“To power.” I clinked his glass. Damn. I hadn’t meant to say that. Poor Tuna would get the story of a lifetime out of this.
He didn’t seem to notice my slip as he knocked back his drink. I did the same but a perfectly polite tap at the door caught the liquor halfway down my throat and brought it back up. Just my luck, I would be working someone’s boyfriend - again. I opened the door to find Noth on the other side and promptly slammed it in his face, locking it for good measure.
“Come out of there, Pumpkin.” He coughed as if he attempted to eject his lungs.
Tuna all but forgotten, I yelled back, “Don’t call me that.”
A meaty hand landed on my shoulder. “Are you in trouble?” my boyfriend-for-the-day asked.
Noth was nothing but trouble, but I still said, “No.”
The darkness in the room flexed and a hint of magic trickled up my spine. I shook off Tuna’s hand and looked out the peephole in his door. Noth was gone!
Like a warm bucket of water, Noth’s voice poured over my shoulder. “Would you rather I call you MINE?”
I screamed in sheer terror, clutching my throat as my whole bodyflinched. How did he get into the house through a closed door? I was going to figure out that stupid trick. Turning to ask, I found Tuna trapped in an inky black portal in the floor, acting pretty calm all considered. It was a mistake to take my eyes off Noth. He crowded me up against the door, the color in his face saying he only missed a night’s sleep rather than the poisoning he received. I tentatively touched his skin and it wasn’t even clammy. He leaned into the brush of my fingers and I snapped my hand down.
“If we’re out of all the other nicknames, do I get to call you DEAD?” I had nothing left but snark.
He turned his head to sneeze. Thankfully, not in my face. “Your best hasn’t done me in yet. Did he hurt you?”
“Hey!” Tuna protested, but a slice of darkness quickly covered his mouth.
Noth's fist tightened and violence seeped into the air. My heart galloped, outracing a primal fear. I shouldn’t like the possessive gleam in his ruby eyes. Something pitch-black compelled me to answer truthfully. Tuna’s life hung in the balance.
“No,” I whispered.
Noth’s features shifted in an undefined way, but he instantly looked more Elven and some of the pressure eased in the room. “Were you recruiting poor hayseed to your cause then?”
Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea.
“Or were you luring him with that Siren body of yours, trying to fill up your power? You’re welcome to try,but I will tell you now, it won’t work. Only I can fill you.” He murmured the last into my hair.
“That arrogance would drown ships.” Finding it attractive was about as self-destructive as I’d ever been.
Noth smiled with all his pointed teeth. The Nightmare inside him fanned black tendrils around his eyes. My breathing sped up.
“You weren’t trying to kill him, were you?” Noth asked, his voice sharp again.
The dark look that crossed his face gave me pause. The midnight around his eyes crept outward. I couldn’t fail to notice the same thing that stained my fingertips when I used my powers.
“Just lure him to sin.”
He leaned too far into my personal space for comfort, but what he said next nearly had my knees buckling. “No killing other men. You might get hurt, Maggie.”
Maggie?Was that the concern?I didn’t know what to do with that from my murder victim. I hit the outrage button instead. “So you’re fine with the sex, just don’t get all stabby on someone else? That doesn’t even make sense.”
His face remained perfectly serious but shadows flickered all over his body. “Let’s not compare. You would drive the sense from a philosopher.”
Was all that darkness worry? No one worried much about me. Always too tough on the outside and tooanxious on the inside. I recognized I was difficult. People had said it often enough right to my face.
He saved me from having to answer that by shoving me out the front door. Tuna crawling out of the black void was the last I saw of him as the door slammed behind us. Noth wrapped me up in his arms, dragging me into the shadows of the row of houses facing the water. With my back to his front, he held me too tight to fight him.
“Did you come all the way down here to torture me? Or just lecture me about what a slut I am.”
The stubble on his chin scraped along my cheek. I never saw an Elf that had to shave. I guess his Nightmare roughed him up.
“I want you every way you are. Did you think this would make me flinch? You’re too much fun, Pumpkin.” The gravel left in his voice from the poison made me think of bed sheets and stroking his back as he stroked into me.
