by Jaime Samms
No, I won’t. Daisy would be proud of him.
A little pang darted up his sternum, and he stifled a gasp. He missed her. He should call her. Shaking off the sadness, he set his bowl on the table.
Emile’s head cocked slightly on an angle, poised over his bowl. His spoon hand stopped midscoop. “Are you well?” He turned his head more, until Sunny could see the blue of his eyes and couldn’t look away.
“Fine.”
Emile gave a single, gentle nod.
More of Sunny’s resolve crumbled.
When Emile returned to his meal, Sunny scooted into the chair across from him, then focused on his own food.
They ate mostly in silence, though Sunny couldn’t help but watch the eager way Emile downed his soup. He had to be starving to eat like that.
“Is there more?” Emile tipped the bowl back, lips to the edge to get every last drop. His Adam’s apple worked as he swallowed, and Sunny lost the plot for a moment. “Sunny?” Emile’s bowl clunked onto the table.
“Uh.” Brilliant.
“More soup?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. There were only two bowls. You should really let that settle for a bit anyway. If you eat too much—”
“It’s fine.” Emile smiled at him, and there went Sunny’s focus again, right to his lips. “Do I have something in my teeth?” Emile grinned, obviously teasing.
“Oh my God.” Heat flashed up to Sunny’s hairline. “I—” God. What if he isn’t gay?
“I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
You’re making me horny, if you want to know. But he wasn’t going to say that. And now he’d gone too long saying nothing at all.
“I should go.” Abruptly, Emile stood. His chair rocked on its back legs, and he grabbed for it, moving so fast Sunny could swear he might have blurred.
He blinked. “Where would you go?” Sunny stood. Faced with the immediate idea Emile might vanish as if he’d never been there, Sunny realised he didn’t want him to go. “Please. I was being awkward. You don’t have to go.”
Emile’s eyes widened. He flared his nostrils. “I hadn’t thought that far.” He blew his cheeks out. “Hence my stay in your little shack. I suppose I didn’t think things all the way through.”
“What things?” Sunny blurted, curiosity controlling his mouth for an instant.
“I—had to leave.” Emile stretched his lips in what was not a smile, no matter what he might have thought to show Sunny. “My home, I mean. I had to leave everything behind.”
“Literally,” Sunny agreed. “You were naked. Did something… happen? I mean—”
Emile’s eyes got wide for an instant; then he lifted both hands. “No! Nothing like—no.” This time his smile was more genuine. “I am fine, Sunny. Hungry. And tired, but otherwise fine. I left at an… inopportune moment, nothing more.”
Sunny was more relieved to hear that than he’d expected. “I’m glad.” He motioned at the sofa and the pile of pillows. “Sit. Relax.” Sunny shoved the nearest book, a tropey romance he considered a bit of a guilty pleasure, into Emile’s hand. “Read for a bit. I’m just going to clean up. Then we can talk. Or… something.”
This time only one of Emile’s eyebrows rose.
“No! I mean. Talk. Play cards. God. I wish I had a TV.” But he’d never been one for screens and watching. Reading, yes, but not watching.
Emile just stared at him.
“Okay. Read the damn book.” He turned on his heel, rushing for the safety of dishwashing and tidying. If he kept talking, he was going to choke on his own foot. Proof positive: he sucked at social intercourse.
Fuck me. Or not. Or…. Fuck! He couldn’t even think without tripping over his thoughts and kicking up innuendo. But at least he hadn’t said it out loud. He could feel Emile watching him, but he kept his attention firmly on the dishes, hoping it would take him long enough he’d have time to regroup.
THE MORE Sunny tripped over his words, the more endearing he became. If Emile was going to escape this human unscathed, he was going to have to do so soon. He wasn’t sure he could withstand Sunny’s accidental charm. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Since it was obvious Sunny was hiding the only way he could in the small cabin, Emile turned his attention to the book he’d been offered. The slick, colourful cover was a far cry from anything he was used to at home. Books there took themselves altogether too seriously, with their leather bindings and pages thin as a gossamer pixie-dragon wing. His people only wrote down their own personal history, the stories of their accomplishments, and the counting of their offspring.
This book didn’t look like any of those things. Romancing the Ugly Duckling. Curious, he opened to the beginning of the book and began to read.
He had to be grateful to Hakko and his predecessors for one thing, at least. They had all been adamant the Corcaird House learn to speak, read, and write as many human tongues as possible. As a rule, their kind had a gift for language, so it hadn’t been a hardship. Emile was especially adept, and the near-impossible rules of the English language had intrigued him. His studies served him well, drawing him deep into the third chapter. Then the hairs on his arms stood on end. A warmth skittered over his skin, and he looked up.
“Hey.” Sunny smiled. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “You look comfy. I’m just going to be going in and out. I want to get the rest of my boxes in before the sun goes down. If you need anything, just shout, okay?”
“Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”
Sunny’s smile brightened. “Not every day I find a handsome stranger camped out in my shack.”
Emile caught his breath. That was a declaration if ever he’d heard one, and the hopeful expression underneath the shy smile Sunny offered made it impossible to ignore, no matter what his better judgement was screaming at him from behind the scenes.
“It’s not every day I’m rescued by such a lovely host. So I guess we have that in common.”
“I guess we do.”
For a moment Sunny hovered, hand scrubbing rhythmically over his nape. “So. I guess I’ll let you get back to your book. If you need anything….”
“Thank you.”
Emile watched him leave, captivated by his plump behind and bouncy step. Fernforest followed his master, but he stopped on the threshold, and Sunny left the door open so the dog could sit half in and half out of the house, like he was guarding them both.
Emile didn’t want to think from what. He had a harder time sensing things here, but the dog clearly had no such encumbrance. Something had him on alert.
Easing into the soft cushions, Emile was glad to find his spine seemed to have relaxed into the proper form. The ache was almost gone now, and once he had pulled enough pillows and blankets around himself to form a simple nest, his discomfort eased. He lost himself for a little while in the love story and was almost drifting off when Fernforest yipped sharply. A blast of air drove into the house through the open door, flinging it back against the end of the counter. It bounced halfway closed again, blocking the sunlight, leaving the cabin muted and dull. The pages of Emile’s book flapped and turned. The fringe on the throw pillows whipped up.
Emile started so violently he almost fell off the couch. His foot hit the floor with a thud and a clatter as pain jolted up his leg. The twist and crunch of bone sent agonising spikes up his shin, and he curled his toes in reaction. The scrape of claws on the hardwood jerked him completely alert.
Claws. He glared at his feet. The right was perfectly human-looking where it rested on a lemony cushion. The left, however, stopped looking human just past his ankle, where iridescent auburn scales morphed out of his skin and over the top of his foot, arched into a bony-knuckled claw.
Even as the violent pain knifed into Emile’s consciousness, it ebbed again. The claws remained. Magic coursed just under his skin, and he grappled with the slippery tendrils, fighting back the incursion of more scales up his shin and the sensation that the magic wasn’t exactly his.
> “Ferny?” Sunny’s voice came from just outside the door, still half-closed in the aftermath of the breeze. “What’s up, buddy?” Sunny pushed the door open with a foot, arms filled with yet another box. He set that on the counter and stopped to stroke Fernforest’s head. The dog was staring out into the yard, tail straight out behind him, head lowered.
Emile snatched his foot off the floor and shoved it under the throw pillows at the end of the couch. The points of his talons tangled in the fabric, and he grimaced. That was going to be tricky to explain later.
“Everything okay?” Sunny asked as he poked his head inside.
“Fine,” Emile croaked. His voice was hoarse, and he ran a hand over his throat. More scales cascaded down over his Adam’s apple and onto his chest. In a panic, he dropped the book over the exposed area just as Sunny lifted his gaze from the dog’s face to his.
Please don’t let anything else be scaly.
Sunny’s expression didn’t change, though. “Were you sleeping?”
Emile blinked, realising it wasn’t the cabin that was in shadow. It was his eyes, slitted to guard against the bright glow haloing Sunny. “Yes, I suppose I drifted off.” He yawned, closing his eyes to better focus and get a handle on the recalcitrant magic. It eased grudgingly around his control, and he pushed it down. Scales melted away, leaving tender skin behind. His eyes watered, but as he blinked again, they focused on Sunny, taking in the light and shadows as they should.
Fernforest trotted across the floor, nose twitching as he weaved through the maze of bins and boxes Sunny had brought in. He stopped near Emile’s hidden foot and dug his muzzle under the pillow. Wet warmth twined between his toes, and he almost jerked his foot away. Almost.
“Ferny!” Sunny reached for him, but Emile stopped him.
“It’s okay. He’s just being friendly.” Nosy, more like. Fernforest tipped his head so he could lick Emile’s toes and look at him at the same time.
“Well, I’ve brought everything in. Are you hungry?”
“Sure?”
“You don’t know?”
“I could eat.”
Sunny smiled. “Good. I’ll make sandwiches. Tomato or beef?”
“Beef.” As Fernforest licked between his toes, Emile gathered the magic’s residue and swept his thoughts over his body, making sure he was all skin and no scales now.
The effort of forcing the magic to conform left him breathing hard and feeling wrung out. Like good sex without the orgasm.
“You look beat,” Sunny observed from where he was assembling sandwich fixings. “You’re definitely staying here tonight.”
Emile was too weary to argue.
Chapter 7
SUNNY GRIPPED the rounded handrail and peered down. Shadows trickled across the floor in undulating patches as moonlight flowed between the poplar trees and into his living room. He was reminded of the dancing pebbles in the bottom of the stream and blinked.
Just shadows. He dragged his gaze away from the dance of moonshine on hardwood to find the paler, uneven lump on his sofa. His eyes adjusted to the dim silver light, and he studied his sleeping guest.
Long, slender feet poked from the edge of the blanket. Equally long-fingered hands rested on the rough weave of the afghan covering Emile’s abdomen. A book peeked from under the afghan fringe, and another, this one open under one elegant hand, rested on his stomach. He’d evidently shucked his borrowed T-shirt, because his skin was pale in this light, even more than it had been in the bright sunshine. Strands of deep burgundy hair, washed nearly black by moonglow, trailed over the backs of his hands and tumbled across his bare chest. Small, enticing nipples peeked between the locks.
He looked ephemeral and too delicate to be real. Too beautiful to be lying on Sunny’s couch. Stirring in his sleep, Emile crooked a knee, pushing one shapely calf out from under the covers. The hair on his head seemed to be the only hair on him.
Great. Perving on your house guest. Classy.
But he wasn’t perving. Concern that Emile was resting comfortably wasn’t perving. It was being a good host.
At two in the morning, it’s perving. Go back to bed.
Sunny was just turning from the balcony rail when he felt the heated prick of attention lift the hairs on the back of his neck. He looked back at Emile.
Dark eyes gazed up at him, pools of near black in the dimness.
“Sorry.” Sunny took a step back. “I was—”
“Checking on me?” Emile offered.
“Um. Yes. You’re settled, though.”
Amusement flickered over Emile’s face. “I was.”
Shit. Embarrassment tingled up his neck to his cheeks. He opened his mouth to apologise again but was cut short by Emile’s low, sexy chuckle.
“I’m not offended, Sunny.”
“I have better manners, I swear.”
Emile actually smiled, and in this light, Sunny could swear his teeth had points. It should have been creepy, but his skin tingled, and the heat of embarrassment sank lower, along with an awkward amount of blood flowing straight to his groin. He was glad it was darker up here than down there, or Emile might have been less forgiving of Sunny’s observations. Still, he took a step back from the railing and waved, revealing he was a complete dork as well as a creepy host. “I’ll let you get back to sleep. Sorry again.”
He could have sworn he heard Emile’s quiet laughter as he scuttled back to his bed. He was also fairly certain the moonlight dancing on the far wall of his loft bedroom was laughing at him too.
MANNERS WERE a funny thing. Where Emile came from, admiring someone was never considered ill manners. Admiring them while they slept… that was a human thing. His kind didn’t have the same reticence when it came to expressing admiration or attraction. One of his own kind would never have hesitated to admire openly and in daylight.
As moonlight flitted across the cabin’s interior, he watched the rail above, but Sunny didn’t reappear. He could hear him breathing, knew he hadn’t gone back to sleep, but he didn’t come back to look over the rail and watch Emile. Too bad. Emile would have invited him down if he had.
But then, if it was too soon for Sunny to admit his attraction, it was probably too soon for Emile to suggest they act on it. Besides, he didn’t yet know if Hakko would be able to track him or find him, or if he’d try. No. He knew he would try, and if he succeeded, Emile might be better off moving on, father from the Fold itself.
A ripple of sensation floated just under Emile’s skin. He tensed, but the magic didn’t surface this time. It hovered, waiting, as if to see what he did with his own arousal. When he lay still and did nothing, the power slowly tapered off. Perhaps he should gain some strength and get a better grip on how his magic reacted to this new environment before he indulged in a situation that had the potential to strip away his control.
The magic rolled over, another faint ripple before Emile slipped back into slumber.
He woke to the gentle clatter of dishes and sunlight playing among the leaf shadows on the floorboards. Idly, he twitched his tail and watched the cavorting patterns of light and shade, glancing periodically at Sunny working in the kitchen. He had his back to Emile as he worked, and Emile scooted upright.
It wasn’t until he braced himself with his tail to sit up straighter, then flicked the edge of the blanket with the tip to cover a chilled foot, that he even realised he had his tail. The magic hadn’t dissipated after all. It had chosen perhaps the most obvious of random ways to manifest.
Emile yanked it under the blankets as Sunny turned.
“You awake?”
“Mmm.” Emile hunkered down, pulling the cover up to his chin as he frantically took stock of the rest of his body for any signs of scale, feather, or claw. “Sort of.”
“I made coffee. It’ll be ready in about eight minutes. You want to use the bathroom?”
“I’m good.”
Sunny tipped his head to one side. “Cold?”
“Just cozy.”
&nbs
p; “Good. Relax. If you don’t need the throne, I’m going to take a quick shower. I’ll be back in time to pour coffee, and we can figure out what comes next. Okay?”
“Perfect.”
“You’re sure you’re not cold?”
“I’m perfect.” Emile smiled. It was all he could do to keep his tail from twitching. He’d never realised how unconscious its movements were until he needed to keep it hidden.
“About last night.” Sunny dragged a hand over the back of his neck and stared resolutely at the floor.
“Not to worry. I’m sure it is disconcerting having a stranger sleeping in your parlour.”
One of Sunny’s eyebrows went up. “Parlour? Who’s the spider and who’s the fly in this particular scenario?”
Now it was Emile who was confused. “I’m sorry?”
There was a stretched pause; then Sunny’s face flashed bright red and he scrubbed his neck frantically. As if realising the nervous motion, he dropped his hand. “Nothing. Sorry. I’ll”—he pointed to the bathroom door—“go. Shower.” And he was gone, darting into the washing room and all but slamming the door behind him.
You’ll never pass for one of them. Why even try?
Hakko was wrong. The voice in his head was wrong.
Closing his eyes, Emile concentrated. In a heartbeat the magic was back in his grasp and the tail gone. He repressed the first few shivers, but eventually he had to pull up another blanket to compensate for the heat the magic stole as it retreated into his core.
By the time Sunny returned, Emile had warmed enough to sit up and accept the steaming mug Sunny handed him. It smelled heavenly, and when he sipped, the flavour danced over his taste buds. There was nothing like this back home. It sang in his veins, replacing the vibrancy of magic and warming him down to his toes.
There was so much on this side of the Fold he never knew existed. He met Sunny’s gaze and was greeted with a sun-tinged smile that heated his blood in such a radically different way, he couldn’t even remember why it might be a good idea to move on as soon as possible.