Black Arts, White Craft by Hailey Edwards

7

The sounds of battle greeted us when we entered the cabin. Over the chaos, a confident voice barked an impressive string of orders. I had no idea what they meant, but Colby’s friends understood her murder-y shorthand, and soon fresh cries of agony bounced off the walls as the gamers vanquished their enemies.

Seriously, what had those poor orcs done to deserve The Blade of Doom kill formation or the Eyeball Gusher finishing move?

“Potty break,” she told them. “Pick off the stragglers. I’ll be back in five.”

After gliding down from the loft, she lit on my head and leaned over to examine my expression.

“Rough night.” I scratched her back. “How was yours?”

“I leveled up, finally beat this stupid orcon, like a dragon and orc combo, that’s been guarding a hoard I wanted to plunder, and I stole a new pet off one of the corpses of my enemies. He’s adorable. An orange kitten in a suit of armor that came with the expansion pack someone wouldn’t buy me but everyone else has.”

Whoever thought of paying real money for virtual items? Genius. And the bane of parents everywhere.

“You stole a kitten off a corpse.” I replayed that in my head. “I don’t know if I should be proud or disturbed.”

“Proud.” She fluttered her wings. “I’ve almost collected all the expansion pack extras from my kills.”

A person like me had no business raising a kid. Colby wasn’t a kid, and I wasn’t trying to be her mom. More like the fun aunt who let her get away with too much and loved her unconditionally. But I had to wonder if it was a good thing that I had created a cyber serial killer on the prowl for rare treasures.

Colby lived a virtual life in so many aspects, and I fully supported that. It gave her a safe way to connect with others her age or those who shared her passions. All without revealing her nature. Or her location.

But maybe I ought to put on my faux-parenting hat and give her a talk about why serial killing was bad, even if your victims had cool stuff you could pickpocket off their dead bodies.

After all, she had me for a role model. I was, at best, a reformed homicidal maniac.

“I’m going to wash up, and then I’m going to cook breakfast.” I twitched my shoulder to send her on her way. “Have you eaten yet?”

“My five minutes are up.” She buzzed Clay on her way back to the loft. “I gotta go.”

That was not the same as telling me she had eaten her breakfast, but she was old enough to come down and fix herself food when she got hungry. I ought to be thankful she wasn’t a teenage boy I had to nag about showers. Moths were tidy creatures.

The bedroom I had chosen stuck with the overall cabin theme. The bed, dresser, and nightstand were made of logs the color of the walls. Without the quilts in gorgeous colors and patterns breaking up the sameness, I wasn’t sure I could have navigated the room. It was too much like a funhouse with mirrored walls, floors, and ceilings. The effect of so much wood stained the same color was dizzying.

Aiming for the bathroom, I discovered more of the same. At least the tub/shower combo was white.

Under the hot spray, I washed off the woods and the camper’s blood. Forehead resting on the cool tile, I asked myself why I had been moved to sit with her until she passed when I could have expedited her departure and beat the sunrise to the cabin.

The knowledge it was the right thing to do sprung into my head, fully formed, leaving me without doubt.

The right thing to do.

It felt weird to just know and not to have to ask for a second opinion or look to others for an example. Maybe my plan to act like a good person until I figured out what that meant for me was manifesting in real changes after a decade of faking it.

That thought bolstered my mood as I dried off and changed into pajamas to cook in, since I planned on retiring to my room as soon as I had a full stomach. Entering the kitchen, I found Colby and Clay with their heads bent together over his phone.

“What’s so funny?” I started rooting around the cabinets. “You’re both snickering.”

“I’m showing Clay some of my favorite kills,” she explained, “just the ones I’ve uploaded to Twitch.”

Oh, yeah.

Definitely having the serial killer talk with her.

Once I spotted a bowl full of fruit on the counter, I knew what was on the menu. “Where’s Asa?”

“Perimeter check,” Clay murmured to me then refocused on his screen. “Shorty, the day Pacific Rim becomes our new reality, you are on my team. You and I will pilot a Jaeger together. Catch my Drift?”

Colby burst into laughter then explained to me, the idiot in the room. “The pilot mind link is called Drifting.”

“I knew that.”

I totally did not know that.

“Mmm-hmm.” She shared a glance with Clay. “Rue prefers books to movies.” She cut her eyes toward me. “Romance novels.” Her antennae quivered. “The last one was about a snake shifter and an eagle shifter.”

“That explains so much about you and Ace,” he said thoughtfully. “So much.”

“Very funny.” I rolled my eyes. “Both of you. Seriously. You should take your act on the road.”

At her mental age, Colby still viewed boys as cootie farms whose main export was, well, cooties.

For that, I was grateful. I would never have to give my little moth the talk about the birds and the bees.

“I’m making quick and dirty bananas Foster pancakes.” I thumped Clay’s nose. “People who mock my taste in reading, or men, get none.”

“From the heart of my bottom, I apologize for any rudeness on my part.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I shouldn’t have said what I said about you and Ace. It’s not your fault romance novels have led you to believe the reformed bad boy is where it’s at.”

“Romance novels, which you got me hooked on, have taught me valuable life lessons.”

Clay rubbed his nape and avoided Colby’s smug grin as she filed away that tidbit.

The sword cut both ways, and he better remember it. She had an excellent memory when it suited her.

“Name one.” Colby squinted at me. “What have you learned except kissy stuff?”

Put on the spot, I now had to articulate a truth I hadn’t realized until Clay teased me.

“How relationships work.” I chose a few bananas to slice. “Not the kissy ones, but the rest.”

Expression pinched, Colby thought it over. “You read them to figure out how to make friends?”

That made me sound all kinds of sad, didn’t it? That I had to turn to fiction to grasp the friendship ideal.

But I was pretty sure that was the reason why Clay hooked me in the first place. He wanted me to read normal relationships, to glimpse normal lives, to experience normal problems. It was a secondhand life, not much different than Colby’s virtual one, if less interactive, but it did help me see there was more to living than blood and death. There was also improbable shifter romance, which was my latest addiction.

“I wasn’t raised like a normal kid.” I pulled down the other ingredients and started measuring and mixing my batter. “I wasn’t taught how to socialize or how to interact with others in a casual setting or…how to make friends.”

Until Clay took an interest in me, I had no one and nothing.

Except the director.

So, like I said, I had nothing.

“And.”I flicked my fingers at her, dusting her in flour. “I like the kissy stuff.”

While Colby digested that, Clay went back to his phone, and I started heating a pan on the stove.

A long howl raised the hairs down my nape, and I drifted outside to pinpoint the source in the distance.

The scents of sweet tobacco and juicy green apple filled my head as Asa joined me. “He’s up late.”

Asa might have leaned against me until our shoulders brushed, and I might have leaned right back.

The innocent contact shouldn’t have spread chills down that arm, but even my fingers were tingling.

“Based on the direction,” he murmured, “I would guess he’s aware we’ve located his food cache.”

The campers, his fresh kills, not the cave, which appeared to be his pre-zombie digs.

“If that got his boxers in a twist, that zombigo has more self-awareness than I would like.”

“Zombigo?” He huffed out a soft laugh. “Wendigo zombie?”

Inordinately pleased with him for putting it together, I flashed him a smile. “Exactly.”

His gaze snagged on my lips, and I resisted the urge to wet them, as my romance novels suggested I do.

“I made a gift for Colby, but I wanted to show you first.” He eased back a step. “To get your approval.”

“Color me intrigued.” I ignored how my heart turned to mush at his thinking of her. “Whatcha got?”

At the SUV, he opened the rear hatch, hesitated, then pulled out a flat white box. “It’s not much.”

From his tone, I could tell he believed that. Otherwise, he would have brought it up sooner.

In gifting Colby her laptop early, I must have ruined his surprise, which made me want to kick myself.

“I’m sure she’ll love it.” I removed the lid while he held the box. “Oh, wow.”

A knitted blanket in shades of green sat neatly folded inside. Raised leaves gave a 3D effect to the design that blew my mind. I had no idea knitting could be this intricate, or that he was so gifted at his craft. It fit with her bedroom’s forest theme at home, and she would love the velvety soft yarn he used to create it.

“It’s gorgeous.” I was afraid to lift it from the box, but I could tell it was Colby-sized. “She’s going to flip.”

“It’s not tech, so I wasn’t sure she would like it.” He frowned into the box, as if he only saw flaws where I only saw beauty. “The thing is…” He put the lid on it. “The throw has a gift I wanted to discuss with you.”

“I thought the throw was the gift.”

One I would steal for myself in a heartbeat if she neglected it for one single minute.

“I mentioned while you were recovering that I practice Tinkkit.” He shrugged it off like mastering ancient fae crafts were no big. Maybe he was embarrassed? Knitting wasn’t mainstream for guys. For daemons? Unheard of. But it fit this dae well. “You were overwhelmed at the time, so you might not remember.”

“The sight of you knitting, in glasses, is etched onto my frontal lobe.”

That jerked his gaze straight to mine, and his bright eyes burned crimson.

“The yarn was green,” I recalled, willing him to forget my lobe. “You were working on this even then?”

Rather than admit it, he fiddled with the lid. “It repels bad dreams.”

“Are you serious?” I stood there, mouth hanging open. “How are you not a billionaire?”

If I could imbue that type of magic into a practical piece of art like this, I would be the Queen of Etsy and spend my days Scrooge McDucking through my vault of gold coins. Or maybe not. I always thought that would hurt when I watched the cartoon. I would go with dollar bills. Those I could wad into balls to make my own money vault/ball pit. I bet Colby would love it.

And…I had been fantasizing a beat too long if the concern tightening his expression was any indication.

“I don’t sell these.” He clutched the box against his chest. “The magic only works when freely given.”

“I meant no offense.” I rested a hand on his arm. “This is incredible. Truly. Thank you.”

“Would you mind?” Slowly, as if convincing himself it wouldn’t end up on Etsy, he held it out, his request clear. “I’m not sure how she would take it from me.”

“I do mind.” I hooked my arm through his. “She likes you, and she’ll love this.”

Dragging his feet, he entered the house behind me, earning us a curious glance from Clay.

“Asa made you a gift.” I hauled him over to her. “Want to see?”

“You made it?” Her wide eyes shifted between us. “That’s cool.”

“You don’t have to use it,” he said under his breath, “if you don’t like it.”

He set the box on the counter before her and kept easing away until I had to grab him again to keep him from slinking to his room to escape her reaction. Used to fading into the background, I worried he would disappear under scrutiny. That was the reason why, I told myself, I held on tighter.

Rubbing four hands together, Colby tore off the lid then plastered on the expression every kid who ever asked for a gaming console but received Monopoly instead wore to mask their disappointment. Or so I had been led to believe by the Christmas movie marathons Colby forced me to watch each December.

“It’s great, Asa.” She injected false cheer into her voice. “Thank you.”

“He hasn’t told you the best part.” I elbowed him in the ribs. “Go on, explain it.”

Still not looking at her, shoulders bowing under her expectation, he murmured, “It repels bad dreams.”

“Like a dreamcatcher?” Her wings flittered with a rush of excitement. “And it works? For real?”

“Its magic only works for you,” he said, peeking up, “so you’ll have to test it.”

“Ace has never given anyone a bum gift,” Clay said in his partner’s defense. “It’s the real deal.”

“It feels…” she lifted it and buried her face in it, “…like a warm hug from Rue.”

With a practiced move, she slung it across her shoulders then tugged it up until it covered her head.

“Thanks, Asa.” She tucked it around herself. “This is the best present ever.”

Only her eyes peered out of the cowl of fabric. Even her antennae were in hiding. Out of the box, I could tell it was a four-by-four square. The perfect size for Colby to carry around with her at home and on any cases that required our assistance to maintain the letter of my bargain with Black Hat.

“You’re welcome.” Gaze sliding away, he tugged on one of his earrings. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Want to see my moves?” She jostled Clay’s elbow to get his attention. “Show him.”

The two of them settled in to watch her slaying her enemies while I returned to the hot stove, thankful the cabin hadn’t burned down around us, and made us all breakfast. I kept sneaking peeks at them while I plated the food, and I couldn’t help but feel like this was as close to a family as I’d had since my parents died. As much as it streaked my black heart with rays of much-needed lightness, it cost me my appetite.

To have a family meant I had something to lose.

After everyone had eatenand retired to their rooms to sleep, to binge baking shows, or to battle the orc scourge, I selected the largest mixing bowl from beneath the kitchen counter. I used the deep sink to fill it with water then sloshed to my room.

Cross-legged on the bed, the mattress as fluffy as a down pillow, I sat with the bowl cradled between my thighs. A drop of blood earned me a dial tone, for lack of a better explanation, which I used to call an old friend beyond the veil.

Megara had practiced law in one form or another for three hundred years before she took a silver bullet to the heart after a divorce case turned violent in the courthouse parking lot. I hadn’t known her then. I didn’t meet her until after my parents died, and she executed their will from the beyond.

Had she survived, I liked to imagine she would have taken me in. Or at least been the Rue to my Colby.

“Megara, I summon thee.” I squeezed out another drop. “Megara, I summon thee.”

The stubborn wench always refused to show until after I observed every formality, which could probably be blamed on her former occupation. She remained the best lawyer on either side of the veil, but death did impact her business. Her fees were steeper these days, she was harder to contact, and she also required her clients to play secretary for her. There was no way around that when you hired incorporeal legal aid.

“Thrice I bid thee.” More crimson plinked into the water. “And thrice I tithe thee.”

I ran a fingertip along the edge of the bowl, and the water rippled, darkened, swirled in a mini whirlpool.

“Hear me,” I called in a resonant voice. “Arise.”

A face appeared wreathed in smoke, not from theatrics, but from the cigarette hanging from her bottom lip.

“Darling.” Her yellowed teeth glinted at me. “Two calls in the same year? Why, I’m flattered.”

Between her and Clay, they excelled at guilting me about…well…everything.

“I have a question for you.” I couldn’t peel my gaze from my bloody fingertip. “It’s about Dad.”

“I didn’t know him as well as your mother, but I’ll answer as best I can.”

“I heard a rumor my paternal grandmother was a daemon.”

“Heard a rumor, huh?” She took a long drag. “That dirt clod finally told you, didn’t he?”

“Meg.”

“I heard the whispers, of course, we all did.” She pursed her lips. “Your father was exceptional. You can’t begin to imagine the power at his command. I’ve never seen anything like it. But it was a dark power fed by dark deeds.” She tapped her cigarette. “How your sweet, joyful mother found anything to love in that miasma of death, I will never know, but she was like that.” She shrugged a frail shoulder. “And, I confess, he was made better by her. He tried. For her sake. He became…not a bad sort, but not her equal.”

Given the great divide between us, I felt comfortable confessing, “I have a daemon…acquaintance.”

A lascivious spark lit her clever eyes. “Ah.”

“I seem to be experiencing some daemonlike reactions to him.”

“Like ripping his clothes off and licking him head to toe? Remember the horns, dear, they’re sensitive.”

Sex with the daemon half of Asa, I could safely say, had never crossed my mind. Horns on Asa, though…

“Um, not quite.” I fought not to squirm at the mental picture. “More like an emotional attachment.”

“Feelings.” Her glee dimmed as she took another drag. “Not my forte.”

Lifting my hand, I shook my wrist to show off my bracelet. “We’re sort of…fascinated…with each other?”

How I made it sound like a question when I had agreed to it not once but twice, I had no idea.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” She coughed until her eyes watered. “Who is he?”

“His name is—”

“No, no, no.” She waved the cloud of smoke away. “Who are his people? What is his father’s name?”

For a beat, I debated faking interdimensional interference to get off the hook. “Orion Pollux Stavros?”

“Vonda, you would have loved this,” she called, as if my mother could hear her. “You’ve been claimed by a prince of Hael. One of the high princes, no less. They’re the only ones who do the hair thing. They are a peculiar caste and very particular about their hair, which I’m sure you’ve noticed if you’re wearing that. I can’t believe it. I just can’t.” Her bark of laughter stretched into a long howl of mirth. “It’s too delicious.”

Cheeks burning from her raucous amusement, I dipped a finger in the water. “You’re not helping…”

The ripples broke up her features, and she used the time while they settled to rein herself in.

Leaning forward, she flicked ash off the tip of her cigarette. “Have you test-driven him yet?”

“No.”

“You aren’t serious.” Deep wrinkles did little to hide her disappointment. “You’re not still a virgin.”

“No.” A hard edge honed my voice. “I had sex at thirteen to protect myself.”

That encounter had been one part advance planning to one part magical high from my first kill.

The guy was harmless enough, and human to ensure he was clueless as well. I scouted him out weeks earlier. A male witch would have run screaming from the proposition, aware of what I was sacrificing. A human, though? At fifteen, he didn’t much care that I was younger. Only that I would take off my pants.

A snarl vibrated through our connection that I felt in my bones as she cursed the director’s existence.

Black witches weren’t any more or less powerful for being virgins in their day-to-day spellwork, but their willing sacrifice of that last barrier of innocence was a potent boost to any major working. Both men and women saved it for a once-in-a-lifetime spell they otherwise couldn’t have cast on their own.

“I’m surprised the bastard explained it to you,” Meg snarled. “Then again, I’m sure he had a plan for it.”

“I overheard a girl on the grounds bragging about how she planned to seduce a man so she could drain a lake where merfolk hid their gold and gems.” I was the only child tutored by the director, but there were others on the property now and again, most of them the children of Black Hat agents come to check in. I think he requested their presence, to socialize me, but I was too shy to warm up to others after an hour. “I never saw her again. I wanted to believe then it meant she had succeeded, maybe bought a new life.”

“Sweet child,” she sighed. “The girl told someone. That was her first mistake. She let herself be overheard. That was her second mistake. There are no third mistakes for black witches. She was as good as dead the moment she opened her mouth, poor thing.”

“Letitia and Maria.” I would never forget those names. “Letitia came back, years later, and I asked about Maria. She was flattered I noticed her, I think, and happy to regale me with the details of how she talked Maria into having sex with her older brother. That made it easier for her to follow them to the lake.”

Once it was done, her brother called to tip her off when to drive his truck up there to collect the haul.

“After the couple had sex, the brother pretended to leave but actually joined Letitia. Maria drained the lake, stole the mermaids’ treasure before the water rushed back in, and the brother and sister were waiting for her. They killed her and shared her heart.”

The whole thing had an incestuous vibe that still bothered me, a twisted fairy tale in gossip form.

“That convinced me the best course of action was to pick a guy, rid myself of the potential, and hope I survived my punishment.”

The last part had been a near thing. The director was so furious, he beat me within an inch of my life with his cane. But I was older then, around eighteen before he’d decided how best to use me, and my years in Black Hat had hardened me to the pain.

And he wondered why I didn’t leap to answer the phone each time it lit with his private number.

“Have you tried again?” Meg broke into my grim thoughts. “Please tell me you didn’t quit after that.”

“I went through a man-eating phase,” I said and left it at that, not wanting to relive those days.

“Good.” That satisfied her. “Men are like shoes. You won’t know who fits until you try them on.”

Uncertain if she meant that literally, I let the topic drop. “So…daemon blood.”

“The only way to be certain is to ask your grandfather for your grandmother’s identity, and I will send a passel of my great-great-grandsons to whoop your tail if you try. That man would charge more than you can afford for the information, and he would keep the salient details to himself to sell to you later.”

“That’s pretty much what Clay said too.”

“He might have rocks for brains, but he’s not wrong.”

I wasn’t clear on the details, but Clay and Meg disliked one another so intensely they refused to speak to each other. All I knew for certain was they met while he was on a case, and she was alive, but the odds were good he put down someone she loved for Black Hat.

“My…friend…is half fae,” I found myself confessing. “His mother’s people do this thing where—”

Nose mashing against the barrier, she exhaled a wall of smoke. “Do go on.”

“Stop being a perv.” I twisted my mouth into a disapproving frown. “I’m being serious.”

“Oh, fine.” She settled back with a huff. “Go on.”

“They compel their potential mates to…”

A glint returned to her eyes. “Yes?”

“…talk. About themselves. A lot. I can’t shut up around him. I just word vomit all over the place.”

“Dear heart, I’m not prone to romantic sentiment, that was your mother’s forte, so I won’t offer you my relationship advice.” She crushed out the glowing tip of her cigarette. “This is all I will say on the matter. You’re not a picture book left on a coffee table for just anyone to flip through at their leisure. Far from it. You’re a grimoire, kept in a private library, wrapped in a girth of chains, and cinched with a padlock. If Fate decided to arm your beau with a pair of bolt cutters, perhaps she worries you might spend your life waiting on a perfect man with a perfect key to fit your lock when perfect…doesn’t exist.”

Shades of regret colored her tone, and I wondered if she wished she had taken a chance on a not-quite-Prince Charming of her own.

“Is it real?” That was what I wanted to know. “Or is it biology?”

“When you’re with him, does it feel real? Better yet, when you’re apart. Does it feel real then?”

“Yes,” I decided after considering my answer. “That’s what makes it mortifying.”

The urge to confide in him felt authentic. He was only half fae. How much of my confessions were simply my awkward attempts at navigating an undeniable attraction to a man whose opinion mattered to me? I wasn’t sure how much to blame on his nature versus how much to blame my failure at flirting etiquette.

“There you go.” She pinched a fresh cigarette between her lips without lighting it. “Question answered.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Ah.” She gave a slight nod. “You want me to tell you what to do.”

“That would be nice.”

“As I said, not my forte.” She studied me. “Only you can decide what—and who—is right for you.”

“We got off topic.” I rolled the bracelet between my fingers. “I only meant to ask about my dad.”

“This is my parting salvo.” She held up a lighter with her initials engraved on the front. “If you didn’t care about your daemon, would you still be so curious about having daemon blood? Aside from how this may affect your relationship with him, does it otherwise impact your life? Will that knowledge change who you are?” Her eyes grew shadowed in the flame summoned by a flick of her thumb. “At the end of the day, does it matter?”

The short answer was no.

The more complicated one was yes.

A knock on the door drew my attention from Meg. “Come in.”

Expecting Colby, who had an uncanny radar for when I was talking to Meg, I startled to find Asa.

“Hello,” he said slowly. “I heard voices and came to make sure everything was all right.”

Given his excellent hearing, I was willing to bet he heard more than that if he had been listening in.

“Who is this delicious morsel?” Meg wet her lips. “You’re lucky my biting days are done, tidbit.”

Asa slid his questioning gaze to mine in a clear plea for rescue I was reluctant to give.

Meg was fun when she lit into someone. As long as the someone wasn’t me.

“Megara Baros, this is Asa Montenegro.” I gestured between them. “Asa, this is Meg.”

“I’m her godmother.” Meg rested her chin on her palm. “You gave Rue the bracelet.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Asa made an elegant gesture at his waist. “I apologize for intruding.”

“I was about to go.” Meg faked a yawn. “Why don’t you tuck in my darling girl for me?”

Heat splashed my cheeks, and I wished I could reach into the ether and strangle her.

“Good night, Meg.” I pulled the plug on our connection then turned to Asa. “Sorry about that.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt…” He quirked a brow at the bowl. “What were you doing?”

“Meg was Mom’s best friend.” I set it aside. “I figured if anyone had the scoop on Dad, it would be her.”

Leaning against the doorway, he let his keen interest show. “Did she know anything?”

“No more than Clay.” I rolled a shoulder then noticed his hands. “Hey, what does your bowl do?”

Black glaze cupped the base and lightened to a vibrant crimson at the lip. A deep notch pierced its side, shaped like an old-fashioned spit curl, and a noodle was escaping through it. No. Not a noodle. A length of cream-colored yarn.

“It’s a yarn bowl.” He dipped his chin to hide the flush in his cheeks. “I was about to start a new project.”

This was not the next High King of Hael or anywhere else. Sure, he could be terrifying, but it cost him. He was more at home like this, with his yarn bowl cupped in his palm and his glasses hanging from the neck of his dress shirt. I couldn’t picture him ruling over a people who relished destruction and chaos, who let their worst impulses act as their conscience, when he preferred creation and quiet.

We were a bad idea. Terrible. I couldn’t think of a worse one. For either of us.

So, of course, I waved him in then patted the mattress beside me. “Having trouble sleeping?”

“I always knit before bed.” He sat, stiff as a board. “It helps me unwind.”

Eyeing him, I decided to ask, “Was that a yarn joke?”

His soft laugh told me I hit the mark with his subtle humor.

“I should go.” He didn’t budge. “You need your rest.”

“Sleep and I aren’t on a first-name basis. Or last name.” I sawed my teeth over my bottom lip. “I planned to read until my eyes gave up and forced my brain into submission. Want to join me? I read, you knit?”

Asa twisted to see me fully, and his gaze dropped to my mouth, proving romance novels knew what they were talking about.

“In your bed?” His voice lowered to the rumble of distant thunder. “You want that?”

I hopped up like lava had bubbled out of the mattress, snatching the bowl to cover my nerves.

“Leave a metaphysical doorway open, and who knows what might drift through it.” I sloshed water onto my toes. “I have to cleanse this first.” I inched toward the bathroom door. “Do you need anything?”

Peridot eyes flashed to burnt crimson as he studied my face. “Only you.”

Chills raced up my spine, tingling in my scalp, and I hurried to empty the bowl.

“I can do this.” I gave myself a pep talk. “It’s sharing a hobby. That’s it. Nothing wrong with that.”

Asa wasn’t going to toss his bowl and ravish me the second I entered the bedroom.

And I wasn’t going to lick his horns or any other part of him, even if his lips did look ridiculously soft.

A flush spread over my body, tightening my skin, and my toes curled against the cold floor.

Whose bright idea was it for me to read steamy shifter romance in a bed with him anyway?

Oh yeah.

Mine.