“Why the stalker-serial-killer routine, shifter?” I fired back, then bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from saying anything else. A week had crawled by since I last saw him, and I’d spent most of that time trying to push him out of my head and forget that he had totally bailed right when I opted to let my guard down. No one knew about his rejection but me, of course, but that didn’t make it sting any less. The good ol’ ego was still bruised, and I wasn’t the type to easily forget that.
When I turned to face him again, he was studying me with a slight frown, one that he swapped out for a teasing smirk when I placed a hand on my hip.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he offered, like a naughty, gorgeous schoolboy who’d just been caught misbehaving by the teacher he was about to fuck. I inhaled deeply, refusing to let that shtick work on me.
I didn’t want to stand here and do this. I’d had a long day; Karen, my psychiatrist colleague, was out sick so I had to take on all her patients who wouldn’t reschedule. We shared many patients—those who were comfortable spilling their guts to two mental health professionals, that is—but I hadn’t pulled a full ten-hour day, back-to-back clients, in a while now. And fuck it. I was tired. And Darius had left the mountain range, through the wards somehow, without so much as a good-bye-thanks-for-sucking-face on the way.
So yeah. I wasn’t obligated to entertain him on the front stoop of my work—which Karen and I shared with other health professionals, including a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, and an ENT practice. I was the last one out for the day. I had the great honor of locking everything up and dealing with any whiners if a hair was out of place the following morning.
“Okay, well, it’s been sweet—”
“No, wait.” He blocked my path with that magnificently hulking frame of his, then lifted his hands innocently when I arched an eyebrow. “I’m not here to bother you, I swear. I… I think you’re in danger.”
I tossed my head from one side to the other with the intent on getting the crick out of my neck, totally unfazed. “What?”
“I had a dream that you were in danger, and I—”
“Yeah?” I smoothed a hand down my knee-length black dress, fitted snug in all the right places with little capped sleeves. “And I had a dream I owned a three-headed dog. Contrary to popular belief, however, Cerberus is not waiting for me at my apartment. So, if you’ll excuse me.”
My attempt to step around him was once again blocked, and I debated bringing a pedestrian into this as a distraction—or using a pulse of magical energy to shove him back. Neither were ideal, but at least I’d get away from him.
“Kaye, I don’t take dreams lightly,” he insisted, brow furrowed in a way that was just too damn attractive to ignore. Still, I focused my gaze on a spot over his shoulder instead. “I had the dream the night I left the cave, and I’ve had it every night since. I can’t explain why I know, but Kaye, I honestly believe your life is in serious danger.”
“No, you can’t know,” I said briskly. “You’re a shifter, not a super. Premonitions aren’t exactly your strong suit.”
His jaw clenched for a moment, the muscles flaring on either side of his face like he was biting down hard on his back teeth. Exhaling deeply, I shoved my keys in my purse and cocked a hip. For all my bark and bite, I wasn’t a total monster. Either he was genuinely worried about me—which was kind of sweet—or he couldn’t think of a better way to follow-up after our make-out marathon in his cave. Whatever the true reasoning behind it, I couldn’t help but feel slightly flattered.
Not that I’d let it show, of course.
And not that I actually believed I was in danger. I was a New York City psychologist. I migrated between my apartment, my office, and a martini bar on a regular basis. I had a small circle of local friends but otherwise kept to myself. I didn’t engage in Alfheim supernatural politics, so there was no reason for me to be in danger. I was a nobody—just a fairy trying to make her way in the world.
“Okay,” I muttered, after a bit of temple rubbing and internal debate. “Okay. So, you think I’m in danger.”
“Kaye, personal security, and safety are what I do for a living,” Darius countered, eyebrows twitching up slightly. “I know you’re in danger. I’d like to offer my services to make sure nothing happens.”
I bit back a grin as some of my previous anger eased out of me, my stiff shoulders relaxing slightly. “Your services, huh? And what will that entail?”
“I’ll make sure your home is safe,” he said, as he listed each item off with his fingers. “Check out the safety of your building and office. Sweep the area for magical bugs—”
“I think I would have a better handle on that than you,” I interjected, this time holding back a laugh, “but go on.”
“Kaye, I know we don’t know each other very well, but I don’t take this lightly,” Darius insisted, and I noted the way his words took on a very faint accent the more passionate he spoke. That made me sigh again.
“How’d you expect me to react to all this?” I gestured between him and me, frowning. “I mean, we met by chance in the mountains inside magical wards. We kissed. We parted ways. I went back to see you the night I was supposed to leave—”
“You came back for me?” He seemed genuinely surprised at the notion.
“Yeah, well, you weren’t there, so it doesn’t matter.”
We studied one another for, oh, a few seconds—but it felt like centuries of staring into each other’s eyes. His gray orbs had darkened the more impassioned his pleas became, which struck me as odd. Must be a shifter thing. Finally, I looked away, watching the rush of yellow taxis racing by like blurs, trying to beat the post-work gridlock.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” he admitted softly, this time taking me by surprise. “I only left because I had business to attend to, not because I wanted to go.” Something pulsed through me at his omission, followed swiftly by a tightness in my chest that made me throw my shoulders back and try to stretch it out. When Darius stepped closer, I inched back, catching my heel on a crack in the sidewalk. His arm shot out to steady me—and didn’t let go, as he added, “And it isn’t just because I’m dreaming about you every night, Kaye the fae.”
My lower lip caught between my teeth as I tried to gauge his sincerity. A guy who looked like Darius obviously had no problem picking up women. Hell, this could just be an act for all I knew, but if so, it was a damn good one. In the end, I decided the darkening of his eyes would be my truth-gauge. We were all adept at hiding our true feelings. Fae were especially skilled at saying one thing while meaning another—but you couldn’t fake biology.
“Okay,” I said. “I believe you. Sort of. Partially.”
We both grinned as his hand fell away, and I found myself missing its firm presence just above the crook of my elbow. Shaking my head slightly, I stepped away from the purple door marked with all our business plaques and quirked an eyebrow.
“I’ll let you check out my building and my apartment,” I told him, then pointed an accusatory finger at him when his grin slipped into sexy-smirk territory, “but if you do follow-through on the whole… stalker-serial-killer routine, I’m throwing you off my balcony, and I live on the sixteenth floor.”
He raised his hands again, the twist of his lips doing awful things to my insides. “Fair enough.”
When he didn’t steer me toward a parked car, I just assumed we were going to walk back to my building. The subway was always madness this time of day, and while my feet demanded I sit down somewhere immediately, I could tough out the half-hour walk.
“You know, this is really unprofessional of you,” I noted as our leisurely stroll came to a halt at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. When he drew a breath, presumably to tell me he didn’t stalk and corner all his new clients until they accepted his help, I continued with a shrug. “Making me walk home when you could just fly me there.”
“Not without my wings,” he said, not missing a beat.
My playful demeanor dropped instantly, head swiveling in his direction sharply, and it looked as though he was having an outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease—only he’d said something embarrassing about himself, not me.
“W-What?” As far as I was aware, all dragons had wings. Not that I knew any personally outside of Darius, but the lore always had them soaring overhead, all smug and hoarder-like. “How do you not have wings?”
“Never mind.”
“No, tell me,” I pressed as we moved in time with the crowd waiting to cross the street. “Do you literally not have wings? Because it’s no big deal. I don’t have wings either—”
“I have wings,” he said, voice low and terse. He then glanced over both shoulders like someone might be listening, and I wanted to remind him that we were in the city: no one gave two shits about anyone else in New York City. We all just wanted to get where we were going with a minimal amount of hassle.
“So…?”
“So they’re…” He gritted his teeth briefly. “They’re not working right now.”
“Performance issues?” I tried to keep a straight face when he scowled at me. “It’s very common. Most men experience it at least once in their lives, and—”
“A witch cursed me, okay?” Noticeable heat rose to his cheeks when he admitted it, and I instantly felt bad for him. I mean, I was born without wings. I’d never known the pleasure of unfurling them somewhere far from prying human eyes and taking to the wind, flying just as naturally as one breathes. I craved wings, of course. I knew many fairies who’d won the genetic lottery and were born with them. I just wasn’t so lucky, and it was probably the one thing I would change about myself if I could. I would love, love to have wings.
But I didn’t know the joys of flying.
Darius had tasted the freedom of soaring and had it taken from him. Poor guy. Guilt seeped through me for the way I’d poked the bear with my teasing.
“Sorry,” I managed in the awkward silence that followed.
“Ehh, it’s fine,” he said with a shrug. We both skirted around a street performer who seemed hell-bent on getting audience participation going. Once we were passed the noise, Darius added, “Just don’t piss off someone who can, I don’t know, turn you into a toad or brew a potion that smells like beer but will make you puke your guts out.”
“Or take away your wings.”
“That too.”
“And I’m pretty sure that potion was just beer—”
“I’m not a lightweight.”
I smirked as we stopped at yet another crosswalk, waiting. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
As we stood there, I did a quick up and down sweep of the shifter, noting the way he scanned the area, a head taller than me and steely eyes that glinted in the slowly falling early evening sun. Why was he doing this for me? Even if I was in danger, so what? Who was I to him?
I bit the insides of my cheeks when the light changed, walking fast to keep up with his long strides, and when I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I blurted, “So what’d you do to make a witch curse you?”
“It’s not something I really want to get into,” he told me, some of his playfulness from our previous banter faltering. “Seriously.”
“Well…” I came to a dead stop, ignoring the people who bumped into me. Pedestrians cursed as I parted the sidewalk like the Red Sea. “I want to know.”
“Kaye, seriously, we don’t know each other well enough to get into that.” His jaw clenched again and from the twitch of his hand, it looked like he wanted to grab me and carry on. I held firm, arms crossed.
“That’s right, we don’t. And finding out what you did to piss off a witch is going to tell me a lot about you in just a few words.” I raised a challenging eyebrow when his eyes narrowed. “So either you tell me, or I’m out.”
He groaned my name—sexily, if that was possible—and ran a hand through his hair.
“Those are my terms,” I stated, grounding myself down hard on the off-chance he might try to drag me onward. Not that he knew where we were going. In theory. I mean, I’d like to think he didn’t know the exact location of my building, but he found me at work easily enough.
“Look, we…” Darius beckoned for me to follow him away from the flow of foot traffic, and we stood under the awning of a flower shop, my arms still crossed and hip cocked to one side, waiting. He rolled his eyes as he exhaled deeply. “The witch and I dated for a bit. I wasn’t feeling it. I broke things off. She took it really hard.”
My eyebrows shot up. “That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
We stared at one another.
“Darius.”
“Fine.” Like a little boy, honestly. “I left her for another woman. The witch was a woman scorned. And I finally learned that the old saying has merit. A woman scorned and all that. She took away my wings because I didn’t grieve the death of our relationship long enough.”
I pursed my lips as I mulled over the information. “Did you cheat?”
“No,” he said, just fast enough for it not to be a lie.
“Not even emotionally?”
“We were done and over with. I… I hurt her feelings. It was a shitty thing to do, and now I’m paying for it.”
Hmm. I could live with that. Although I still didn’t know him well enough yet to gauge a truth from a lie. If I had the chance, I’d do a little more digging later, but for now, he had mollified me.
“Well, okay then.” I started walking again, taking it at my own pace this time as I mulled over his story. We were two blocks over and one down when I finally piped up out of my musings. “Why didn’t she just look into your true heart?”
Witches were rare supernaturals who had the ability to truly see what was in a person’s heart. Most struggled to lie to a fairy, but it was almost downright impossible to lie to a witch.
Darius shrugged again. “Maybe she did. Maybe she just didn’t want to believe it. I don’t know.”
“Well, whatever the reason, I’m sorry you lost your wings.” And I meant it. The very idea made my heart heavy in ways I didn’t fully understand. “Is there anything you can do to get them back?”
“She set some terms,” Darius said stiffly. “I’m… I’m working on them.”
While I wanted to press him for more, I knew he had shared more than enough already.
“Work faster, shifter,” I teased, hoping the change in tone would lighten the mood, “because I’m sick of walking everywhere.”
His lips twitched into a half-smile, which I took as a victory.
“Come on,” I tugged him around the corner and onto my street. “My building’s this way. Don’t judge the carpet in the lobby.”
“Ugly lobby carpet? Yeah, I’ll be all over that. Not only am I here to ensure your protection, this is also a surprise make-over show. Don’t you see all the cameras?”
“Oh, bless my lucky stars!” I cried, fanning myself as he grinned, this time more genuinely. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted in a man!”
He ducked low, his eyes ensnaring mine, and purred, “You have no idea, fairy.”
In an instant, my cheeks matched my hair, and I hurried toward my building with a scowl as Darius followed along behind me, laughing.
* * *
“No, no, you keep the change,” I insisted, trying to politely close my door on my usual delivery guy. He never wanted to keep the change, no matter how many times I explained to him that it was a tip. Because he was always here in under the estimated time. And my food was consistently hot and delicious. And he did a good job. And deserved a hefty tip.
He tried to push at least half back on me, insisting that it was too much, but I shook my head.
“No, that’s just enough.” I then closed the door in his face, hoping I didn’t come across as rude. Ryan had been delivering to me for as long as I’d lived in my current apartment. The doorman knew him by now. He was part of my city family. But I wasn’t going to let him short-change himself just because his boss was a
dick about tips. Hopefully, he had the good sense to hide away the extras so it wouldn’t get taken by someone who hadn’t earned it.
Rolling my shoulders back, I cracked my neck with a sharp jerk side-to-side, then locked Darius and I in for—well, maybe just the duration of our takeout dinner, maybe longer.
Although I’d had slight reservations about bringing him up to my apartment, to his credit, the shifter did a full sweep of the area when he arrived. There were no innuendos about falling into bed together, no give me a tour of the master suite, wink-wink to be heard. He appeared to genuinely be doing a job, which, I gotta be honest, a part of me hadn’t expected.
Mind you, he didn’t have any tools with him, so I wasn’t exactly sure how he planned to sniff out any magical bugs and whatnot. Another day, he told me. For now, my apartment was clean from things less sinister, like peepholes in my bathroom walls and broken latches over my bedroom window next to the fire escape.
Darius also ducked down to the lobby to ask some questions of my doorman, an errand I did not accompany him on. Instead, I dragged my weary body into the shower, and when I returned, the dragon shifter had been flicking through TV channels with his feet up on my coffee table, shoes and all.
That did not go over well and ended with him spraying and scrubbing the scuff marks away.
But here we were, three hours later. Normally I’d be talked out after a day of listening and helping clients, but the words just didn’t stop. At this point, I couldn’t even remember exactly what we talked about; the conversation flowed seamlessly from one topic to another, until finally, our rumbling tummies were too much to ignore.
Take out bags in hand, I found Darius in my galley kitchen pouring two glasses of water.
“I couldn’t find anything else fun to drink,” he noted as I set our dinner down on the counter, the space rather tight with the two of us puttering around. “I also assumed you weren’t in the mood for a glass of straight vodka.”
I smirked, eyes darting up to my alcohol shelf on top of the fridge. Primarily spirits, a few of the bottles had been replaced with the good stuff from Alfheim, but since I had the occasional human visitor, I didn’t want anyone asking about the strange labels written in old fairy languages.
Magic Fire: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shifting Magic Book 1) Page 4
