“Yeah, that could be him. He’s older, bulkier too. Fiercer, you know?”
Cobb put his phone away. “Be careful, kid. These guys don’t mess around. I don’t know what their interest is in this dump, but you will stay clear.”
“We will. As soon as this severance ritual is done, we will be too.”
Cobb and Ziggy were kind enough to drop me at a market near my flat, and I pulled out the ritual list. Reading through it for the first time, my breath caught at one item.
«±»
I came home to find Hunter sitting on the floor with Archie. The cat was sprawled face up, stretching languidly as Hunter scratched his belly. He was purring for God’s sake.
“He missed you. You give much better scritches than I do.” I set the shopping bags on my tiny counter space.
“Oh really? He’s told you this, has he?” Hunter leaned down to Archie and whispered, “It’s kind of nice to be missed, Archimedes, thank you.”
I bit back a reply. I couldn’t well say I’d missed Hunter too. “I found about three-quarters of the ingredients needed for Anu’s ritual.”
He rose from the floor to peer into the bags. “Oh, you bought Cinnamon Crunchies cereal? You know that’s my favorite. Ooh and pie. Mrs. Smith is the queen of pies.” He opened the box and turned on the oven. “We’re making this now.” He smiled, stepping beside me to look in the bags again. “So what’s left on Nigel’s list that we need to get?”
I pulled the folded paper from my back pocket and flipped it open. “Pure silver—not sure how to get that as most silver these days is an alloy or plated. And then we need…” I breathed in. The scent of my mint and bergamot shampoo wafted up from his hair, derailing my thoughts.
“We need what?” Hunter glanced up. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, sorry. We need Blackthorn, campfire ash, and, er…” I handed the list to Hunter.
“Okay, let’s see, silver, campfire ash, quartz crystals, oleander, blackthorn root, and—ha, human seed.” His gaze flicked up to meet mine, his mouth quirking. “Well, that’s easy enough to get, I suppose. Do you want to do the honors, or—”
“Read the fine print underneath.”
Hunter looked at the list again, squinting at the page. “Gathered from a new lover under a waning gibbous moon.” He sucked air through his teeth. “Well, damn. When the hell is a waning gibbous moon? Hold on.” He handed me the paper and grabbed his phone. “Okay, that’s not terrible, tomorrow night. We can go raid a campground and…”
My eyebrows crept up on my forehead. “And?”
“Oh. This isn’t a rubbing one out kind of situation, is it?”
“No. It isn’t. And I do not want to be the one to ask Detective Cobb if he could make such a deposit.”
“It wouldn’t work anyway. As they’ve been together for a while now. It has to benewlovers.” The oven beeped and Hunter hummed as he unwrapped the pie and added cinnamon and sugar to the top. “Let’s work on the other things for now. Izzy should have blackthorn root and maybe silver.”
I crammed the list into my pocket as I gathered up dirty clothes. In the basement laundry room, I paced the floor, trying not to think of our upcoming foray into the woods.
The next day we set about getting the rest of the ingredients. After reading through the list again, Hunter proclaimed we were going camping.It says campfire ash, not trash barrel ash or fireplace ash, but campfire. We need to camp.
So while I shopped for camp food, Hunter had borrowed some equipment from Abraham.
I refused to make a big deal of the special ingredient, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Simply have a wank, spew into a cup, and take it to the hotel. But that wouldn’t do, would it? We were not lovers, new or otherwise. I was being childish. I had never been shy, but this was going to be an absolute cock-up—pun intended.
Hunter drove to Izzy’s house and parked in the driveway. As we got out, a man came from Hunter’s basement flat, directing a brilliant smile at us. I instantly disliked him, but he looked too pretty to be dangerous.
Hunter nodded at the man. “Oh, hey Derek. How’s my house? You guys settle in okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. Barry has a bit of a problem with your bathroom.” His eyes shifted to me.
As Hunter introduced us, Derek turned, his dark hair flowing thickly around his shoulders. He took his shades off andsmiled at me. “Nice to meet you,” he said. It was casual, polite, nothing abnormal about it, but the hair on my neck itched.
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, catching a metallic glint in Derek’s eyes. His eyes were blue, a dark denim shade with a slim ring of silver surrounding the iris. My pulse ramped up. But it wasn’t attraction.
This man had fae blood. Theo’s warnings of how dangerous they could be vibrated through me. I edged closer to Hunter. He obviously trusted this Derek, but I couldn’t shake off this unease.
