The Hound chose a new place. The knife kissed my thigh and then bit, and for a second, the world was a perfect, bright white. The wards throbbed to the beat of my heart. On. Off. On. Off. A lighthouse to guide my power straight out of me and into hers.
I slammed it closed. I would not give this woman another pound of my flesh.
“Again,” Eloise said. The demand opened a door beneath me, bringing with it a monster coming to claim its own. The world tilts, and then I’m falling through it, falling, falling—into a bed that isn’t stone and a night that isn’t quiet.
I jerked upright and clenched my teeth, a cool sweat glistening across my body in the pale moonlight. My breath clawed at the back of my throat, ragged, animalistic. For a strangled second, the knife still sat under my collarbone, hot and pulsing.
Something heavy landed on the mattress, and a pair of golden orbs opened in the dark. Keverin moved with impossible grace for a prehistoric beast. The bed dipped under his weight as he padded closer. His huge head nudged my knee once inquestion. I didn’t trust my voice. I shoved shaking fingers into thick silky fur. He stretched along my body, offering me his heat and strength to chase away the icy tendrils of terror. The steady thunder of a heart that was not mine and yet was. His purr started low and rolled through my bones, grounding me in reality.
“I hate them,” I muttered.
Keverin huffed, a warm, damp exhale over my wrist. The pressure of his body was an anchor.
Indigo uncoiled slowly, talons withdrawing from the inside of my breastbone.“Accept the comfort, then sharpen the knives.”
“Working on it,” I whispered, thumb rubbing along the groove where Keverin’s jaw met his cheek. His whiskers tickled my palm. Somewhere, beyond the half-closed door, a floorboard creaked, a quiet reminder that there was a man on my sofa who would tear down the world if I asked, and a tiger on my bed who would keep it from falling on my head in the meantime.
The kiss of the knife faded.
“Tell him I don’t need babysitting,” I murmured. Keverin flicked an ear in a way that absolutely translated tono chance, little witch.
“Fine,” I conceded, and the admission didn’t taste like defeat. “For tonight.”
He shifted closer, an indelicate sprawl of striped warmth, and curled his tail along my shins like a question mark. I slid down until my temple rested against his shoulder. He smelled like rain and wild grass and something older.
The ceiling still held its shadows like secrets, but they no longer looked like knives. The wards hummed their familiar note. My last clear thought before sleep found me. The next time Eloise walked into my house would be the last time she did so as a Roberts.
Keverin’s purr answered like a promise.
CHAPTER NINE
Start your morning with blueberry pancakes and a man who isn’t afraid to shake his ass to a pop song. If that fails, add syrup and lower your standards.
Drool was not attractive. Keverin had somehow made himself fit so that his head was on the pillow next to mine, and the material was drenched.
“Hey, buddy,” I whispered, not wanting to startle an overprotective prehistoric tiger. His giant paw draped across my side, and I had zero chance of lifting it. He huffed in my face. Why did it smell like my aunt’s cabbage rolls? Was no one immune?
“Keverin,” I said a little louder, running my hand down his super soft nose. It twitched. He was so cute sometimes. His eyes blinked open, a little unfocused at first before the golden orbs narrowed on me. “Time to face the day.” His paw clenched around my back, and he dragged me closer. He felt the same way about leaving this bedroom as I did, but wars couldn’t be won from the sheets. “Thank you for keeping me company.”
He purred low, and my eyes drooped. The damned cat was trying to coax me back to sleep. My stomach rumbled. “As enticing as spending the day napping is, nature of the toilet and food variety calls.” I tipped my head back, ready to give him my besttakes no shitstare. His tongue snaked out and dragged from my chin to my forehead. I squirmed. “Gross.” He disappeared with a snap of magic, but left me with the distinct impression he was laughing at me.
I rolled off the bed, treated myself to a long hot shower, and dragged on a pair of jeans and a pink blouse. I tamed my hair into a braid and caught my reflection in the mirror. I blinked. I looked different. A little sharper, ethereal even. A consequence of accepting my angelic half? Perhaps.
Following the smell of something delicious, I thudded down the first set of stairs, passing numerous drifting ghosts who offered me polite smiles and curious gazes. Rebecca’s door opened, and a shirtless Ezra backed out with his hands held up. “I will feed on whomever I damn well please,” she snarled while stalking out wearing nothing but a skimpy red silk nightgown. She looked every bit the vampire princess as she pointed a finger at him. “And I decide who warms my bed.”
I paused and regretted not having a bowl of popcorn handy. It was normally my love life being played out for all like an episode of The Real Hauntwives of Louisiana.
He lunged, nipped her finger between his teeth and grabbed her hips. “You sink your fangs into anyone else, and I’ll make sure they can’t nourish another ever again,” Ezra drawled.
“You.” She thumped her fist on his shoulder as he lifted her off the floor. “Are.” He curled her legs around his waist. “Impossible.”
Rebecca shot me a look over his shoulder. She blinked like she was unsure how she’d even arrived out of her room. Ezra chuckled and strode back through the door, slamming it closed with his foot.
At least someone was grasping their happy moments. If you always waited for the big ones, you’d be disappointed most of the time. But savoring the things that made you smile, that made your heart beat a little faster was how you built happiness that lasts and endures.
I strode past a harassed Maggie, who was on the phone handling a query about a stag party. I was hoping that meant a group of guys trying to send off their buddy into wedded bliss and not a group of shifters looking for a party house.
I expected to find Aunt Liz cooking up some breakfast goodness. What I got instead was my mate flipping blueberry pancakes while he shook his ass to a popular pop song. I folded my arms and leaned against the door frame to admire him for a moment, to remind myself that life wouldn’t always be about pain and war. It could boil down to a pair of jeans that molded to my mate’s butt like they’d been made for him and a simple yet delicious treat served with love.
