Free Night Blade by J. C. Daniels

lashes. He was ridiculously alert, but that wasn’t a surprise. Shifters didn’t need sleep the way humans did. And although I wasn’t completely human, I did have some of the more basic human needs. Including the need for a little more sleep. Okay, maybe I just liked a little more sleep.
    Lifting my head, I braced an elbow on his shoulder and shifted around until I was settled with one thigh on either side of his hips. In the dim light, his dark gray eyes were almost black. I stroked a finger across his lips and trailed it down his neck, along the line of his shoulder until I hit the dense, heavy lines of his tattoos.
    They had been laid on his skin in his youth, before he’d spiked. Before a shifter hit their first shift, they healed just a little faster than humans. If it had been done after, his body would have just absorbed it.
    The dense, heavy ink had always mesmerized me and tonight, I focused on it like a drowning man needed a preserver. “What’s all of this mean?” I asked him, splaying my hand out over it.
    He covered his hand with mine. “What makes you think it means anything?”
    “Tattoos hurt,” I said pointedly. “And this took a while.” All that heavy inking would have taken hours, I suspected. “Somehow, I don’t think you did it just to impress the ladies or to look tough.”
    He snorted. “If you’d seen me when I had it done, you might change your mind. I needed all the help I could get when it comes to looking tough. Not that a tattoo would have done it.”
    “You didn’t look tough, huh?”
    “Scrawniest, most pathetic runt around.” He lifted my hand and kissed it, before lowering it back to his chest. “Remember how Doyle looked in the pictures I showed you?”
    “Yeah.” Skinny. Rail-thin skinny, too. Like he wouldn’t have stood up had a stiff wind come along.
    “I made him look tough.” He skimmed a thumb along one area of the tattoo and said, “I had her use charm-infused ink. Wanted to make sure it would hold, although she still couldn’t promise it would.”
    “So it means something.”
    “Yeah.” He rolled his head over and stared at me from under his lashes. “It’s the story of me…what put me on the road that made me what I am. I wanted it written someplace so I’d never forget. I knew it was going to be a long, long walk…I had a goal, things I had to do, and I still have to get them done. I can’t let myself forget. But I can’t talk about it yet.”
    Studying his face, I stroked my thumb over the hard line of his mouth. “I don’t think I’m the only one with nightmares.”
    “Nobody ever did the things to me that were done to you,” he said quietly.
    “Nightmares come in a lot of different forms.” I leaned back in, curled against him. It was early. Too early to get up, too late to really go back to sleep. Seemed to make sense that I just stay right there for a while, wrapped around him.
    “We’ve both had enough nightmares maybe.” He stroked a hand down my site and cuddled me close. “It’s time for something different, I think. Why don’t we focus on that?”
    “Hmmm.” Closing my eyes, I snuggled in closer. “Yeah. We can focus simple stuff. Nice stuff. Normal stuff.”
    The rumble of his chuckle echoed under my ear and he swatted my butt. “Don’t go getting all carried away. We wouldn’t know normal if it bit us. But it might be nice to have something…well, nice.”
    “Yeah.” Sleep was actually closer than I thought, I realized, but I forced my eyes opened, stared outside. “Nice… what’s nice and normal?”
    “Christmas…you ever do Christmas, Kit?” His hand stroked my nape.
    I snorted. “Hell, no. The aunts and Grandmother celebrated the solstice and I’d helped in the house, but I don’t think that’s the same as doing Christmas.” I rolled my head to peer up at him through my lashes. “What about you?”
    “Yeah.” He stroked a finger along my cheek. “We always did it, just me and the kid.” His