“Asil!” Alan’s voice cracked a sharp warning.
Asil caught the knife out of the air before it could strike him and looked to Ruby.
She stood where he had left her, in the wide doorless entry of the reception room. Her brilliant eyes were black with power and her hair moved as if she stood in a wind. Dusty curled around her left leg. They weren’t the same color—Dusty’s skin was a few shades darker and a hair less blue.
Her power didn’t smell of death and the dying; he rather thought it had more to do with water of some kind. But she’d spent a long time with the dead and she knew how to communicate with them. It made sense that she had instinctively called upon them for aid.
Asil had dealt with a few poltergeists in his time, though they hadn’t been so named. There was a limit to the harm such a spirit could do at any given time—Asil had been attacked with one knife, not a baker’s dozen like the fae who was even now breathing his last.
Alert to it, Asil could feel the amassing of power—so much less than what surrounded Ruby—but it still made the room smell of ozone. He thought it would take a few seconds—maybe a minute—before the creature could manifest another weapon.
Asil strode across the floor to Ruby, put his hands on her icy cheeks, and kissed her.
There were other things he could have done to pull her back to herself. He could have shouted her name with his power to back it—the same way he’d driven Alan back to protect Ruby’s people. But he wanted to kiss her.
It was a chaste kiss, a brush of lips, no more. She was in no condition to give consent. But the contact allowed him to wrap her in his power, in the warmth of his wolf, to make her feel safe.
“Asil?” she said, blinking at him with eyes that were once again blue, almost human.
He stepped back—and slapped aside a flying pair of knitting needles with the knife he still held.
“Stop it,” she said. He wasn’t sure it had quite dawned on her yet that the poltergeist—and Dusty—were acting on her behalf. But her words were nonetheless effective.
The vase that had been flying toward him dropped like a stone. He caught it before it hit the ground and moved away from her to set the vase on the mantel. After a moment’s thought, he set the knife beside it. He didn’t think the poltergeist would throw it at him again. He left the knitting needles on the floor where they had fallen.
Ruby stared at Asil, breathing hard, glorious in her power. If he had been more presentable, he’d have preened a bit under her gaze. But he wouldn’t be beautiful again until he sloughed off the burnt bits.
“You did that on purpose,” she said, her voice hoarse.
He smiled at her. “Of course. It is a lovely vase. There was no sense in letting it break.”
She shook her head. “You could have killed him in the first attack, couldn’t you? You moved so fast.”
“My mission was not to kill him,” he told her peacefully.
Ours, said his wolf.Our mission. Our Ruby. She makes us whole.
“You offered to help me,” she said.
The ache of the burns was fading already.
“I did,” he agreed.
“If you had killed him it would have freed me—and you wouldn’t have been hurt.”
“I offered to help you,” he said again. “I didn’t offer to kill the monster for you. Though I would have, of course, had it been necessary.”
“Thank you,” she told him—and he could see from her expression she was a little shell-shocked. Understandable, he thought. A lot had happened in a very short period of time—much of it would change her life forever.
Us, said his wolf joyfully.We will change her life.
Alan quit stopping them, so Ruby’s people trampled down the stairs. Asil stepped back so they had room to surround her. They needed to be sure she was safe too.
“I will leave you now,” he told her. “The threat is gone and you need time to process what it means to your life.” Asil looked at Alan. “You should stay with them. I will dispose of the body.” Angus had acreage in the mountains for more than one reason.
Alan gave him a nod of thanks.
Asil rolled the dead fae in the carpet—noting that he’d been right about it being a reproduction. Using a carpet to carry a body was a cliché, and he didn’t enjoy resorting to clichés. But carpets were useful in soaking up blood as well as masking the body,though this one was not big enough to swallow the fae whole—Ivory Jim’s polished dress shoes hung out of one end of the roll.
