Page 73

The response came quickly: He has to find a recipe. This could be fun.

Rook pulled out of the parking lot and headed south toward Shadow House.

“So,” Ethan said slowly, as the road stretched ahead of them. “Now the danger’s passed, how do you feel about going out on a date sometime? Perhaps out for a meal somewhere?”

“You mean out, in public around other people?” Rook glanced in his direction and then back at the road.

“I do realize that you typically get your main sustenance in alleys after dark, but I was thinking more about a dating situation. Is that a problem? You came to the theater and spent hours there with other people around while you waited for me to finish my shift.” Ethan peered at his mate a bit more closely as he felt a little shiver through their bond. “Didn’t you? I know you were there. I served you bourbon and talked to you at intermission.”

“Yeah.” Rook’s shadows slithered across Ethan’s shoulders, and one strand started playing with his hair. “I was there…the whole time…but the shadows are really dark around the seats when the play was on, and I spent most of my time in the vents, watching you working. So it’s not like I talked to anyone but you.”

“The vents?” Ethan couldn’t help it and burst out laughing. “Oh, Rook, that’s not going to work on a date. I know Cillian takes Julian out at least once a week, so, come on…it would be so sweet if we did that, too. Don’t you think? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“You know I’d do anything for you, my precious beacon.” Rook sighed. “I’m just not sure how well-behaved my shadows might be.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine.” Ethan was still grinning as one of the shadows stroked the side of his face. “They like me, and it’s not like we can stay in Shadow House all the time.”

“We could.” But Rook was grinning too.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Stop it,” Rook hissed under his breath.

His shadows ignored him, stretching across the coffee shop floor toward the booth where Ethan sat reviewing something on his phone. One tendril wrapped around Ethan’s ankle. Another attempted to investigate his messenger bag.

Rook yanked them back. They retreated sulkily, coiling around his shoulders before immediately creeping toward Ethan again.

“I mean it. Public behavior. We discussed this.”

The shadows had precisely zero interest in his opinion. They’d spent the past week at Shadow House with unlimited access to their mate, and now Rook was asking them to maintain a respectful two-foot distance in a crowded café. The betrayal was apparently unforgivable.

Ethan glanced up from his phone. “Are you having an argument with yourself?”

“No.”

“Your jaw is clenched, and you keep looking at the floor like it’s dirty.”

Rook slid into the booth across from Ethan. Under the table, his shadows immediately wrapped around both of Ethan’s ankles and started climbing. “I’m adjusting, or should I say, we’re adjusting.”

“To coffee shops?”

“To appropriate public behavior.”

Ethan’s mouth twitched. He reached across the table and patted Rook’s hand. “You’re doing great.”

A shadow snaked up the table leg and attempted to taste Ethan’s americano. Rook grabbed it and stuffed it back under the table where it belonged. The café door chimed as an older man entered, and three tendrils immediately whipped toward the movement before Rook wrestled them into submission.

“Are they always like this?” Ethan asked, watching the shadows retreat.

“Only when you’re involved. And when I’m stressed. And sometimes when I’m hungry.”

“So frequently.”

“Constantly is a better word.” Rook slumped against the booth. “I apologize in advance for anything they do in the next hour. They’re very excited about meeting your friend, and by excited, I mean territorially paranoid about any human who gets within five feet of you.”

“Aww, that’s so romantic.”

“That’s a diplomatic way of saying I’m functioning at the level of an overly friendly golden retriever who may or may not hump your leg.”