Jordan nodded. He took the potion she gave him and Leif and Lilith walked with him back to his place where Leif said he needed to get back to Laya since he’d promised to once Jordan was in the clear.
Finally, it was just the two of them alone. Lilith made him sit on the couch and then she bustled about his kitchen to put a dinner together with the somewhat random scraps he had around. What he wanted was some Chinese take-out but he didn’t feel like moving either.
“What are you making?” Jordan smiled softly and propped his feet on the coffee table.
“Pasta.” Lilith waved her hands as if searching for ingredients with her fingers. “With...mushrooms. And I’m making a sauce. And you have something approaching parmesan cheese so that’s good.”
“I don’t understand why you still like me,” he blurted out.
Lilith was holding a fistful of dried spaghetti and she spun around, gaping at him. “Of course I still like you!”
“I mean, with the curse.” He shook his head in wonder. “When we...slept together. How it felt? That’s never happened. It’s impossible. But you still like me.”
Lilith dumped the spaghetti into a pot of boiling water and then came over and sat down beside him. She kissed him, long and deep and nuzzled his nose with her own. “I do like you. I like you so much, I’m...falling in love with you.”
Jordan only stared at her. He had never expected to hear those words in his life. He’d imagined hearing them a million times, fantasizing that the curse would be broken. Even in his wildest fantasies he wouldn’t have imagined hearing them from someone as wonderful as Lilith.
“It’s not going to last,” Jordan said quickly. Lilith stirred the pasta and then left it to cook. She smoothed her hair back and took a breath. Jordan watched her gather herself and then she sat down beside him and took his hand.
“I know you’re scared to believe it,” she said. “You lived your whole life with this curse making you so lonely. I can’t even imagine how lonely it was. And in the meantime, you’ve made friends and fought to protect this place you live in and you’re brave and strong and actually pretty funny and…” She licked her lips and kissed him quickly, as if she couldn’t stop herself. “And I’m falling in love with you. What I believe is that this is the work of the fates. Just like the fates chose me and the other girls in my class to get the totems back, they also chose our mates, right? All the other girls found their true loves. They all have these incredible connections with the men they fell for on their missions. It’s sealed by the forces of magic. I think you’re chosen too, Jordan. The fates have chosen you which means they’ve chosen to break that curse after all this time.”
“I want to believe that,” he whispered.
She leaned her forehead against his. “I’ll help you believe it. I’m not going anywhere. I swear, I’m not.”
Jordan kissed her and had no desire to stop making out lazily on the couch as Lilith ran her fingers through his hair and scratched his scalp which riled up his wolf and made him growl under his breath.
Minutes later, Lilith yelped and hopped to her feet. “The pasta!” She swatted his shoulder. “You distracted me! I almost forgot. And you need to eat, buster.”
Jordan sighed and sat back, watching Lilith strain the spaghetti and fiddle with the sauce and sautéed mushrooms until finally ladling it all into two big bowls. She served him his food and sat close, a funny little smile on her face even as she chewed. It occurred to him halfway through their pasta that they could watch something or at least put on some music. But he was too distracted by the feeling of a scene so domestic with Lilith. It felt like what could be a regular night for them.
“Tell me about your parents,” Jordan blurted out, as he twirled spaghetti around his fork. She looked at him in surprise. But she seemed pleased by the question. “Are they both demons?”
“Yeah. My mom’s a teacher at a boys’ warlock academy and my dad is an administrator there. It’s a pretty elite place.” She whispered conspiratorially, “But not nearly as elite as Brunswick. It’s in Connecticut.”
“So they’re both academics?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah,” she said, chuckling. “Goes back a few generations. Lots of scholars of old demon lore on my mother’s side. Think it kind of killed them that I never wanted to go into academia myself but then I got into Brunswick and all was forgiven.”
“Heh.” He nodded. “I get it.”
When they were done eating, Lilith said she thought Jordan should rest. But Jordan was in no mood to rest. Instead, he pulled Lilith into his lap and kissed her, savoring each touch of her lips and delighting the feel of his hands on her body. She trembled when she touched him and that blew his mind. Her eyelashes fluttered and her lips twitched against his as his fingers danced up her shirt.
“Do I really get to keep you?” he whispered. He didn’t know why he wasn’t trembling. All of this felt too good to be real. “Not like keep you like you’re a thing-”
“I know what you mean.” She giggled in his ear and he growled, turning them over so he was beneath her. He propped himself up on his elbows and just gazed at her for a bit, taking her all in, attempting to process what seemed too good. “Yes. Keep me. Keep me forever. Please.”
He nodded and fought back hot tears, feeling ridiculous. They kissed and fooled around a little but finally the big danger that had nearly killed him kept rushing back into his mind.
“Kamthis!” he said, pulling away.
“I...huh what?”
Jordan sat up. He had a very distracting erection and he wanted badly to do something about it, but this came first. It had to because it seemed to him that he was very close to having everything he wanted in life. But if they couldn’t get the totem...it would all go away.
“Kamthis,” Jordan said again, feeling a great sense of urgency. They needed to be researching. They needed to look things up! “Just before I fell, did you see those demons rise out of the street?”
“Oh!” Lilith nodded. “Yes, yes. I was going to look in some demonology books and see what I could find. They shouted something but I couldn’t make it out.”
“They said ‘Kamthis’,” Jordan said excitedly. He stood and grabbed their bowls and put them in the sink, filling them with water to soak. “Two of them said it. One of them said ‘thank you, Kamthis’.”
“They said thank you?” Lilith’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s interesting. I’ve heard of similar sorts of events raising pure demons from other dimensions. Maybe Kamthis is some warlock raising demons. You guys got a library around here? This is the kind of stuff that would be in very old books.”
“Yeah, we do.” He took her hand and tugged her forward as she rose from the couch, pecking a kiss to her lips. “Let’s look some stuff up.”
11
Lilith
Jordan seemed to have graduated from refusing to believe she could love him to believing she could love him if they could just accomplish her mission together. That was a start, she supposed. They cleaned up a little and then ventured out into the Underground metropolis. It was late at night by then but of course, you couldn’t tell from how many creatures and people were still out and about. The streetlights were turned on in the narrow cobblestone streets, lighting up the subterranean world and Lilith had to move fast to avoid getting hit by a wheelbarrow or just some witch or warlock who refused to get out of the way.
“Do you think those goblins were enchanted?” She was holding Jordan’s hand and she squeezed it as they walked along. “Or maybe they were mercenaries? I’ve heard you can get a whole goblin army to fight for you if you have the cash. I took a whole class in Contemporary Goblin Society.”
Jordan stopped short on the narrow little street between boutiques hawking clothes and magical artifacts and potion ingredients. He stared at Lilith. “You took an entire class in Contemporary Goblin Society?”
“Well, it was an elective.” Lilith shrugged. “I thought it would be interesting.”
&nb
sp; “Wish I could’ve gone to an academy,” he muttered, and they went back to walking.
But it bothered her that he’d wanted a formal education and been cheated out of one because, she supposed, he’d fallen through the cracks of having crappy parents. What was sadder was that he was so smart. He would’ve been a good student and all academies had at least a few scholarships available for underprivileged kids.
“There’s adult education!” Lilith blurted, just as he pushed open the door of a little stone building that didn’t look nearly big enough to be a proper library. But on the inside it was huge; magic having distorted the space. It was a cathedral of a building on the inside and the foyer was huge and had marble floors and a statue of Athena and a giant globe on a stand slowly rotating.
“Adult education?” Jordan echoed, chuckling. He spoke quietly as he led her past people and creatures hunched over books at tables under giant chandeliers to the demonology section.
“I mean there’s colleges,” Lilith whispered. “If you…” She cleared her throat and felt like she was embarrassing him. But for once, Jordan seemed genuinely cheerful. Which was odd since he had just nearly died. Yet every time he looked at her, his eyes twinkled and he smiled toothily.
“Hey, here we go. I just returned a really good demonology encyclopedia actually but there should be a better who’s who type resource…”
“You come here a lot then?” Lilith asked.
The shelves towered from the floor to twelve feet up and had ladders along rails. Jordan bit his lip, squinting as he tapped the spines one by one until he ended up climbing the ladder, his ass clothed in tight black jeans ending up right in Lilith’s face. She smirked and gave it a teasing slap.
“Ooh!” He winked down at her. “Easy. Yeah I come here a lot. I love to read. I’ve probably read half the library by now. When I was a kid, my mom mostly ignored me and then she took off and I was sort of fending for myself. But I could always come here. Always felt safe here.”
“If you’ve read half the library, you probably don’t need college.” But she couldn’t smile about it. She hated to think about lonely little cursed Jordan as a boy clinging to books just to feel a little warmer. Impulsively, she leaned forward and hugged his legs from behind and he stumbled slightly on the ladder, looking down at her as he took a book from the shelf.
“Careful, woman. I’ve already plummeted to my death once today.”
“Sorry,” she murmured. “I just...like you a lot.”
He was holding a heavy book but he looked down at her and smiled fondly and for a full minute they just grinned at each other like dopes. He nodded finally and murmured something to himself that she couldn’t make out, finally climbing back down the ladder and pecking a kiss to her forehead.
Lilith tried to compose herself and focus on the task at hand. She followed Jordan to an empty table and the two of them sat close together as he opened the book to the index in the back. She was briefly distracted by the scent of him. It was the scent of his wolf, she supposed, and maybe a little sweat and even blood. She leaned into him and nuzzled his neck until he smiled wryly at her and caved, kissing her. They made out for a couple minutes until he finally shook his head and took a deep breath, flipping a page and pressing his finger to the ancient text.
“Kamthis,” he murmured. “Kamthis… If it’s an old demon or warlock, he should be in here. But there are newer editions if he’s, say a young warlock.”
“Most pure demons are old as hell,” Lilith said, sighing. “Not like us humanoid hybrids.”
She couldn’t decide if she wanted Kamthis to be human or demon. She was used to hoping that a demon was not the culprit of anything terrible. People always seemed to take it out on her, even if they didn’t mean to. A substitute teacher at Brunswick had once shot her a dirty look after reading aloud about a demon who had come to Earth in the fifteenth century and murdered all the bear shifters. It was if she was saying: See? You’re all terrible.
“Holy shit, he’s in here!” Jordan whispered. He tapped the entry with his finger. “Kamthis...page six-hundred and seventeen…”
They hurriedly turned the pages and found the passage for the demon known as Kamthis. “Kamthis is a pure demon whose true form is of massive size,” Lilith read. “Yet he is able to visit Earth from his Netherworld in the form of a shapeshifter, able to disguise himself as any living person or creature.”
“It was him in my room,” Jordan said. He shook his head. “Ew! He kissed me!” He said it too loudly and a witch shushed him a table away. “Ew.”
Lilith smacked his shoulder as she read through the long passage describing Kamthis’s purported antics in his dimension. He had been around for five thousand years and every few hundred years or so, he tried to raise a bunch of pure demons on Earth to take over and turn it into something more like his own netherworld. To do it required three atrocities and a lot of power. He had failed every time.
Jordan said, “But if he has the totem this time…”
“Might have better luck,” Lilith said darkly. “Okay. So we have to find him and get the totem back. Except...he’s a shape-shifter. So he could be anybody. Great.”
12
Jordan
Jordan had a mission and his mission was Lilith’s mission. He believed now that the curse could be broken. Or maybe he wanted to believe it. Lilith’s little speech about the fates had been convincing. The only catch was, he had to complete this mission that a few days ago, he had not cared about at all. If he captured the totem, the curse would be broken and he could keep Lilith’s love. If he didn’t…
The thought of Lilith abruptly turning cold on him was too horrible to contemplate.
But for once, he was optimistic about his chances. He felt lovesick every time he looked at her. But at the same time it motivated him to focus. The mission was to find Kamthis at all costs. Then capture the totem. Then begin the rest of his life.
“We should meet with the team,” Jordan said.
They stood outside the library, loitering and deliberating as to what to do next. He was thinking aloud. That was the next logical step. Call Laya and Leif and the rest of the guards together and share their information.
Lilith looked at him and smirked. “It’s two in the morning.”
“Oh.” He chuckled. “Time is a blur, I guess.”
She took his hand and led him in the direction of their quarters. “Yeah, c’mon. Let’s get some sleep. We’ll get them all together in the morning.”
Sleep meant they went to their separate quarters and changed into pajamas and then Jordan went to Lilith’s place in nothing but a pair of thin pajama pants which got Lilith riled up and they fooled around until, at three, they were so exhausted they finally fell asleep in each other’s arms. But Lilith had few complaints.
Jordan rose with the dawn. He had never had a very steady sleep schedule. Some nights he was out until sunrise with Leif on patrol and sometimes he was up until sunrise coding. He was just as often sleeping through the day as not. But this morning he woke up to the pleasing scent of Lilith’s neck and he growled and cuddled closer until she murmured happily and then they fell asleep again.
“Jordan, get up.” Lilith was shoving at his chest and he grumbled and finally opened one eye, smiling and tugging her forward by the strap of her camisole to kiss her cheek before he rolled out of bed and stretched. She hopped to her feet and trotted off to the bathroom and he leered, watching her go in her tiny little pair of pajama shorts. “Let’s go get coffee!” She said before he heard her start brushing her teeth.
It was nearly ten already. It would be hard to get a hold of Laya, but he knew it was their first priority (after coffee). They needed to meet with the other guards and figure out some way of identifying Kamthis. Lilith had suggested spells to reveal the true form of suspects. They’d need to teach that to all the guards. It was the best idea they’d come up with so far.
They only wasted a little time at Starbucks, flirting and chatti
ng over espresso and coffee cake, but they also managed to run into Laya on their way back through the park.
“You look alive!” Laya said. She patted his shoulder. “That’s good. We were all worried. I went by Avy’s to check on you and you’d already gone. I took it as a good sign.”
“Yeah, I feel great.” He smiled genuinely and she reeled back as if struck.
“Whoa, I’ve never seen you looking so...chipper.” She looked back and forth between Jordan and Lilith. “I assume you have something to do with this, Brunswick?”
“Oh…” Lilith blushed scarlet and Jordan grabbed her hand in his.
“You bet she does,” Jordan said lightly. “Hey, it’s a good thing we ran into you. We have some information about the goblin attack. We went to call a meeting of all the guards as soon as possible.”
Laya nodded sharply and said, “Absolutely. Good man, Jordan.”
They headed with Laya down to the guardians’ headquarters near the weapons cache. Some of the guards, including Leif, were already there working out or sparring and a couple looked at Jordan in surprise when he walked in with Lilith. It wasn’t just the sight of him with the Brunswick girl on his arm. He rarely came to the HQ unless he had to or unless Leif had dragged him kicking and screaming. He wasn’t always the most social animal.
But now he couldn’t help but stand up a little straighter, barely withholding a smirk as he held Lilith’s hand and they marched in together where guards were wrestling and sword fighting in the HQ’s big training gymnasium. It was taking all his self-control not to shout it: She’s in love with me!
It seemed reasonable given the circumstances, but he held himself back.
“Attention, everyone!” Laya shouted. “Mandatory meeting right this minute!” She pointed at Leif just as he was jogging over to say hello. “Leif, go find whoever’s missing.” She looked around the room. “We need...David, Nardine, and Gael and-”
The Wolf's Curse (Brunswick Academy for Gifted Girls Book 5) Page 7
