“Thanks,” he said, leading the way across the living room and into the den. “It came with the house.” He glanced back to see how she took that. Her look of confusion made him smile. “It was already like that when I moved in.”
That made her brow furrow more.
“The house was in foreclosure when I bought it,” he explained. “The couple that lived here were killed in a car wreck, and the bank had repossessed it. I expected their family to come claim some of their stuff, so I left most of the house like it was for the longest time. But no one ever came, and, well, I haven’t felt the need to redecorate.”
“So you just live with their stuff?” Kara asked, sounding slightly appalled.
Noah shrugged. “Not all of it.” Reaching up, he clicked on the light in the den. This was the room he loved. Quite a lot of time had gone into ripping the horrible carpet out and putting in a beautiful laminate floor. He had chosen a dark blue sectional that was comfortable enough to sleep on and an oak coffee table. On the wall opposite the couch was the biggest television he could possibly find. To the right was a fireplace he never used, and to the left was a wall filled with books on just about everything he could think of.
“Now this is nice.”
Noah looked back to see the smile on Kara’s face.
“Who did your curtains?” She went over to the window and rubbed her hand over the taffeta and gauze drapes strung artfully over his back windows.
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
Kara gave him a pointed look that made him laugh.
“One of my ex-girlfriends couldn’t stand the blinds I’d hung up,” he explained. “Complained that it made it look like a bachelor’s pad. So she fixed me up.” He hadn’t seen anything wrong with bare blinds. As long as they kept the glare off his TV, what did it matter?
“Why’d you break up?” Kara moved away from the window towards the bookcase wall. Her fingers drifted over the spines as she read the titles.
“I wouldn’t let her in my basement,” Noah answered. “Come on.” He turned and headed through the door into his kitchen.
Returning the book she had picked up, Kara followed a few steps behind.
Noah paused to look around the kitchen. Someone had been here since he’d left for the gala. He couldn’t see down in the sink, but the dishes he’d left there had been washed and left to dry in the strainer. And from the lack of smell, someone had obviously taken out his trash. He was almost willing to lay money that that same someone had moved the steaks in the refrigerator to the freezer. Only one person could have been responsible for this. Noah searched around until he found what he was looking for. A note.
Pinned to the front of his refrigerator was a single sheet of paper with several scrawling marks and Eternity’s emblem hastily drawn on it. “Laurence has been here.” Noah edged around the kitchen island and headed across the room.
Kara followed closely behind him. “How can you tell?” She glanced around the room.
Noah nodded at the page. “That’s his mark.” It really wasn’t Laurence’s mark. It was a simple protection spell Noah liked to use when they went out into the field, but Laurence had given him shit over it and had scrawled the strange symbol on everything of Noah’s he could get his hands on. After a while, the joke had gotten old, but Laurence would still tag things with the symbol to draw Noah’s attention to them.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Noah turned towards the door in the corner of his kitchen. His feelings hadn’t been wrong. Someone had been there after all. Laurence. But it looked like he was long gone. “Could you help me with this, please?” He stopped next to the closed door.
Coming up next him, Kara reached out and opened the door. A set of steps led down into the darkness of his basement.
“You’ll need to head down first,” Noah explained. “There’s a door at the bottom of the steps, too.”
Kara gave him a surprised glance, then turned her attention to the dark stairs. “You’re going to let me in your basement?”
Noah opened his mouth, surprised that she would even ask, but their conversation from the living room hit him. Of course she would ask. He’d just told her he’d broken up with someone because he wouldn’t let them in his space. Noah cocked his head, amused. “You’re smart enough to know not to touch anything. She wasn’t.” Stepping back, he bowed his head, indicating she should lead. “After you, my lady.”
Giving him a wary look, she headed down the steps.
Noah held the upper door open until she was most of the way down. “I’m going to have to shut this,” he warned. “Just hold on to the banister. The door is right at the bottom of the steps, and seriously, don’t touch anything. Some of that stuff can explode if jostled wrong.”
Kara made some sort of distressed noise, but Noah ignored it and closed the door, dropping the stairs into total darkness. It was important to keep both doors shut tightly when he was working down here. Some of the spells he played with were dangerous, and he had gone to great lengths to keep them contained. But that only worked if the room stayed sealed. Carefully, he picked his way down the familiar path. He heard Kara rattle the handle on the lower door. “Just push it open, there’s a light on the other side,” he called down reassuringly.
“It is open,” she called back through the darkness.
Noah’s heart clenched. It shouldn’t be dark. His orchids were down here! “Shit.” He rushed down the last of the steps. “Just don’t touch anything,” he warned again as he brushed past Kara into the darkened room. This was not the first time the light over his plants had popped the breaker. Using the trickle of light from the back window and memory, he picked his way between tables and into the far corner where the switch box was.
Rearing up, Noah found the box and snagged the latch with his claw. Pride swelled in his chest. He was getting better with those things. It only took a second to find the thrown breaker, but Noah paused before fixing it. Fear clenched around his heart. The switch wasn’t blown. Someone had deliberately turned the lights out.
A male’s deep voice cut through the darkness. “Turn it on.”
Enraged that someone would violate his space, Noah slammed the switch into place. The bank of lights over his plants flickered to life, blinding him, but he turned around ready to hurt the person who had endangered his plants. He’d spent hundreds of hours getting those suckers to bloom, and he was going to take apart the person who dared hurt them.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Noah growled as he came around the end of the last table to face the voice. His heart dropped when he saw the intruder standing just inside the small alcove next to the door. The man was large, but it wasn’t the gun in his hand that made Noah’s heart race. It was the hand he had around Kara’s throat. A growl echoed up from Noah’s chest, pushed by his enraged dragon. The muscles in his back legs bunched as he coiled to attack.
“Stop right there!” the man yelled.
Noah’s attack froze when the man moved the gun to point at Kara.
“You make one move, and she’s dead.”
Rocking back into a more comfortable position, Noah held his place on the floor, ready for any opportunity.
“Shift!” the man yelled.
“I can’t!” Noah growled.
“He can’t!” Kara snapped at the same time.
The man looked from Noah to Kara. “All dragons can shift!” he insisted. “Tell him to shift!” The hand at Kara’s throat tightened as he pressed the gun to her temple harder.