Roxana

“Mary.”
Turning at the soft sound of her name, she glanced behind herself. Then frowned. “Lassiter?”
“I’m over here.”
“Where?” She looked all around. “Why is your voice echoing?”
“Chimney.”
“What?”
“I’m stuck in the fucking chimney.”
She raced over to the fireplace and got on her hands and knees. Looking up into the dark flue, she shook her head. “Lass? What the hell are you doing up there?”
His voice emanated from somewhere above her. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“What are you—”
An arm came down. A very sooty arm that was encased in a red sleeve that had white trim. Or what had been white trim and which was now smudged with ash.
“You’re stuck!” she exclaimed. “And thank God no one lit this fire!”
“You’re telling me,” he muttered in his disembodied voice. “I had to blow out Fritz’s match like a hundred times before he gave up. Fuck, that sounds dirty. Anyway, just remind me never to try to be Santa for your kid, okay? I’m not doing this again, even for her.”
Mary stretched a little farther in, but the logs on the hearth stopped her. “Lassiter. Why can’t you free yourself by dematerializing—”
“I’m impaled on a hook that’s iron. I can’t go ghost. And will you just take this?”
“What?”
“This.” He turned his hand toward her and there was…a box…in it? A small navy blue box. “Open it. And before you ask, I already cleared it with your pinheaded hellren. He’s not jel or anything.”
Mary sat back and shook her head. “I’m more worried about you—”
“Justopenthefuckingthingalready.”
Taking off the top, she found a slightly smaller box inside. That was velvet. “What is this?” As she lifted the lid, she…gasped. It was a pair of diamond earrings. A pair of perfectly matched, sparkly, diamond…
“A mother’s tears,” Lassiter’s slightly echo-y voice said softly. “So hard, so beautiful. I told you everything was going to be all right. And those are to remind you of how strong you are, how strong your love for your daughter is…how, even in the worst of times, things have a way of working out as they should.”
Blinking away tears, she thought of her crying in the foyer in front of the angel, crying because all had been lost. “They’re just beautiful,” she said hoarsely.

-Lassiter & Mary”
― J.R. Ward, Blood Vow