“Please don’t argue. For my sanity please just make sure you are always with me or someone else from the shop,” I pleaded with her, hoping she could see the fear in my eyes.
With Arsenio getting involved, I was worried that Daphne could be spirited away at any moment and I’d never be able to get her back.
Daphne looked as if she wanted to continue to fight me on it before her shoulders finally sank in surrender and she nodded. She stepped in close so she could weave her fingers through mine, the contact making my skin tingle.
“We’ve got it, Cash, we won’t let anything happen to her,” Heath said, reiterating the point he’d been trying to make earlier before I’d nearly bitten his head off.
I had one more request for Daphne. “I also want you to work with Effie to see if you can control your ability to see through glamours. The fae are the best at it and I wouldn’t put it past them to try something to lure you out of safety.”
“I don’t know if I can control it, it kind of comes and goes as it pleases, but I’ll try,” Daphne agreed, giving my hand a squeeze.
I wanted to get Daphne back to the farm and get all of the cameras set up before the end of the day.
Gently tugging her toward the door, I turned one last time to Fiero and Heath. “And one last thing, keep Ambrose away from me for a while. I know he didn’t know any better, but I might just try to knock his head off of his fucking shoulders if I see him right now.”
The elf had no lost love for Daphne because she was a human and I was half-convinced he’d exposed her on purpose.
Once we were outside I inhaled a lungful of crisp night ocean air and worked to calm myself down.
“You’re too tense,” Daphne said, reaching up to rub at the furrow in my brow. I’d been worried she’d pull away from me completely now that her past had caught up with her, but that didn’t seem to be the case. “Shouldn’t I be the one stressed about everything?”
“Your stress is my stress now, dragonfly,” I reminded her gently. As soon as I found out that her lifespan would match mine, I was all in.
I think even without the mating magic behind it all I would have eventually come to love her. From her gentle interactions with my animals to her ability to stand up for herself against monsters twice her size, she’d enchanted me from day one.
“You know my mom used to always tell me not to look for a husband but a partner, someone who would shoulder all of my troubles with me,” Daphne said, her lips tilting up into a thoughtful smile. “I always thought I was disappointing her in whatever afterlife she was in because I let Mike walk all over me. But now I think she’s finally proud of me for finding someone like you.”
Warmth spread throughout my chest at her words and I couldn’t help but duck down and capture her lips again. This kiss wasn’t desperate like the one this morning had been, but it was soft and full of promise.
“Get a room!” a drunk vampire said as they stumbled out of The Dive, ending our sweet moment.
“I swear, if we get interrupted one more time I’m going to hurt someone,” Daphne muttered against my mouth before pulling away.
A chuckle rumbled out of my chest and I suddenly felt lighter than I had all day, my worries about Mike and Mayor Arsenio temporarily forgotten by the feistiness in Daphne’s tone.
“I know one place we won’t get interrupted,” I told her as we began to walk hand-in-hand back toward the parking lot.
“Oh yeah? Where?” she asked.
I grinned. “Home.”
I could feel her pulse stutter in her wrist as she blinked up at me, her expression shocked but pleased.
She finally nodded, a wide smile lighting up her face. “Home sounds really nice right about now.”
Nineteen
Ithought it would take Mike days to show his face again at Monstrous Ink, but it only took less than twenty-four hours.
The bell over the door dinged, just like it had all morning with clients and I didn’t even look up before greeting them. “Hi there, walk-in or appointment?”
“Neither,” Mike’s familiar drawl met my ears, immediately sending a shiver of fear down my spine.
Don’t let him know you’re scared,I told myself as I looked up and met his eyes.
The last time I’d seen Mike he’d been crumbled on the floor bleeding from his head. Today, he was dressed in one of his well-pressed suits, not a hair out of place. He must have been paying someone to take care of his clothes, because one thing I’d learned very quickly about my soon-to-be-ex-husband was that he’d never done a chore in his life.
His mother had done everything for him, and then once we were married it became my responsibility.
