Dance in Shadow and Whisper (Marionettes of Myth #1)

Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I slept again.

The tears drained me, and when I awoke, it was to the smell of onions and green peppers sizzling and spitting in oil.

My eyelids drifted apart, dragging with sleep. I rolled onto my back and stretched every burning muscle, grimacing when the puncture wounds stabbed me with fresh pain. I stared up at the arched ceiling as every memory punched me in the stomach. The forgiveness of sleep was gone, and the aching for my fathers and my brothers and Jason spilled into every inch of my body.

My stomach.

It whined and I grasped it with a wince, but it refused to show mercy. I rolled onto my side and crumpled up into a ball. I was weak. The lack of sustenance and the anemia and the damned tears had reduced me to a demon with as much strength as a kite. A good wind would send me into the mesosphere.

My fingers curled into the cushions and I heaved myself upright. I peeked over the top of the couch to where Yuuhi stood at the stove in his sterile kitchen, caramelizing the slivers of onions and peppers with as much grace as someone who actually knew how to cook. He fingered a knob and the flames died down. The oven timer went off.

For lack of anything to say, I simply watched him, my chin perched on the cushion and my stomach rattling knives. Seconds were all it took for him to assemble a toasted bun with cheese, simmering meat, and the contents of the skillet altogether on a plate. With an empty wine glass in his other hand, he left the kitchen and rounded the couch.

"I haven't cooked in a couple years." He lowered the plate and the empty glass onto the coffee table where a glistening bottle of wine waited, the cork already set aside. With practiced finesse of someone who'd done this all his life, he poured a deep red merlot to the widest girth of the glass and didn't spill a drop. "So you'll have to forgive me if my ability to eyeball has atrophied."

I...

I could only stare at him. Try as I might, my voice had been flushed down the drain, and so all I could do was look up at this man, at his tired eyes and bed hair, at the length of his nose and the sculpt of his cheeks and jaw and neck. My gears jammed in my head.

The corner of his mouth lifted and he gestured to the floor. "Do you need some help, Tails?"

What?

Oh.

My face tingled with heat. I oozed to the floor, trying to keep myself as small and invisible as possible. I scrunched myself into a ball in front of the plate, but my gaze drifted to the wine glass. I wasn't allowed to drink alcohol, although Lio had deviously allowed me sips of his various wines when Rajy had his back turned.

When Lio had a glass of wine on the table as he sketched, he had never seemed so content with anything before. Toivo had rarely come home drunk-drunk, more often 'especially happy with life', but I knew it was because of the few drinks I smelled on him. Hell, there were times where I swore Carmi had come home from a friend's house a bit tipsy.

Drinking made everyone happy.

I reached for the wine glass as Yuuhi took a seat at the end of the table. My fingers cradled the glass and the stem awkwardly as I tipped the brittle rim to my lips. Tangy juice splashed across my tongue and stung my taste buds while the undertone of alcohol filled my nose with its potency. I stole several gulps, the liquid blazing a path down my esophagus and into my stomach.