It was definitely strange to, in essence, have a wedding reception when I was stilltechnicallymarried to Mike. But sealing the mating bond would give us one more line of defense in the eyes of the supernatural society’s law.
And besides that, I wanted nothing more than for Cash to claim me as his as soon as possible.
“A girls’ movie night? Sign me the fuck up,” Effie crowed excitedly. Effie loved anything girlie and it had become obvious that she’d spent so long around the guys at Monstrous Ink that she was sorely lacking any kind of female friendship.
“It’ll be fun,” I said, giving her shoulder a playful nudge.
“Definitely, I’ll even kick Reggie out.”
“What’s that about kicking me out?” Reggie’s voice came through the speakers from somewhere else in their house.
“Nothing!” Wendy called over her shoulder. “Well, I’ll let you two get back to your Force training or whatever.”
“You can make aStar Warsreference, but you don’t get theKarate Kidones?” Effie asked incredulously.
Wendy just shrugged. “I watched the ones that came out a couple of years ago, they were pretty good. Okay, bye!”
“They werenotgood,” Effie huffed as she settled back down across from me and the glamour snapped back into place. This time her skin, hair, and eyes were blue.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a giant nerd?” I teased.
Effie frowned at me, her false blue eyes unamused. “You only get to talk shit when you can see past my glamour, now tell me, how many vines am I holding up?”
“You’re holding up vines?” I asked, squinting to try and push through the curtain again like I’d done earlier, but failing entirely. Clearly, it was going to take more of Effie’s training sessions before I got the hang of it.
I idly wondered if she was going to take us to the mountains and make me stand under a waterfall next.
Twenty
Itchy. That was the only way I could describe the feeling that I’d woken up with two days ago. No matter how hot a shower I took, or how much I ran on the treadmill at the gym, I couldn’t seem to get rid of the feeling ofitchiness.
It wasn’t even my skin that was feeling this way. It was like the itchy feeling was deep inside of my chest, cradled right next to the constant hum coming from my heart.
And the source of my itchiness?
The human woman currently working with Cocoa the temperamental mare. Cocoa still had trust issues with most things, but she at least let us, or more specifically Daphne, put a harness on her now.
“That’s a good girl,” I could hear her cooing to the horse as she led her around the yard in smooth easy circles.
Nothing about this should have been sexy, and yet I was staring at her like one of those ridiculous cartoon wolves, jaw dropped and tongue lolling out like an asshole.
Ronan had sent me an email that he’d titled ‘everything you need to know about gargoyle mating.’ It was largely illegible, full of rambling sentences and misspelled words, but the gist of it was: the closer a gargoyle gets to the equinox with a potential mate nearby, the hornier he gets.
He was definitely correct about that.
I’d been attracted to Daphne before, almost painfully so, but it was nothing compared to how I was feeling now.
Every single thing Daphne did turned me on. From the way she walked to how she typed on her computer at the shop. Hell, even just watching her load the dishwasher last night had made me imagine, in detail, bending her over the countertop and licking every inch of her skin to see if she tasted as good as she smelled.
And to top it all off, we were still two days out from the equinox. That meant that whatever I was feeling today was about to get much, much worse.
Dallan had even banned me from work until after it was over because I’d nearly beat the shit out of a goblin that was hovering just a hair too close to her.
“Come on, Cocoa!” Daphne called, dropping the lead and kicking up into a run. The mare followed her closely, as if they were still tied together, and the two ran around until Daphne was huffing from the exertion.
I watched from where I was leaning against the gate, my eyes catching each droplet of sweat as it rolled down the side of her neck and down underneath the collar of her shirt.
I hadn’t seen Daphne fully naked, not yet, and I was now regretting the decision to wait until the equinox.
