“Thanks again,” she says quietly.
“Anything for you, pretty girl,” I say softly, but the brat mistakes my sincerity for flirting and takes a deeply unsexy bite of her food. I’m… disappointed? Is that what this feeling is? that she brushes me off after I rescued her tonight.
Pushing the unfamiliar feeling aside, I scoff at her defiance and turn to go, but stop in my tracks when I see a hand-drawn doodle of a cat hanging from a rope by it’s paws with the caption “Hang in there” taped to the door.
Well isn’t that just fucking adorable.
“See you soon,” I say over my shoulder and can’t help my grin when she calls out, “Don’t hold your breath. Or actually—do.”
Moments later, I feel like a soldier returning victoriously from war as I burst through our apartment door, holding the bags of food and liquor in one hand and the clothes she borrowed in the other.
“‘Sup, fuckers.”
“You’re late,” Roth accuses, but I roll my eyes and set the bags down in the kitchen.
“Before you light my ass on fire, I have a very good reason.”
“Which is?” he asks with a quirk of his eyebrow.
“I was helping a damsel in distress,” I beam, and toss the clothes at him on my way to the kitchen to set down the takeout bag, pulling a bottle of tequila out as a peace offering. Roth’s death stare is no longer on me, instead he’s fixated on the still-warm clothes now in his hands.
I open the bottle and take a generous pull before climbing over the back of the couch, leaning forward to offer it to Luther as Thane cleans off his new tattoo.
“Pucker up, princess, I owe you some tongue.” I flick my tongue out at him with a shit-eating grin.
“No,” he grumbles, voice hoarse after taking a long draw and handing it over to Thane, who then hands it to Roth.
“I’m gonna.”
“Killian, why are you late?” Roth asks pointedly, handing me the tequila, not willing to sully his precious tastebuds with swill.
“Our boy here left a present in the Training Center. All wrapped up just for me.”
Luther narrows his eyes, and I smirk. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“You’re a fuckin’ liar.”
“It hurts you don’t believe me, bro.”
“What the fuck are you two talking about?” Thane asks, already exhausted by our shit. Luther’s jaw clenches.
“Imagine my surprise when I walked into the Training Center only to find Nyx Byrke, the new witch on the block, wrapped in nothing but a shower curtain.Apparently—” I glance at Luther, daring him to stop me, “—someone stole her backpack with everything in it and all the towels mysteriously disappeared. When she asked Luther to borrow his clothes so she could get back to her dorm?—”
“You fucker,” he mutters, standing up from the coffee table and stomping off to the bathroom.
“—he said he’d let her borrow his shirt if she changed in front of him.” Roth takes another inhale of my sweats before passing them to Thane, whose blue eye lights up when his demon joins the party but mercifully remains calm. “That’s how I found her, naked and dripping wet, just for me. I, however, having at least one chivalrous, girthy, slightly curved bone in my body, unlikesomepeople,” I emphasize so Luther can hear me, “gave her my spare clothes. Then I called maintenance, bought her dinner, and walked her back to her dorm. And boys?—”
“Did you fuck her?” Roth asks with a slight edge to his voice when I pause for effect.
“…no.” I sigh and tilt my head back, taking another long pull of tequila. “But when she changed out of my sweats, her mirror was at the perfect angle. Turns out, you two match,” I waggle my eyebrows at Thane, “she’s got her nipples pierced too.” His blue eye flares and he stands, swiping the tequila from me as he walks to the kitchen.
“It’s cute when you’re shy, bro,” I tease, and the tips of his ears redden. Luther joins him a moment later and they start digging through the food. My expression sobers when I turn back to Roth, recalling what else she’d let slip.
“You know how her file had jack shit in it? I think it was deliberate. She said that two women broke into her apartmentand threatened to abduct her if she didn’t cooperate right then and there.”
He quirks his eyebrow. “They sent the Hanover twins? That’s not standard procedure.”
