by Amelia Shaw
Before I could think better of it, I picked up the closest object within reach, a jar of loose powder, and tossed it overhand at his head.
It stopped above his chest. He plucked it from the air and tucked it in his hand. The man had the audacity to tsk like I was some kind of petulant child, unwilling to learn the lessons he desperately tried to impart.
He sat up and leveled one of his patented glares at me.
I felt like my head might pop off my shoulders in anger. “Get the hell out of my apartment.”
He gracefully turned on the bed, put his feet on the floor, and stood to his full height.
“I understand things are tough right now,” he said.
“Tough? We passed tough a long time ago. We passed tough when I had to get a blood transfusion. We passed tough when I didn’t murder you before I left your house.”
He took a couple steps forward, crowding in my space, but I refused to back down this time. The man was not about to bully me in my own home.
I took a step forward, meeting him toe to toe. “I said get out. I don’t want you here. I would’ve called you back if I wanted to speak to you.”
He reached out and lifted a few strands of my hair, then tucked them back behind my ear in a move so gentle it shocked me into stillness.
Probably a move created so women would stop throwing inanimate objects at him.
Either way, my heart had taken up an unsteady rhythm, and I didn’t want to think about how my toes went numb in my sneakers.
“If we talk about things, will you leave?” I whispered.
How did he always push me into giving him his way?
He gave me a clipped nod, and I took a second to settle back into my own skin.
I skirted around him, careful I didn’t touch him, and went back to the living room. I took the desk chair, so that there was no chance he would crowd next to me.
He surveyed my desk, then set the jar I’d thrown at him on the surface and turned away. He folded himself gracefully somehow into the old couch and propped his arms back like a king surveying his court.
I cleared my throat and dove into the first thought that popped into my head. “To be honest, I devoted too much time to your job, anyway.”
He narrowed his eyes. “To be honest? Is that what you are going for? Because I call bullshit.”
It was disconcerting to hear his perfect mouth say bullshit with his slightly crisp and posh accent.
I slid my chair a little closer. “While we’re discussing honesty...why are you in my house? Don’t you have some kind of etiquette for forcing your company on people who don’t want it?”
He narrowed those peepers at me again. “And now you’re trying to deflect to a new topic. It wasn’t even a good attempt. Do you want to try again before I form a rebuttal?”
“Do you want me to start throwing office supplies at you?”
He blinked once, then a slow smile spread across his face. Again, I was struck with the urge to batter him.
Instead, I took a deep breath and stared at his shoes. “Look, I can’t keep working for you. I appreciate the job you gave me and the time we spent together. Well, right up until I got beaten black and blue. I appreciate you paying my medical expenses and all that. It was really nice of you. However, I think you should continue the work on your own.”
“Have you decided you don’t want to catch the Black Mage? I assumed when you woke, we would continue our search.”
Fucking hell, he wasn’t making this easy on me. “Of course, I still want to catch him. But I don’t know if I can continue this work with you.”
Suddenly, he entered my field of vision. He reached out and tilted my chin up so he could meet my eyes. “Tell me what has you spooked. You were sincere when you forgave me for leaving you at the party. I know you can take a few hits. What is it that makes you run away now?”
How could I make him understand? The moment I’d found my parents dead was locked, burned, and branded into my memory. Anyone involved in their death, anyone there that day when I was carried away screaming. The chief and everyone I met in his household would be with me forever.
I feared being that for Fin, a reminder of what he’d lost and not a celebration of what he’d gained. Above all, I feared losing him, so I did what I always did in the face of too much emotion on my part. I pushed him away, and I would keep pushing if he let me.
But the man knelt on the floor in my shitty apartment, a foot in front of me. Something told me he would not let me push him away, no matter how hard I tried or how good at it I’d gotten over the years.
Damn him for this.
I tucked my chin and clutched my forehead. He slid his warm hand over my neck to rest on the top of my back. A gesture without demands. It simply said, I’m here.
And I let him be that for me, just for a moment. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d allowed someone to just hold me, with no expectations on either side when the comfort ended. I didn’t realize how much I wanted it. Needed it.
He pressed his cheek into my hair and hugged me tight into him. It was so good to feel his solid arms around me, to let him hold me up. If I didn’t think too hard about what this could mean later, I would stay here all day. Soak it up and save it for later when I found myself alone again.
Fin needed me for a job; that was it. I couldn’t afford to forget that fact whenever he turned his gorgeous eyes on me, or touched me so tenderly.
I pulled away and looked up at him.
“Talk to me,” he whispered. “I will not run, no matter what you say. Just tell me whatever you’re holding back.”
Just as quickly as I shouldered this secret, I wanted to release it.
I sucked in a long draw of breath and let it out slowly.
He pulled back only enough to meet my eyes.
Here goes nothing.
“Good news, your sister is alive. Bad news, I know this because she’s been visiting me in my dreams. Every single night. A sending. I had the first one before I left your house. It’s why I ran. I wasn’t sure how you’d handle it, and I wasn’t in any shape to pick up the pieces like when you fell apart the last time. If you crumbled so easily for an ex-girlfriend, how would you react to your sister?”
I couldn’t look him in the eye now. I’d said way more than I intended to.
He lifted my chin again, forcing my gaze to his. If any other man had done this, I would have slapped his hand away.
“Is that it?”
“Is that it?” I echoed. What?
I pulled away to look at him better.
He waited, face serious and composed.
“Why aren’t you freaking out right now?” I asked.
“Because up until a few seconds ago, I thought the Black Mage had killed my sister. This is good news. It means she’s alive out there and all we have to do now is find her.”
I didn’t trust the way he stood there taking all this as if it meant nothing more than his morning coffee order. I gave him a once over. “Who are you and what have you done with Fin?”
The corner of his lip quirked up, and he shook his head at me. “I'm glad you're feeling better.”
I climbed to my feet and straightened out my pants before meeting his eyes. “It's not that I feel better. It’s just that I wasn’t sure how to tell you what happened. I know how much your sister means to you, and I didn't want to break your heart all over again.”
I strolled back to the couch and threw myself into its worn embrace. Fin took the chair across from me, crossing one leg over the other before resting his hands on his knees.
“You haven’t broken my heart,” he said. “You’ve given me a gift, actually.”
“Even if Sol is a mage now?”
Fin shook his head. “I love my sister. I’ve always loved my sister and even if she’s a mage, we will figure it out. Was there anything else that you learned from the sending?”
Wow, what a question. To be fair, I tried to pay attention to my surroundings whene
ver Sol visited me, but we always seemed to be in the same empty misty forest with her at the center. How could I explain that to him without ensuring we hunted through every forest on the continent until we found the right one? I let out a long exhale and slowly drew breath back in, calming myself.
“Not a lot. She’s in a forest, but that’s all I could really make out.”
“Nothing else? Are you sure? Really sure?”
I pressed my palms into my thighs, fighting my annoyance. Of course, he would question me to death. Why wouldn’t I have taken that into account before I told him the truth?
“I am positive. I’ve dreamed of her every night since we left the Citadel, and she’s all I’ve been thinking out about during my waking hours. I don’t know where she is, but I promise if I see her again. I’ll try to figure it out.”
He nodded and pushed off the chair to wander into my kitchen.
I followed him in, giving him a look until he started rummaging through my cabinets. I cleared my throat, and he glanced back at me.
“What do you think you're doing?” I asked.
“Looking for a snack.”
“Don’t you have snacks at your house?”
He shrugged and continued his perusal through my kitchen.
No. I drew the line.
I entered the kitchen and grabbed his arm, tugging him back into the living room before not-so-gently pushing him toward the front door. “You can leave, and we can continue this conversation at another time.”
He shook his head as he opened a box of crackers he’d found in one of my cupboards. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay here until you have another sending.”
He dug out a few of the no doubt stale saltines and shoved a hand full into his mouth. Like this, he almost looked normal, like any other guy hunting for snacks in someone else’s apartment. It was all too easy to forget about him being fae while he stood in my living area dressed in jeans and a sexy smile.
Way too easy.
I shook myself. “That is a hard pass because I would have to be asleep, and there was no way we were snuggling in my bed.”
My comment earned me a sexy little grin that I ignored before opening the door, shoving him into the hallway, and slamming the door in his face. I spun all the locks and waited a few seconds until his footsteps thudded on the stairs below.
That didn’t go as badly as I’d expected. Now I just needed to figure out where Sol was and where the Black Mage was and how I was going to get both of them.
Easy.
No pressure.
Chapter Three
I woke up the next morning feeling better than I had in the past few days. In fact, I couldn’t remember my dreams, or even if Sol had been in them. I took a long moment and stretched my arms wide, pointed my toes, and let out a long, relieved sigh.
Once I snuggled back under the covers, my first thought was of Fin, until I gave myself a mental scolding because Fin was not mine to think about when I woke up first thing in the morning.
I’d been awake about five minutes, when I noticed the smell in the air. Usually, when my neighbors cooked certain foods, mostly spicy stuff, or curries, I could smell it in the hall and sometimes the scent drifted into my apartment. But this was different. The scent of bacon hung heavy in the air, making my mouth water.
I shoved back the covers, grabbed a knife from my bedside table, and tiptoed to my door. I opened the door and poked out my head. Movement came from the kitchen, a slight rustle and, now that I focused on it, the sizzle of bacon. Someone had broken into my house to cook me breakfast?
I gripped the knife in my hand and tiptoed down the hall past the dining room to peek into the kitchen.
Fin stood in front of my small stove, turning slices of bacon with my rubber tongs. He wore gray sweatpants that hugged him like they had no right to, and a black T-shirt. His hair had been French braided tight against his skull, with the tail of the braid tucked against his neck.
Anger flooded me. I gripped the knife and tossed it before I even thought about it being a good decision. It whizzed past his face to find a home in the cabinet over his shoulder.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look up or look at the knife.
He simply said, “Good morning. You missed.”
I focused on keeping my tone even. “I wasn't trying to hit you. I was simply making sure you knew I was awake.”
He turned around, leveled me with a glance, then resumed his work on the bacon.
“How did you get in here?” I asked. “Furthermore, where did the bacon come from? Because I know I didn’t buy any. Third, I didn’t realize you knew how to cook for yourself.”
He maneuvered the bacon in the skillet. “I've been cooking for myself for a long time. It wasn’t until I inherited my family’s estate that I allowed someone else to cook. And that was mostly because I needed to feed the staff and I had never cooked enormous meals before. Holly does a great job of taking care of everyone. I honestly need to give her a raise, and maybe some more kitchen staff. It’s been ages since I cooked bacon. I forgot how long it takes.”
I refrained from telling him how much I missed her and her cooking. All I would end up doing was give him an opening to lure me back to his home.
“Likely she puts hers in the oven since she has to cook her bacon in bulk with the testosterone squad lurking about your castle. And my other questions?”
Like a few pieces of pork could distract me.
“To answer your questions, I got the key to your apartment from your landlord. He is very nice and as far as I can tell, doesn’t have many friends. Humans without friends are by far the easiest to gain things from. All they need is a little attention. As for the bacon, I bought it from the grocery store on the way to your apartment.”
The idea of him at the grocery store was disconcerting enough. But the fact that he might have gone to the dinky-dink corner market I’d been using for ages, ate at something else in me. Damn. Him encroaching on my life wasn’t something I’d prepared for. I hadn’t even considered what my life looked like after the events at the Citadel. Maybe this was his way of apologizing? Or asking for my help without the coercion he employed the last time he got me to work for him?
I shoved through the kitchen, jostling him as I passed, yanked the knife from the cabinet, and resumed my place by the door. “I'm going to throw this again unless you tell me how you got a key to my apartment from my landlord.”
He shrugged. “I flirted with him.”
It took me a few minutes to process what he’d said. My landlord, a mid-forties banker who invested most of his rental property earnings. My landlord, who wore sweater vests and glasses too big for his face. I couldn’t picture Fin flirting with anyone, let alone Mr. Talmadge.
“You flirted with my landlord when you could have just used your powers to make him give you a key?” I wasn’t going to bring up his questionable taste in men; he had to know that about himself already.
He smiled and focused on the bacon to flip a few more pieces. “I don’t always use my powers. But while we’re on the topic of powers, why are you using a knife when you could just use your powers on a potential intruder?”
My potential magical abilities were not something I was ready to discuss this morning. If I ever was. “That is none of your business.”
He lifted some pieces of bacon to set them on a paper towel-lined plate before adding more to the pan. I watched despite my anger, fascinated with his precise movements and the way his firm grip maneuvered the tongs. I bet he was a good knife fighter.
Damn girl, you need to get laid if you’re looking at this man cooking bacon and thinking about how hot it is.
He cleared his throat. “Well, unless you know someone else who can train you in how to use your magical abilities, or whatever you’re describing them as, then I think it is my business.”
I shook my head and backed out of the dining room into my living room. Before I could give more of my attention to Fin, I
booted up my computer and scanned through a couple of emails. A few were from clients who had responded to the emails I sent the day before.
“We aren’t finished discussing this topic,” he called from the kitchen.
I chose to ignore him and his haughty tone. I even opened up a few of the messages in my junk folder just to give me a little more time.
Fin had invaded my life. That was a fact. I doubted I could get rid of him now that he’d burrowed deep. And if I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to lose him. I liked Fin, even knowing from the moment I met him our friendship would end badly. All of this wasn’t something I wanted to think about while he stood in my kitchen wearing those damn gray sweatpants.
No, I couldn’t allow him to do this to me. To take over everything and get in so deep I would never get him out. I stood up from my desk, but the second I turned toward the kitchen, Fin was there, a plate of bacon right under my chin, against my sternum.
“Um...”
He met my gaze with those gorgeous crystal blue eyes and nodded toward the plate. “Eat, while it’s hot. We have to discuss a few things.”
I stepped away from him and his bacon offering. “I thought we discussed everything yesterday. Besides, I’m still angry at you for breaking into my home.”
“I had a key,” he said. He threw himself down on my couch, the plate perfectly balanced until he settled.
“Having a key you practically seduced out of my landlord is not the same thing as having permission to be here.”
“Seduced is a strong word.”
I sighed and sat on the chair across from the couch. “What is it going to take to get you to leave?”
It was right then I remembered all I had on was my long gray henley nightshirt, which didn’t even reach my knees. His eyes tracked up my bare legs to the hem of the shirt and then to my face. I wanted to tug down my shirt, but it felt too much like a retreat, so I gripped my hands together and waited for him to answer.
It took way longer than I was comfortable with.
“I’ll leave once you agree to help me find my sister,” he said.
“What about the Black Mage?”