My stupid, unhinged heart fell when I realized Niall wasn’t there.
It was a good thing, though. I tried to make myself believe that.
Maybe I wouldn't have to see Niall.
As disappointing as that was to a small, obnoxious part of me, I knew it would be for the better. I hadn't managed to really move on, but he probably had.
"You smell like sweat and panic," Larson said with a grin. "I had no idea you missed me that much."
"Fuck you."He wasn’t a shapeshifter like Niall, but his senses were still better than most immortals'.
Their mother was a spellcaster, and their father was a shapeshifter. Larson was born a caster, and Niall was a shifter, but they both had small attributes of the other. Lars had better senses. Niall had a feel for magic that most people didn't.
"I'd fuck you too, but considering your history with my brother, that seems like a bad idea." He winked at me.
"Oh please, we both know you don’t do women. Or any men other than Rob, at this point."
"I’m flattered that you remember my sexual preferences, your highness."
I flipped him off over my shoulder with one hand, and stabbed my passcode into the keypad on my front door with my other. I'd changed the code after Niall and I broke up, which was probably the only reason Larson was on the porch instead of already inside.
"It's barely been two years. I haven't forgotten a damn thing," I muttered.
"That makes three of us."
My throat swelled.
He was clearly referring to his brother. Niall was the only reason we knew each other, and the only person there other than me and Larson, when everything went to hell.
"How's Rob?" I asked as I pushed the door open. Rob was his long-time boyfriend, thoughboyfriendwas a weak word for the connection the men shared. Niall and I had been solid, but they were something else entirely.
Lars had felt guilty about fucking up the wards since he accidentally created Rumor's endless rain. He'd warned Rob when they started dating that he wouldn't take a mate until he had figured out how to fix the problem. Rob hadn't cared about the wait.
Rob wasalsoalmost as furious as I was about the spell that went wrong, not that I'd ever really had time to discuss it with him. He was a busy guy, and I was busy trying to stop my magic from overwhelming me.
"He's as perfect as ever," Larson said, wearing a grin that I could hear in his voice without looking backward. "He finally got promoted."
"Good. He deserves it."
There was a beat of silence as Larson closed the front door behind us.
I glanced backward. "What's the pink spell for? The one you used last time was blue."
"This one will help me safely unravel some of the screwy edits I made to the wards that nearly killed us last time. It's going to take a lot longer than any normal spell would."
"How long?"
"Three days. Maybe four or five. Unraveling it without killing both of us or shutting the spell down entirely is… delicate."
"Fabulous." My voice was flat."Where’s Niall? We both know he’s going to freak out when he learns that you’re trying to fix the rain again."
"At his studio. We've got a solid two to ten hours before he tracks my phone and realizes I'm here."
Niall had a studio in our house when we were together, but he always kept the one out in the Spellcaster Sector too.
He'd been planning on moving everything out of it, before we broke up, and making the one at our place his official workspace. That obviously had never happened.
"Any chance he hates me enough not to show up when he finds out?" I asked.
