Beasts and Burdens (31 page)

“Do you want to hold him?” She asked.

“No.” He shook his head. She thought back to his reaction in the gym and she couldn’t help but feel rejected on her child’s behalf. “If you frown any deeper, your lips are going to fall into your lap.” She rolled her eyes and downed her drink. “Look at me please,” he said in that magical way that disguised his gravelly voice as soothing. She looked at his smirking face. He was delighted at her acrimony. “I’m not going to hold that baby before his father. Ethan’s already got two men ahead of him, and I know him well enough to know that will irritate the shit out of him. So, I will wait patiently for him to return and then you may pass the baby to me as much and as often as you like.”

Cori suddenly burst into tears. She knew it was mostly her residual hormones, but Belus thinking of Ethan’s territorialism over himself was just the breaking point for the last week. He poured himself another drink politely ignoring her breakdown while she collected herself.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t believe I never considered what Ethan would think about everyone meeting his son before him.”

“He’ll be bitter for a little while, but you’ll remind him that he is and always will be that baby’s one and only father. Truth be told, the only reason I’m offering that little concession is because Ethan and I have never really met eye to eye on a lot of things. I think one less pebble under the skin is best for all of us.”

Cori released a yawn she didn’t know she had been holding back. “Tired?” Belus asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to sleep in this house alone, yet. How long do you think it will take for Daniel to remove those demons?”

Belus frowned. “I don’t think you should hold your breath. I’ll stay if you want to take a nap?”

“You don’t have to babysit me. I know you’d rather go check on Danato.”

He drew in a long breath. “I thought we’d decided that you shouldn’t speak for me. You’re really bad at it.”

“Sorry,” Cori mumbled and yawned again.

Belus set down his glass on the coffee table and adjusted a pillow on the couch for her. “The truth is I don’t want to watch him go through that. Not when I’m the one who caused it.”

Cori grabbed his hand. “You are not to blame for his sorrow.”

“You know I am.”

Cori shook her head. “She gave you no choice.”

“Right or wrong, I still pulled the trigger.”

“Belus—”

“Enough.” He pulled his hand away. “I didn’t bring it up to get your sympathy. Lie down. Get some rest.”

“You are so frustrating.” Cori shifted back onto the pillow he laid out for her, shifting the baby onto her chest.

“Back at ya, kid.” He pinched the tip of her nose and then gently caressed the baby’s head. “Sleep.” He picked up a newspaper off the end table and sat down in Danato’s chair to read.

Cori closed her eyes and she felt the stress in her muscles and mind ease, and the exhaustion take hold. “Belus,” she whispered when the room was almost gone. She heard his paper crinkle. “I love you.”

For a long moment he said nothing. She kicked herself for saying it, knowing full well that her neediness only repelled him. “I love you too, Cori,” He finally answered, and she was almost positive it wasn’t just a waking dream.

84

Cori could hear Daniel and Belus, but she couldn’t recognize the other lowered voice coming from her kitchen. She started to shift to sit up. When she realized the weight against her was gone, she flung herself upright, in search of her baby. “The baby!” She gasped looking around the couch suddenly fearful that he might have slipped between the cushions.

Visions of her suffocated son stopped dead when she saw Daniel near the sink holding him in one hand and a fresh beer in the other. “I got him, mama,” he said reassuringly, and the tension released from her muscles. She blinked away the overeager stray tears in her eyes.

Belus glanced back at her from his position leaning on the island, with mild amusement on his face. She must have looked comical pitching up from behind the couch in such a panic.

The third voice she had heard was Efrat. He was leaning against the fridge sipping on a beer. She caught his eye, but he looked away. She wasn’t sure why he was there, or why Belus or Daniel had taken it upon themselves to invite him into her home, but that was not the topic of conversation that was burning to be discussed.

“How is Danato?” Cori moved into the kitchen to join the conversation, taking up residence as close to her baby as possible, without actually pulling him away from Daniel. Once again, she and Daniel were faced with a new level to their friendship. Her life was indebted to him, more than once and now she had her child’s life to add to that.

“He’s good,” Daniel answered. “Better than me I think. He’ll keep his leg, at least.” Cori could see the darkness under his eyes. His wide inhuman pupils had shrunk just enough to give her a rare view of his golden-brown irises. Whatever he had done to save Danato’s leg took both spectrums of his powers. “You want him back.” He leaned forward offering the baby.

“No, he’s sleeping so nicely,” she conceded.

“Yes, but your salivating, mama.” He winked and laid the baby into her arms.

She wasn’t sure if it was normal, but Cori felt like her left arm had just been returned to her. “Why is he here?” Cori murmured to Daniel though Efrat would easily hear her.

Daniel glanced at Belus. “I was just explaining to Belus, that I owed Efrat a beer for helping me. He took away a lot of Danato’s pain.”

“Pain?” Cori looked at Efrat and he waggled his fingers. “You electrocuted him?”

“Shhh.” Daniel wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against him. “Don’t wake the baby.” He kissed her forehead, and turned slightly to whisper into her ear. “Do you have complete control on those rings?”

Cori looked up at him wide eyed. She had more control than she used to, but Efrat incited a lot of emotions in her. She could never be certain of anything around him. “You were saying,” she said calmly and Daniel squeezed her arm before letting his hand drop.

“A small charge of electricity can over stimulate and blind the nerve receptors,” Efrat answered. “It’s something Dr. Frank and I had played around with while I was still developing my powers. I didn’t char him to death, so I guess it worked.” He smirked slightly and Cori clenched her teeth willing herself not to yell.

“That’s very amusing, Efrat,” she said sourly. “You know how much the thought of my dead friends just tickles me into uncontrollable giggles.”

Efrat scoffed and shook his head. Daniel downed his beer and pulled the baby from her arms smoothly. She didn’t resist since she knew containing her volume didn’t count as containing her anger.

“I didn’t mean to be gruesome,” Efrat grumbled taking a swig of his beer. “I was trying to lighten the mood.”

“Successfully, you’ve relieved me of several moods, care to guess which ones?”

Daniel moved into the living room rubbing the baby’s back to keep him asleep.

“When are you going to get over this vendetta, because I thought saving your ass in the elevator would win me some brownie points?”

“Brownie points?” Cori chuckled and moved toward him with a brandished finger. She paused her ensuing argument to look at Belus. She was expecting him to intervene, but he was only observing the situation.

“You might as well get it out of your system,” he conceded, looking at Efrat with the same capitulation. “Neither of you are going anywhere.”

Cori returned to her previous attack, minus the finger pointing, since her digits were just as lethal as Efrat’s. She propped her hands on her hips and made an effort to be reasonable in her ass ripping. “Yes, you saved my life, and I am grateful, but if you want points for saving my life, then we have to subtract for the number of times you tried to kill me.”

“This again?”

“Again?” Cori strained to keep her voice low. “No, not again,
still!
I have saved your life on more than one occasion too, Efrat. I risked my position in this prison to help you and your friends because I believed that you were righteous and misunderstood. And what did I get in return? You tried to cut my hands off!”

“I know the back story, Cori! I was desperate and depressed! It was the wrong way out! I understand why you are mad! I just don’t understand what you want me to do about it!” He shrugged and bowed his head to look her in the eye. “The only place I could think to start was to apologize, but you wanted none of that.”

“Because I don’t believe you!” She shrieked. “You don’t give a damn about anyone, but yourself. I know you Efrat, better than you think.” She tapped her brain, where vague memories of a long since dead woman still rattled around on occasion. “You were a career driven, egomaniac a decade ago and even though your career has been shattered to hell, you still think you should get the respect of your rank. You hate taking orders when there’s no one for you to give them too. Well, I got news for you! You are at the bottom of the freaking barrel and if you want someone to look down on, you better get a dog.”

“I thought I already had someone to look down on.” Efrat thrust his chin behind her to Belus. It was another joke, probably intended to
lighten the mood
since she was spitting her rage in his face, but the insult to her mentor was too much.

She slapped his face hard, and he groaned and withdrew to the floor. His face bled from the razor thin water spray she unwittingly wielded against him. Unsatisfied that her retaliation hadn’t left him howling in pain, she charged to slap him again. Belus intercepted her and grabbed her arm. He twisted it behind her back with strength he usually hid and knocked her knees out from under her. She landed abjectly in front of Efrat. 

“Okay, that didn’t go quite how I wanted it to,” Belus said. “Efrat, perhaps we should call this a night.”

“Yeah,” he nodded touching his bleeding cheek. He looked over Cori and regained his stature towering over her. Cori panted and gritted her teeth, double dog daring him to make another joke, but he didn’t. “Thanks for the beer, man.” He nodded curtly to where Daniel was rocking her baby.

“You want me to fix that?” Daniel asked.

“Nah, she wanted me to have it,” he said glancing back at her. She felt a twinge of guilt at his sullen face, but she reminded herself that it was just his crestfallen ego, not actual distress.

85

“Why am I the one getting yelled at?” Cori shrieked as she shuffled the skillet on the stove. She had only been gone a week, but Danato had eaten every reasonable thing in the house. She was being forced to get creative. Since Belus and Daniel were both hungry, she decided to make them her Guinean pigs.

“
I
am not yelling,” Belus clarified from the stool at the end of the island. Daniel was next to him, sans baby. Since the house seemed to be doing okay with her presence, she decided to slip the baby in Danato’s room for a proper nap after his feeding. “
I
am having a frank discussion with my protégé. You, however, are getting upset.”

“Have a heart, Belus; she’s still teaming with hormones.” Daniel slapped Belus on the back, and ignored the glare he got for it. He was on his forth beer, so his defense of her was going to boil down to comic relief. She wasn’t sure if he would have offered anything different sober, since Belus was his mentor as well.

“Pregnancy or not, it is those base emotions that make her overreact.”

“Over…react? I was defending you.”

“From…what?” He mocked her tone.

“He insulted you!” She hissed cracking an egg into her…concoction.

“Oh!” Belus put his hand over his mouth and gave Daniel a horrified expression. Daniel snorted making no attempt to hide his amusement. “My God, I’ve never had anyone insult me before. Certainly no one in this room has ever insulted me.”

“I have always respected you, Belus! I just get frustrated with you.” She eased back her tone.

“It was a joke. A rather funny one at that, but you used it as an excuse to let your claws come out. Christ, it’s like day fucking one with you, all over again.”

Cori looked to Daniel for help. “Don’t look at me.” He shrugged. “I’ve been through anger management with him. Believe me, you and Efrat haven’t said anything to him that he hasn’t heard from me. Trust me.” Daniel grimaced for effect.

“What do you want me to do, Belus? Forgive him? I don’t think I can.”

“Cori, every headstrong, idiotic, fortuitous mistake you have ever made has been made because you care too much—”

“So, you want me to stop caring?”

Belus slammed his hand on the counter. “Stop speaking for me! I was going to say I want you to start caring again.”

“What?” Cori pulled her skillet off the burner and started loading the plates with food.

Belus glanced at Daniel. “Listen kid, I know Efrat’s betrayal and that incident with Gypsy has jaded you.”

“Gypsy?” Daniel chimed in, but Cori shook her head at him. She didn’t want to get into all that, yet.