He dragged in a breath that scraped out of him half-growl, half-curse.
If Arla hadn’t shown up, he wasn’t entirely sure he would have let the baker go at all.
“Bloody humans,” he muttered as he hauled himself into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. “Always causing trouble.”
Only this time, it wasn’t just under his skin.
One particular human had wedged herself somewhere far more dangerous.
And the worst of it?
He didn’t want to wait an entire damn week to see her again.
***
“Is anything the matter?” his aunt asked while Rhavor unloaded the groceries into her kitchen.
His movements were stiff and off-beat, like his body moved half a step behind his thoughts. Or several steps. Or miles.
“It’s nothing,” he grunted.
She watched him for a long moment, green eyes narrowing.
“You look strange,” she said calmly. Then added dryly, “And you just put the soap in the fridge. Right next to the milk. And the sugar.”
He froze.
She crossed her arms over a black T-shirt with a large smiley-face print splashed across the front—a ridiculous contrast to her deep pink skin, a legacy of her succubus mother, his grandfather’s first and shortest-lived marriage. That union hadn’t survived once monogamy entered the conversation, but it had left their family with a woman who missed very little.
“So,” she said lightly. “Something happened.”
“Everything is fine,” he said quickly.
She didn’t believe him for a second. She raised him after his parents died; she read him more easily than the spines of her ancient recipe books.
She tapped her foot against the wooden floorboards.
“Well? Either you fell off a roof, or you ended up in the middle of a witch convention.”
He cleared his throat and avoided her gaze.
“I… didn’t get the buns this morning.”
He couldn't think of anything else that didn’t sound like an obvious lie.
Her eyebrows shot up.
"Is that so?" she teased.“Must’ve been some very special buns, if you forgot the whole world.”
“I was just at Seth’s place,” he continued, “and it was closed.”
“Those stone-hard buns Seth could barely sell?” She snorted. “Honestly, no one would mourn them. He never quite mastered that recipe I gave him.”
“They were proper rye buns,” Rhavor muttered. “Traditional. Yeast. None of that modern nonsense humans like.”
“He wasn’t much of a baker anyway,” his aunt said, waving a dismissive hand. “His place looked more like a curiosity shop that happened to display some doughy bread and hard buns.”
She huffed.
