Piper swallowed hard and flicked the light switch, but the new darkness was filled with the brightness of the moon coming through the skylight. Kol folded his sweater and laid it on the low bookcase like he was putting on a show for her, and Piper only grew more annoyed—yes, she liked things tidy, but that wasn’t a crime, unlike fraud and coercion. He then gestured awkwardly to the bed, and she also gestured, also awkwardly. Finally, he gave in and took to crawling across it.
There, a minor triumph, but it wasn’t long-lived as Piper glanced down at herself. She worried the bottom hem of her sweater, then thought better of taking anything off except her socks. When she sat on the edge of the bed to begin the world’s most modest undressing, Kol was making the whole thing shake as he wiggled under the blanket.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not sleeping in jeans.” And then he produced them from under the duvet with a smarmy grin.
“Oh, my god.”There’s a man with no pants on in my bed.
“Don’t worry, I’m still wearing my socks.”
“You sleep with socks on?” She pulled her own off and tossed them across the room into the laundry basket. “You really are from another dimension.”
“No, my extremely distant ancestors are, and it’s only half of them. I think it’s weird you’re about to get into this bed with your bare, freezing feet.” Kol pushed up onto an elbow. “You better not plan to keep them warm by shoving them up against me.”
She returned his incredulous look from her spot teetering on the bed’s edge, eyes darting to his lower half graciously still covered by the duvet.
He opened his mouth as if he might say something else cutting, but then he deflated. “That was supposed to be a joke, but clearly it didn’t land. Look, there’s no way you’re not exhausted after…everything. I’ll just sleep on the floor, and—”
“No, it’s fine,” she said because it was—ithadto be. Piper carefully slipped herself under the blanket, keeping to the outer edge of the bed and laying flat on her back. Through the skylight, a few stars dotted the blackness, the moon somewhere past the window’s edge but casting a comforting, silvery glow inside. Piper’s shoulders lost some of their rigidity as she pulled the blanket up to her chin. It would get warm fast, she assumed, with her sweater and leggings still on, and she never slept in a bra, but it was good to be in bed regardless.Sorry about the extended prison sentence, boobs, but you didn’t make bail.
She closed her eyes, and a list began to form in the darkness behind her lids, as usual. Everyone would probably sleep in, so that gave her the opportunity to have a little time to herself in the morning and update her planner. She could get her father and Deb to make up by bringing out the box of ornaments from their childhood that Grandma Tilda gave her last year, and if Presley was still in a weird mood, bringing up his recent promotion at the gym might cheer him up. At least dinner was already taken care of, and it wouldn’t take much to patch up the hole Kol had made in one of the lasagnas.
“Kol?”
He shifted beside her with a small hum of acknowledgment.
“Did you really like the lasagna or were you just being nice?”
“Both, I guess.”
She snorted. “They’ll be careful with the tree tomorrow, I’ll make sure of it.”
“What happens with the tree tomorrow?”
“Well, we’re going to decorate it.”
Kol grumbled as he turned his back to her and faced the wall. “Of course you are.”
6
At Least Six Times A-Lying
When Kol woke, he was alone, which was entirely normal and expected, but he was in a strange bed that smelled of vanilla, which was exactly the opposite of normal and expected.
His hip ached as he rolled from his side to survey the darkness of the room, a scant light from the window above illuminating pink linens.Did I stay with a woman last ni—oh, right.
Kol hadn’t slept beside someone in…well, never for thewholenight, but a quick nap after an exhausting tumble was nearly the same, wasn’t it? While he lay staring at the wall the night before, he’d begun counting back exactly how many days, weeks, months since last he shared someone else’s bed, hoping that it might put him to sleep, but as the number grew, so did his frustration. The woman shuffling ever closer to him hadn’t helped, and then she started making noises that sounded far too much like she’d sneaked whatever she was hiding in her bedside drawer under the blankets.
Her moaning had disappointingly devolved into the dissatisfaction of a dream gone bad. She was probably having a nightmare about killer evergreens or talking dogs or something equally ridiculous like an interloper on her family vacation. He poked at her face a few times until she snorted herself half awake and finally fell into a deep and silent sleep. Kol had returned to face the wall again and pulled the blanket over his head to hide away from the moonlight.
But day one was done, and day two had to begin before it could end, so Kol dragged himself from the woman’s bed and dressed. With a moment alone, he fished his thaumatix out of a pocket and navigated to the alcyon spruce’s profile. Trees were living things, and while enchanted ones had more to offer than air purification, shelter, and fuel, this one should have been much simpler to deal with. The bond that it exuded already was baffling and was going to be a polar bear to break, but he had a feeling it had less to do with the tree and more to do withher.
With a few flicks on the screen, he pulled up the information his device created on Piper MacLean. Thaumati were powerful instruments, only issued to thoroughly vetted employees. Using one to profile anything outside an employee’s scope, and for Kol, that included most sapient beings, was definitely frowned upon, and with a quick glance at what the thaumatix produced, he could see why.
General human facts came first, a genealogical history branching off of a little person-shaped figure, and some basic anatomical information that would have probably helped him when he was a teenager followed, but then he came across a list of oddly specific strengths and weaknesses that didn’t seem universal. He’d met plenty of humans who weren’t hardworking or detail-oriented, his father included, and not all of them were terrified of change or as good at repressing their feelings as the thaumatix was insisting Piper was.
Kol’s finger hesitated before it scrolled on, revealing her birthday—a Virgo, shocking—her height—pipsqueak might be too generous—her weight—where’s she keeping that?—and then he scrolled more quickly past some pet peeves and fears, but when he reachederogenous zones, he quickly snapped the tablet shut. Most of what it cobbled together probably wasn’t accurate—a thaumatix was made for trees and flowers and the occasional cursed amulet, definitely not humans—butbehind the left kneehad unfortunately etched itself into his brain.
