“How come you call me that if I smell so damn good?”
“I am trying to remind myself not to lick you from head to toe. I am trying to remind myself that you are entirely wrong for me and not to make decisions based on random coincidences of astronomy. I am also trying to remind myself you’re a witch. You cannot be good for me.”
Some of that was insulting, she knew, but her brain got stuck on licking her from head to toe. “And you’re good for me? The man who seems to have a computer for a brain and will not trust his gut, and is part of the capitalist horror show that our country has become, and is a werewolf?”
“Capitalist horror show?” he said with deep insult.
“You areeverythingwrong.”
She braced for anger and told herself to shut up, but he just smiled.
“Surely not everything? We can blame James Watt for climate change, for instance?”
“What?” Her brain stumbled at the non sequitur.
“James Watt invented the steam engine. Actually, not invented, but made it commercially viable? And now we’re in the Anthropocene Age because of a lever from James Watt. Remember that anytime you don’t think you can change the world.”
“Wait, is that why we measure electricity in Watts?”
“Exactly!” He looked delighted.
She laughed. “I don’t think most of us are going to measure electricity when we grow up.”
“No, but maybe we could negotiate peace between one coven and one pack? Maybe we could make this work?” The wild light was leaving his eyes, and the words were calmer.
“That’s just the truth serum speaking.”
“I had to get it out before it wore off, and I didn’t dare say it.”
She allowed him to draw her into his arms, even as she shook her head. “It’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible.”
“We’re not all James Watt with a new steam engine.”
“But we could be enough,” he whispered to her hair.
He kissed her again, and this time she didn’t taste mint, only man. It was entirely unfair that he was the best thing ever.
He drew away abruptly and looked around. “Okay, but before this goes any further, I really have to see that room.”
She groaned.
“My wolf is going to shift without me and hunt it down in a second.”
“How did you know it was in another room?”
“Because you kept looking down the hall? Show me.”
She drew away but kept his fingers tangled with hers as she walked down the hall.
The grandfather clock boomed, and he almost crushed her hand as he jumped sideways.
She laughed. “Sometimes I think the clock is magic. It only goes off when someone is right next to it.”
He eyed it like he wanted to eat it, and she pulled him along the corridor.
She ducked into the archway on the right and showed him the library. The shelves were a little emptier than before. The books had been part of a self-defense spell which Siobhan had rigged and Niamh had still not forgiven her for. The good news was that it was relatively safe to be in this room again.
