“Seems to me you’re doing just fine.”
“I have a lot of plants in my apartment, but at the house I used to share with Lark, we had an inner courtyard like this and it was full of plants. After crazy shifts we’d often just sit out there and have a glass of wine, letting all the bad business wisp away. My mother is a big gardener. She loves it. All the stuff from her teas comes from her gardens at their house. I guess we do get it from her, though I’m not that gifted with green things. She’s special that way.”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
“For what?” She clearly had no idea.
“For letting me share in this with you. This private side of yourself.”
“Oh. Well. I figured you’d find something restorative out here too. Shifters have that connection with nature as well. Different, but it’s there.”
He snorted. “I’m not a shifter.”
She turned, a mischievous grin on her lips, and his heart lightened.
“You’re human and you shift into a wolf.”
“You enjoy poking at me, don’t you?”
She raised a brow, but said nothing else and he chuckled.
“I’m Lycian. I am a beast who wears a man’s skin sometimes. And other times I wear fur. But I am always who I am, no matter the skin I wear. I do not need the moon or the tides. If I bit you, you’d bleed, but you wouldn’t be infected.”
“Did I insult you?” Her levity was gone, her question genuine.
He snorted a laugh and took her hand, squeezing it a moment. “No. We’re related in a distant manner, to shifters. But we are not the same.”
“Thank you for educating me. There’s so much I don’t know about everything out there in the universe. I thought I did until the Magister. Not knowing things makes me nervous.”
“There’s so much out there. Miraculous things.”
“I envy you that knowledge.”
“I can share it with you. If you like. I already said we’d go to Lycia when there’s a lull of a few days. There are other places. Beyond the Veil, I mean. I can part it, we can travel so you can see it all.”
“I’d really like that.”
And so he’d make it happen.
Her stomach growled. “Shall we go in and eat?”
He leaned in close. “After.”
“After?”
He reached out, cupping the back of her neck as he brushed his lips over hers. He’d intended a brief kiss, but she opened, sighing into him. Once that breath entered his system there was nothing brief about it.
He sank into her mouth, sliding his tongue over her juicy bottom lip and then inside, tasting the sweetness of her, the spice of her magick as it rose against him, twining around his.
Loam and fur, sun-dappled leaves and the lap of a lake against the shore filled him. Her magick, snowflakes and pomegranate slid around it. They were opposites and yet complementary.
Something clicked in him. An utter surety that he’d felt rarely enough that he trusted it to his toes.
He took her hand, squeezing it as he pulled away.
She nipped his bottom lip and he was back for more, deepening, his tongue dancing with hers. The sounds of the night all around them began to filter through the heat of their kiss. Of traffic on the street, voices just inside the house, the merrily running water just a few feet away.
When he broke the kiss, it was only because he knew there would be more.
Laughter sounded from inside and she smiled. “Let’s go in.”
He stood and she took his outstretched hand, letting him pull her up.
Chapter 7
“SO, you want to talk about anything?” Molly tried to hide her smile when she sidled up to Helena as they both filled their plates at breakfast.
“You scare me. It’s so early and you’re so perky. I do, however, covet that blouse.”
Molly preened a little. “It’s so nice to be around someone else who loves clothes as much as I do. Also? Fifty percent off. Sale rack. It was missing a button, but I can sew enough for that.”
“Nice score. The color is good on you.” It was true, Molly’s coloring worked well with the deep blue of the silk.
“Thanks. One of these days I’m going to take you shopping with me so you can show me all the places I can find clothes with enough pockets to hide weapons.”
Helena laughed. “You have Gage. You don’t need to hide weapons.”
“He does come in handy.” Molly blushed. “I have no idea how you manage to look like you’ve walked out of an ad for designer clothes when I know you’ve got guns and knives on your person, and you’ll still be able to run and kick people in the face.”
They moved to the table and sipped coffee.
“It’s a gift.” Helena winked. “It is hard to find pants cut right for ease of face-kicking though. The thing is, magick is easier to use, I don’t need special clothes for it and it’s free. Unfortunately, when I’m doing four things at once, a nice face kick clears the decks for me to do other things and not run my power down. Plus? It’s really satisfying to kick a jackwagon in the face.”
“What’s going on between you and Faine? I’m sorry for my bluntness.” Molly’s laugh told Helena she was no such thing. “He’s going to be lumbering down here with Gage any minute and I want to hear all the details.”
Helena hoped she wasn’t blushing. “Nothing really. I mean.” She looked toward the door and, finding the hallway empty, she leaned closer to Molly and kept her voice down. “He kissed me. A few times now. I like him. He’s ridiculously easy to look at, he’s got fists the size of giant hams, his butt is spectacular and he doesn’t try to do my job or treat me like a fragile flower. But, it’s just a kiss or three. We don’t have a lot of time to make it anything else, and that’s okay because he kisses pretty damned well.”
“I figured Tosh would make a move.”
“You’re the second person who’s said that to me lately. He is a lovely man, handsome, powerful, he knows how to wear a suit and I bet he knows his way around a lady’s business. But it’s not me he’s into. It’s Delilah. He gets a dreamy look on his face when he’s looking at her and thinks no one notices. Hello. My job to notice things.” Tosh really was cute, the way he crushed on Delilah.
“He’s always looking at your boobs. I just figured . . .”
Helena barked a laugh. “He’s a dude, Molly. Plus, if I do say so myself, I have great boobs. But when Delilah talks he watches her mouth. He likes to touch her a lot and he finds any excuse he can to seek her opinion and to sit next to her. Boobs are one thing—he looks at yours too, though he’s at least pretty wily and I figured no one noticed. But when a dude can’t stop looking at a woman’s mouth that’s a whole different level of interest.”
Molly’s eyes widened and she nodded. “Oh my goddess, you’re totally right! I’ve noted that he seems to listen to her well and now that you mention it, he does look at her mouth. Ha! I’m going to rub Gage’s face in this so much!”
Helena laughed as she ate her bacon. “He used to get that line between his brows every time you and Tosh would talk. And then he’d be all, ‘Oh, we’re just casual, it’s not a big deal’ about you.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “Lucky for him he’s gotten past that point now.”
“He is lucky. You’re a good catch. You smooth him out when he gets ragged.”
“Thank you. He’s . . . well, I never expected him.”