“The giggle-snorting every time they mentioned you should have tipped me off sooner.”
“They giggle-snorted so much when they were little, I called them the two little piggies.” He smoothed a hand down one side of his shorn scalp. “Are you busy tonight?” He flashed a lopsided smile. “Want to join us for dinner?”
“Are you…” Arden clamped a hand over her mouth, “…asking my boss out? On a date?”
“No.” His arm wilted to his side. “Not a date-date.” He rocked back on his heels. “Just dinner. With us.”
“Did you see?” Camber burst into laughter. “Just the word date almost made him bolt for the airport.”
“I love you, Uncle Nolan, I do,” Arden said, “but your commitment issues aren’t only geographical.”
Yowch.
“Do you smell something burning?” He sniffed the air. “Oh. Never mind. It’s just me. Being roasted.”
“We should have used more garlic.” Camber inhaled then wrinkled her nose. “Maybe some onions.”
“I have an idea.” Call it guilt or call it inspiration. “Why don’t you two take the rest of the day off?”
The girls exchanged a glance, their conversation wordless but their eyes bright, and I knew I had them.
“Go spend time with Nolan.” I smiled at them. “You guys have lots of catching up to do.”
“Are you sure?” Arden linked her fingers at her navel. “We don’t mind staying.”
“We made a lot of progress today.” I scanned the shop. “There’s not much to do until the paint dries.”
“Promise you’ll go home?” Arden wrapped her slender arm around me. “You deserve a break too.”
“You’ve been living here since…” Camber’s gaze slid away. “You should take an afternoon off to rest.”
With Christmas around the corner, I had a prime opportunity for a grand reopening if I hit the deadline. I couldn’t afford to miss it if I wanted to hang on to our current downtown location. Renovation costs plus payroll minus the lack of income while the shop was closed added up to a huge drain on my savings.
Never thought I would say it, but I was grateful for the Black Hat consultant check sitting in my bank account. It would tide me over until the insurance company got off its butt and reimbursed me.
“Fine.” I kissed each of their cheeks. “I’ll put away the paint, and we’ll do touch-ups tomorrow.”
“Promise?” Arden narrowed her eyes on me. “You say just one last thing, then it’s four hours later.”
“I promise.” I crossed my heart. “I’ll lock up after you guys leave.”
Right after I sweep the floor, wash out the storage bins, and mop for the hundredth time.
“You better.” Camber backed out the door, eyes on me. “I expect you to be gone in twenty.”
“Yes, boss.” I scrunched up my face. “Oh, wait. That’s right. I’m your boss.”
“Semantics.” She flipped an imperious hand. “Are you coming tonight? Dinner is on Uncle Nolan.”
“Hey,” he protested without heat. “Ask a guy first.”
“You owe us five years’ worth of holidays and birthday dinners,” Arden pointed out. “Time to pay up.”
“I would love to go out with you guys.” I mopped sweat off my forehead. “I’ll pay my own way, though.”
“Great.” His grin spread from ear to ear. “Arden can text you with the time and place.”
I appreciated that he didn’t ask for my number, and I blamed that on the bracelet too. Anyone could call me directly if they plucked a business card out of the display. It wasn’t like I kept my digits super-secret.
“Later girls, and guy.”
After walking them to the door, I leaned against it, shoving it into the slightly bent frame on schedule for repairs next week. This time I made certain to jiggle the lock into place and tested it against walk-ins.
A notification from a spam-blocking app I used to track all calls to my private line lit up my phone screen. A now-familiar blocked number flashed, and I checked the time against his previous attempts at contact.
The director was a smart man. He would get the message I had nothing to say to him soon enough.
Alone in the quiet, weighted down by exhaustion, I allowed the resilient mask I wore for the girls’ sakes to drop, and granted myself permission to wear my true emotions on my face where no one could see.
Guilt over what was done to them.
Fear—no, scratch that—absolute terror the director knew about Colby.
Shame over how the town treated me so well.
Anger directed at myself for thinking I could have this life.
The rest spiraled out from there, an endless loop of regret, until I couldn’t hold still another second.
Proving Arden right, that I was a just one last thing-er, I found myself stocking the shelves that had finished curing from the night before to make the shop less naked. The gleaming nooks with uneven numbers of bottles left me twitchy, but I would get in enough trouble with the girls without caving to the urge to mix lotions to fill in the gaps. Already I would be joining them for dinner sweaty and dressed in the same dirty outfit.
A light tapping noise on the door at the back of the shop drew me out of my head.
No one else used that entrance. The girls exited out the front and crossed the street to the parking lot at the diner. All thanks to Mayor Tate issuing me one spot instead of the two covered in my lease. For the same reason, lack of available parking spots, repairmen and deliveries tended to enter via the front too.
The knock came again, louder this time, and I dried my hands before seeing who wanted what now.
Night had fallen while I puttered around in the shop, and a nearby streetlamp illuminated my doorstep.
A familiar daemon towered over me, his large hands clasped behind his back, his regal head bowed.
His dark red skin was sheened with sweat that made his onyx rosettes glitter. Thick ebony horns curled from his temples back over his head, and his hair hung loose. There were miles and miles of it. Black silk.
A breath punched out of my lungs when his burnt crimson eyes rose to mine, and I breathed, “Asa.”
2
The reality of a hulking daemon standing on my doorstep, dressed in nothing more than a pair of yellow skintight boxer briefs that might as well have been reflective, muted my shock and kick-started my brain.
“Have you lost your mind?” I tugged on his fever-hot elbow. “Get in here before someone sees you.”
“Rue.” The daemon prowled inside then presented me with…a cupcake. “Brought gift.”
This wasn’t a cupcake from today. Wrong flavor. The delivery had been apple cider cake filled with apple chutney and topped with caramel icing. This hit me as more death by chocolate meets molten lava cake. It could give an ice cream cone a run for its money with the amount of decadent frosting twirled on top.
It was also missing a bite.
Which would explain the frosting smear on the daemon’s upper lip.
“Thank you.” I checked the street then shut the door behind him. “What are you doing here?”
“Clay busy.” He held the cupcake closer to me. “I come alone.”
Any closer, and he would smash frosting up my nose. “So, you’re blaming this on Clay.”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” I accepted the treat. “That’s convenient.”
The daemon did his best to appear angelic, which worked about as well as you would expect.
According to Asa, the daemon was and wasn’t him, which made addressing them problematic.
Half daemon, half fae, he considered himself dae. Too bad my options weren’t as catchy. Using his logic, I qualified as either a blite witch or a whack witch, given my parents practiced both branches of magic.
“Can I talk to Asa, please?” I turned the cupcake this way and that. “I’ll take a bite if you do.”
The daemon raked a fang over his bottom lip, clearly tempte
d, but he shook his head. “Asleep.”
“Asa is asleep?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about the daemon seeking me out solo. “Okay, where is Clay?”
“Hotel,” he grumbled. “Said we come tomorrow.”
The big galoot had to be kidding me. “He didn’t notice you leaving?”
“He petting his hairs.” The daemon curled his lip. “He bathe them too.”
Clay was created bald, as all golems were, but he did love his wigs as if they were his children.
A spark of inspiration burned in the daemon’s eyes as he shoved a hank of his hair at me. “Rue pet.”
Goddess bless.
In lusting after Asa’s hair, I had created a monster, and I had only myself to blame.
Cupcake in one hand, hair in the other, I had a choice to make. I set down the cupcake and fished out my phone. Clay hadn’t changed his number since he and I were partners, a fact that gave me warm fuzzies.
Dialing from memory, I waited for him to answer, then drawled, “Missing something?”
“I’m already in the SUV,” he grumbled, “on my way to you.”
At seven feet tall and four hundred pounds, he had a knack for busting captain’s chairs if he breathed too hard while sitting in them. I hoped he made it to the shop without incident. Usually, he rode in the back for the extra support of a bench seat.
“Don’t get huffy with me,” I said as I got huffy with him. “It’s not my fault your partner wandered off.”
“I warned you.” He blared the horn and cursed the traffic. “I told you not to mess around with Ace.”
“I didn’t mess around with him.” I flushed under the daemon’s stare. “There was no messing around.”
“Ace is complicated, Rue.” Clay’s breath filled my ear. “So are you.”
“Huh.” I pretended to ponder that. “I would never have put that together if you hadn’t told me.”
A low growl pumped through the eavesdropping daemon’s chest. “Rue mine.”
On that note, this bracelet was gone the instant I got a free hand and a pair of scissors.
“This right here,” Clay informed me, “is what comes from swapping spit muffins with Ace.”
Spit muffins.
“That was wrong on so many levels.” I cringed from the accurate descriptor. “Like, all of them.”
“Dammit, Rue, this is serious.”
“What do you want me to say? I didn’t invite him over. I wasn’t expecting him. I didn’t know you were in town. No one told me.” I noticed the daemon wince and eased my grip on his hair. “Why didn’t he call?”
“If I had to guess,” Clay said with a long-suffering sigh, “I would say he wanted to surprise you.”
Aww.
That was sweet.
Crazy inconvenient, given his daemon side had jumped the gun, but I didn’t hate Asa’s thoughtfulness.
Voices drew my attention toward the front of the shop, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“Oh crap.” I passed the daemon back his hair to free up my other hand. “Hold on, Clay.”
Quickly, I checked my messages, and sure enough, I’d missed a text from Arden naming a time and place for dinner with her, Camber, and Nolan. This must be them come to fetch me. From the shop. Which I had promised to leave twenty minutes after they ended their shifts. Hours ago.
“I have to get that.” I turned on the daemon. “Stay put.” I tapped his nose. “Don’t let anyone see you.”
With one final warning glare at the daemon, I loped to the front of the shop, cracked open the door, and wedged my foot behind it to prevent the girls from pushing inside to fuss at me.
Nolan, his strip of hair twisted into a messy man bun, stood with his hands in his pockets. “Hey.”
The girls, their arms linked, stared me down over his shoulder, clearly unimpressed with my appearance.
“I lost track of the time.” I shoved damp hair off my forehead. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go out like this.”
Their twin glares made it plain I had disappointed them, but I couldn’t leave the daemon unsupervised.
“You’re grounded.” Camber thinned her lips. “No breakfast smoothies for a week.”
“Two weeks,” Arden countered. “She must be held accountable, or she won’t learn from her mistakes.”
The number of people bold enough to threaten me could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But the girls had no fear of me. They trusted me, loved me, and times like this, I felt humbled to be seen. Not as a black witch or a white witch, but as the person I wanted to be when all was said and done.
I wasn’t her, not yet, but I was working toward it with every practiced smile, scripted kind word, and planned show of kindness that one day I hoped would come naturally to me rather than require so much effort and study to make it appear as effortless as the people I had chosen to emulate.
“Maybe some other time?” Nolan scuffed his boot. “When you’re not grounded?”
“Sure.” I hurried to agree to win the girls’ forgiveness. “We can all do lunch one day.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” He backed up, bumped into the girls, then blushed. “See you later, Rue.”
“See you.” I slammed the door in his face then felt warm breath on my nape. “What in the…?”
The daemon stood on my heels, the forgotten cupcake on his palm. “Eat.”
Not this again. “I’m not hungry.”
The spit-muffin thing had ruined my appetite.
“Eat.”
The daemon thrust the cupcake under my nose, leaving a daub of icing on the tip, which made him grin.
Smiling right back at him, I gripped his wrist, brought the treat closer to my mouth, then pushed out with all my might, smashing the treat between his burnt-crimson eyes.
Crumbs sprinkled onto my clean floor, and icing slid off his nose in thick plops, but it was worth the mess to see him blink out at me from behind a thick layer of chocolate.
A snort of laughter shot out my nose as the daemon wiped a hand down his face, which only made it worse.
But I shut up real quick when he smeared that chocolate-coated palm across my cheek.
“That’s how you want to play this?” I sucked on my teeth. “Okay, then.” I curled a finger. “Bring it.”
Scooping more frosting off his face, he grabbed for me, but I ducked his arm, palming fallen cake off the floor. I threw a glob at him, nailing his shoulder, and he broke into a smile that showcased thick fangs.
We flung crumbs until they were too small to pick up and hurled icing until there was none left.
The daemon balled up the pleated wrapper and chucked it at my head, which devolved into a dodgeball-style battle. I slid in a smear of frosting and spun into a skid across the floor…right into Clay’s open arms.
Dressed in his usual black suit, he looked good. The wig du jour, a neon-blue quiff, brought out his eyes.
“Um.” I clutched his broad shoulders to regain my balance. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
The daemon, wrapper in hand, walked up to us and bounced the paper off my forehead. “I win.”
“That’s cheating,” I protested, then bit my lip when Clay rolled his eyes heavenward in a plea for help.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he muttered. “Food fights are daemon foreplay.”
Of course, they were.
What else would they be?
3
Dignity was in short supply as I drew myself taller, without first wiping off the frosting, and attempted to wield the awe my presence used to command. Sadly, I knew I had failed even before raising my eyebrow resulted in crumbs raining into my eyes, which forced me to blink rapidly and stagger, blinded by its grit.
“Go wash up.” Clay angled me toward the bathroom. “Both of you.”
Dragging my heels, I did as I was told, with help from my seeing-eye daemon.
“So—” I squirted one of our minty hand soaps into my palm, “—you’re in my
neck of the woods.”
Once I worked up a good lather, I started scrubbing my face. Buttercream was a bear to break down, but the combo of lemon grass, tea tree, peppermint, and rosemary essential oils were up to the task. Even if that combination made for a very tingly washing experience, it worked wonders for opening my sinuses.
Rinsing was easy, but I had nothing clean to pat my face with. Guess I was air-drying.
“Your turn.” I left the warm water on for the daemon. “Help yourself.”
“We are in your neck of the woods,” Clay agreed once he set eyes on me. “For two reasons.”
“You need my help,” I realized, ignoring the hollow ache that rang through my chest. “On a case.”
Reading me with ease, Clay hooked me into a bear hug that lifted me off my feet. “That’s one reason.”
Face buried in his shirt, which solved the towel problem, I let the wall of his (literally) sculpted muscle comfort me. “And the other?”
“I missed you, Dollface.” He kissed the top of my head with brotherly affection. “That dumbass did too.”
The hollowness filled in as he held me. “Do you mean Asa or the daemon?”
“They’re the same person.”
Rather than contradict him, I hummed a nonanswer and soaked up his warmth. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“When you left, it felt like some jackass cut off my favorite arm.” He released me. “This time it was more like an asshole stole my prosthetic.” He stared down at me. “Ace and I are a good team, but you and me. We’ve seen some shit. We’ve been through some shit.” He worked his jaw. “We’ve done some shit.”
Each swear hit my ears like a hammer on a tiny anvil. “You really have to work on your potty mouth.”
I did not want Colby hearing him swear as easy as breathing and pick up sentence enhancers of her own.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his jaw. “There must be better words out there as yet undiscovered.”
“Uh, no.” I punched his shoulder and immediately regretted my life choices. “That’s not what I meant.”
A plink, plink, plink sound drew my head around to the bathroom, and a dripping wet daemon.
Black Arts, White Craft (Black Hat Bureau Book 2) Page 2