“You are a right pain in my ass, you know that?” His eyes went back to the screen, but the way he shifted in the bed told me just as much as the syrupy air curling thick around me. I’d also bet anything he was engrossed in some spicy fantasy book that he usually claimed he read for thewell-done magic systemsandunique worlds.
“Look, she needs to be able to trust us. I told her as much as I could so she would. And now she’s coming to work with us willingly tomorrow. She and Hazel have communal tattoos.”
“Is she going to be able to handle the spellwork needed to use it?” The air shook a bit, his nerves creeping through his words. “And please don’t tell me your little window display was just to help her recharge so she has power to draw on for the locator spell. I know we want to catch this perp, but that would be fifty shades of fucked up, Lynx.”
“Are you suggesting I’m trying to screw our neighbor just to gain the advantage in our case?”
“I would hope not, especially since you areinterestedin her. But if on some level you’re doing this to further the case and not out of genuine feelings, I’m asking you to stop. Now. Before you do any damage. She deserves better than that.”
I smirked, glad he was paying attention to his book boyfriends and girlfriends more than me at the moment. It was better he didn’t know I was on to the real reason behind his protectiveness.
“The sooner we close this case, the better,” he grumbled, tapping another page on his tablet.
“Tired of being married to me already?” I taunted, gripping my chest with my hand dramatically. “It’s only been a year.”
“Unfortunately, the newlywed stage really is only a thing for actual newlyweds, Lynx. Those temporary vow marks we have will be erased just as quickly as they were installed before our assignment.”
“Ouch,” I said, biting back the sting of his words.
“You know what I mean.” He let his tablet fall on his chest, giving me his full attention. “I want a real life. One where I don’t have to pretend constantly. Once we are finished with this case, I’m requesting out of undercover. It was better than the alternative for me, but now— I’m just getting too old for this.”
“Forty-four isn’t old.” I’d be there soon enough in about six years. Other than the crinkles around his eyes and the silver scattered through his stubble when he let it grow, he’d barely aged in my mind. Still the handsome man I met at twenty-five, just a little less broken and a little more jaded.
“Oh, I know it’s not. But it’s too old to not be building my own life.” He tapped the side of his reader, blotting out its light before returning it to the nightstand. Then he took off his glasses, placing them next to it. “Don’t you want to be able to gohomeand have areal family?”
“I know what you’re saying,” I conceded. “But you are my real family.”
“And you’re mine.” His eyes softened, realizing the harshness of his words, and he reached for my cheek, resting his palm there. “But I’d like to have more than just a set of posed wedding photos in a house that we’ll never own, on a street where I have to vet every witch I meet to see if they are a suspect for a case I’m working.”
Valid.
“Well, hopefully things will go well with Oakley tomorrow,” I said, grabbing his wrist and pressing a kiss to it.
“At this point any clue we can get would be useful.” He sighed, orange wisps of frustration rolling off him as he turned away from me. “Guess we will see how it goes.”
“I have a good feeling about her, Saros.”
“Of course you do.” He chuckled before muttering low, “I just wish it wasn’t in a way that might compromise our case.”
What had occurred in the windows of numbers 13 and 16 had been a surprise, not that there were many shocking things that happened on Starry Night Lane.
In fact, it had probably been the most shocking sighting since the Larks had gottenflockedby a teenage pack of wolves from two streets over.
Sixty-two plastic ravens spanned the lawn, sixty-two stakes driven deep into the grass.
Disturbing its hallowed ground.
Then the offensive display had been left there. The Larks had the audacity to believe it wasfunny.
After several strongly worded emails from the HOA—all ignored—the absolute flocking disaster remained. When prospective tenants drove down the lane, they gawked through their windows. A few even spun around the cul-de-sac, skipping their real estate appointments, leaving Hazel Brooks, Celestial Haven’s exclusive realtor, in a lurch yet again.
Luckily, that had been a while ago, and this new shocking window display hadn’t elicited nearly as much gaping. It hadn’t gone unnoticed, though. As Jade and Jacob Fisher returned to number 12 in the wee hours of the morning, she shot her husband a grin, then pulled the glowing yellow vial from her pocket. Popping the lid, he drank it down before following her inside.
When the light blinked on in their upstairs bedroom and their two silhouettes formed into one, the sounds filtered out into the quiet street. But they weren’t the only ones who had seen it, and while more magic was brewed that night for Starry Night’s coven, so had a heavy dose of envy.
Chapter18
Oakley
