by Jax Garren
He had no idea what to say to that because the only thing coming to mind was an invitation to take her upstairs and show her exactly how provocative he found her right now.
She didn’t seem to need a response, though, because she nodded toward her ax on the floor as she ran her hands through her gorgeous hair, loosening the last of the braids. “Would you mind carrying my ax? As long as you look like a mega rock star, nobody’s going to care if you’re packing, uh, steel.” Hair done, she touched her face as if to assure herself that the stuck-on mask was still stuck on and muttered, “So weird.”
“Pulling back into traffic to drop off the car with the valet. Ready?”
She nodded. “One limpet groupie, ready to go.”
He couldn’t help shooting her an incredulous glance as he pulled up to the valet. “You’re actually going with my plan?”
She shrugged, but there was amusement in her eyes. “I always wanted a brush with fame. I guess this’ll do.” Her door opened, and he stared after her ass as she exited the car, tossing her hair as she went.
Then his door was opened, and he palmed a ten to the valet before hustling to catch up to the goddess. At the top of the stoop, she paused, her hip cocked and hand up at her face as she took in the building like it was impressive. Which, he supposed, for this city it was. As soon as his foot made landfall on the top step, she turned to him, her arms slipping around his waist and shoulder so easily he nearly fell back down the stairs in shock.
Her face nuzzled up at the corner of his neck, and he got a delicious whiff of pine and snow, so incongruous with the south Texas summer and so very delicious. His own arms came around her, and he tried not to shake, assaulted by nerves.
“You wanted a groupie, right?” she murmured, one hand sliding into his back pocket.
He breathed out on a shuddering laugh. “Yeah.” Normally he wasn’t so into public displays of this sort of affection, redirecting a woman’s hands and mouth as kindly as he could until they’d gotten somewhere private. But as soon as they were in private, he’d have to quit touching Freyja. He had a terrible feeling he’d let her do whatever she wanted over the next few minutes, no matter who was looking.
He wasn’t quite sure how to move forward, either, unused to walking more than a few feet to the nearest horizontal surface with someone attached to him. It seemed easier just to pick her up, and so he did. She gave a tiny “Ha!” of surprise, then her legs locked around his hips, and he stood there like an idiot on the front stoop of his complex with an ax in one hand and his goddess in the other and an impossible hard-on draining all cognitive abilities from his mind. Her mouth moved to his ear, her breath warm as temptation when she whispered, “Am I too heavy? You can put me down.”
“I work out,” he said, oh so brilliantly, and then managed to take a few steps forward. The doorman could barely keep a straight face as he opened the door for them to pass through.
The elevators. He could get to those. He focused on staying upright, only giving himself half permission to enjoy the press of Freyja against him. This had been his plan. If this was torture, he’d asked for it.
His throat dry, he rumbled, “You can make the plan next time.”
She pressed the elevator up button with the toe of her boot and pulled away enough to look down at him from her perched height, but stayed close enough so she could still whisper and be heard. “Sorry. I wanted to make it look real. I’ll back off.” Her legs relaxed like she would let him go, and that sounded like the worst thing in the world.
He squeezed his arm tighter around her, and accidentally—no, not accidentally—grabbed a handful of her ass. His other hand reached up and dug into her hair. Her eyes widened, and he dropped his gaze down to her mouth. Fuck it. There was no way he wasn’t kissing her now. He pulled her head down until their foreheads touched. Her breath caught, then she exhaled green tea and chocolate. He probably smelled like alcohol—not much, just a little.
The elevator dinged, doors opening. Once he got past those, it was over—over when they were finally alone and this thing between them should be kicking off for real. “Freyja,” he pleaded, unsure what to say next.
A flash of something he couldn’t read crossed her face—Panic? Regret?—but she smoothed the emotion immediately with a silly giggle as she pushed from his arms. Her motion was sudden and unexpected, and he let her go. She grabbed his hand and launched herself into the elevator, yanking him with her.
Her back landed against the far wall, and he pursued, boxing her in with a hand on either side of her head as she arched her eyebrow at him in challenge and slid her hands back into his back pockets. What she was challenging him to do, though, he had no idea.
What he did know was that she was way too good at this, because if she didn’t want him, he sure as hell couldn’t tell. He leaned in again, determined to get that kiss.
The doors closed behind him, and she put a finger between their lips, stopping him a whisper away from her mouth. What was the problem? Her chest rose and fell heavily against his as she closed her eyes.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his whole body trembling with the need to kiss her.
“You can change back now,” she answered, her voice a breathy hush.
The statement made him irrationally angry, and he gritted out, “I was getting the impression you liked me better this way.”
Her eyes jerked open, and she looked his face—his real face—over carefully. “This isn’t you.”
“And if it was?”
She shrugged and motioned to herself as best she could while backed up against the wall. “This isn’t me.”
He took a step back, again frustrated with her answers. “So what you’re saying is that we could never...” Never what? He motioned vaguely between them, encompassing everything from a casual fuck to married with children because he hadn’t worked out what exactly he wanted with her, other than her. “Because we have power?”
She huffed an embittered noise. “We’re this, what, an hour a day? A couple on occasion?”
“You like being Freyja.”
“Of course I do. Even half-powered and incompetent, I’m fucking magical. Don’t you love it?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them to himself. “So maybe this is you.”
“What? The godstone is not me.”
Hands in his pockets was no good. He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re clever and funny and brave and wonderful. None of that is the godstone. That’s you, and that’s why I like you.”
She tilted her head at him like he was speaking a foreign language, and he got the distinct impression she wasn’t used to compliments. The impression was confirmed when she sneered, “That how you getting in my pants? Put on the face of a superstar and sweet-talk my zipper down?”
He threw his hands in the air, and to his relief, the elevator jolted to a halt. “I have somehow convinced you I’m the planet’s biggest asshole, and I have no idea how.” The doors opened, and he marched out stiffly, swiping her dress and ax off the floor as he went. His whole life—even before Rage Riot took off—people had liked him. Getting along with people had always come easily to him. Now his power to charm was failing him when he most wanted it to work. “And you don’t have a zipper.”
The floor only had two doors—his and their lair. He’d been so pumped to show it to her, so convinced this’d be fun. He jammed the key into the lock and opened the door, not even sure if she was following. Not sure if he cared.
That wasn’t true. He really didn’t understand what had just happened, but he still wanted this—the partnership. The magic. And if that didn’t come with a side of physical indulgence, that was all right. Yeah, he wanted it. Gods, he wanted it so fucking badly right now, but that caged animal was going to settle with time and space away from her softness and scent. Working together to do something good in the world and have a purpose more imperative than alcohol, white lines, and increasingly insipid music was enough. But he wasn’t a
solo act, never had been and never wanted to be. He wanted a partner, and he really wanted it to be her.
“Oh wow,” came her soft voice behind him. She hadn’t left at his selfish outburst. He looked over his shoulder to see her taking in the space he’d created for them with her mouth slightly open in what sure looked like awe. “This is...” She blew out a breath, and he wasn’t sure what she’d meant to say, but based on her expression it wasn’t a bad thing.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” he muttered. Get Coyote back. Splash some cold water on himself. He pulled open a bin and grabbed sweatpants and a tee, leaving it open as he passed. “There’s less fuckin’ weird clothing in there if you want to grab something. I figure strategizing might be easier in...” He shook the clothes in his hand. With his back to her, he furtively slid his pocketknife and godstone from his jeans pocket and sliced a small line in his waist just above his belt. As he activated the stone, power washed over him as the headdress weighed his head down. And the world went headache-inducing fuzzy from his contacts.
Note to self: fuck vanity, find your glasses.
GISELLE WATCHED FEATHERS sprout from Coyote’s head until the headdress formed, resting regally on his head. The slap of power made her flinch, and it crossed her mind how odd it was that the power strengthened when he released a transformation. But the thought was quickly lost among other weightier things as she leaned back into the dark-gray—not lease-me-gray—walls of Coyote’s lair.
Oh, she’d been an idiot. But the temptation to curl up to Rafael Marquez—or his spitting image, anyway—had been too tempting. To her unfortunate delight, Coyote-as-Rafael smelled good and felt even better. And Coyote was always joking around. She hadn’t thought much about how he’d be affected.
Then he’d looked at her with such heated intent, and she’d realized her mistake. He was a man, after all. And he might have looked like Rafael, but the bestial inferno in his eyes was something she couldn’t imagine the shy singer who crooned about love and hope ever mustering. Coyote was a wild thing, and she’d come into his den. She should be afraid, but to her utter disappointment in herself, she found the danger attractive.
No more shenanigans. If they were going to work together, they weren’t going to... to fuck. Or whatever it was he wanted. She didn’t do casual, and she certainly didn’t need to fulfill Ande’s dire predictions of her stupidity by throwing herself at another bad boy.
She grabbed an oversized T-shirt from the bin in the wall and threw it over her flimsy tank top before shutting the bin carefully behind her. Then she stepped into the center of the room to look around.
He hadn’t been kidding about building a Batcave. While technically a “studio” apartment, the open-plan space was huge. On one side, a wall of windows stretched across what might be an entire side of the building, and she remembered, with a fuzzy cognition of details that hadn’t been important at the time, that there were only two doors on this floor. Black leather sofas faced the largest television set she’d ever seen. She pressed her hand into one, finding it even softer than the supple luxury of his car’s seats.
Behind the living area, a central partition contained mostly unfilled bookshelves and a barren fireplace, both of which opened to both the living room and the dining area on the other side. She strolled that way, noting a few reference books on Pagan gods, and a statue of something Aztec-looking started a collection. The dining table was small compared to the scale of everything else—just enough for the two of them—and the rest of the dining space was taken up by two desks with laptops and extra monitors.
Two. He was that serious about working with her. A coffeepot and a bag of beans were the only pieces out on the counter, and she wondered if he’d like her to make some or would rather she not.
Coffee sounded pretty good, actually. With all the luxury he’d dropped serious cash on this week, surely he wouldn’t mind her taking a scoop of beans. She opened the bag—already in use, she noted—and dumped some into the grinder. She’d had a family in sixth grade who’d been really—really—into their coffee and taught her how to make it. It was funny all the little things she’d picked up among the dozen-ish households she’d lived in. How to make the perfect cup of coffee here, how to knit there, how to change the oil in her car—if she’d had one—how to block a punch, mix cocktails, and care for an aquarium.
How to throw an ax. That wasn’t until Andromeda—not the nicest person she’d lived with, but not the worst, either.
She looked back toward the bathroom and raised her voice. “I’m making coffee, you want...” In the very back of the apartment, shielded by a half wall, was a king-sized bed draped in a silver comforter.
The bathroom door opened, and Coyote came out, thankfully looking like himself and, even more thankfully, wearing a T-shirt, sweatpants, and no headdress. He saw where she was staring, causing her nerves to flare, and she quickly went back to scooping coffee. She’d make four cups. He could pour out what he didn’t want.
He grunted as he passed by her on the way to the living room. “There wasn’t space for twin beds back there. I figured we may need to crash here at some point. If we’re both here, I’ll take the couch.” He dropped onto said couch, spreading out and kicking his feet up like he owned the place—which, he did—and grabbed a tablet from a shelf under the glass-and-dark-wood coffee table. “Feel free to bring shit here and leave it.” He waved his hand casually in the air. “I hope you like it.”
She stopped grinding and moved to percolating, setting up the coffee maker to do its thing, and then headed into the living space. She paused and waited for him to look up. His expression was still wary, but he gave her his full attention. “It’s the nicest place I’ve ever been in. Thank you for doing this.” She hoped, at least a little, he heard the apology in those words.
He swallowed, expression serious as he considered her. Then he shook, as if he could literally throw off the tension between them, and smiled. “I can’t fight, and you’ll be stuck listening to my feeble attempts at drumming for the foreseeable future. But hey, what I lack in capability, I make up for in cash. If we need it, let me know. I’ll get it.” He winked. “I’m at peace with my role as executive producer.”
She relaxed at his attempt to get things back to normal and perched on the edge of the couch, near his feet. “I wouldn’t have gotten out of that fight alive without you. That was brilliant to create a no-magic zone. Most conduits rely on their magic to fight. I have so little, it gave me the advantage I needed.”
He tapped her thigh with his toe. “Thanks. Sorry I stopped before the fight was over.”
She wrinkled her nose and debated how dumb it would be to offer to teach him some of the clobbered-together fighting style she’d developed.
“Whatcha thinking, goddess?”
Oh, what the hell. “I don’t have much fight training—I mean, actually, that’s not entirely true, I’ve been to some classes and learned a lot informally—but it’s a patchwork of things. I don’t have, like, a black belt in karate or something. But I know how to throw a punch, dodge a knife, and wait for the right opening to close—or run. If you want, I could show you a few things. Nothing fancy, just street fighting.”
He studied her for a moment without answering, making her hella uncomfortable. “How long’ve you been on your own?”
She snorted. “My lack of class that obvious, huh?” He shot her a disapproving frown, as if to say she should’ve known that wasn’t what he meant. She settled back farther into the couch. “Okay, okay. Pulling back on the self-snark.” Then she hopped up again, unable to sit still as she figured out what to tell him. Was the coffee done percolating? She shot him a determined glare and stuck her pinky in the air.
He acknowledged the reminder with a nod and his own raised pinky. “Not looking anything up. I promise.”
“I went into the system just after my seventh birthday. That’s when my mom died.”
“What happened, if you don’t mind telling me?
Like a car accident or...?”
She picked up a pillow and squeezed it. The long-ago memories rushed in of a grainy mac-n-cheese dinner, the nervous chattering of her young babysitter, and the funny notification on the girl’s phone that squealed with increasing frequency as she and her own mother debated what to do hours after Bryn should’ve been home.
Eventually the nice woman had come and taken both of them home for the night. The next day, Bryn still didn’t come to get her, but CPS did.
“Murder. My mom was murdered.”
Chapter 15
COYOTE’S EYES WIDENED. “Oh, damn.”
Giselle put the pillow down. It was a poor substitute for what she really wanted—human contact. No way she was curling up next to Coyote after her earlier stupidity, though. She sat again, tucking her legs up underneath her, shoved her feelings aside, and cleared her throat. “Yeah. She disappeared for nearly a month, then her body turned up in a parking garage in Kingsville.”
Now Coyote’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Wait, your mom was the victim of the Kingsville Trunk Murder?”
Giselle swallowed. “Heard of that, huh?
“One of the wealthiest ranchers in Texas is hauled into prison after a crispy dead body is found in the trunk of his Mercedes? Yeah.” He winced as if just realizing how callous that sounded. “Sorry. That was your mom.”
She shrugged. “It’s been twelve years. I mean, I miss her when I think about her, but at this point it’s more about how different my life could’ve been if I’d had a home.” Appalled at her own callousness, she shrank back into the couch. “That didn’t sound the least self-centered.”
He shook her foot, and even that touch made her feel a little too aware of him. “It’s not self-centered. It’s coping with life. No dad?” He gave her a half grin. “Again, not my business, I know. If you don’t want to talk about it...”