The pooka wasn’t waiting inside.
Niko was.
23
I May Not Always Be Good but My Intentions Are
Niko sat in my recliner, Mr. Bond sprawled across his jean-clad lap, Dame Zilla snuggled on his broad shoulder, her face buried against Niko’s dark neck.
My brain stuttered to process the scene. Niko looked at home in my apartment. With my cats. Mr. Dark and Deadly himself, relaxing in my recliner like he belonged. Like he was a natural part of my life. In all my fantasies about Niko, I’d never once imagined anything quite so domestic.
A wallop of thwarted libido tinged with tenderness blindsided me, giving rise to an impossible daydream of coming home to Niko at the end of a long day and snuggling with him in that chair, the bedroom just a few steps away.
Niko lifted an eyebrow at me.
I closed my mouth with a click. Please tell me all that hadn’t shown on my face.
I stepped into my apart—
Invisible bands constricted around my feet and hands, tightening into knots and locking me in place. Panic iced my spine. I struggled, but it didn’t make a difference; my limbs didn’t so much as twitch. Frantic, I blinked to Primordium, searching for an escape.
Niko’s soul shimmered with its trademark glossy strength, not a drop of atrum in sight. Both cats were pristine, as was my apartment. I couldn’t turn my head, but straining my eyes left and right enabled me to make out gossamer strands of what looked like lux lucis spiraling from my hands to the white tube bordering the door frame. Despite their fragile appearance and glowing good energy, the cobweb-like substance held me as immobile as if I’d been bound by steel cables.
I jerked my gaze back to Niko. He remained seated, his bland expression confirming he’d known exactly what would happen the moment I walked through the door. He’d set me up! He’d broken into my house, befriended my cats, and installed a trap!
I fought the bonds holding me, succeeding in doing nothing but raising my blood pressure. Sweat blossomed along my hairline. My outraged exclamation rattled in my throat like a poor Ms. Piggy impression, my jaw locked closed, my lips immobile. Niko’s eyes crinkled as if he found me amusing, and I willed the chair beneath him to catch on fire.
What if my neighbors stepped outside right now? I’d look like an idiot, frozen in my doorway like a cardboard cutout, held by ropes they couldn’t see.
Mr. Bond had perked up at my entrance, and when I made no move to greet him, he jumped from Niko’s lap and approached, meowing and waving his tail. I lost sight of him before he reached me, unable to tilt my head to track his movements. With my hand stuck holding the door open, Mr. Bond had unfettered access to the great outdoors. I started struggling in earnest. Mr. Bond was an inside cat. He had gotten out the front door twice in his life, and both times he’d panicked, huddling against the wall and yowling until I snatched him up. Both times he’d been outside less than twenty seconds. If it took me longer to rescue him, would he bolt?
Niko shifted, drawing my attention back to him. He tapped Dame Zilla’s side, and her head jerked up. She chirped, looking around with a dazed expression the way she did when woken from a deep sleep. How long had Niko been here? Scooping the kitten up with one large hand, Niko stood and gently set her on the recliner’s cushion. She immediately jumped down and ran toward me and the open door. I jerked to stop her, straining without moving.
“Good evening,” Niko said.
“How dare you! Get me out of this!” I shouted, but with my lips sealed and jaw locked, it sounded like a badly hummed song. I released another Ms. Piggy scream of frustration.
“Close your eyes.” Niko lifted a bottle. It resembled a dense cito spray, the contents sparkling with lux lucis. He depressed the nozzle and a fine powder swirled through the air, stinging my eyes. I clamped them shut, but tears leaked from between my lashes.
The web loosened in stages from my head down, and I fell off balance into my apartment. Niko steadied me, but I shook free and whirled to scoop a curious cat under each arm and deposit them both back in my living room. Niko shut the door as I straightened.
A roll of white cotton hugged the door frame, tacked in place by industrial-strength staples. The cobweb restraints had disappeared as if they’d never existed, and a fine white powder coated the welcome mat. I dusted off my hands and swiped tears from beneath my eyes, my fingers coming away smudged with mascara. More powder drifted from my hair. I looked like a bag of flour had exploded on me.
I glared at the mess on my carpet, then up at Niko, my hands balling into fists. I took a half step toward him, arm muscles bunched. A solid punch to his jaw would wipe that serene expression off his face.
Too much. My reaction registered as too extreme, but surprise fueled the volatile manipulations of the bond, firing my anger higher. I forced myself to the center of the front room and channeled my rage into volume.
“What the hell was that? And how did you get in here?”
“I used a key.” He gestured behind him to the door and said, “That’s for your protection.”
I dug my nails into my palms, his calm and level tone rendering me speechless. Mr. Bond chose that moment to head-butt my shin. He rubbed his body against me and wrapped his tail up my bare leg; then deciding I’d been properly greeted, he trotted to his food bowl. Hunkering down, he crunched through dry kibble with relish. I eyed the full bowl of food.
Niko had fed Mr. Bond.
Swallowing my rant, I ground out a single word: “Explain.”
“It’s a nonlethal trap. It’ll catch a pooka as easily as it caught you.”
“Great plan. Nothing restores trust like a good trap.” I shook powder from my hair and coat, holding my breath until it settled.
“It will give you time to talk to Jamie before he runs off. Again.”
Because he knew better than me how to handle a pooka. Riiight. “If Jamie had triggered your trap right now instead of me, what would you have done?”
“I’d have called you.” His eyes tightened, the first sign of his calm demeanor cracking, and scorn laced his tone when he continued. “I’m pretty sure you would have cut short your date for Jamie.”
“Well, your trap didn’t work, so good night.” Take your imminent lecture with you.
“I’ve got an assignment upstate and won’t be around for a few days,” Niko said as if I hadn’t spoken. “Before I leave, I want to make sure you’re prepared.”
“So you decided to break in and make yourself at home.” If I’d brought Alex upstairs, how would I have explained Niko waiting for me in my apartment? Or better yet, how would I have explained the trap?
Niko’s lips settled in a flat line and he crossed his arms. “I had been told you were sick. When you didn’t answer the door, I was concerned. It never occurred to me you’d be out.”
“And naturally you decided to try your hand at trapping Jamie. Without running it past me.”
“Where is your head at?” Niko thundered, the fury and volume startling me. “You’ve got an out-of-control pooka doing who knows what in your region, and you decide to go on a date? I thought you recognized the seriousness of the situation, but I guess I was wrong.”
“You think I don’t know how serious this is?” I matched Niko’s tone, indignation turning my body rigid.
“Clearly not, if you’re prioritizing your sex life—”
“How dare you!”
“Look at yourself. Look at your actions!” He lowered his voice, but his tone grew harsher. “I’d expect this from a teenager, but not from you. Not with how much you claim to love the pooka.”
Bite me. “Because all I’ve done is ignore the problem. I haven’t hunted the tyv all night and Jamie all day. I haven’t run myself ragged—”
“This is what you consider ragged?” Niko asked, gesturing to my slinky top and short skirt with the blade of his hand.
“Get off your high horse. I needed a break. Do you know what it’s like to have this damn bond in y
our thoughts?” I jabbed two fingers against the back of my head where the bond snarled at me to attack Niko because he wanted to trap Jamie, where worry had morphed into something viscous that made each swallow feel like it’d choke me. “It distorts everything, and the longer Jamie is gone, the more it yanks me around.”
Tears, unexpected and unwelcome, welled in my eyes. I spun away before Niko could see them and stormed down the hall, uncaring that I tracked dirty footprints and powder through the house. I tossed my coat on the bed. A new, thick white drape smothered the window, Velcro holding it tight to the wall. Another trap? I throttled my tears and marched back to the front room.
“What have you done to my window?” Unfamiliar white in the corner of my eye caught my attention. A tube of cotton clung to the frame around the sliding glass door. I pointed at it. “And that? What have you done to my place?”
Niko hadn’t moved, but his body language had changed. He didn’t look angry so much as cautious. Good, because I was in the mood to break something, and right now he was at the top of the list.
“The bedroom curtain is a ward, the strongest I could find on short notice. That”—he pointed to the sliding glass door—“is another trap. If Jamie breaks the bond, you’re going to need protection. Your weak energy wards aren’t going to cut it.”
“You think Jamie would come for me? That he’d attack me if he went evil?” I’d intended the questions to sound righteously indignant; instead, I sounded uncertain, the memory of Jamie’s expression when he had thrown the ball of atrum at me countering my loyalty to the pooka.
“Believe it or not, I don’t want to see you hurt.”
Too late. This whole week had been one painful experience after the next. I might not have the wounds to show for it, but if I had to take much more of being torn in two by Jamie’s rebellion and my responsibility to bring him in line, I’d shatter.
“Which is why you need to pull yourself together and treat this seriously,” Niko said. “If you don’t get control of Jamie before I return, I’m going to have to do it for you.”
His threat stole my breath. He wasn’t saying he’d bring Jamie back to me or even take over the bond. He was saying he’d kill Jamie.
“Over my dead body.”
My words landed in the silence and stuck. Niko closed the distance between us, gripping my jaw and staring into my eyes. I jerked free with a harsh laugh.
“You think I’m already tainted.” I’d seen the doubt in his eyes. A hollowness yawned inside me, and I struggled for balance, readjusting to the loss of Niko’s trust. Bitterness lapped into the emptiness, and my face twisted into something ugly. “I thought you knew me better.”
“So did I.”
“Don’t. Just don’t. I’ve had enough guilt trips for the day. If you require proof, here it is.” I shoved a bubble into my soul above my heart, and the net swelled to engulf Niko’s hand, still raised between us. Repeated practice today had improved my technique; even Jamie might have been impressed with the basketball-size net.
Niko glared into my eyes and pulsed his lux lucis into mine. I braced myself, prepared for the discordant impact of his energy and the intrusive sandpaper slide of his soul through mine. Instead, our energy met in a soothing, intimate caress. Every cell of lux lucis in my body snapped to attention and magnetized on Niko, thrumming with awareness. Between one breath and the next, my entire body woke up and turned on, surpassing even the meteoric speed of my arousal with Alex.
I stumbled back and my net collapsed with the sharp pain of a rubber band snapped against my skin. Niko flinched. Heat rushed to my cheeks and my dark shirt couldn’t disguise the press of my hard nipples. I compressed my lips and held my breath, refusing to let my chest move, refusing to give in to the impulse to bite my lip.
Niko took a deep breath and turned his back to me, bracing his hand against the door. After a long, quiet fifteen seconds—I counted—he opened the door, and I thought he’d leave without saying anything.
“This activates the web,” Niko said, squatting and indicating a toggle switch at the base of the cotton frame. “Flip it this way to deactivate it before you walk out or in. Flip it back to prime it. I’ve installed an app on your phone. It will tell you if the trap is tripped.”
So much for him calling me if he’d caught Jamie tonight; my phone had been here all along.
“Those will free Jamie.” Niko straightened and pointed to two spray bottles of powder on the half wall beside the door; then he turned enough to look at me. “Take one when you leave, otherwise you won’t be able to free him. Don’t get caught in your own trap or you’ll be stuck until one of us happens along. It would be difficult to explain to norms.”
“What makes you think I’m going to use it?”
“Because you want the pooka to live.” He stepped across the threshold and turned back to face me. “Try to stay alive.” Pulling the door almost closed, he flicked a dark finger across the toggle, activating the trap, then shut the door.
Hail pounded my skull as I sprinted from my car to the office the next morning, adding insult to headache. Sleep had been slow to come last night, and I’d woken more times than I had counted, phone in hand, bringing up the trap app before my bleary vision came into focus. More than once I got up and opened the door to check the empty landing for signs of Jamie.
I missed the pooka with a fierceness that made my chest ache. I resented him for abandoning me and leaving me to deal with the fallout. Every time I thought about him spreading atrum through my region and helping the tyv, my heart sprinted in my chest and my fists clenched with impotent anger. Over and over, these conflicting emotions cycled through me.
Sometimes they all bombarded me at once.
I yanked open the glass door to my headquarters, wincing at the obnoxious clank of the broken bell. Heat gusted over me, carrying the combined scent of stale fast food and roses. Ah, Ode de Dumpster, the smell of my illustrious headquarters.
Sharon sat behind her podium at the helm of the empty desks. From outside, she had appeared to have the office to herself, but the squabble of high-pitched voices that assaulted my eardrums as I crossed the threshold proved she wasn’t alone. The peace talks were still in full swing.
Sharon’s flat brown eyes bore into me with a suspicious heat she had previously only directed at Jamie. My spine snapped rigid and I glared back.
“Lay off me. I’m clean,” I growled.
The receptionist pivoted in her chair as I passed, her actions unequivocally aggressive. Holding her stare, I swung wide and didn’t turn my back on her until I had a table between us. When I glanced over my shoulder at her, she’d resumed her usual position, but she continued to monitor me in a small mirror propped on the podium.
My steps slowed as I neared Brad’s office. This conversation was going to suck.
Just get it over with.
Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to step up to Brad’s open doorway.
My boss stood in the limited free space behind his desk, hands placidly clasped in front of his stomach, face bland as he listened to a prajurit in front of him. She rested on a small wooden platform screwed into the wall about four feet above the floor. Four warriors flanked her, crowding the narrow ledge. None of them had swords in the sheaths at their waists, and judging by the scowls on their faces, it was fortunate everyone was unarmed. A dozen more platforms ringed Brad’s office, each with a red rose resting at the center. The sweet-rich odor of the cut flowers wafted from the office and coiled in the back of my throat, a heavy but welcome relief from the musty old-food scents emanating from the break room.
When Brad noticed me, his expression danced from surprise to relief to annoyance with comical speed, finally settling into an unreadable mask.
“Excuse me. I need to confer with my enforcer,” he announced, cutting off the tiny queen.
Her protests were overridden by a chorus of prajurit speaking at once.
“Madison Fox?”
“Is that h
er?”
“Madison Fox, you promised me—”
“You said you favored working with the Ek Emas clan—”
The drone of their wings grew until it sounded as if a small engine were running in Brad’s office, and the scent of roses intensified.
Brad whirled to face the prajurit. “Anyone who leaves their designated platform will incur a five-wing-beat decrease in their territory.”
As one, dozens of prajurit feet hit the wooden platforms and silence replaced the hum of their wings. Grumbling under his breath, Brad exited his office and pulled the door shut behind him. Since the walls of his office stopped short of the ceiling, the attempt to barricade the prajurit inside and give us privacy was more symbolic than anything else, but it did help cut down the noise when the prajurit resumed their shrill arguments.
“I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” Brad said, speaking at a normal volume.
I checked his forehead. No vein pulsed at his temple. His face remained pink but not flushed. I waited.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked politely. Indifferently. Like he was talking to a stranger.
“Not in the least.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I ground my teeth. Why wouldn’t he yell at me and get it over with?
“Did you send Niko to check on me last night?” I asked.
“Niko doesn’t take orders from me.”
I’d been prepared to defend myself and I’d rehearsed my explanation. If he got angry, I could get angry right back. I didn’t know what to do with this quiet disappointment. I shuffled my feet, fidgeting with my jacket zipper tab, each tick of silence between us feeding my guilt.
“Jamie gave me a prophecy yesterday,” I blurted out.
Brad’s eyes widened. “He what?”
“He said he couldn’t before because we were too closely linked, but then yesterday, when we . . . spoke at his birthing grounds . . .”
“Did he specifically say it was a prophecy?”
A Fistful of Frost Page 32
