by Eleri Stone
The TV was new and big, mounted over a cabinet that held at least two gaming systems and some stereo equipment. A long, short bookshelf took up most of the other wall behind the recliner. It was clean and spare, but he worked and lived here. It should be better.
“It’s not much,” he echoed her thoughts. He tossed his keys on a table beside the door. “Make yourself at home. There’s beer and pop in the fridge, that way. I’ll order the pizza. Steve delivers if you tip him well enough.”
“Steve?”
“The gas station makes the only pizza in town. It’s decent.” A slight smile accompanied by a shrug. “Edible anyway.”
“Can you order extra? Audrey is going to stop by when she’s finished with the dress.”
While he placed the order, she set her books on the coffee table and wandered over to check out his bookshelf. You could tell a lot about a person by the books they read, she’d always thought. It was always the first place she looked when she was feeling...curious about someone. And she was curious about Fen. He’d become a friend when she needed one and he was Christian’s best man, though that seemed strange to her. They were very different to be so close.
Something about Fen made her think science fiction, but there weren’t any fiction books at all stacked on the shelves. A bunch of textbooks about computer stuff, some nice hardcovers on art history, both photography and paintings. There were sketchbooks on the top shelf along with a sturdy wooden box she suspected held art supplies.
Her fingers twitched to pull one of the sketchbooks off the shelf, but she wouldn’t do that without an invitation. Too personal. Fen came back into the room holding two long-necked bottles in one hand and she straightened.
“Don’t let me interrupt your snoop. My ereader’s on the nightstand if you’re looking for the really good stuff.” She glanced again at those sketchpads. She bet the really good stuff was in there.
“I pegged you as a science fiction fan.”
“I like science fiction. I’ve always had a thing for horror too.”
“Ah.”
“Ah?” He sat on the couch, crossed his ankle over his knee and stretched his arm across the back. His head was cocked slightly to one side in that attentive pose he sometimes assumed and one eyebrow was raised. “You have a verdict already?”
“These things take time.” She took a sip of the beer he’d handed her. “There are no pictures on the wall, so I’m thinking you don’t have a lot of family. Did your parents pass away?”
“Nope. This is their house though.” He patted the couch. “The pictures they had up were all embarrassingly adorable shots of me growing up. They retired and decided to travel for a few years. My lease was up anyway, so I moved in here. They’re visiting a clan in Belgium right now. Then they plan to hop over to a little place in Norway.”
“That would be nice.” It was a dream a lot of clan had for after they’d fulfilled their time of service. Not many made it. It was dangerous hunting demons. Her older brother hadn’t survived ten years at it.
“I haven’t lived here very long. You’d have to dig through the boxes stored in the basement for photo albums and home videos.”
“No movies?”
“I don’t like clutter. When it’s not organized, the walls start to close in on me.”
“Music?”
“On the computer, the house is wired off that.”
Huh. “I’m thwarted then. I’ll have to get to know you the old-fashioned way.”
She dropped onto the couch and started to prop her feet on the table before jerking them back. She flushed. It was too easy to forget herself around Fen. Her manners flew right out the window. He hooked his hand under her knee before her foot hit the ground and pulled it back up. “What’s the point in keeping thirty-year-old furniture around if you can’t abuse it?”
“Are the gardening books your mom’s?”
“I don’t look like a gardener to you?”
His grin invited honesty. “You look nothing like a gardener.”
He looked like trouble. His tattoo peeked from beneath the sleeve an old T-shirt. He was still wearing shit-kicker boots and the worn-out jeans that suited him perfectly. He had the kind of body jeans were created for. Narrow hips and long, straight legs. He looked like a loner and an artist. He looked dangerous—and not to cabbage worms and squash bugs.
“It gets me outside, you know, when I’m not killing things.” He took a long pull from his bottle, but kept his eye on her.
“So you’re a nerd.”
He choked on his swallow. “You think I’m a nerd?”
“Afraid so.” She ticked off her fingers. “You live in your parent’s house.”
“I bought my parent’s house,” he corrected. “The housing market’s not the greatest here, you know.”
She held up a second finger. “You have enough computer equipment in here that I bet you’ll have to upgrade the electrical system soon...if you haven’t already.”
“Last year, before I moved in. It’s why I haven’t had the extra money to decorate.”
“You enjoy reading and gardening.” She paused. “Do you have a cat?”
He winced. “She’s a stray. Scared to death of me, but she keeps coming back for the food.”
“I’d be surprised if you could coax a cat into living with a hound.”
“Smart creatures, cats. So what’s the verdict?”
She wiggled her fingers and dropped her hand. She hadn’t made a five count, but she thought she’d made her point anyway. “Nerd. Even if you don’t look like one.”
“And what does a nerd look like exactly?”
Not sweet and sexy and dangerous.
“Different from you,” she said after a too-long pause, feeling suddenly that it wasn’t the best idea for her to have come here alone.
Seemingly struck by the same thought, Fen took another drink and then changed the subject. “So how’s the wedding coming along?”
“It’s coming. There’s not much to do. Everything’s been arranged forever, down to the china.”
“Are you and Christian okay?”
She kicked off her shoes and turned on the couch to face him, resting her back against the armrest. “He’s not reneging on the contract.”
“I didn’t think he would.”
She stared at the bottle in her hands, picked at the label. “I heard him talking about me the day I arrived, during the welcome party.”
Fen didn’t comment. He was patient that way, not judgmental. She liked him—a little too much. But she wasn’t going to think about that now...or ever. She needed a friend. Someone who knew Christian and understood the situation but wasn’t too close to it.
“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I was in the restroom and with the vents...sound carries in there. He was talking to Aiden about me.”
Fen stared at his bottle, his thumb circling the wet rim. “It’s never a good idea to believe things that you overhear.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Why? It’s more honest than what people will tell you to your face.”
“Not always. There’s usually just a different set of agendas at play.”
“I didn’t take you for a cynic, Fen.”
“I don’t consider myself one, Rocky. What did he say?”
He knew. She could tell by the tone of his voice, unhappy but not particularly surprised. “That I was his duty. That he wouldn’t back out even if he wanted to.”
“And you assumed that meant he wanted to?”
“What else was I supposed to think?”
His hand touched her leg briefly before lifting away to rest on the back of the couch again. “You dumped that revelation on him about your problem to see if he’d walk?”
She flinched. She hadn’t looked at it quite that way. “I thought I’d give him an out, all of you. It’s better that you know it upfront.”
“Agreed.” His eyes were so dark drilling into her like that. “Look, Aiden’s been stressed out abo
ut the trouble we’re having with the portal. He put a lot of pressure on Christian to make sure this wedding thing goes smoothly. What you heard was probably Christian lashing back. Duty is important to Christian, but I’ve seen the way he looks at you too. You’re wrong if you think he’s only in this for the halo.”
Her cheeks heated. “Yeah, there’s that.”
“There’s that,” he echoed. His mouth pulled into a grimace. This was a mistake, talking to him about his friend. She was embarrassing him and putting him in a weird position. “Just...talk to him. He’s not stupid or uncaring. He’ll hear you out and if you ask him about it directly, he will tell you the truth. Christian won’t lie to your face.”
The doorbell rang and Fen practically leaped to answer it. Raquel smiled wryly. Poor guy. He might be willing to be her friend, but she couldn’t keep leaning on him so hard. It wasn’t fair to him, her or Christian either.
* * *
Rocky’s little sister, Audrey, showed up after the pizza arrived, which was a relief. Sort of. Fen wanted Rocky alone, liked talking to her even if it hurt, was flattered and fascinated that of all the clan, she seemed to trust him. A hound, one of the castes most people tended to avoid.
Many of the Æsir, particularly the ones who didn’t deal with the hunt, regarded hounds as less than human. And while some women saw that as a challenge in a tame-the-beast sort of way, Raquel wasn’t like that. She liked him. She wanted to be his friend. There was something incredibly simple and appealing about that. Or it would be simple, if he could only look at her the same way. As a friend. Because even if she wasn’t engaged to Christian, a friend was all Rocky could ever be.
Audrey was fun, though. She had the same sense of humor as Rocky along with the same kind of openness and honesty. She was pretty, like Rocky. And smart too.
He tried to will himself to be interested in Audrey. Not a serious interest, just something to distract himself from the misguided attraction he felt toward her sister. But the fact that he was trying to do that made him feel like an idiot, a sleazy, hopeless, desperate idiot. He liked Audrey in the same way he liked Grace or the twins. Having Audrey sit next to him on the floor eating pizza while he flipped open his sketchbook to the runes he’d sketched earlier only drove home how stupid he’d been to think there was nothing weird going on between him and Rocky. That he could invite her to his house and help her with her problem and not want more. His attraction wasn’t going away. He couldn’t keep ignoring it, but he didn’t know what the hell to do about it either.
Audrey craned her neck to get a look at the sketches.
“Do you mind?” he asked pointedly.
“Not really, no.” She set her chin on his shoulder. “Wow, Fen, you do good work. I didn’t think hounds had the patience for this kind of thing.”
Being a hound was a little like having ADD. All your senses were sharper, but the human brain could only handle so much. When he was in human form, it was hard to block everything out. Drawing had always helped him focus, like withdrawing to a quiet room inside his head. Gardening brought him to that same place.
He sometimes imagined it must have been easier to deal with being a hound when times were slower, just as he imagined the sexual ramifications were easier to navigate when society had been more traditional and even unhappy marriages lasted a lifetime. But possibly not.
“Some have the patience for it,” he said. “Some don’t. It depends on the hound.”
“Well, you clearly have an eye for detail.” Audrey tilted her head. “Those are the runes she gave you?”
“She” being Rocky, who’d left to find the bathroom and grab another beer five minutes ago. Because more of the drunk and chatty Raquel sitting cross-legged on his couch with that warm and sort of goofy smile on her face was exactly what he needed right now.
“These are the runes Rocky wants to try. Your witch provided the arrangement. I’m just making it pretty.”
Audrey gave a funny laugh and he turned his head. “What?”
“I’ve never heard anyone else call her Rocky. I only do it because it drives Mom nuts.”
“Sorry,” he murmured and went back to his work. “I didn’t realize I was stepping on your toes.”
“You’re not.” He could feel her gaze settle on him. “Why do you call her that? Did she ask you to?”
He glanced up and found Audrey studying him with a frown on her face, waiting for an answer. “Rocky suits her.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, but something about his answer seemed to unsettle her. He shook his head and returned his attention to the sketch. The runes should be connected, he thought, in one unbroken chain, but he didn’t know if that would change the effect they had on Raquel’s magic.
Audrey pointed at the paper. “It worries me that she’s adding that one.”
“To amplify her power.”
“Power’s not her problem.” Audrey sat back. “She’s the most powerful witch Kathy’s ever come across. I think she needs something to blunt her power, you know. Otherwise it’s like trying to douse a match with a fire hose.”
Fen stopped to consider that. Rocky came up behind him and knelt on his other side. “I don’t want to give up my power. I want to learn to use it.”
She shifted closer to examine the drawing. The scent of sunshine and magic surrounded him. Her hair brushed his ear. Her breast, full and tempting, gave slightly when she leaned against him. He closed his eyes and set the notepad down on his leg so she wouldn’t notice the tremble in his hand. “That line—” she pointed, “—there’s too much of a curve to it. It needs to be straight.”
He corrected it as she studied the rest. He wished she’d move away. He could do this for her. The tattoo, he’d help her with that. Hopefully, it would do what she wanted it to. She could replace the wards herself and take her place as clan witch, take her place as Christian’s wife. Fen knew she felt the need to prove herself. Like a cracked pot that needed to be glued back together. There was nothing wrong with her so far as he could see. She let other people tie her up with their expectations, tie her into knots, just like Christian had always done to win his father’s approval.
She didn’t need to be fixed. Neither had Christian. Maybe the two of them could...help each other see that. They’d marry, heal. Be happy.
Fen very badly wanted them both to be happy.
“Can I overlap the runes? Or join them?”
She hesitated. “Best not. I’m not exactly sure what that would do. It might strengthen them, but it could create an entirely new effect that we don’t want.”
He nodded and adjusted a line or two. He held it up. “What do you think?”
She sat next to him on the carpet, her knee bumping against his, and rolled up her shirtsleeve. “Let’s do it.”
“Tonight?”
“Why not? I need to know. I won’t do anything hard. I’ll...I’ll reheat the pizza. I could practically manage that now without any help.”
He hesitated, considered the set of her shoulders and the mulish glint to her eyes. “You’re drunk.”
She straightened and gave him her best sober look, which wouldn’t have fooled a second grader. He sighed. There wasn’t much danger in this. He was using washable marker for the test run and could disable the runes with a single swipe from the damp rag on the table.
“Okay, give me your hand.”
She leaned over to set her forearm on the table but he grabbed it instead, pulling it across his lap. She inhaled sharply and he looked up at her, but she stared at her arm. A blush slowly crept up her neck. He could feel the flutter of her pulse through her wrist. He would have noticed her reaction to his touch even if he hadn’t been able to scent it on her skin. Arousal. It hit him hard. Unrequited lust was one thing. This was a whole ‘nother level of hell.
He tightened his grip and bent his head, focused his attention on the art. It was a simple design but important to get the runes exactly right. It would be easy to write a curse onto a person if you didn
’t know what you were doing. He hoped to hell they knew what they were doing.
He could see the veins clearly through her fair skin. She had freckles everywhere, across her nose and forehead, on the tops of the lovely breasts he shouldn’t ever have noticed. There were no freckles on the inside of her arm, only soft skin and delicate, fascinatingly feminine musculature. A wrist so narrow he could snap it by flexing his hand and a pulse that raced beneath his fingertips. If she’d set out to purposefully torture him, she couldn’t have done better.
Done.
He released her. He and Audrey sat staring at her for a moment and when they were certain she wasn’t going to explode or anything, Audrey said, “Well?”
Rocky rotated her arm to look at the design. “It tingles a bit on my skin, but I can’t feel the difference inside.”
“Try it.” He lifted his chin to indicate the pizza. At the edge of his control, he needed her to leave soon. He hoped to hell this worked. If it did, he’d only need to see her again like this once more to place the permanent tattoo. And then he could make himself scarce until the wedding.
She flipped open the cardboard lid and squinted at the pizza with the intensity of a starving pit bull. It should have been comical, but both he and Audrey held their breaths until the cheese began to bubble. Audrey made a yip of joy and grabbed his hand.
Well, it was nice, he supposed, to have someone not afraid to touch him. But other than that? Nothing. Rocky wasn’t even paying any attention to him and he could feel her on his skin.
You could hear the sizzle now and a tendril of smoke rose up. Rocky finally glanced away from the pizza and looked at him, a big smile creasing her face. “I did it.”
“You did it.”
“Rocky?” She turned that smile to Audrey, who stood. “Turn it off, Rocky.”
