David beamed at him. “Would you like me to package some up for you? You can take them with you when you go.”
Kristof executed a formal half bow. “I would be honored. Thank you.” He turned and nodded at Alun. “Dr. Kendrick. You have a most accomplished young man here. I commend you.”
“Yes. Well.” Alun cleared his throat, avoiding David’s gaze, and gestured for Kristof to enter the office. “Shall we?”
If he didn’t think he’d scare the dickens out of the two women who’d arrived early for the eight o’clock group session, David would have leaped out of his chair and danced around the room. Of course, given his negative talent, they might expire from laughter instead, but holy smoking crap.
Mr. Czardos had complimented him to Dr. Kendrick. Ha! Maybe the doctor would see there were other ways of caring for patients— Gah! Clients. That David could be an asset to the office, one worth keeping.
If all the stars aligned and he was able to hold on to this job until Vanessa returned from maternity leave, he’d be able to save enough to get Aunt Cassie out of the soggy Pacific Northwest for a few weeks in the middle of winter, when she was most likely to succumb to pneumonia. Someplace sunny and decadent, maybe a cruise in the Mediterranean, like the one they’d always talked about.
The one he’d lost hope they’d ever take together.
He ignored a tiny sting in his heart. So what if he couldn’t go along? As much as he wanted to spend the time with his aunt, see her pampered and relaxed, he wanted her healthy more. If that meant sending one of the girls in his place so he could keep working, he’d suck it up and deal.
Even if Dr. Kendrick continued to be a gold-medal contender in the World Cantankerous Championships.
Throughout the next hour, another dozen people, both men and women, ranging in age from late teens to middle age, arrived for the group. David gave himself a mental high-five when all of them consumed a minimum of one cup of coffee and leafed through one or more magazines.
Miraculously, he had one pertinent piece of information besides name for each of these clients—their intake date. They’d all been in this group for at least six months, yet none of them spoke to each other. They sat scattered around the room, always keeping a chair or two between them. As if half-fearful, they glanced at others in the room and then away, not meeting David’s gaze, exhibiting a whole range of avoidance body language.
Jeez, if this was what they were like before the group even started, the actual session must be torture.
What this room needs is a little music to loosen things up. He tapped his fingers on his knee, contemplating the closed office door. Dr. Kendrick had another ten minutes with Mr. Czardos. David slid his contraband CD out of his desk drawer and unwrapped it, the crinkling cellophane sounding as loud as a string of firecrackers in the silent room.
He’d have preferred his first hearing of a brand-new Gareth Kendrick album to be piped through better speakers than the ones on his computer monitor, but if anyone needed the stroke of that velvet voice, compelling yet plaintive, it was this bunch tonight. Though David had to admit that as much as he loved Hunter’s Moon’s music, and Gareth’s vocals as its front man, his voice had never stirred him the way Dr. Kendrick’s did.
Awkward.
He inserted the disk into the optical drive of his computer and cued up the first track. An acoustic stringed instrument played an intro—not a guitar, for all that Gareth was the lead guitarist for his band. It almost sounded like a lute or a harp.
Whatever.
The melody, even without lyrics, caused a catch in his throat and a prickle in the corner of his eyes. All the clients in the waiting room raised their heads, the longing on their faces probably matching the expression on his own.
Gareth’s voice slipped in, twining around the harp like a long-lost lover, the language unrecognizable until David caught the word cariad—Welsh for darling. He closed his eyes and clutched the edge of his desk. God, if he didn’t move, he’d start to weep, and even though his dancing was enough to bring tears to others’ eyes—and not in a good way—he didn’t think collapsing into a sodden mess was his best professional choice.
The clients must have felt the same because all of them were swaying in their seats in time to the music. One of the women stood and began to dance. Another joined her. Then another.
Oh what the hell.
David launched himself out of his chair, sashayed around his desk, and joined the gyrating group in the middle of the room.
Alun tried very hard not to be annoyed by Kristof’s gushing praise of David, but with every new compliment, his formerly relaxed jaw tightened and his previously lifted brow ridges lowered.
No doubt his eyes had narrowed to slits as well. Even without an unforgiving reflective surface to confirm it, he could tell—he was glowering.
Kristof, either not noticing or counting it business as usual, continued on in his melodic old-world accent. “I had never considered whether a simple stomach remedy might palliate the symptoms.”
“Won’t a non-hemoglobin-based food adversely affect your constitution?”
He waved one long, paper-white hand. “Not anything that trivial.” He stilled, as motionless in thought as the corpse he’d never been. “An apple cider base, I believe. Some magic practitioners use cider as a blood substitute in modern rituals. Perhaps that is why I found it so agreeable.”
“I doubt the candies possess any magical properties.” Shite, could he sound any more like a sulky schoolboy?
Kristof’s lips thinned in a wintery smile. “Clearly you haven’t tasted one.”
“David isn’t a supe, Kristof. He’s only a man. A human man.”
“I noticed.” His bland tone was its own comment.
Alun remembered that the vampire was bi and tamped down a surge of fae territoriality. David’s presence in his office didn’t make him Alun’s property, especially since he’d be gone as soon as Sandra Fischer stopped sneezing partial panther shifts.
“Right.” He forced his hands to relax on the arms of the chair. Whatever his personal issues with David, this was Kristof’s treatment session, not his own. “So do you think you’ll be able to feed?”
“No. The thought of blood is . . .” A ripple of distaste crossed Kristof’s narrow face, the equivalent of a silent scream in a vampire of his age. “No.”
“Then why don’t we discuss—”
Kristof held up one index finger. “Hold.” He cocked his head a fraction of an inch, gaze unfocused. “Do you hear that?”
Alun listened, hands slowly tightening again on the arms of the chair until his nails broke through the brocade. Shite. Gareth’s voice. Gareth’s harp. The thrice-damned CD. The soft rhythmic thumping that Alun had attributed to nearby construction work took on a different meaning, and he catapulted himself out of the chair. “Wait here.”
He yanked open the door.
His entire human PTSD group was snaking around the waiting room like Maypole dancers in search of pole and ribbons, caught in the snare of Gareth’s music.
Oak and thorn, had his brother run mad? He was the last of the fae bards. He knew the effect of his music when it wasn’t buffered by his non-fae band-mates and the electronic interference of modern musical equipment.
Yet he’d recorded himself playing Gwydion’s blasted harp, the most powerful instrument in all of Welsh lore. Anyone who heard this would literally dance until they dropped, unable to escape the spell within any defined circle.
A circle like the ring of furniture in his lobby.
The line made another circuit of the room while Alun hovered in stunned disbelief, and he realized David was in the lead. While everyone else, from the nineteen-year-old victim of an obsessed werewolf stalker to the fifty-nine-year-old witness to the transformation of an entire pack of swan maidens, danced in perfect time to the music, their arms waving with the lyrical grace that a true fae bard always inspired in his audience, David moved like an inebriated zombie.
If that was his intent, he was as poor a speller as he was a dancer, because the letters resembled an A, a Y, an M, and a C.
David pranced past Alun. “Woo woo woo!” he called, flapping like an agitated owl, and the rest of the group hooted in response.
“Interesting,” Kristof murmured at Alun’s shoulder. “I hadn’t realized you’d added dance therapy to your repertoire.”
“I didn’t realize vampires made jokes.”
“It’s a privilege reserved for the highest rank.”
“Good to know.” Alun strode behind David’s desk and killed the CD playback.
Immediately, all the erstwhile dancers blinked at one another, ducking their heads in well-deserved embarrassment. Goddess preserve him, this could set them all back months. Here, in the place where they should be safe, they’d been exposed to another supernatural phenomenon.
David stood in the middle of the room, his arms still raised overhead, the tails of his jacket flaring out like wings, his gaze riveted on Alun. One of the clients, the appliance technician who’d encountered a nest of teenaged vampires while repairing a furnace, slapped David on the shoulder on his way to his seat.
A peculiar feeling swirled in Alun’s belly, attempting to climb up his ribs. He clenched his fists, fighting for control, unable to identify the sensation. Goddess, what horrifying remnant of his past had David conjured up now?
Alun glanced around, searching for an escape route, but Kristof was waiting in his office, and one of the clients was occupying the restroom. The whatever-it-was clawed past his chest to the base of his throat.
David lowered his arms and crossed them over his stomach, swallowing convulsively. “Dr. Kendrick. I . . .”
Shite. He couldn’t open his mouth or it would erupt. He couldn’t let it loose in front of this group, adding yet another trauma to what they’d already suffered.
He turned away from the curious gazes of his clients, from David’s flush-reddened cheeks, strode down the hallway as if the entire pack of the Cwn Annwn were baying at his heels, and barricaded himself in the copy room. The space was barely a closet, housing office equipment and a shelf or two of supplies. He braced his hands on either corner of the copier, drawing in huge breaths in an attempt to dispel whatever this was that threatened to burst out of him.
Oak and thorn, he was about to explode. He squeezed his eyes shut as pressure rolled up from his belly through his chest, up his throat and out his mouth in an uncontrolled shout.
Laughter.
Rusty and overwhelming and nearly unrecognizable laughter. He hadn’t been tempted to so much as chuckle since the night of his curse. No wonder he hadn’t recognized the feeling, but Gwydion’s bollocks, it was bloody brilliant.
So he surrendered to it. Completely.
He chortled. He guffawed. He roared. He ran through the entire menu of laughter, gorging on it as if at a feast. Finally, he was reduced to a breathless wheeze.
David.
This was all his doing. Stubborn, impudent, maddening, human David, with his wildly colorful office accessories, constant challenges, and the worst dancing Alun had seen in over two millennia.
Goddess strike him blind, but the man was bloody wonderful.
Now what in all the hells was Alun supposed to do about him?
My stars, the look on Dr. Kendrick’s face. David had so stepped over the line this time. Jeez, Evans, you think? Over the line and straight into a pile of crap of his own making.
He cast a sidelong glance at the closed door of the copy closet. He should apologize. Grovel. Abase himself. Throw himself on the doctor’s nonexistent mercy.
Definitely on his must-do list for the evening. But for now? He stalled, wanting to savor his last few minutes of employment before Dr. Kendrick canned his ass. What the heck had come over him? He’d been seized with the uncontrollable desire to shake his pathetic booty. He’d never fallen that far off the professional wagon on a job before, not even when the furniture and office supplies had been flying about his head.
He checked the coffee urn, but it was still half-full. He couldn’t use making a fresh pot as an excuse to delay the inevitable, and he doubted even Aunt Cassie’s special blend would save him now. He gathered the pastilles he’d bundled up for Mr. Czardos and handed them to the man, who was standing in the doorway of the office, as still as if he’d been turned to stone by the horror of David’s dancing.
“I doubt I’ll be here for your next appointment, but you can get these at Ash Grove Confectionery on Hawthorne.”
Mr. Czardos accepted the little packet with a gracious inclination of his head. “You are very kind. But I expect I shall see you again nevertheless.”
David forced a smile. “I’m just a temp.”
“Even so.” He nodded again and glided through the waiting room and out the door with a gait so swift and smooth that he was gone almost before David could blink.
Time to face the music. Gah! Music was the problem. He should never have given in to the temptation to scavenge that CD. Unbecoming conduct aside, if Dr. Kendrick wanted to get technical about it, he had grounds to fire David for theft alone. Even though the CD had never left the premises, it certainly wasn’t where the doctor had put it.
David crept down the hallway, the low murmur of the clients’ conversation at his back. But no matter how he slowed his steps, the dang hallway wasn’t that long. He arrived at the door of the supply closet far too quickly.
He took a deep breath. Tugged his jacket straight. Straightened his bow tie. He tapped three times with one knuckle and cracked the door open. “Dr. Kendrick?” When he received no answering roar, he slipped inside.
The doctor was standing in front of the copier, his back to the room, his hands gripping the corners of the machine. His knuckles were white and his shoulders were shaking, probably with suppressed rage.
“Dr. Kendrick.” David’s voice was little more than a croak. “I apologize. I realize that I—”
Dr. Kendrick whirled and lunged forward. David clenched his eyes shut, his arms flying up to protect his head. He braced for a blow, but it didn’t come. He could feel the heat from Dr. Kendrick’s body, that massive chest inches from his face.
“David.”
“Nnnnng?”
“Look at me.”
He cracked one eye open and peeked at the doctor, whose arms were hanging loose at his sides. His fists weren’t clenched, his teeth weren’t bared, and he wasn’t wielding any blunt instruments.
That was a good sign, right?
David dropped his arms and raised his chin. “Whatever you want to say, I deserve it. Fire me. Get me banned for life from Fischer Temps. Just don’t . . .” His voice failed and he swallowed. “Don’t hurt me.”
Dr. Kendrick recoiled—not much, just a tiny flinch, but as close as they were, and as small as the room was, it was obvious. “You really believe I would injure you?”
His voice was low, almost a whisper, and that look in his eyes—was Dr. Juggernaut actually disappointed? David tugged on his bow tie, suddenly afraid he’d misread more than one situation today. “I don’t know you very well, and you looked so angry, and—”
“I don’t have any desire to hurt you, but if you’ll permit, I do want to do something else.”
“What?”
“Goddess forgive me,” he murmured. “This.” Dr. Kendrick framed David’s face in his enormous hands and lowered his head until his mouth was a hairsbreadth away from David’s. “Do you permit?”
He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. The hair on his arms stood at attention at the whisper of Dr. Kendrick’s—Alun’s—breath against his cheek.
David shut his eyes and moaned, “Oh yes. Please,” and Alun closed that last tiny distance and kissed him.
&n
bsp; Warm. Gentle. Soft. The man looked like a goblin berserker, but he had the mouth of an angel. David was so startled by the sweetness of the kiss that he almost forgot to participate. Must correct that heinous error. He clutched Alun’s shirt and parted his lips in invitation—I’m open to suggestions, big guy—but Alun didn’t take the bait. Where David expected fierce and possessive, befitting a man with Alun’s hot temper, the kiss was thorough but almost shy.
Alun drew back, his thumbs brushing David’s cheekbones. David teetered forward, breath ragged, off-balance in more ways than one. He gazed up at Alun, and somehow, whether it was the dimness of the room, or David’s overactive imagination projecting what he expected to see based on that incredible kiss, Alun’s face didn’t look as monstrous. His eyes—so beautiful. Hazel, swirling brown and amber, pupils wide. The brow ridges weren’t as pronounced, the jaw not as heavy, maybe because the man was smiling.
Smiling, for the first time since David had walked in the door.
“Your face . . .”
Instantly, Alun shut down. He backed off and turned away. “I’m sorry. I overstepped the bounds. I should have known. Someone as beautiful as you would never—”
“Hey!” David crowded close and poked Alun on the shoulder until he faced David again. “I make my own choices, thank you very much.”
He grabbed Alun’s head and pulled it down, carding his fingers through the surprisingly soft hair, prepared to kiss the holy freaking crap out of the man.
A giggle echoed down the hallway. Clients. Work. Dang.
With one last stroke down Alun’s chest—which, yes, felt just as awesome under his hands as he’d imagined—David stepped back. “The group. They’re waiting.”
Alun’s eyes, nearly all pupil now, showed only a narrow rim of amber. David shivered at the heat and intent. “Damn the group.”
“Alun. No. They need you.”
“Bloody hells.” Alun shook his head like a dog shedding water. “What was I thinking? You’re—you’re—”
“An employee? I don’t care if you don’t.”
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