be gone at sunset. The fewer people who saw him, the better. He’d have to get Tally and LaRoche to keep quiet about it and convince Jolie to tell everyone the truth—that he’d died at the temple—and leave it at that.

LaRoche poked his head out, exhaustion creasing his young skin. “What the...”

Jolie stuck the vial out at him. “Antidote.”

A new vigor filled his movements as he swiped it from her and spun back into the lab.

Tally stood up, staring at Hauk as she reached down to help him to his feet. “Mercy told us that the virus spreads by blood. They were cutting themselves and infecting others, and there was no way of knowing who’d been hit. So we dropped sedative into the air filtration system. It was the only way we could think of to stop anyone from leaving.” Tentatively, she reached up. “Can I...”

Hauk leaned down so she could run her fingers over his cheek.

The touch was feather-light. Fascination replaced the weariness on her face. “Wow.”

He scuffed the ground with a boot, feeling weirdly vulnerable without the scars to hide behind. “It’s not permanent.” Neither was his heartbeat, but he wasn’t ready to announce that.

She frowned, not understanding, but didn’t push. “Well, I’m glad I got to see. You’re like a teddy bear, all bashful smile and baby-cheeks.”

He lifted an eyebrow, and there was no tug of metal against his skin. “Baby-cheeks?”

She grinned. “Yup. I didn’t think you’d be so sweet-looking.” Reluctantly she nodded back at the lab. “I’d better go help.”

“Hey, Tally.”

She turned back.

“Don’t tell anyone you saw me. Just keep my presence between the four of us, okay?”

Again she nodded, all the questions she wanted to ask in her eyes.

He ducked his head without answering.

“Y’all got it from here?” Jolie asked.

“Yeah. He’ll need a couple hours to study and replicate the formula, but they’ll sleep plenty long enough. You’re on your own for a while.” She put a hand on Hauk’s arm. “I thought you two weren’t coming back. We didn’t know what we were going to do. I...” She faded out. “Well, I’m glad you came back, no matter how you managed it.” With a grateful smile she stepped back into the lab and shut the door.

Hauk escorted Jolie back to his room. Once inside, she wearily dropped to his bed and lay back, her red hair spilling against the coffee-colored sheets like blood staining the ground.

There was no blood in Valhalla. No death and no pain.

There was no Jolie, either—at least, not yet. But Freyja had said they’d be together again one day. He could wait for her. He was at peace with dying, always had been. Now that he knew what awaited him, he had nothing to fear and much to gain.

“What’s on your altar?” Jolie asked, the sadness in her voice jarring his thoughts.

He was worried about her. Her sorrow was the one thing he couldn’t make peace with, and he hated the thought of her mourning him.

“We didn’t leave it this way,” she continued as she stood and went to his altar.

On it was the pewter cup he’d made for rituals, the one he’d left inside its usual cabinet and not out here. Its bowl was filled with an amber liquid, reflecting a fire that wasn’t there.

Fear spiked through him.

Jolie reached below the chalice to a note threaded through the rose ring. She touched the ring reverently, as if she knew what it meant, and pulled out the paper. Her head tipped, her hair spilling over one shoulder as she frowned down at the note. “‘Your choice.’ That’s all it says. What does that mean? Who did this? What’s in the cup?” She sniffed it.

“Don’t.”

She turned to him, confused. “Do you know what this is?”

He hesitated. Before he’d come back, Idunna had pulled him aside, her apple green eyes gazing with fixed intensity. “After years of delivering your cider, I’ve decided I like you, Wesley Haukon. For you, I’ll work on something stronger. Likely as not I’ll fail—Death is a jealous mistress—and regardless, you’d return as you were before, with the scars and the missing leg. That kind of healing is not for my hands. But should I figure something out, your ancestors will bring it and then you can make your choice.”

He flinched at the memory. He’d pushed it aside, hoping it wasn’t a decision he’d have to make. He was at peace. He didn’t need this on his head.

Jolie’s spine straightened. Like always, she saw right through him and read his silence for what it was.

His heart pounded. He couldn’t go back to the scars, to living hidden from everyone and everything, not when he had an option. They’d be together again in time, and this way he didn’t force her to spend the rest of her life underground. She may want him, but nobody wanted that much of their life dictated to them, especially not a free soul like Jolie. She had to let him go. “Let’s head topside. I only have a few hours. I want to walk in the sunshine for a bit. See people and not have them stare. I want to eat at a restaurant. Go sit in a crowded place. And then I want to come home and make love to you like this. Please. Let it be. Let me have one day of peace.”

Her expression hardened. “Tell me what happens if you drink this.”

* * *

Jolie waited, her anger building. Hauk had been so calm the whole time he’d been back, as if death was a relief. She couldn’t abide it. Irrational though it may be, his flippancy felt like the ultimate rejection just after she’d decided she was all in.

But there was something about that cup and more about the way he reacted to it. He was afraid. There was only one thing Hauk was afraid of, and it had never been dying.

Without an answer he turned away and dug in a drawer for clothes. Blue eyes burning with none of the awkward hesitation she was used to, he peeled off the ill-fitting shirt he’d lifted from a Hand of Atropos. The skin of his muscled chest was perfectly smooth, from his broad pectorals down to the trail of brown curls between his narrow hip bones. His face was handsome, but damn. His muscular shape was the one vanity his scars had allowed him, and he’d worked to make sure he kept it. Without the mottling to distract the eye, his body was every bit as spectacular as she’d imagined it could be.

She reached out to touch him and realized she’d traveled across the room without conscious intent.

He hugged her without hesitation, pulling her against wonderfully smooth skin. “I’d wanted to go out, but you could convince me otherwise.” His forehead touched hers, his hands caressing her back. “Gods, I want you like this. I want to feel you everywhere. I want out of my head and into your body. I love you and I want you to know me like this. Like me. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be me.”

She leaned into his heat and tangled her fingers in the hair on his chest. There was no denying it felt good. She wanted him like this, too. To not worry about how she touched him or what he was thinking. To just have fun exploring each other.

And then, after one perfect day, she’d lose him.

“What’s in the cup?” she asked again.

“Goddammit, Jolie. Don’t.”

“What’s in the cup?”

He set his jaw and didn’t answer.

“It’s what I think it is, isn’t it? You can stay. But you have to go back to the way you were.” Silence. She slammed her palms against his chest and backed out of his arms. “Answer me, damn you.”

“Yes,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

Even expecting it, the answer hit her like a slap. A disbelieving laugh shuddered from her. “And you were just going to leave me after a stirring goodbye f*ck? Are you kidding me? I thought you loved me.”

He ran a hand through the back of his hair in a gesture both familiar and strange. “You know I do.”

“No, I don’t. Not anymore. In sickness and health. For better or for worse. That’s what I meant when I said I love you.” She turned away, unable to look at his handsome face, the one he couldn’t live without. The ring on the altar mocked her with its blooming beauty. She crossed to pick it up. “Who is this for? Were you going to sell it?” She’d been so convinced it was hers.

“You know it’s yours.”

She held it up to him. “For which finger?”

He averted his gaze, unable to answer.

Anger welled so strong she couldn’t contain it. She flung his masterpiece at him. Reflexively he blocked it, and the ring went flying under the bed.

“I would’ve said yes,” she spat out and stormed toward the door. “Have a perfectly gorgeous day without me. As far as I’m concerned, you’re already gone.”

“Jolie, stop. Please.”

The pain in his voice slowed her, but not enough that she could look at him. “Tell me something, Hauk. Would you still love me if I wasn’t beautiful?”

“Of course I would.”

“Would you still want me?”

“Don’t ask ridiculous questions,” he growled.

She glared over her shoulder. “Why aren’t they ridiculous when you ask them? Call me if you figure out the answer. As long as I have you, I don’t care about anything else. Because I love you. I’ll be waiting.” Her voice broke on the last word and she walked out, slamming the door behind.

* * *

Hauk watched in confused frustration as the door slammed. “I died!” he shouted after her.

Only silence in return. He wanted to follow her down the hall, beg her to come back, but he knew at a gut level that she wouldn’t. For some unfathomable reason, she didn’t want him as he stood. She wanted the broken him.

No, that was unfair. She wanted longevity, or thought she did. But how much had she thought that through? They’d only been together a short time. He’d made a ring, sure, in some wishful dream, clinging to hopes he shouldn’t have. But marrying him required her to make far more compromises than was fair or reasonable. He was a felon, for the gods’ sakes. They couldn’t even get married, not legally. If he put that ring on her finger, he was condemning her and their children to a life underground when she’d chosen to live in the sky.

Oh hell, the ring.

He dropped to the floor and searched, scrounging on the ground for his masterpiece, the one he’d crafted with Jolie in mind for every delicate petal and hint of thorn. He found it under the bed and crawled back out. He grasped the ring as he curled up and put his head on his knees.

He’d given Jolie everything he had—his fear, his pride, his heart and his scarred body. In return he wanted one perfect day. But still she demanded more.

One day in the sunshine, no stares, no scratches where skin met metal, no watching out for the cops and no fear of brushing into a stranger.

With or without her, he could still have that. Setting his jaw, he hopped to his feet and headed out to rejoin the world one last time.

* * *

Jolie sat with her back to her living room window and chewed two-day-old birthday cake. It was already stale, but she didn’t have the energy to dig for something else to eat. Everything inside and out of her hurt, but if this was what Hauk truly wanted...

Her phone rang. She whipped it out, glanced at the number long enough to see it wasn’t him and set it back down with a sigh. Now that her anger had cooled into sorrow, she knew it was foolish not to spend what little time they had left together. The sun was already high in the sky; half the day had passed.

She got up and hit the button for the elevator. She’d call on the way to her car.

First she checked who’d called and scowled when she saw it was Eddie. Little good a lawyer was going to do now. She listened to the short message anyway.

“I’ll take your case if Sergeant Haukon’s willing to turn himself in. It’s not a guarantee, but I wouldn’t ask him to risk it if I didn’t think we had a damn fine shot. Call me.” A pause. “Jolie Benoit, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

Eddie’s voice had the manic strain he used to get during finals when he survived on caffeine and cigarettes instead of food and sleep. This was more than a case to him; he was hooked. Maybe enough that he’d be willing to clear Hauk’s name posthumously. Give him back the military honors he deserved. That was something.

The elevator binged, and she shoved her phone into her pocket. The door opened.

She found herself face to face with Hauk.

After an awkward pause he held up the keycard she’d given him. It was the first time he’d used it. He shoved it into the back pocket of his leathers.

Though she guessed most women would call him passably handsome, to her he was painfully so, framed in the elevator like a portrait. It was strange to see him with this new face and without his hoodie, just a T-shirt and pants. So normal. His hair was short and consciously disheveled, as if he’d tried to fix it but didn’t quite remember how. A more sedate bit of knotwork tattoo circled his left bicep and again at his wrist. No piercings, but he had the same Thor’s hammer hanging on a leather strap around his neck. The rose ring hung there, too.

A lump formed in her throat.

Those sky-blue eyes studied her from the same height with the same affection and intensity she knew and loved with all her heart.

The elevator started to shut between them. This time he held it with his hand and stepped into her place with no prompting. “I wasn’t having any fun without you,” he said.

She stuck her hands in her back pockets to keep them away from his body. “I’m half-tempted to drag you back to the bedroom and kiss you until you promise to stay. But I don’t want you to hate me for it later.” A quick frown. “Not that you’d give me a choice if the situation was reversed, but don’t think I love you any less just because I’m not trying to choke that brew down your throat.”

He took her elbow and pulled her against him. Once again she was struck by how easily he reached for her now. It was unfamiliar, yet exactly what she wanted.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t touch me like you care. I will go outside and we’ll eat. And then we’ll come home and I’ll decide what to do, but if you touch me now I will do everything I can think of to make you stay.”

His hand stilled on her arm for just a moment before he let her go. She pushed the button for the elevator to return. “Oh.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I will make you listen to this.” On the chance his criminal record had something to do with his decision, she put the phone on speaker, hit Eddie’s voicemail and handed it to him.

The elevator doors opened, and he listened as they stepped in. Mistrust filled his eyes. “Explain.”

“Travis found something before he was kidnapped and put it in our shared drive. I sent it to a friend I know is clean.”

“A lawyer?”

Jolie nodded.

The tiny hope that flickered in his eyes died as quickly as it came. “The system is corrupt. There’s no way I’d win. Your friend may be good, but he’s optimistic if he thinks this wasn’t and still isn’t rigged.” He faced the doors as they opened into the foyer. “Besides, I did it.”

She shrugged. “Guilty people get off all the time on technicalities. Don’t you think it’s about time a good guy got off on one?”

He grunted, stepped out of the elevator and changed the subject. “Makes me sick what happened to Travis.”

There had been no sign that he’d returned to Ananke’s Temple, and she and Hauk had searched for him on their way home with no luck. “Hopefully he found a place to hide out.”

Hauk’s voice was full of recrimination. “That’s not going to work. I should’ve killed him back when I had a clean shot.”

Jolie’s stomach lurched. “No. We don’t kill our friends. He’s got the wand. He’ll keep using it.”

His shoulders slumped like he’d been worn ragged. “Eventually he will have to sleep, and he’ll wake up theirs. If I were in his position, I’d find a way to kill myself before that happened. He doesn’t have an easy way to do it. It would’ve been a kindness to make it quick.”

She glowered at him. “Most of us aren’t as willing to toss our lives away as you are.”

“It’s not my life if somebody else owns it. Besides, if he goes back to the temple, he’ll give Ananke everything they need to find us. He knows that, and as long as he’s got that wand, he will care.” He frowned. “Maybe we should go back home just in case.”

Jolie took an unsteady breath. Travis was deeply attached to his life, but when Hauk put it that way, well, she could see herself considering the same option.

She would think about that later. Not today. She couldn’t handle more than she had right now. “I bought Brayden a phone, but I haven’t handed it over yet. Let’s head back up and get it. We can drop it off in the lab so they can call us if we’re needed.”

Hauk considered her proposal, and she could see his desire for how to spend his last day warring with his sense of responsibility.

She hit the button to return upstairs, and the doors immediately opened. “Come on, Hauk. Pick yourself for once. It’ll be okay.”

After another moment’s hesitation he stepped in. “Okay. Then where do you want to eat?” A little of the humor returned to his face as he said, “I’ve never taken you out.”

She narrowed her eyes as she joined him. “Today is not the day to ask me on our first date. Not on the day you plan to leave me.”

The humor left his face and he quietly leaned against the back wall. As they soared back up, his silence turned pensive. A ping at her floor, and he asked, “How much confidence do you have in your lawyer friend?”

A crack. Surely that was a crack in his resolve. She wet her lips. “A lot.”

He nodded.

She stepped out of the elevator.

“I’m not leaving you, you know,” he said quietly. “That’s not what this is.”

She crossed her arms and bitterness infused her tone. “How else am I supposed to view it? Doing what’s in my best interest? Not shackling me with a scarred felon?”

He flinched as he stepped forward. That was exactly how he was justifying it.

Setting her jaw, she grabbed his shirt and yanked him out of the elevator. “Since you still haven’t noticed, I’ll let you in on a secret. I like to make up my own mind. And you know what? F*ck letting you make up yours.” She tossed her shirt over her head, and his eyes dropped to her chest. “Stay with me, soldier.” Determined to make this count, she kissed him.