“He’s not downstairs yet. Don’t worry. This is Charley. He’ll be along after they’ve banged whatever it was out of their system. Lucky bastard.”
I froze in the act of picking up the mug I’d come down for. “You fancy Luc?”
“Heavens, no. Sure, he’s hot stuff, but not the type I go for. I like ’em slender and twinky. Preferably with long hair. Luc’s all muscles, plus, y’know, wolf.” A gusty sigh. “I meant I’m envious of their bond. Their love. Finding their OTP?” She waved her hand at me. “Go on and get your tea. You don’t want to listen to my cranky arse bemoaning my lack of love life.”
“If you haven’t found the right bloke yet, Baxter, it’s because nobody’s been good enough for you.” I felt my cheeks heat as the words left my mouth, but when Baxter blew me a kiss, they could have boiled the Thames. I escaped at speed and took refuge in the blessedly empty kitchen. I finally made the tea, then drank it slowly, sifting through all the information Baxter had dug up on my family. I could feel my eyes getting heavy. The next thing I knew, I woke up back in our bed in the guest room, in the pitch black, my day clothes missing and the definite feeling it was darkoutside. I panicked for all of twenty seconds before I felt the mattress shift as someone sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Eddie?” I knew it was him. Anyone else would have triggered a freak-out, but I could sense him with my eyes shut. “I was in the kitchen. I think I made a cuppa. I don’t remember much after that.”
He sounded amused. “You were asleep with your head on the table. I carried you up here and you didn’t even stir. I think your hangover caught up with you, love. Shall we go home?”
I scrambled upright. “I need to speak to Pavel.”
22
TRACE
“He’s snoozingon the back seat of my car. He rather overdid it with the magic and I wasn’t letting him go back to Dalziel without a rest. I offered him my new bedroom, but he wouldn’t take it.” I peered at the basket in James’ grasp. “Why, what do you have in there?”
“Food that will give him an energy boost,” James said, his gaze steady, almost fierce. “Using magic here takes twice as much energy as it does for a Fae in their own realm. I’ve been researching. That’s why Charley looked done in when he made the ice lawn. He’s having to pull any magic he does across two planes of existence. Isher is probably exhausted, even with his royal blood.”
I reined in my smile. I knew all this, but it was encouraging to see James was keen to absorb as much knowledge as possible about supernaturals of all kinds. It did make me wonder though…
“You seem very invested in the Fae. Any particular reason?” I couldn’t forget he’d insisted he could see Charley’s magic working. It had to be a coincidence, a trick of the light, surely.
“We’ve had an exciting day, haven’t we, love?” Edwin’s smile was tight, almost as if expecting me to react negatively.
“Go on,” I prompted.
I sat on the steps Isher had constructed for me, my mind whirring to keep up as they explained what had transpired. Well, that certainly cleared up a few things.
I gathered my thoughts. What to say first? In the end I went with an apology. “The pink lights you said you saw?”
James set his lips in a straight line. “Ididsee them. I’m hard of hearing, not blind.”
“I beg your pardon. My wording was poor. I’m going to suggest that seeing as you don’t have a history of unexplainable magical happenings, perhaps your talents lie in seeing Fae magic, being aware of it, rather than any direct ability to use it yourself.”
Edwin shot me a loaded glance. “You’re saying you canseeFae magic?”
“Usually only if you’re Fae,” I confirmed. “Which is why I was surprised when James remarked on it.”
“You were a bit more than surprised,” James accused. “I think you saw them too, or you know a lot more about Fae magic than you’ve been letting on.”
“Hey, love, no need to go on the attack. Supes are notoriously cagey about sharing info with humans. I don’t think it was unreasonable of Trace to be wary, or surprised. We all assumed you were human. Saying you see stuff others can’t can be a red flag to let us know we’re not necessarily safe.”
Well now, Edwin jumping to my defence was something that made my insides heat. I’d not expected him to do that, nor to caution James in front of me. It seemed he’d been sincere about my being part of whatever it was they had going, on top of our mutual physical attraction.
James narrowed his eyes at Edwin. “Ithought I was human. Don’t have a pop at me because you’ve had a century to get paranoid. Remember, I’ve spent my whole life looking over myshoulder to make sure I’m not about to get jumped by some arsehole who thinks it’s funny I have a hearing deficit. I know about being careful, Edwin.” He glared at us both. “I’m going to take this inside and make myself something to eat.”
He stalked off without a backwards glance. I raised my eyebrows at Edwin. “Trouble in paradise?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t think so. Perhaps he’s hungry. Or maybe he’s not as okay with this discovery as I thought he was. He seemed fine at Baxter’s.”
“Give him some time to cool off,” I suggested. “He’s had a shock, although why Fae blood would come as a surprise when he’s spent his life with suspiciously pointy ears, I don’t know.”
Edwin flicked my shoulder as he followed me up the steps. “Because he’shuman, or thought he was, you knucklehead. You lot have a wonderful capacity for not seeing the obvious, because the obvious is explained as folklore, and has been since forever so we don’t get hunted out of existence.” He scoffed. “You could cut your hair and caution your familiar to fly under cover of darkness and no one would even catch on you’re a witch. At worst, they’d think you were an obsessive gardener with some weird plants. Try being a vampire and not alerting your neighbours. That takes some doin—” He broke off as I opened the door to the living room. “Bloody hell. That’s not a tarting up, that’s a full-on miracle.” He stared around for a moment. “You like silk then. A lot, it seems.” The living room ceiling was tented in fabric, as was the ceiling in the bedroom.
I smiled at his open-mouthed amazement. “He’s quite talented isn’t he?” Isher had gone all out in his efforts to turn the empty carriage into a home. He’d done way more than I could have dreamed of, and more than I would ever have been comfortable asking of him, even if I did suspect he was immensely powerful. He’d had to push me to be honest aboutmy likes and dislikes as well as my needs, so he could create a home that would be to my taste rather than merely convenient.
