“Oh, right. You’re only awake at night.”
His gaze goes to the dark window. “I forgot the feel of sunlight.”
“If I can break the curse, I will.”
“You should rest,” he says, acting as if he didn’t hear me. Maybe he doesn’t think I’m capable of breaking it. We leave the library, and I grab my bag to change into pajamas for the night.
Hasan has gone back outside to keep watch, Jacques is in the living room with the book, and I’m not sure where Thomas and Gilbert are. I unfold my blanket, fluff up my pillow, and settle in on the couch.
This time around, it takes me a good hour before I finally fall asleep, despite my exhaustion. I wake up not long after with a cramp in my neck. The couch isn’t comfortable at all.
The house is quiet and the fire has died down some. The room has retained enough warmth to keep the chill away, but not enough to shed my blankets. I press my fingers into the base of my neck, massaging my sore muscles.
Something shuffles behind me, and I jump up.
“It’s just me,” Thomas says, leaving the shadows. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I sit back on the couch. “I woke up with a stiff neck, that’s all.”
“Let me help you.” He stands behind the couch, putting his hands on my shoulders. “You’re very tense.”
“I usually am.”
“Why?” With one hand, he moves my hair to the side, then starts kneading my muscles.
“Work, I guess.”
“Then why do you do it?”
My eyes fall shut. For a man with fangs, claws, and wings, his touch is gentle. “I like my job.”
“You like a job that makes you tense?”
“It doesn’t make sense, I know.” I let my head fall to the side. Thomas slides his hands down my shoulders. “I guess I just like getting the bad guys.”
He brings his hands back up and moves one forward, tracing my collarbone with one finger. I shiver from the sensation. The last time a man touched me like this was, well, never. I’m not a virgin, but the relationships I’ve had in the past never amounted to much.
I bring my hand up, placing it on top of Thomas’s. He feels human. Warm flesh, tender touch, and deft fingers. He might have vowed to keep it in his pants, but I know these hands have pleasured many women. He knows what he’s doing.
I tip my head back and open my eyes, looking at him. In one swift movement, he jumps over the couch, landing next to me. I angle my body toward him, studying his wings.
“Go ahead. Touch it,” he whispers.
Tentatively, I bring my hand up and feel the top of the wing. They’re much like bat wings, just sized for a large man. The bones beneath the webbed flesh is ridged and bumpy, with rough patches of thick skin along the top. The edges are outlined in barbs, reminding me a bit of the back of a stegosaurus. Gilbert’s wings look similar, much unlike Jacques’s, which are as detailed as a carefully carved statue, artfully formed with Gothic beauty. Even the razor-sharp talons at the top of his wings have Celtic symbols engraved into them. Hasan’s wingspan is the biggest, and his wings are plain and dark with no hooks, barbs, or talons.
“You all look different,” I start, then realize how stupid that sounds. “I mean, of course you do, but your wings vary a lot.”
“They’re based on our personalities. Well, the opposite of them. Gil and I prided ourselves on our looks and we got the ugliest wings. Hasan loved his weapons and has the least defensive wings of us all. And Jacques didn’t believe in material wealth and he looks like the King of Hell with those ornamental wings.”
I swallow hard, getting a better sense of the curse. Whoever cast it wanted the men to suffer in every way possible.
“What did you do to get cursed?”
Thomas stiffens and looks into the fire. “We were blamed for a murder we did not commit.”
“Who died?”
“The daughter of a pagan sorcerer. Her father cursed us.”
