by Lauren Dawes
“Hold on to me,” he murmured, unwrapping his arm to shake out the light, silver plastic-composite covering. When it was fully unfurled, he wrapped it around my shoulders.
I snuggled into the plastic wrapping, trying to conserve as much heat as I could. I had no intention of visiting the hospital today or any other day in the near future. I’d seen enough of the inside of one in the last month and a half.
Sawyer guided me to sit astride his bike, getting me settled before sliding on in front of me and kicking the engine into life. I wrapped my arms weakly around his waist and buried my face into his back. He didn’t badger me about the helmet this time though, and for that, I was grateful. He was treating me like I was made of glass.
Slowly, he drove us back to his apartment where I got the cash-and-carry service again.
“Can I take a shower?” I asked softly when he deposited me on the couch, urging me to lie down fully. I was still cold, but at least my teeth had stopped chattering.
“Sorry, pussy cat. Not yet. We need to bring your core temperature up more slowly than that. Just sit here a little longer, and I’ll make you some hot cocoa.” Pulling the unicorn blanket off the back of the couch, he draped that over me too before disappearing into the kitchen.
I listened to him making the hot drink, the sound of the fridge opening, a canister popping, and a spoon diving in. I must’ve fallen asleep because when Sawyer nudged me awake, he was holding a hot cup of cocoa, steam curling from the top.
“Can you sit up for me? That’s a good girl,” he crooned softly. Placing a dryer-warmed towel around my neck, he handed me the mug and tucked the blankets more tightly around my body.
As I took a sip, he perched on the edge of the coffee table and looked at me.
“What the hell were you thinking, Cat?” he asked in a harsh whisper that was a complete juxtaposition to his gentle handling of me. “Running out onto the ice like that? Not being aware of your surroundings? You could’ve been killed.”
“I saw a hand. I thought it was Gwen’s son. As soon as those fingers wrapped around mine, though, I knew it was wrong. How in the world could Gwen’s son survive a night in a frozen-over lake?”
“I don’t think she has a son. I think it was all a ruse to get you down there so the kappas could take you.”
I heaved a tired-sounding sigh. “You know, I’m getting really sick of murder attempts. That’s three in the past two days.”
“Your reckless desire to help everyone will get you killed one of these days.” His words were strong, but he tempered them by stroking my still damp teal hair off my forehead. “I could’ve lost you, and the thought terrifies me, Cat.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but I’ll try to be more careful.”
He huffed a laugh, then slid to his knees, getting closer to me. His gaze became focused on my mouth, and I titled my face up to his, giving him the permission he was seeking.
“I just have to know… to remind myself you’re still here,” he reasoned, even as he leaned down and brushed his lips to mine. The kiss—even as tame as it was—created a spark in my body. I felt it rush through my blood, but that always seemed to be the way with Sawyer and his touch. He was like an electrical storm, and I was the lightning rod attracting his pull.
He slanted his mouth over mine, deepening a kiss that had purely started as a confirmation kiss—a kiss that was meant to show him I was alive and breathing but not necessarily warm yet. This kiss, however, was filled with more. It was almost possessive, as if he was prying me out of Death’s cold fingers and claiming me as his own.
Although I was enjoying the fuck out of it, I pulled back, breaking the seal of our lips.
He frowned down at me, his eyes swirling with black. “I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly.
“It’s okay.” I touched his face, jerking his gaze to my eyes. “It’s okay.”
He pressed his forehead to mine, and we stayed like that for a little while. “I don’t know how to do this, pussy cat. I don’t know how to let you go when I know you’re the one for me.”
I snorted softly. “How do you know that?” But I also knew the answer. I knew it in the way his black slacks were tented with an unashamed erection. I knew it in the way his chocolate and whisky scent calmed me and amped me up simultaneously. I knew it in the way he looked at me—with frustration, yes—but also with such gentle… love?
“Let’s get you into bed while I go back to the office and file the report.”
I walked on my own this time, Sawyer taking the mug of cocoa from me so I didn’t spill it on my unicorn blanket. I shuffled into my bedroom and propped up the pillows while Sawyer pulled back the quilt. I got in and was covered in a mountain of downy goodness.
“Here. Be a good girl and finish this.”
He turned to leave, but I stopped him. “What are we going to do about Gwen?”
“What can we do? I doubt she’ll show up again.”
“Why do you think she did what she did, then?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. She did say she was sorry, though, so maybe she had no choice in the matter? Maybe someone was forcing her hand.”
“I can probably take a wild guess as to who that someone was,” I grumbled.
“We can deal with her later.” He pointed at the mug I had rested on my thigh. “Drink. Rest. I’ll see you tonight.”
I gave him a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”
Eight
I woke up to my phone ringing from beside me on the bed. I groped around blindly for it, answering the call and running a tired hand over my face.
“Hello?”
“Cat?” a man asked.
His voice was familiar. I pulled the device away to look at the screen. “Mason.” I breathed out his name but held back the groan.
“Yeah, it’s me. I said I’d give you a call.”
“You did say that,” I murmured. But I didn’t think he’d actually do it. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. How are you?”
“Eh.” I waved my hand around in front of my face. “You don’t want to know.”
“Oh? Has something happened?”
I sat up because telling the guy you might be dating that you had another two attempts on your life within the space of a couple of days was something that required a fair amount of brainpower. “You could say that. I’ve just had a little bit of trouble with the fae.”
“Oh.” That one word was fearful, and honestly, I couldn’t blame the guy. “Look—”
Annnd here it came. The brush off. The let’s-stay-friends line that I thought would’ve come a lot later. Although, given my proclivity for getting into trouble, maybe not.
“You don’t have to say it,” I told him on a sigh. “I get that my life is too insane for you, so let’s just leave it at that and be friends.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked in reply. “Because that wasn’t what I was going to say.”
He wasn’t? “Ahhh, what were you going to say?” I played with the unicorn blanket over my legs, brushing the pile one way, then the other.
“I was going to ask if I could see you again. Maybe we could try getting dinner this time? I did enjoy our time together the other night.”
He had? Well, color me surprised.
“Dinner sounds great, but I kind of can’t leave my apartment right now. I’m recovering from…” How to phrase this one…
Nearly dying was too hysterical, although the most accurate.
A little under the weather wasn’t quite serious enough.
Peachy was a flat-out lie, and as soon as Mason got one look at me, he’d know.
“Recovering from?” he prompted.
I shook my head, clearing it. “Recovering from a cold. I’m laid up in bed right now, actually.”
“I can make you dinner then. I’ll bring everything over and feed you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I started.
“I know. I want to. Wha
t’s your address?”
What the hell would Sawyer think of this? I wondered. Then shrugged. I’d just let him know someone was coming over, and he’d simply have to deal with it. I gave Mason my address.
“Great. I’ll see you around six, then?”
“Six sounds great.”
“Great!” he said brightly again. “I’ll see you then.”
I hung up the phone, watching the screen fade to black. Pressing the button on the bottom, I unlocked the device and sent a text to Sawyer, letting him know Mason was coming over tonight. With any luck, he’d read it and go somewhere else if he didn’t want to see the guy.
My gaze drifted to the time, and I was startled to find I’d been asleep for a few hours. I had better get up, though. The good news was I was feeling a lot better, so I shoved off the quilt and blankets and slid out of bed. Thanks to Nervous-Nelly-Sawyer, who’d set the heating in the apartment to inferno, I was sweating, so I pulled on a pair of silky unicorn boxers and a tank top with a silhouette of a unicorn with the words FUCKING MAGICAL written in an arc above and below it, and I padded through to the kitchen. I stood there for a moment—thinking—before wandering into Sawyer’s library once more.
He had so many books—more than I could probably read in my lifetime—but it made me wonder whether Sawyer had read them all. As I walked along the shelves, I ran my fingers over the spines, the soft thump, thump, thump filling my ears. I wasn’t reading the titles. I was simply soaking up the feel of the room, knowing that this was where Sawyer would sequester himself away sometimes.
I stopped abruptly when I saw the title of a book that intrigued me. It intrigued me more that Sawyer even had it in his collection.
“Sexual Demons,” I muttered, reading the title. “A Compendium.”
Flipping open the cover, I was greeted by an incredibly detailed sketch of a man and a woman in the middle of the sexual act. She was on top of the man, straddling his hips, grinding on his cock. The man’s expression was rapturous. The woman’s face was sultry, a peek of fangs from under her top lip. I read the description below the picture.
A succubus feeding during coitus.
Yeah, that was self-explanatory. I skipped a few more pages until I hit the table of contents and ran my finger down the text. I stopped when I got to the section on incubi and flipped to that page. There was another detailed sketch of a man taking a woman from behind this time, his eyes dark as he gripped her hair in his fist. A tingle spread down my body as I looked at the naughty picture.
I read the introduction, then kept on going, learning about the history of the species, how they were thought to have evolved, why they fed, and how they could be killed. Judging from the information, this was written by humans. Were there books written about supes by supes?
I turned the last page and stopped when I saw the word consort? written in swirling script in the margin. It was next to a paragraph about how they fed and what happened if they were to stop. Scanning the section, I learned only what Sawyer had told me. If he didn’t feed, he would weaken and eventually die. My gaze darted to the word consort again.
Did he think this was how to stop it all? Faline—a succubus who had betrayed me to her vampire lover—had said she would do anything to stop feeding off a new man every day. She’d been convinced that feeding from a vampire would stop that. I had no idea whether or not that was true, and it wasn’t like I could ask. Both of them were long dead now.
Maybe having a consort was the answer, but where would he find his and what would be the sign that she belonged to him?
I jerked my head up when I heard the buzzer shrill through the apartment. I frowned, stood, and walked into the living room, staring at the little intercom by the door. Who could that be? A quick look at the clock confirmed that I’d been sucked into a time warp in the library—it was six o’clock, on the dot.
I pushed the button on the intercom. “Hello?”
“Cat? It’s Mason,” came the tinny reply.
I buzzed him in and looked down at what I was wearing. Nothing appropriate for company. I was about to run and get changed when there was a knock on the door. Damn, the man was fast getting up here.
For half a beat, I stood there until the knocking came again.
“Ah, fuck it,” I mumbled. I was recovering from hypothermia. Give me a break. I pulled open the door, opened my mouth to greet Mason, then shut it.
It was not Mason.
“Who are you?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.
The male on the other side of the door bent at the waist, dropping into a low bow, but kept his eyes on my face. “Madam, my name is Blaze.”
“I’m going to need a little more information there, Blaze. What do you want?”
“My mistress sent me.”
I cringed. Grindylow had said the same thing not two weeks ago, and within an hour, I was almost drowned. Although, it seemed like I’d gotten the almost-drowning piece out of the way with the kappas.
Still, I narrowed my eyes. Blaze was still stooped low. “You can… I don’t know… unbow now.”
The man straightened to his full height, which—given the way I had to crane my neck—was somewhere in the vicinity of over six feet. I looked him over. No bulges under his clothing. No visible weapons. In fact, he appeared to be wearing something that looked scarily like the male characters in the historical romance Sawyer and I had watched the other night, or early morning. I guess it depended on how you wanted to look at it.
Golden blond hair flopped over his forehead, tempering his vivid violet irises.
“Madam, I am here at the behest of Her Royal Highness, Astrid Woodbryre S’Quainforrest, Queen of Spring and Summer and of the Seelie Court.”
“Quite a mouthful there, Blaze.” He shot me a strange look and waved away his confusion. “I use humor when I’m in a situation that scares the pants off me. The funnier I get, the more scared I am. Just sit back and enjoy the laughs.” I hiked my hands up onto my hips and gave him my best bad-cop stare. “What does Her Royal Highness need from me?”
“She tried to telephone you, but the connection was a bad one. She sent me to reiterate her request for help.”
“Help,” I murmured the word. People asking for help was my kryptonite, dammit. I heaved a heavy, resigned sigh. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what she needs help with, then.”
He bowed low again, his face almost buffing the wood floor. “She wishes for aid against her sister, Avi.”
From the phone call, I’d gleaned it was about dear old sis. “What’s going on between them? Did she borrow something without asking? Steal her boyfriend?”
Blaze shook his head. “The details I am not privy to, but my mistress has asked for you to come and speak to her. She is not currently ruling, therefore cannot leave Wonderland.”
I slithered my hand up to my opal. Like before, the stone was only warm from my body heat. No glow. No warning. Blaze’s eyes remained on my face—the perfect servant waiting for his orders.
“How does she know I can come into Wonderland?”
“She knows everything that happens in Wonderland. They are connected.” Then he made a strange motion with his hand like a Catholic would when stepping into a church. With his fore and middle fingers, he touched the side of his neck, then his forehead as he bowed it.
“Err, what was that?” At his confused look, I said, “That thing you just did.”
“Oh! It’s a ritual blessing to Wonderland.”
A blessing? Like humans asked for God’s protection? Did that mean—
Nope. Not going to think about that.
I shook my head. “Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t just walk into—” I stopped, staring as Blaze made the signs again. When he was done, I said, “Wonderland.”
He made the blessing again.
I covered my mouth with the back of my hand to hide my smile. Bad Cat. I shouldn’t mess with the fae.
“Sorry, but I can’t just walk in there. I’m hum
an you see.”
“My queen knows of your ability.” His gaze darted to my necklace. “She knows the origins of that stone you wear. If you were to come to her, she would tell you in exchange for your help.”
My heart began to pound louder in my ears. What a carrot to dangle in front of my nose. My need to know about not only the opal but also Rogue Faction, which was a constant gnawing at my mind. Licking my lips, I practically tasted finally knowing about the stone that protected me. Was it madness to accept this deal, or was it madness to decline?
“I need to think about it,” I croaked out.
“Of course. My queen said you would say that because you are smart and wise. She has asked for you to give her an answer within twenty-four of your human hours. I shall return then for it.”
Blaze sank into one last low bow, then turned and walked down the hallway. I watched him leave, all the while wondering how he’d gotten into the secure building in the first place. I was about to close the door when I heard someone call my name.
Pushing it back open again, I saw Mason standing there with two grocery sacks balanced in his arms. He came toward me, smiling, his hair hanging loose this time. The ends brushed the top of his shoulders, curling a little around his ears.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” I eyed the groceries again. “Feeding an army?”
He grinned. “I wanted to make you something special.”
Stepping back from the door, I motioned for him to come in. “You can put the groceries on the kitchen counter.”
I closed us in and went to the fridge, unprepared to play host after the visit from Blaze. “Something to drink?” I asked, scanning the contents of the shelves. Sawyer had his shelf neatly lined and organized at the top. It was filled with health food and stuff that didn’t contain nearly enough sugar. Mine was the next one down. Opened bags of candy and chocolate bars sprawled out on the wire shelves, and I popped an M&M into my mouth, chewing as I tried to figure out what to serve.