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With the exaggerated care of someone whose fingers are just a little too numb for fine manipulation, Molly piled up the crumpled newspaper and greasy Big Mac wrappers in the center of her makeshift fire pit and stacked a couple of splintered boards around and over them. She remembered first learning to build a fire, when her father had taken her and several of her siblings on a camping trip. That was the time when Daniel had fallen into the lake and –
She ruthlessly quashed the memory. "Yakeru," she whispered, focusing her will on the knot of oily paper. A tiny flame caught in the heart of her kindling pile, and she nursed it with her breath and with scraps of flammable detritus until it took hold more firmly. Finally, the fire had grown enough that she began to feel the warmth radiating from it, and she extended her hands toward the orange glow, chafing them together to restore circulation and feeling.
The scuff of a boot at the entrance to her den brought her head up sharply, and with another effort of focused will, she appeared to wink out of existence. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness at the edge of the flickering firelight, but she would have recognized that silhouette anywhere, if she were half-asleep or in the middle of a firefight. The figure took a step closer, and the yellowish glow fell more fully on his face, confirming her intuition.
"It's all right, Grasshopper," Harry said, grinning. He held out both hands, empty. "I come in peace. Nice place you've got here," he observed, looking around the abandoned warehouse. "A little drafty, maybe, but it has a certain post-apocalyptic chic. I wouldn't have thought Undertown would be your kind of neighborhood, though."
Molly let the veil drop, and reappeared standing across the fire from Harry. "It's the best I could do, under the circumstances. With you dead, I'm a fugitive from the White Council." She paused and stared at him for a long moment. "Harry, you're dead."
He held up an admonitory finger, the lopsided grin still pulling at one corner of his mouth. "Was dead," he corrected. "And you wouldn't believe half the crap I had to go through in order to rectify the situation. It's not, in fact, A Wonderful Life. And angels are a much bigger pain in the ass in person than they are in the movies. Dying sucks; I don't recommend it."
She continued to stare at him, unblinking. "Do you have any idea what I've been through since you died?"
Harry's expression fell, and he stepped slowly around the fire toward her. "Yeah. I saw some of what happened, while I was on the Other Side. I can't tell you how sorry I am, Kiddo."
"I'm not a kid anymore!" she snapped. "I haven't been for a long time – and I certainly haven't been for the past few months."
His shoulders slumped. "You're right. I'm sorry. You've grown up a lot since I first met you, and you've done pretty well for yourself, under the circumstances. I just..." He gestured, taking in the empty warehouse. "I just wish that none of had to happen. I should never have taken you with me to Chichen Itza. It was too dangerous, and with your psychic sensitivity–"
"No, Harry." She closed the distance between them, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it firmly. "You needed me, and I wanted to be there for you. Stop trying to protect me. We've gone beyond that now. I've had to learn to take care of myself. I know you feel like you owe it to my Dad to keep me safe, but–"
"It's not just that, Molly," he interrupted, and his free hand rose to brush her dirty cheek gently. "I've lost too many people in the past few years, people I cared about." Their eyes met, and he let the connection linger, as they had already shared a Soulgaze. Molly remembered with perfect clarity what she'd seen when she looked into her mentor's soul: a frightening passion, limitless determination, but underneath it all, a loneliness so deep and profound that even the ghost of the memory made her eyes sting with unshed tears. After an instant, Harry continued. "I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd lost you, too."
She took another step closer, her chest brushing against the lapels of his leather duster, and tipped her face up toward his. "Then don't lose me," she breathed. She released his hand, and felt it slip around her to rest on the small of her back, and the hand on her cheek slid through her unwashed hair to cradle the back of her head. Her own hands reached up, and she ran her palms over the leather covering his chest, to rest on his shoulders. She stood on tiptoe as he bent his head down to hers, and their lips met. For the first few moments, his kiss was almost chaste, as though some lingering uncertainty still lurked in the back of his mind. "Please, Harry," she whispered against his mouth. "Bring me back."
His hand fisted in her hair, and she gasped a little at the sudden sharp pain, but the sensation melted gloriously into her increasing arousal. His lips parted against hers and he entered her mouth, hesitation gone as he claimed her. She savored the taste of him, aching for more contact, and nipped his lower lip as he momentarily withdrew from her mouth. She slid her hands inside Harry's coat, soaking in the solid heat of his body through the fabric of his western shirt. His head bent lower and he nuzzled at the hollow of her neck for a moment, and then she felt another sharp little pain as he began sucking hard on the delicate skin just above her collarbone. Molly actually felt herself purring with pleasure. She reached up to cup her hand around the back of his head, pressing him against her throat; he knew just where to touch her, and it had been so very, very long since she'd felt this way. She prayed, with whatever scraps of faith she had left in the battered depths of her soul, that he wouldn't have second thoughts about this. She needed him, needed this, more than she had ever needed anyone or anything else.
As if in response to her unvoiced thoughts, Harry's mouth crept slowly up her throat, and he took her earlobe in his teeth, biting gently before growling, "Do you keep something soft to sleep on?"
Breathlessly she nodded; it took her a few seconds to find her voice. "On the other side of these crates," she managed, almost embarrassed at how much the words came out like a moan of erotic pleasure. "It's as clean as I can manage here," she confessed.
"It'll do," Harry told her shortly, and before she could react, he had swept her up in his arms and was carrying her, pressed close against his chest, over to the bedding-nest she'd made of bits and scraps of soft cloth and padding. He set her on her feet only long enough to shrug out of his duster and spread it out over the bedding. Then he caught her by the shoulders and pulled her close to him, looking down into her eyes. "Are you sure about this?"
She was absurdly grateful that he hadn't used one of his nicknames for her; she always felt that they were simultaneously affectionate and a means of enforcing a certain distance between them – which had probably been deliberate on Harry's part. But he didn't use them now. She met his gaze and nodded once. "It's the only thing I'm sure of anymore."
He took her hand and guided her down onto the spread coat, folding his long legs underneath him with only a little awkwardness. Then he reached for the fastenings on the outermost layer of her ragged clothes. "Wait!" She caught his hand. She felt a blush of embarrassment creeping across her face. "It's been... a while, since I showered. I've kind of been trying to put people off..."
Harry favored her with another lopsided smile. "Hey, we can fix that – easier done than said!" He pressed a hand against her chest, just below her throat, and she felt the familiar concentration of power as he whispered, "Purgo."
The wave of magic rippled out from his hand across the surface of her body, and everywhere it touched, she felt the change. The sticky, itching feeling that she'd grown accustomed to over the past couple of months vanished, replaced by the cool, silken sensation of cleanliness. She felt her hair separate out of its greasy strings and turn smooth and soft again. Even her mouth felt clean. She sniffed experimentally, and was greeted with only a faint hint of vanilla scent. Her clothes, though still ragged and threadbare, no longer bore the stains and stiffness of ground-in dirt, blood, and worse. She looked up at Harry, impressed. "I didn't know you could do that."
He shrugged, though he couldn't quite keep the self-satisfied grin off his face. "I worked it out not too long ago. It's tricky, but sometimes I just can't bring myself to face a shower with no heat." He leaned down to brush his lips against her ear. "Does that take care of the last of your objections?"
"Absolutely," she breathed, and pulled him down against her. His mouth closed over hers, and she tasted him again as their tongues caressed one another. He unwound her arms from around his neck and pinned them against the satin lining of the duster, just above her head. The feeling of his big hands closing around her slim wrists and holding them down sent a surge of raw desire through her, and her hips bucked against him of their own accord. He was leaning over her, straddling her upper thighs, and she could feel his erection pressing against the fabric of his jeans. She strained to arch herself against him. "Please..." she heard herself gasp.
His dark eyes were half-lidded as he looked down at her, and they gleamed with desire in the reflected firelight. "Patience," he admonished her. "How many times have I told you that patience is the most important skill I can teach you? Everything else follows from that lesson."
Molly started to squirm underneath him, trying to free her hands so she could touch him, pull him down to her. "This isn't a lesson, Harry. Please, just–"
"Isn't it?" He had that smug grin on his face, the one he always got when he had finally won the upper hand in a confrontation. "Because I think the old man has quite a few tricks to teach you, if you've been a good girl like I told you when you first started out as my apprentice."
She felt her face heat up again at the memory – herself, a naked supplicant at Harry's feet, and he unwilling, at the time, to take what she was offering – and at the implication that his experience in this arena had greater breadth and depth than she'd previously imagined. "Then show me, sensei," she teased, though it came out as more of a breathy entreaty.
"All in good time," he told her, shifting his grip on her wrists so that he held them both in his left hand. "Remember what I told you about patience." With his right, he reached down and unfastened his belt. Molly expected him to unzip his pants and unveil the main attraction of the evening, but instead, he pulled the belt clear of the loops of his dark jeans. With the help of his teeth, he fed the tongue of the belt through the buckle and pulled it through, creating a small loop of leather. This he slipped around her wrists, pulling the loop snugly enough that she couldn't wriggle out, and trapped the free end of the belt between two of the crates behind their "bed." She gave an experimental tug against the makeshift bindings, but the crate was heavy enough that she couldn't free the belt without help. Her wrists were pressed tightly together above her head, the stiff leather biting just a little into the backs of her hands. She was trapped.
The thought should have had her panicking, after the horrors and near-misses of the last few months. Her encounter with the kobolds earlier that afternoon should have kept her on the razor-edge of paranoia for days yet. But as she looked up at the man braced above her, she felt a powerful sense of calm, a lightness, and a joy that could barely be contained within her. This was Harry. He was back, and he would take care of her. She could close her eyes and just give in to him, and he would make everything right again. Rather than making her feel trapped, the sensation of the hard leather strap around her wrists, and the weight of the body above her, made her feel safe, protected, cared for. And so very turned on. She could feel her arousal starting to seep out and stain her blissfully-clean cotton panties. Harry was leaning in to kiss her again, and she turned her face to rub against the stubble on his cheek. She'd wanted to do that for years, and was always secretly glad that Harry shaved only infrequently. It felt rough and a little scratchy and amazingly intimate. Then he took hold of her chin and turned her face toward his for another kiss, and she didn't think of anything at all for a few long moments.
When he finally released her mouth, he pulled away, sitting back on his heels, and Molly whimpered instinctively at the loss of his touch. Then she realized where his hands were going. His fingers wandered down the side of her neck, over her collarbones, and found the first button of her tattered shirt. His shirt, actually; one of his old dress-shirts for those rare occasions when he needed to make himself appear more presentable. It had been part of a stash he'd kept at Saint Mary of the Angels; as the daughter of a former Knight of the Cross, she had a standing invitation at the church, so its threshold didn't disrupt her veil the night she sneaked in and made off with the backpack of Harry's belongings. In the space of a couple of breaths he had the shirt open and was trailing feather-light caresses over the soft skin of her stomach. A moment later, he slipped a hand under the cup of a bra that was just a bit too large for her these days, and found her erect nipple. He rolled the hard nub between his finger and thumb, gently at first, but as Molly murmured and arched against him, he increased the pressure. The sudden twist of her nipple sent a jolt of pain threading through her arousal, highlighting and intensifying the pleasure. It was as though his touch set all her nerve endings on fire. "Harder," she begged.
He bent down over her, his rich baritone rumbling in her ear. "You like that, do you?" He pinched the nipple again, and Molly's eyes rolled back, half-closed, as she moaned in wordless pain-pleasure. She felt his other hand slip behind her head and curl into a fist around the hair at the base of her skull, and she gasped as he used that grip to pull her head to one side, exposing the side of her throat. Then there was nothing but the heat of his mouth on her neck, his tongue laving the sensitive skin above her jugular vein and burying itself in the hollow above her clavicle, and then his teeth closing on the muscle that joined her neck and shoulder. She found herself wishing that he would break the skin, and let a hot trickle of red drip down the pale flesh of her throat.
With a final squeeze, Harry's hand relinquished its hold on her nipple and moved down, his short fingernails dragging along the tender skin of her abdomen, the sensation drawing a shudder from her. He reached between them, and she heard the soft pop as he pulled open the button of his jeans, followed by the slide of the zipper.
She felt a sudden coolness against her neck as Harry's mouth came away from her neck and the air touched her damp skin. Molly could still feel the imprint of his teeth on her flesh, a slowly-receding throbbing that marked her as his. She opened her eyes to see why he'd pulled away, and discovered Harry's erection waiting just a couple of inches past the tip of her nose. He'd moved up along her body, so that he was now straddling her chest. His left hand still held a fistful of her hair, and he used it to tilt her head up slightly, so she had a better view of what his other hand, curled around the base of his shaft, was doing. He stroked himself a couple of times, and then pulled back the foreskin to expose the slit, which was starting to drip with pre-ejaculate. He rubbed his thumb across it, gathering a thick smear of the translucent white fluid, and brushed it across Molly's lips.
Her tongue reached out almost timidly to catch the semen staining her lips, but her confidence returned as she realized what he wanted her to do. Craning her neck forward, she captured his thumb in her mouth, swirling her tongue around it and gently sucking away all the seminal fluid he had offered her. She locked her eyes on his, letting him see her enjoyment as she savored the taste of him, as the slight bitterness of his semen was gradually replaced by the salty warmth of his skin. She scraped her teeth gently along the underside of his thumb before reaching up and taking him as far back into her throat as he could reach; the pad of his thumb brushed the very back of her tongue, only just failing to trigger her gag reflex. As she pulled back slowly, she sucked steadily on the digit, letting her cheeks go concave, and never once breaking eye contact. She slid her tongue around his fingertip, gently caressing the sensitive whorls once more before finally surrendering the thumb.
It was replaced an instant later by the head of Harry's erection. The hunger that had been her near-constant companion over the past few months shifted and changed into a deeper, more visceral need, and she eagerly stretched forward to take him into her mouth. The taste of sex was much stronger now, and the thickly masculine scent of him overwhelmed her senses each time she inhaled. Her tongue worked across the head of his cock with a will, teasing the slit, pressing against the underside, as though it could erase everything that had happened since Chichen Itza. It was an offering, a supplication: anything for you, always, all I have, as long as you don't go away again. She tipped her head back, rubbing the tip of his cock against the subtle striations of her palate, and then plunged forward until she felt him brush the back of her throat. Her eyes started to water, and she felt herself salivating heavily as she struggled to resist the urge to gag. Molly pulled back slightly, only to bob forward again, pushing him a little further down her throat this time. She felt her throat convulse a little this time, and pulled back just long enough to let the feeling pass. She stroked him with her tongue and lips a few times, her saliva making his shaft slick as it slid in and out of her mouth. She felt a dribble at the corner of her mouth where a rivulet of saliva had escaped her lips and trailed down her cheek, but she didn't care. Harry's eyes were locked on hers, and she could see the his desire, his need, echoing her own in their depths. There was tenderness there, too, but overshadowed by arousal.
When he thrust into her mouth, she was unprepared, and nearly lost control of the urge to gag. She struggled to recover, saliva leaking from her mouth as she gasped around Harry's cock, tears over-brimming her eyes and streaming down her cheeks. But she didn't want him to stop. Despite his roughness, and the struggle against the need to vomit – or perhaps because of those things – she was more aroused than ever. She tried to force her throat into pliant receptivity, and begged Harry with her tear-filled eyes to keep going.
Molly was so engrossed by the cock in her mouth that she didn't feel the slight tugging below her navel when her jeans were unbuttoned, or the warm hand that slid beneath the thin cotton of her panties. When Harry's thumb, still slick from her oral attentions, slipped between her labia and glided over her clitoris, her hips bucked reflexively against his touch, and she nearly choked on his cock. His hand stilled for a moment, allowing her to regain her composure, and then he stroked her lightly again. His thumb dipped briefly down to her opening, coating itself in her warm fluids, and returned again to swirl in teasing circles around the focal point of her arousal.
She let her eyes close, losing herself in the feel, the smell, the taste of him. The reality of his presence overwhelmed her, and something deep inside her mind that had been clenched tight since before Chichen Itza began to uncoil. That release, more than anything else, was what allowed Molly to give herself over to him so completely; beneath his rough fingertips the heat within her surged, and she felt herself brought to the precipice. He thrust his cock deep into her throat again as the fingers between her legs commanded the tide of flame within her to sweep her over the edge. Her ecstatic moans came out in a choked gurgle, muffled by Harry's cock. She writhed beneath him, conscious of only one thing: Harry had come back for her.
With her eyes closed and her consciousness floating in an orgasmic haze, punctuated only by the aftershocks of pleasure caused by Harry's twitching fingers, Molly was only dimly aware of his cock sliding out of her mouth. A mewling protest rose up from her throat as she tried to recapture his erection with her lips, stretching out her neck to follow it. She found only Harry's mouth, as he pressed her back down onto his coat with a scorching kiss. Her eyes drifted open as his lips broke away from hers; he was poised above her now, with his body stretched out parallel to hers. His hand between her legs moved, and there was an insistent pressure against her opening. It was only then that she recognized the sensation of her jeans bunched around her ankles – the rough cloth as effective a restraint as Harry's belt was for her wrists. Her bent knees were forced wide apart to allow him access to her, and the weight of his legs made it impossible for her to move.
He leaned his head down close to her again, and she felt the rough stubble of his jaw scratch her cheek. She thought he was going to bite her again, until she felt his warm breath against her ear. "You've always been beautiful, Molly. And more than that – talented, powerful, smart, strong. I've known for years how amazing you were, but I never fully realized..." He broke off, and pulled back far enough to look down into her eyes. "It wasn't until I thought I'd lost my only chance to be with you before I could see how much I wanted it. Needed it – needed you. I'm never going to forget that again."
It took her a moment to fully absorb his words. Before she could respond, she felt a sharp pressure against her opening, and Harry slid inside her.
She'd been honest with him, years ago when she had first become his apprentice; she'd done some experimenting, but never this. And as part of her had always expected it would, her first time hurt. But she didn't flinch away, or beg Harry to slow down, to be gentle. She didn't want gentle. She didn't want to be fragile, delicate little Molly who was useless in a fight, who couldn't handle the horrors of war, who didn't have the power to save the most important man in her world. From anything but himself. She shoved that thought away. Harry's next thrust forced a squeak of pain from her, but she welcomed it, wanted it. The pain made it real. And as Harry's cock buried itself over and over in her wet, throbbing insides, the pain began to blur into pleasure. Every thrust hit that wonderful place inside her, and she heard herself moaning in time with him, as though his cock drove the air from her lungs with each stroke. There were no thoughts in her mind, beyond the awareness of Harry and the feeling of their bodies and the realness of the moment.
It was the tension in his arms that alerted her. She didn't remember when he'd tossed aside his shirt – maybe he'd done it when her eyes were closed – but he was bare-chested now, and the shadows cast by the reflected firelight outlined the muscles of his biceps and shoulders. When Harry's elbows locked and his shoulders went rigid, she knew. Molly opened her legs to him as far as the denim around her ankles would allow. He thrust once, twice, three times more, staying buried inside of her on the last stroke. He tossed his head back and growled, his face contorting into a feral mask of lust. Molly groaned along with him, letting her head fall back against the lining of Harry's coat.
She closed her eyes again, savoring the heavy pressure when Harry lowered himself onto her, his arms curling around her body. She inhaled the sharp, masculine scent of him, nuzzling her face against his shoulder, and simply listened to his breathing as it gradually faded from the labored panting of exertion to a more even pace. The heat of his body was intoxicating, and she felt herself drifting into a languid haze. "Harry," she murmured sleepily, waiting for his drowsy grunt of acknowledgment before she finished the statement: I love you.
But his reply didn't come. "Harry?" Her eyes snapped open, showing her an empty, dark warehouse, with only the flickering of her small fire on the other side of the crates for illumination. She sat bolt upright, gaze darting around frantically as she searched for her missing mentor; it took her nearly half a minute to realize that there had been no leather belt restraining her wrists. Molly looked down at herself in growing panic and horror. Her jeans were pulled all the way up her legs and zipped, not bunched around her feet. The oversized shirt she wore was still buttoned up. She was sitting in a nest of rags. Her scalp itched. So did other parts of her, and the odor of her own unwashed body hit her all the more strongly for her short reprieve. She scrambled to her feet and rushed back into the circle of firelight, hope struggling against the growing certainty that clawed at her fragile sanity. Her campsite was empty.
Molly's legs refused to hold her up any longer. She dropped to all fours, the lank strings of her hair veiling her face as her body heaved with sobs that held no tears. She didn't know how long she remained that way, her body struggling to breathe while her mind knew or cared about nothing but the horrible reality that Harry had never been here, that he was still dead, that she had lost him again.
A single footstep on the concrete warehouse floor jolted her head up; even in the depth of her anguish, Molly had been clinging to the edge of survival for too long for her reflexes to be dulled by mere despair. The statuesque figure before her was garbed in rags not unlike Molly's own, but they made her look mysterious and threatening rather than dingy and bedraggled. Catlike amber eyes pinioned Molly, and the barest curve of a smile played across wine-colored lips. "Good evening, child. Did you enjoy your gift?"
Conflicting emotions slammed into each other in Molly's mind with the force of speeding trains, and her mouth worked for several moments before she could make any sound come out. "Gift? Gift?! You made me believe that he was alive again – that he – that we – how could you?"
The Leanansidhe shrugged one shoulder. "You've done passing well in your lessons these recent weeks, and I thought you deserved a reward."
Anger was difficult to sustain in the face of the blithe imperturbability of the faerie woman, so confusion and disbelief won out. "A... reward? How is fooling me into thinking Harry had come back to life a reward?"
Lea's delicate copper eyebrows arched in surprise. "The last half-turn of the clock brought you more pleasure and joy than you've felt in the whole of the several months since my godson's loss, did it not?"
Molly's face was already reddened and hot from her desperate mourning, so her flush of embarrassment did not show. "But realizing it was all a lie made the hurt so much worse."
Wild scarlet curls bounced as Lea shook her head, and crossed the space between them in a few graceful steps. "You, child, who are yourself so skilled with the illusory arts, expect me to believe that you were powerless in the face of my deception? For a mortal, your magical talents are not inconsiderable; else you might never have caught my godson's attention to begin with. You could easily have seen through my shadows." She crouched down and cupped Molly's chin in her hand, pausing to give weight to her next words. "I assumed that either you had not been deceived, or you wanted to be."
Molly turned away from the long-fingered hand, looking at the floor. "I didn't think; he said all the right things, and I let my guard down. It didn't occur to me that he might not even be real."
The Leanansidhe rose, looking down at Molly. "Let that be the lesson you take from this: never assume, never take for granted. Pain is the surest teacher. My godson knew that, much as he tried to pretend otherwise with you."
Molly raised her head to Lea, tears only now drawing trails through the grime on her face. "Does everything have to be a lesson? Can't I ever have a little while to just... be?"
Lea cocked her head to one side, her honey-golden eyes taking on an expression that Molly realized after several seconds may have been affection. "Mortals are not much given to wisdom, but a rather exceptional member of your race once observed that the day on which he stopped learning would be the day when his relatives cast his ashes to the winds. It is my duty to ensure that such a day for you remains far in the future." She turned and paced toward the back of the warehouse, where the only functioning door stood. "Rest, child. I shall see to it that you remain undisturbed for a time." Her footsteps faded as she disappeared from sight behind the piled crates, leaving Molly staring after her, hands and knees resting on the rough, cold floor.