Tomorrow. Could he wait until tomorrow to see her again? After Dina’s little dig there, something told him he had no choice in the matter.
Unless he went to see her anyway. It wasn’t like he was worried about her warning, either. What could the mortals in Spring Valley do to him? He was an Othersider, and as he proved a few times already, their perimeter spell was no match for his wings.
He flicked the page, then set it down on his desk. “Next time something like this happens, I want you to tell me. Anything involving Avery, I want to know. Okay, Di?”
“Until this job is complete and you’ve earned your points, right, Camiel?”
Cam opened his mouth. And then he lied. “Right.”
For a few days, Cam had worked hard to ignore the pull toward Spring Valley. At least, he tried. It didn’t work, as his nighttime flights proved, but he only had the best of intentions.
And maybe if he kept telling himself that, he might actually believe it...
All that changed with Avery’s note, though. Worried for him, she’d warned him away from visiting her in Spring Valley. Didn’t she know anything about him by now? Not only was Cam a stubborn bastard, but he was more than a little contrary, too.
She told him to stay away for his own good?
If it wasn’t for Dina’s prim yet snarky comments making him think twice, he would’ve been in the sky before he fully understood the implications of Avery’s note. She was worried about him. That bled through from the hastily scribbled words on the page. She cared.
And Cam didn’t know what to do about that.
He was certainly regretting not giving her his angelic name. Sure, it would give her power over him, but despite it only having been a handful of days since she found her way to his office, he couldn’t deny that this slip of a mortal had more power over him than any other soul on the mortal plane.
For one night at least, Cam stayed close to Grayson. He couldn’t stay inside, though. He was too itchy to sit in one place and catch up on the Great American Hex-Off—one of his and Dina’s guilty pleasures on Witchflix—so he took to the roof. Dina gave him a knowing look right before he launched. That, more than anything, kept him local.
Camouflaged against the night’s sky, he let his mind wander as he flew. His wings needed the stretch; his soul needed to be uncontained. And while he felt the pull out of the city, he arrowed around again before he could follow it.
That was probably how he ended up soaring over downtown Grayson. Not too far from the train yards that marked one side of the city’s limits, Cam flew where the nightlife was. The skyscrapers and busy streets and background noise that was so much louder than his spot on Main.
He didn’t have a destination in mind. He was just cruising—until a niggling trace called up to him. It wasn’t as potent as the trace that had him descending so quickly in Spring Valley, but it was insistent enough that he dropped down behind one of the local establishments.
It was a human bar called Mickey’s. Heather Hayes wasn’t there now, but she had been.
He grinned. Though the trace was even older than the one he found in Spring Valley, it was finally something.
He couldn’t wait to tell Avery.
The whole next day, Cam was on pins and needles, waiting for Avery to show up. Eventually, he went looking for distractions.
Even though he didn’t usually sign on to do more than one good deed at a time, since locating Heather Hayes was taking longer than he thought, Cam was willing to do whatever he could to take his mind off of his current situation.
Oh, and earn some more points, too.
So he staked out the corner of Main and 3rd, gaining two points for standing guard as a quartet of nervous elderly women made their way across the street. When some kid threw their Mugs coffee cup on the ground instead of in the trash can, he picked it up—fourth-tenths of a point—and didn’t dump the remaining coffee over the punk’s head—nothing, but Cam felt better for his restraint—before throwing it away for him.
Then, around lunch, he reluctantly followed Mindy Ruger over to her salon.
When he heard the tapping at his door, he’d jumped up, hoping it was Avery. Behind him, Dina made a tutting sound that he purposely pretended he didn’t hear, then bit back his frown when he discovered Mindy in his hallway.
She had blown a fuse and one of her stations at the salon wasn’t working. Sure, she called an electrician, but couldn’t Cam take a look? He was so helpful to everyone… couldn’t he help her?
He didn’t waste his time telling Mindy that he and anything tech-related or electrical got on as well as oil and water. From her determination, he knew she would just come up with another reason to see him tomorrow if this failed. He might as well get the small amount of points for helping her even though he really, really didn’t want to.
Worried that he might miss Avery—and not too sure that Dina would let her in today after the way he reacted yesterday—he followed Mindy inside her salon, had to change three fuses when his celestial aura blew out two more on her, then quickly made his escape.
Still no Avery.
Ugh.
Most days, when he wasn’t working on anything in particular, Cam closed down his office around dinnertime. Still waiting for Avery, he decided to stay open a little later—and was rewarded at six o’clock by a flustered Avery who burst into his office, apologies spilling from her lips.
He could care less what kept her. She was there.
And he felt more at ease than he’d had all day.
“—and then there was an accident. Between that and rush hour, it took forever to get to you. I was hoping I wouldn’t miss you—”
“You didn’t.”
“—especially since I said afternoon. But I had to go take care of some stuff for Janice. Heather’s boss, remember? And then there was some things I’ve been neglecting, so yeah. But I said I’d stop by.”
“You did.”
She smiled at his wry tone. “Please tell me that you have some kind of news. It’s okay if you don’t, I didn’t expect you to, but after the day I’ve had… I’ll take anything.”
He’d already been proud that he had something to share with Avery; one of the seven deadly sins he was personally acquainted with though, these days, not the only one. Face to face with her expression of hope, he was glad he could give her some kind of update.
So he told her all about last night’s flight. Her expression became wistful when he talked about flying, but it turned on a dime when he mentioned picking up a trace of Heather at the bar.
“Do you think it means anything?”
“Maybe. She was definitely there.”
“I stopped at Mickey’s earlier this week and no one could tell me anything.”
“You didn’t have me with you,” Cam told her. “I didn’t go in, but we can change that tonight. Who knows? Maybe we can find something out.”
We… what happened to working alone, he wondered? Good question. Too bad he didn’t have an answer. He just knew that, when Avery’s face lit up like that, he couldn’t imagine not taking her with him to investigate Heather’s trace at the bar.
A second later, she frowned. “There’s only one problem, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Mickey’s doesn’t open until eight.”
“How is that a problem?” Cam asked.
“Um. Because it’s not even six yet? I got stuck in rush hour traffic on my way over, but even that didn’t eat up a couple of hours.”
The way she said eat like that sparked an idea in Cam’s mind. “You were in the car a while then, huh?”
“Don’t remind me. It should’ve only been half an hour, but it was almost three times that.”
“And I bet you didn’t eat.”
Avery shook her head.
“Great. Me, neither. Why don’t we stop and grab a bite, then we can head on over to Mickey’s.”
“Oh.” Her honey-colored eyes went wide and, unless he was im
agining it, her cheeks went a little rosy. “I… I mean, I haven’t really been eating much lately. But… yeah. Why don’t we do that?”
“Really? I mean, yeah. Why not?”
“Why not?” Dina hopped down from her perch. Oopsie. Once again, he forgot all about his auditor. “Camiel, you know very well why not. This is a bad idea. If you’re hungry, stay in. Eat here. Taking the mortal for a meal seems too much like a date.”
Seems? Try was.
Cam didn’t know what was coming over him, but he couldn’t stop himself. With a small twitch of his lips, he bent down, scratching between Dina’s ears. “Sorry, Di. No cats allowed at the restaurant. But I’ll bring you home a kitty bag.”
“Camiel...”
He grabbed his coat, then nodded toward his office door. “Come on, Avery. I know a great spot a couple of blocks away. And, don’t worry, it’s pretty cheap.”
“Camiel!”
9
Every date ends with a kiss
He spent the first few minutes of dinner worrying about how Dina would retaliate. Despite being an ancient auditor that had seen the rise and fall of countless civilizations, she wasn’t above being petty when she felt like Cam disrespected her—or was late with her next meal. He’d found more than a few hairballs in his shoes after an argument. And though he knew she was just looking out for him, he wouldn’t be surprised that she made an exception to her “no litter box” rule just to pay him back for what happened at the office.
Of course, then Cam realized the magnitude of what he’d done. Regardless of his intentions, he’d asked a mortal to dinner with him. Sure, he made it clear on the way over that it was only because a) he was hungry, b) they had time to kill, and c) he considered it as part of the job. He even told Avery that she had to pay since he couldn’t ask Dina for any spare cash. Surprisingly, once she discovered she was going to be responsible for the meal, any apprehension on her part seemed to melt away.
She saw it as a way to pay him back. He saw it as a way to get closer to her. Like a moth to a flame, he couldn’t stay away, even though he knew the outcome was being burned.
Dinner was great. The food was good, the company even better. The two hours before Mickey’s opened seemed to pass in a flash as he got to know Avery a little better, torn between hoping something would explain his strange draw toward her and soaking in her every comment, her every volley, her every daring smile; despite the constant cloud of worry hanging over her, she was slowly opening up to him. He made a point to pose each question in a way that she could interpret it as Cam just delving deeper into her and her sister’s history. She was more comfortable that way, and Cam could pretend this was all about the job.
Too soon, the plates were cleared, the check paid—he found a ten in his jeans, after all, and insisted on leaving the tip—and his reason to dawdle gone. It was well past eight, and Cam went back with Avery to retrieve her car. He could’ve walked since Mickey’s was only about a twenty minute stroll from his office, but Avery insisted so he gave in.
Parking outside of Mickey’s was at the curb. Mumbling something about hating to parallel park, she drove a block out of the way to find a spot she could pull into, then parked.
Inside, the bar was hazy and dark. Full, too, and he noticed that more than a few of the patrons stopped what they were doing to watch as Avery and Cam entered the space. Closing down most of his other senses while he searched for Avery’s sister’s psychic trail, he was still slammed with depression, despair, amusement, lust, and addiction. The footprint of the typical dive bar.
It made his skin crawl.
Avery didn’t seem all that happy to be in the bar, either. She frowned as she took in the booths, the stools scattered along the bartop, the empties, and the television hung crookedly in one corner. A PLB—Paranormal League Baseball—game was playing on the screen. She dismissed it, then glanced up at Cam.
“She was in here?”
It was faint, but he could pick it up. “Yeah. I’d say day, two days before the shifter got her by the library.”
“She said she was stopping for a drink after work on Friday so that checks out. But didn’t you say that you picked up on something outside of the bar?” When Cam nodded, she said, “Where?”
“I’ll show you.”
Cam was grateful for the excuse to leave the bar. There were too many people in there, and though Avery seemed convinced it was a human bar, it was at least evenly split between mortals and Paras. Waving the smoke away in front of them, he led her to the entrance, holding the door open for Avery.
Once they stepped back out into the night, he gestured to his left. “Over here.”
Behind Mickey’s, there was a small alley that led to another street. It was probably how the bar received its deliveries. There was a dumpster back there, too, so it didn’t smell the greatest, and the shadows beneath the overhang made it a little intimidating.
Well, if you weren’t an Othersider.
“Your sister came this way,” Cam told Avery.
And, he could sense, she hadn’t been alone. There was a very strong, very male, very aroused presence interwoven with her sister’s trace.
Cam stopped as he wondered: should he tell Avery that?
As a perpetual virgin, Cam wasn’t so sure how mortals treated sex. Everything he knew of the act was as an observer. From porn to accidental peep shows, he didn’t actively search it out—mainly because he knew that it was something else he had to sacrifice for his halo. The curse of the Othersiders made that perfectly clear. It was either a little nookie or ascension, and Cam made his decision decades ago.
But then he thought about his instant attraction to Avery. The lust that poured off of Mindy Ruger every time they met. The occasional hard-ons he had that weren’t so occasional anymore. For Cam, jacking off was an annual act. Lately? It was nightly and it took everything he had not to wonder why. Chalking it up to seven decades of not really paying attention to his cock, he took care of his erections and promptly put them behind him.
Would he bring a pretty female behind a bar if it wasn’t against his race’s oldest laws? When he imagined Avery in her sister’s place, he wanted to drag her out of this alley. She deserved a mountain of pillows and a male who treated her like a queen, not a quick romp in an alleyway.
Of course, he couldn’t give her that. And if Heather took the edge off with a male in the dark shadows outside of Mickey’s, who was he to judge? Everything he sensed was consensual on both sides.
Better not to share that with Avery, though. Apart from adding to her worries, the dark part of him didn’t want to give her any ideas—not when he couldn’t help her with them.
“That doesn’t seem like Heather,” she murmured, moving ahead of Cam. “And you’re sure?”
“I haven’t been proven wrong yet, have I?” he grunted.
“True. You’ve done more than you should for me, Cam. You sure you still won’t accept money? Dinner was barely thirty bucks. I can afford a little more than that.”
Now she was just insulting him. “I just want my points.”
“Right. Points. So you can earn your halo.”
Another grunt.
She glanced over her shoulder, a hint of a smirk so sexy crossing her face, Cam nearly flinched. “Heather’s not the only one I’ve been looking into. There’s not much about Othersiders on the internet, but I’ve learned a little. I get why you won’t take payment now. Never hurts to ask, though.”
“What about Dina?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “What about your cat?”
That answered his question. He wasn’t a big fan of the internet because, oh yeah, technology basically hated him, so it wasn’t like he did any ‘net stalking of his own. He could only imagine what it said about his race of Para, but so long as it kept the secret of the auditors, that was fine.
“I won’t take payment, no, but if you really want to say thanks, take care of Dina. Bring her tuna and you’ll make a friend for life.” A
nything chocolate, too, but he didn’t want to remind her that Dina was anything but a regular cat.
“Fresh or canned?”
“Either. But canned stores better.”
“True. Albacore or chunk light?”
“She prefers chunk light.”
“I’ll remember that.” The way she said that made Cam think she really meant it, too. “Hey, wait a sec… look over there. What’s that?” She pointed at a shadowy patch where the brick wall met the asphalt.
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s right here. Hang on. Let me get it.”
Avery scooted in front of him and then promptly bent right over. Cam didn’t have any clue what on the ground was so interesting, but that was only because his gaze found something even better to focus on.
A moment later, the female went absolutely still. “Did you hear that?”
Cam tore his stare away from Avery’s ass. “Huh? Hear what?”
Whatever she’d picked up didn’t seem so important. She dropped it, then pushed off of the ground, oblivious to the way that Cam jumped out of the way so that she didn’t brush against him as she took a few steps back the way they came. She cocked her head, listening. When she turned to look at him again, she was frowning. “I… I think someone’s out there.”
Cam reached out with his sense ability. Damn it. Avery was right. “Someone’s around the corner. They’ve been watching us.”
“Shit.” Avery sucked in a gasp. “What if it’s—”
“It doesn’t matter who it is,” Cam said, cutting her off. Avery’s sudden concern roused all of his protective instincts. No one was going to get away with scaring her like that. “I’ll take care of them.”
“Wait!”
He was ready to confront the presence he sensed around the corner. At her shout, he turned on his heel, trying desperately not to read too much into how she could maneuver him like he was a puppet on strings with nothing more than the tone of her voice.
“I’ve got a better idea.”
True Angel: a Fallen Angel romance (Curse of the Othersiders Book 1) Page 8
