All this time that I’ve been struggling with the loss of him, he’s been doing the same and trying to adjust to a life and a family that never wanted him. “You’re right. They can have only what you want to give them and nothing more.” We take a few more steps. “But”—Hawthorne slows—“I’m not sure they’re entirely to blame. They didn’t make the laws.”
He resumes a faster pace. “No. They just follow them unquestioningly.”
The front of the house is a gigantic open archway with no doors. A security field of soft golden light shines down from the keystone. Up-lighting from the base of the structure makes it look like some monster about to swallow us whole in the moonlight. I’m able to pass through the security field with Hawthorne because of his moniker. Had I been alone, it may not have allowed me access.
On the other side of the entryway, the floor is made of rough black slate with fossilized pyrite swords embedded in the stone. The foyer branches off in several directions, taking different paths. The ceilings are a couple of stories high with a gallery and a clerestory above the nave-like entrance. Skylights glow with moonlight.
It’s obvious that the exterior walls were once made of ornate stone, but some have been replaced by invisible, open-air security fields so that the outside merges with the inside, a connection with nature. It’s fascinatingly beautiful, and so different from where we come from, Hawthorne and me. We lived in a windowless, tree-shaped fortress and air-barracks, hardly ever seeing the outside unless we were fighting or mobilizing. Now his house is literally a part of the landscape.
A sleepy-looking secondborn with a brown mountain range moniker enters the foyer. He stops short when he sees us. His hand moves to the side of his head in an “oh dear” gesture. “Sir?” he says.
“Send a medical drone to my quarters, Ashbee,” Hawthorne orders.
“Would you like a tray as well?” Ashbee inquires, eyeing the smudges our dirty feet have left on the slate floor.
“Yes. Thank you. Just send it with a mechadome and go back to bed.”
“Very good, sir. Will our guest be staying for the evening?”
“Good night, Ashbee,” Hawthorne replies.
Hawthorne takes me to his quarters at the back of the house on the main floor. His bedroom is nearly barren, except for a very large bed and a couple of large wingback chairs. There are only three “solid” walls. A fourth side is open to the outdoors. The seating stands in front of this nonexistent fourth wall. Without the lights on, it’s easy to see outside. The view of the lake is gorgeous in the moonlight.
“Someone stole your wall,” I murmur.
Hawthorne snorts with laughter. “There’s a wall. It’s an invisible security field. You can’t walk through it unless you have my moniker or you’re touching me. It allows in the breeze but keeps out the bugs.” A warm wind blows in off the lake outside. In the distance looms a wilderness of trees. I hear their leaves rustling and the sound of the frogs and insects chirping. I’m unaccustomed to it, but it appeals to me on a visceral level. “Low light,” Hawthorne orders. Dim illumination pushes away the darkness.
Hawthorne shows me to the attached bathing area. An array of automated white candles flames to life as we enter. At the far end of the chamber, a huge claw-footed tub sits on a floor of limestone. The outside wall has been removed here as well, replaced by an invisible security field. Smooth river stones and stepping stones lead to a walled garden beyond. Flowering trees and topiaries offer some privacy, but the starry night is perfectly unobscured.
Hawthorne lets go of me. I lean against a stone countertop by a sink while he goes to the tub. It has a spout on either end. One is for water, and the other, to my surprise, is for ice. He turns them both on. Cold water streams from the tap. Ice is dispensed and floats on the surface. “I prefer hot water,” I say with a frown.
He glances at me over his shoulder. “This is better for your ribs. I’ll give you some anti-inflammatory tablets and a bone refortification injection, but nothing works like ice.” He trails his hand in the frigid water.
“That looks like pure torture,” I reply.
A small smile tugs at his lips. “It’s a far cry from the showers in Tritium 101.” I think of the air-barracks where we shared a locker room, when he was mine. It seems like another lifetime, wholly disconnected from this one.
Behind me, the medical drone hovers in the doorway. Its long bullet-shaped body is just narrow enough to fit through the wide doorway. Soundlessly, it creeps into the room. Hawthorne programs it to scan me from head to toe. Because it’s a private device, it doesn’t need to interface with my moniker.
Its readouts indicate that two of my ribs are, indeed, fractured, and I have multiple contusions riddling my body. Two syringes of medication are injected into my side, followed by a pain reliever. An anti-inflammatory is next, followed by skin regeneration therapy. After the drone is finished with me, Hawthorne allows it to tend to his injuries. He gets a spray of skin regenerator and a laser seal on the worst of his cuts and burns, then a bandage that covers his entire forearm.
“I can wrap your ribs after you soak in the ice. Do you need help?” he asks.
I try to reach my arms back to unlace my leather halter. I wince. “Yes. I need help,” I admit.
“First things first,” Hawthorne says. Retrieving scissors from a drawer, he gently lifts my hair and begins the arduous task of unbraiding it and cutting out the thorny vines. When he’s finished, he sets the scissors aside. Warm fingers brush my wavy hair away from my back and over my shoulder so he can get to the laces of my halter top. Slowly, he unties the strings. Heat flushes my cheeks at his touch. With the laces undone, the small scrap of leather covering my breasts falls away.
His hands encircle my waist from behind, unfastening my belt. The iron strap clangs against the floor. The leather of my pants is torn in several places, but it clings to me like a second skin. Strong fingers grasp the waistband on either side of my hips, tugging my pants down so I don’t have to bend. Hawthorne crouches behind me, easing them past my thighs and ankles. I step out of them.
Rising, Hawthorne stands behind me once more. Gently, he pulls my naked form against him, while his head bends to my throat. His lips are a whisper as he kisses my neck for a moment, and then his hand slides to my elbow, urging me toward the tub.
Goose bumps immediately break out on my flesh when I step into the water. “Hawthorne, this is completely sadistic.”
He chuckles and squeezes my elbow. “I promise I’ll warm you up when it’s over.” I lower myself into the water and hug my knees. After a minute, I force myself to lie back and rest against the slope of the tub. Hawthorne mumbles, “I’ll get you a robe.”
He leaves. The CR-40 begins to dissolve and peel from my hand. My silver moniker shines up, a sword slicing through the water. The crown-like shadow at the top of the sword appears to be riding on a cube of ice.
Hawthorne returns. My eyes devour him. He’s still shirtless, but he has changed from his Tyburn costume into a pair of long black pants. They hang loose on his hips, showing a deep V of rippling muscles. The sight of him should be enough to melt all the ice in this bath, but I continue to shiver.
The pain is nearly unbearable. My lips must be bluer than when he pulled me from the lake. I sit forward, my hands gripping the edge of the bath. “Had enough?” Hawthorne asks. I nod, my teeth rattling. He unfolds a black silk robe and holds it out for me. I climb over the edge of the tub. Water drips off me onto the floor. His arms embrace me, threading mine through the robe’s sleeves, which are way too long.
“Is this y-your r-robe?” I ask, trying to stifle a frigid tremor.
“Yes.”
“Are y-you aware that you h-have m-monster arms?” I let the fabric dangle to illustrate my point.
He grins. “No, I wasn’t aware of that.”
“They’re g-goonish.” I scrunch the fabric up so that my hands emerge. “I f-feel b-bad for y-you.”
“Maybe you have T. rex arms. Have you thought of that?”
“No one has m-mentioned it b-before.”