That I was as brilliant as the sun.
Nope. Wasn’t thinking about that or how no one, utterly no one had ever said something like that to me. I also wasn’t lying awake at night thinking about how he… he wanted to spend time withme. The real me. I wasn’t thinking about that at all. Nope.
I hadn’t seen the Prince since our dinner of very yummy crab cakes and crawfish. Half of me had expected to run into him when I was out Wednesday night, but he hadn’t magically appeared out of thin air like he had before. And that was a good thing.
Wasn’t like I was actually looking forward to seeing him.
So I decided to focus on the important stuff, like what I learned about this Ancient named Aric who might or might not be trying to make contact with the Queen.
And that was really bad news.
The problem was if I talked to Miles, he’d question how I came about the information. That put what I was trying to accomplish in jeopardy. If I had to confide in someone who just might understand where I was coming from it would be Ivy and she would be back in the city in about a week.
I had time.
Anyway, I’d only been gone twenty minutes tops, so I was rather shocked by the current condition of the kitchen when I returned.
Crossing my arms and then unfolding them before crossing them again, I looked around the room. I took a breath and then exhaled slowly. “Why does it look like the FBI raided my kitchen while I was upstairs?”
And that’s what it seriously looked like.
All the cabinet doors were open. Glasses were pushed around. Plates askew. Tupperware on the verge of toppling onto the counters. Pots and pans in the lower cabinets turned so their handles were jutting out.
“Well, you see, it’s kind of a long story.” Tink sat on the edge of the island, his legs swinging and his wings twitching while the scent of fried meat mingled with the peach-scented candle that was burning behind him. Dixon was lying beside him, his long tail swishing idly.
I turned to him and opened my mouth, but I was at a loss.
“Dixon and I were playing hide and go seek.”
That explanation didn’t help either. “How do you play hide and go seek with a cat?”
Dixon’s ears flattened as Tink gasped dramatically. “Are you suggesting that Dixon doesn’t have the brain capacity to play hide and go seek?”
“Dixon is a cat—a very smart cat, but a cat.” I shook my head as I walked over to the small kitchen table. “You are so cleaning this up.”
“I was planning to.” Tink took flight, following me over to the table. He landed on the back of the white chair. “What are you doing? And don’t lie and say you have a date.”
“I’m actually going to walk the Quarter,” I said, deciding not to lie. “There’s some younglings that have gone missing and I’m going to see if I can find any of them.”
His brows knitted together. “Fabian mentioned something about that, but he didn’t seem too concerned.”
“Well, Tanner and Faye are. They contacted the Order.”
“Oh, and I bet the Order cares sooo much about a few missing Summer fae.” He walked along the narrow back of the chair like it was a balance beam. “They were basically ‘not my problem’?”
“Pretty much. That’s why I was going to head out. The chance that I see any of them is pretty nil, but it can’t hurt to try.” Glancing back to the island after I heard the soft thump of Dixon dropping to the floor, I made another quick decision. “Do you want to come with me?”
Tink halted, one little leg up in the air. His forehead wrinkled as he looked up at me and then glanced down to where Dixon was weaving himself around my ankles. “Nah, I need to clean up the kitchen.”
“You sure?”
He nodded as he flew up so he was eye level with me. His wings moved quietly through the air. “Yeah, and I discovered this new show that I’m only a few episodes into.”
Tink gave me a lot of crap about going out hunting without him, but Tink didn’t go out often. Sometimes I wondered if he had some kind of phobia surrounding the outside human world and that was why he didn’t travel to Florida with Fabian. Then again, he had traveled with Ivy and team to San Diego when they were searching down leads to stop the Queen.
“What show?” I asked.
“Santa Clarita Diet. It’s about this woman who becomes a zombie, but she’s not like a Walking Dead zombie. She’s basically trying to live her best life with her husband and daughter as a flesh-eating zombie.”
