“Only a man smashing his face on the window, screaming to help him because, I quote, they were getting him.”
“It’s a weird day, for sure. Feels like a deranged Samhain on steroids.” They made their way to where Noah waited, but Hunter intercepted them before they could reach him.
“Found the mom?” he asked Harper.
His question was met with an even stare. “And you’d be?”
“Hunter.”
Harper studied Hunter’s face for a moment longer. “He yours?” Her words were for Daphne, but her eyes never left him.
“It’s complicated, but yeah.”
This time, Harper addressed him directly. “You’re magick.”
“Sure am.”
Harper nodded, knowing, and turned to Daphne again. “Things with them are always complicated. We found the mom, by the way, or she contacted us minutes after you.” She leaned on one side to look at Noah. “Ready to go home?”
He jumped down off the couch and ran to the deputy to grab her hand. Harper gave Daphne a small, grateful smile. “Thanks for keeping him safe.”
Daphne nodded. “Anytime.”
With a quick wave, Harper guided Noah out the door. A moment later, the jingle of the bell and the soft click of the lock signaled their departure.
Hunter stuffed his hands in his pockets as Daphne turned the bolt.“Does she have issues with magiks?”
“Well, she’s married to one and works with another, so...”
They stood there for a beat, neither speaking, both with things on their mind, obviously.
But they were alone, and Daphne needed to find a way to navigate all the things that were happening inside of her and in the world. She considered playing it cool and focusing on whatever deal waited outside. But then.... She’d asked him for honesty, and to honesty she’d stick, too. “Look,” she started. “I’m going with the truth here. I’m pissed at you, and I’m trying hard to understand why I can not send you your way.” She shook her head. “The thought only gives me anxiety, and I don’t normally do that shit. Something in me knows you’re safe for my heart, but the way you handled it makes it iffy. I’m not used to trustingmy heart. What if you hurt me? Like, bad? I don’t want to do that, Hunter. I hurt too much already.”
He stepped closer, his face softening in that crooked way that only he could manage. “What if I’ve never felt the way I’m feeling, and I messed it up because I didn’t know what to do? Now I know, and so what if I don’t hurt you? What if I don’t make you give me the boot, because I can’t think of myself existing without you? What if I’ll always try to make you happy?”
“Yeah, well...” She brushed her knuckles against his shirt, turned into a heatless push. He didn’t budge. “And also, I really want to touch you because it does great things to me, and I’m mad at that, too.”
He had the decency to keep the grin to a minimum. “I handled it like an ass, but it’s worth noting that I was extremely surprised, to say the least. And I legit couldn’t tell you anything. But I’m honestly sorry. I can’t redo the past, but I can promise you only truth in the future.” He offered her his hand. “And you can touch me any time you want. Gods know it makes me feel better, too.”
She’d be damned, but when their fingers linked, the sight that escaped her was pure relief. Something inside her, deep enough it could very well be her soul, quieted and stretched toward him with joy. They moved to the couch as a shout came from outside and died in the now afternoon, making her tighten the hold on him.
“The building is safe,” he said, reading her perfectly. “Nothing and no one will get in unless I let them in.”
Yeah, okay. There were so many things she realized she didn’t know about him. “How? You have powers or something?”
“Or something. Mostly energy I can bend and use. Every kind of magic I can harness and model. And there’s the mind thing. I’m not as strong as Dorian, because he’s older than I am, but we have the same kind of powers.”
She traced small nonsense on the back of his hand, murmuring, “I’m almost afraid to ask how old he is.”
“He came into existence when humans started having more elaborate thoughts and their subconscious became more complex.” He shrugged. “He’s been around.”
“Holy shit.” And that only called for another, even worse, question. “How old are you, then?”
“I manifested into the world during the absolute clusterfuck that was the Dark Age. It was the perfect storm of fear and despair, and voila, there I was.”
She looked at him. Looked some more as she tried to process that impossibility. “You’re almost fifteen hundred years old. Like, a thousand, five hundred years old.”
His mouth puckered and his chin creased in concentration as he thought it through. Then nodded. “Sounds about right, give or take a panic-fueled uprising or two.” He crossed his ankles, conversationally. “It was prime time for plague, superstition, mass hysteria, and a delightful lack of street lighting. Perfect nightmare fodder. I’m not gonna lie, Dorian and I had a lot of fun.”
