by Zoe Chant
Heather smiled. “Please don’t,” she said.
“Let’s try something else,” Rez said, drawing her down beside him on the bed.
Vesta, unfortunately, decided that this meant all of her favorite people were there to play with her.
“No Vesta,” Heather scolded. “Down. Stay.”
Vesta folded reluctantly backwards on tightly coiled legs, clearly ready to spring into action at their slightest inattention.
“Close your eyes,” Rez commanded, and Heather shuttered her warm brown eyes obediently.
“The ley lines are all around you,” he assured her. “At all times. You can always feel them, even when you think you can’t; your brain just doesn’t know what to do with that information.”
Vesta decided that her command to stay had worn off and she chose that moment to leap into Heather’s lap and lick her face.
“I can feel that!” Heather laughed, pushing the dog away gently. “Vesta, don’t make me throw you out.”
Vesta dashed to the other side of the bed and rolled upside down in reckless ecstasy just out of Heather’s reach.
“Let’s try again,” Rez said, after giving the hound belly rubs. “In the bathroom.”
“Oh-kay,” Heather said dubiously.
“You have a mirror in there. I will attempt a simple scry and you can try to help me.”
They closed a protesting Vesta outside the bathroom and Heather sat gingerly on the closed toilet and closed her eyes.
Rez concentrated, trying to grasp at the shreds of power he could sense. It was like trying to catch smoke. Once or twice, he thought he saw flashes of light, but only the vaguest light showed on the mirror, swiftly gone.
“I’m sorry,” Heather said meekly, opening her eyes.
Rez slowly knelt at her feet and took her hands. “A few days ago, you knew nothing of magic. Today you single-handedly purged three dours from innocent people. You have not failed. You may be tired, we may need better direction from Robin about how to work together, perhaps you merely need time for your mind to accept what is happening. But do not apologize. Do not for a moment underestimate your own miraculousness.”
She blinked rapidly, her eyes suspiciously bright. “Daniella said it would get stronger, the closer we got.” Her voice was low and careful.
Closer to this beautiful woman? He wanted her with a deep hunger that was barely sated by their previous activity. He wanted everything she offered...even if he knew he’d done nothing to earn it.
“How do we do that?” he asked gently.
“Well...I don’t think you have to sleep on the air mattress tonight,” Heather said shyly.
He rose to cradle her face and crush her lips against his. He could not understand why destiny would reward his failure like this, but he was utterly powerless to resist her.
Chapter 24
To Heather’s relief, there was no sign all day at the Faire grounds of any dour activity all the next day, and the odd behavior of Allen had been brushed off as a bad reaction to medicine; he didn’t remember any of it. Even the people who’d been injured had only the haziest of memories. Drunken brawling wasn’t that unusual, and although Teresa had been witnessed breaking the pottery by dozens of people, nothing came of it, as if no one could think about the incident very clearly, so it must not be important.
It was still burned behind Heather’s eyes, vivid and disturbing, and she thought that one of the creepiest parts of it was that no one seemed to notice once it was done and past.
“I’m glad the dours are gone,” Heather said, as they returned to the spinner’s tent.
“Robin said that they did not think many of them had escaped. But their behavior indicates direction. The greater danger is that they were likely being controlled by a bleak, one that has found us and plans to stop us.”
“Tell me about bleaks,” Heather said. But there were customers at her tent, and she swiftly added, “Later. Duty calls.”
She knew that duty was one thing that Rez would never turn down, and she smothered her doubt that duty was what she was to Rez first and foremost.
Later ended up being considerably later, when they had returned to Heather’s apartment. Hot and sweaty from most of the day at the Ren Faire, they enjoyed a long, luxurious shower together that side-tracked them back to her bedroom.
Vesta, left outside, destroyed a book.
Once Rez and Heather had picked up all the chewed up pages of The Duke’s Seduction, Heather ordered a pizza for delivery, and they sat together on the floor in the living room assuring a very dramatic Vesta that she was not going to be abandoned, and that they still loved her.
“You mentioned that you would heal Levi up if you injured him. We have stories about unicorns being able to heal things, too. Is it magic?”
“It is, but it is instinctive magic, something that comes with my form. It is not spell magic. I...probably should not have made a promise I was not sure I could keep. I cannot do it in human form.”
Heather wanted to ask to see his unicorn again, for the purely selfish reason of OMG, unicorn! But he’d been so embarrassed by his diminished size that she didn’t push the issue.
“Tell me about bleaks,” she said instead.
It was almost as if the air conditioner was suddenly working at twice the efficiency.
“Bleaks are pure darkness,” Rez said. “They are shadows, wraiths, evil beings that only partially exist. They are smart and cruel and determined. Once, they all acted independently, and were of small threat. They could be rooted out and destroyed at leisure. But a man—a mere human that we underestimated drastically until it was too late—bound them to his own dark purpose and taught them to control the dours.
“Dours themselves were merely minor nuisances, little pockets of chaos, until the bleaks learned to train and multiply them. Cerad formed the bleaks and dours into an army, toppled the kingdom, broke the crown, and destroyed the world.”
Heather was sitting facing Rez, and she rubbed his thigh with her foot. “That’s not going to happen here,” she insisted. “We won’t let it.”
“I fear…”
Ding dong.
“Pizza,” Heather said, climbing to her feet. “I gotta buzz him up and scrounge up a good tip because it’s three stories up and nearly ninety.”
Pizza was worth the interruption. Heather had never enjoyed watching anyone eat a simple pepperoni slice the way she watched Rez.
He closed his eyes and ate it avidly, licking his fingers and oily lips in something that could only be classified as nirvana.
They demolished the pie, though Heather only ate two slices herself, and then lay in a full stupor before Daniella called to ask Heather to forward a copy of her resume and they talked for some time about rooming logistics and Vesta’s needs.
They practiced magic for a while, to no particular avail. Heather couldn’t see anything but the insides of her own eyelids, and Rez could cast no magic.
He didn’t offer to change into a unicorn, and as much as she wanted to, Heather didn’t ask him to.
Chapter 25
Rez woke a few mornings later to the sound of clicking and lay very still trying to figure it out. Heather wasn’t beside him, but Vesta was sprawled in her space. It was impossible how much room she took up for a creature so minute. All four of her delicate legs were stretched out, and when she saw that Rez was awake, her tail began to whip the pillow beside her as she wriggled closer for his attention.
Rez didn’t let her charms distract him from what woke him.
Click.
Click, clickclick.
Click, click…
Heather’s world was filled with strange sounds and loud machines, but this was something new and different. It was organic. Not quite mechanical. It tapped out a changing pattern. And it was inside the apartment.
Silent from long hours of practice, he slipped from beneath the sheets and padded to the door. He had already figured out how to open it soundlessly, at just the
right speed, with just a little uplift, so that the hinges didn’t squeak.
The sound was coming from the living room, where the air conditioner was humming unmusically.
Click.
Click click, clickclick.
Click…click, click click…
For a while, he just watched her: the beautiful line of her neck, the soft curves of her body, her shapely legs and the curls she worse close-cropped. They had still had not had great luck in making magic together, and Rez thought that she blamed herself, but Rez knew that it was his own doubts and insecurities that held them back.
He was not sure he deserved the happiness he’d found in Heather’s arms. He had failed his world, and he had earned no measure of the joy she brought him. “What is this that you are doing?” he asked, after watching Heather quietly for a moment.
Heather gave a little shriek and nearly dropped the strange rods she was holding wrapped in yarn. “Would you quit sneaking up on me?” she panted. “Someone your size should not be able to move around like that in an apartment this size. I’m going to put a bell around your neck if you keep doing this.”
Contritely, Rez came to sit beside her. “I am sorry for startling you,” he said, but he was secretly pleased by her reaction. He had worried his skills would atrophy, as soft as his life with Heather was. Vesta, who had followed him, jumped up between them on the couch.
“Haven’t you seen knitting before?” Heather asked, resuming her labor. The metal rods clicked against each other swiftly. “They had knitting in the fifth century in this world. Didn’t you have sweaters?”
The yarn that had appeared randomly looped on her tools were, upon closer inspection, most of a circular cone. She was making a hat.
“Your talents are many,” Rez said admiringly. “I knew of such an art, but never learned domestic skills.”
“This explains a lot,” Heather muttered, but she smiled at him. “I was packing up the closet and found a half-finished project. I figured a hat might come in handy in Michigan, and I thought I could probably finish it today.”
Much of their packing had gone like this over the past several days; Heather had filled many boxes, given many boxes away, and been sidelined by half-finished projects in excess of a dozen times.
“I found a few boxes of material and patterns that I’d wanted to make into doll clothes for Julie’s daughter,” she told Rez. “I thought I’d finish a few for Robin, if they wanted them.”
Rez watched in awe as her fingers flashed. She didn’t even watch them as she worked. She was, in fact, watching Rez, who hadn’t bothered to get dressed, with hunger in her eyes. He couldn’t quite resist flexing a little for her, and had to laugh when she fumbled the rods and cursed, giggling. She unwound what she’d done, eyes fixedly back on her work.
Vesta, already resigned to not getting attention from Heather, clambered into Rez’s lap and butted her head into his leg. He picked her up, to forestall her hard nails on his uncovered thigh, and she gave a groan of delight and flopped into him, her tail beating furiously against his chest.
“Why does this amuse you?” he asked Heather, who looked like she was about to fold over with humor, her fingers stilled in yarn.
“It’s complicated,” she said. “See, unicorns in this world have a reputation for being attracted to virginal things.”
Rez sniffed. “Clearly not something our worlds have in common,” he scoffed.
“It’s only funny because Vesta is named after the virgin Roman goddess of home and hearth. So it’s...sorry, it’s lame. It just amused me.”
“Never apologize for laughing,” Rez said sincerely. “I endeavor to always amuse you. Laughter is a salve to ears long missing the sound of it.”
She gave him a look of pity and warmth. “That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” she admitted.
Rez heaved a sigh. “I have failed,” he moaned theatrically. “Even in making you laugh.”
Heather shook her head. “The Ren Faire really should have hired you. Add it to your string of titles. Rez, fae knight of the broken kingdom, ham of Fairburn, protector of small hounds and damsels in distress.”
“Are you distressed, my lady?” Rez asked. “Because I have many methods of...comfort.”
“I am terribly distressed.” Heather abandoned her knitting altogether and crawled into his lap with Vesta, fingers running along his chest. “I’m planning a big upheaval in my life, so I might need a lot of comfort,” she teased.
Vesta was abandoned to the floor next to the knitting as Rez gathered his key up instead. “I have a lot of...comfort to offer,” he said, kissing her neck. He rose to his feet holding her, to Heather’s surprise and delight. She clung to him and giggled.
He carried her back to the bedroom and shut the door on Vesta, who howled.
“This unicorn is attracted to only one damsel,” he growled.
“My knight in shining armor,” Heather murmured.
Rez had read enough by now to know the reference. “My lady,” he said, laying her gently into the rumpled bed. “My one. My key.”
She stilled for a moment, as if the term alarmed her, then softened again as he kissed her.
He unbuttoned her shorts, slowly kissing her belly as he shimmied them and her underwear off of her curving hips, then down past her knees and off her feet.
He kissed his way back up her legs, and she squirmed in anticipation and delight as he slowly moved towards her treasure. When he laid his mouth at her entrance and licked, carefully, she gave a muffled cry of surprise and delight.
Rez spent some time there, exploring her folds, caressing her places of pleasure and gauging what made her most frantic.
“How did you do that?” she demanded, when Rez returned triumphantly to peel off her shirt.
“I have been reading your books,” Rez admitted. “You have a selection of particularly erotic novels in the table by the bed.”
She giggled and pulled him close. “Did you read The Duke’s Seduction before Vesta ate it?”
“I enjoyed that one particularly,” Rez said with a grin.
“Want to act out the garden scene?” Heather invited.
When they came out, considerably later and sweatier, Vesta had taken her frustration out on the nascent hat, and there was yarn dragged around half the house.
Chapter 26
Julie took Heather’s two week notice in stride, though she cautioned Heather sternly about throwing away her life to move across the country with a guy she’d just met.
“Not that I really blame you,” Julie added, sighing over the counter at Rez.
Heather had bought him some more clothing at the second hand store, though she wasn’t sure what Michigan fashion was, besides probably colder than Georgia. It was close to Canada, so plaid seemed appropriate, and hockey jerseys. None of it could hide his amazing physique.
Julie and Heather exchanged hugs and promised to keep in touch on Facebook.
Beth was rather grumpier about the notice.
Heather felt bad for abandoning her and worried that she’d lost a friend until she showed up to collect her last belongings and turn in her badge. Beth gave her a heaping basket of yarn, a hand-carved drop spindle that Heather had been coveting for months, and the number for someone who was interested in subletting the apartment for the last two months of the lease.
They also exchanged hugs, and when Heather glanced back, Beth was wiping away tears.
Rez carried out the basket for her, Vesta snuggled into his other elbow, and Heather felt excited and scared.
She was really going to do this, move across half the country and try to be a hero. She and Rez had continued to try using her magic, but were still thwarted. Robin seemed to think they would have more luck helping them in person and Daniella just smirked knowingly.
Rez was an old hand with public transportation by now, weaving through the crowds with casual ease and handling his own fare. He still drew considerable attention with his powerful strid
e and incredible good looks, but Heather had stopped being afraid that he would step off the subway landing or try to take on a car or a parking meter in noble battle.
When they arrived back at the apartment, there was a nasty note on the front door from Marcus denying her request to break the lease. He had been avoiding her since the incident with Rez, leaving passive aggressive notes instead of answering her voicemails. He still hadn’t come by to collect his toolbox.
“I think he just likes to pretend he has power over me,” Heather said, crumpling the note as she unlocked the door.
Rez actually growled, rolling his shoulders forward furiously. “He has no power over you,” he snarled.
Heather stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I’ll be gone soon enough, anyway. And maybe Beth’s friend will take over the lease. He’s a big burly guy that Marcus won’t dare leer at. Otherwise, I’m not out that much and he can kiss my ass.”
“I would not be happy with his lips upon your ass,” Rez grumbled, but the corner of his mouth quirked in a smile; he was beginning to grasp modern slang, and every so often he would surprise Heather with his understanding. He was smart, not just big and gorgeous.
Vesta wriggled in Rez’s arms and he set her down to prance into the apartment. It was starting to look chaotic, with packed boxes and goodwill boxes and boxes to be put in storage at Julie’s house stacked in every corner. The furniture had all been photographed and posted on Craigslist, and some of the pieces were already missing.
Rez had been firm and frowned at one of the buyers who tried to lowball on the kitchen table after an agreement had already been made and Heather had ended up getting full price for it and also selling her an extra chair at a good price. Heather considered herself independent and self-sufficient, but she could get used to being with a great, ripped guy who liked to carry heavy things and scare people who were mean to her.
Robin reported that they were feeling up to strength and was impatient to get them to Michigan, but Daniella was firm that Heather should take whatever time she needed to get things settled.