The War of Roses Read Free

into the bad dogs’ noses.”
    “ The bad—? Ah.  Hm,” Damon said, taking a moment to look over the feral dogs sprawled and cowering on the concrete. 
    Bonnie looked, too. The animals’ eyes were fairly glowing with fire, and their hair was bristled up all over their backs.  But even as Bonnie stared, they seemed to cower away from her, almost as if they heard some angry voice that she couldn’t make out.
    Damon turned back to her.  “ You know what, redbird?  I think that you’ve been very brave tonight.  You were going to try to fight those . . . bad dogs . . . with only a pointed stick.  And you didn’t even scream out loud.”
    “Well, I was scream ing inloud plenty,” Bonnie confided, pleased with the new word she had discovered.  “And I never was so glad to see—or hear—anyone as when you came!”  Suddenly and quite spontaneously, she threw her arms around him.
    Damon squeezed her tightly for a moment and then quickly rubbed her back, as if trying to warm her.  “You’re all frozen, little redbird,” he said, his voice worried.  “You can’t fly like this; you’ll ice up your feathers.”
    Bonnie giggled because he sounded so serious.  She looked up at him —meaning to make some silly comment about needing a swig of antifreeze; she remembered that hipflask of his from the hospital—when suddenly everything in the world stopped.
    Damon was looking down at her with an expression she had never seen before.  At least, she’d never seen it directed toward her before.  His dark eyes seemed to be filled with stars, just like the brilliant stars that blazed overhead in the moonless sky.
    He looked almost puzzled, as if he was wondering over her, trying to make out whether she was mostly funny or mostly . . . something else.  Something that made the breath catch in Bonnie’s throat.
    He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, but he did it absent-mindedly, all the time looking down at her intently.  Bonnie shivered once as she felt the warm leather encasing her—warm from Damon’s body heat.  The jacket actually seemed to generate warmth that radiated through Bonnie all the way down to her chilly toes.
    But this fact passed through her mind only vaguely, because right now Bonnie was thinking with her heart.  She felt spellbound, wrapped not just in warmth but in dizzy lightness, as if she were floating.  And nothing mattered except Damon’s closeness and the wonderful way he was looking at her.
    “You’re a contradictory little thing,” he murmured, almost as if he were talking to himself.  “Y ou say that you’re terrified—and I believe you—but when you’ve got something that’s more frightened than you are to protect, you try to fight off certain death with a splintered stick.”
    He smiled faintly, just one corner of his mouth quirking up, and Bonnie realize with a thrill that it was a genuine smile, not the flashy one he put on for all sorts of reasons.  This was just for her, and his eyes had gone soft and velvety for her, too.
    Bonnie knew that her own lips were parted in astonishment, her breath coming lightly and quickly.  She had never realized . . . but then she’d never really allowed herself to imagine this.  It was all like some magical dream.
    “You know,” he said, very slowly and softly, as if he were puzzling out each word, “there are times when I think I’ve had enough of adventure, little redbird.  When I just want to . . . come home.  But . . . where is home, really?  I wonder about that.  Don’t you think sometimes that it’s nice to just relax . . . on your nest?”
    A worry was nagging at Bonnie, trying to be born, but she pushed it away.  She did her best to answer Damon’s question.  “I suppose so,” she managed at last, hearing the quiver in her own soft voice.  “I . . . I think . . .”
    “Don’ t think,” Damon murmured.  “Redbird, don’t think.  Just . . . be.”
    He was holding her now, and his arms