Her damn eyes threatened to dampen again. She whispered to herself, “Be careful what you ask for.”
Robin slipped into the room. The monkey jumped to the headboard and settled into a sitting position. Now that she knew he wasn’t a monkey or a dog, it was probably weird to let him spend the night in her room, but he never invaded her privacy or tried to hang around when she was dressing or undressing, and she got comfort from the companionship. She thought he got comfort from it as well.
Climbing under the covers, she curled on her side and fell fast asleep.
This time she wasn’t nearly so lucky in her rest. This time the nightmares came.
She never outran the gunman. That was not how her story had gone, and her body knew it. The gunman chased her and chased her through the dark, shadowed warehouse where they had cornered him, and she could never remember to pull the shadows around her before he brought his gun up to point it at her.
The tat-tat-tat of gunshot had grown all too familiar. And then she was falling again. Still, somewhere in her mind, she was always falling.
The quiet sound of voices woke her, but God, she didn’t want to be awake. Rolling over, she stuck her head under one of the pillows and tried to go back to sleep.
Voices?
Even as she thought the question, the answer came to her. Gawain had arrived, and he and Nikolas were somewhere close by, talking. The sound of their conversation didn’t come through the window, so there weren’t many options—they were either in the kitchen or the sitting room.
Once awareness had come so forcefully, she knew she would never get back to sleep. Swearing under her breath, she got out of bed and dressed. There were places all over her body, intimate places, that ached with a sensitized tenderness that hadn’t been present yesterday.
Her nipples felt the rasp of cloth as she donned her bra, and the muscles of her inner thighs were sore. The folds of her private flesh felt full and delicate. Even as memory flashed through her mind of his head between her legs, of the sensation of him moving inside her, a pulse of renewed hunger made her ache. Even though her mind wanted nothing more than to move on and forget the sense of abandonment she had felt the night before, her body remembered what had happened, and it wanted more.
Dressed again in her flannel pants, soft, long-sleeved shirt, and flip-flops, she left the bedroom to go in search of coffee. Oh, right. There was no coffee. This day had barely begun, and it was already a pain in the ass.
Nikolas and Gawain sat at the kitchen table. As she appeared, Gawain gave her a smile. “Hello again.”
She found she was unable to snarl at the friendliness in his expression, so she raised a hand and grunted in greeting as she made a beeline for the teakettle. Cautiously she touched the side. It was hot. After checking to make sure it had water, she lit the burner underneath it. As she turned to search for a mug and a tea bag, Nikolas stepped in front of her.
“Unh,” she said, checking so she didn’t bump into him.
He frowned at her, dark eyes sharp. “What is the matter with you?”
“Huh?” She didn’t have the energy to face him first thing, not after last night. Stepping around him, she muttered in a husky voice, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She found a mug and the box of tea. When she turned back to the kettle on the stove, he stood so close the sense of his nearness abraded her already raw nerves. His frown had turned fierce. He touched the delicate skin underneath her eyes.
“You look awful. The shadows under your eyes have gotten worse, not better. Are you sick?” he demanded.
She jerked back from his touch. “First, get out of my face. Second, you didn’t buy coffee. Third, don’t talk so loud—or better yet, don’t talk at all. Fourth, I didn’t sleep well. I usually don’t. Mornings are not my best time. Fifth, did I mention the fact that you didn’t buy coffee?”
“Multiple times,” he snapped.
“Your presence offends me.” She patted her chest. “It literally hurts right here. Not you, Gawain,” she said in an aside. “It’s nice to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too, Sophie.” Gawain sounded amused, but she noticed with gratitude he also kept his voice at a quiet enough level that it didn’t sound abrasive. Looking pointedly at Nikolas, he said, “I thought you said you two were getting along better.”
“That was apparently before I forgot to buy coffee,” Nikolas replied dryly. He plucked the mug and tea bag out of her hand. “I will make you a cup.”
“Make two while you’re at it,” she muttered. “I’m going to need a second one.”
Gawain said in a diffident voice, “Lass, I hate to bother you, especially right now, but is there any way you could do your silver null spell on me so I can stay?”
“Damn it,” she muttered. “Of course. I’ll be right back.”
She left to retrieve her vial of colloidal silver, and when she returned, Gawain held out his hand without a word. She cast the spell as she painted the rune, and after she finished, Nikolas set a hot, bracing mug of tea on the table in front of her. She latched on to it and didn’t let go until she had drunk the whole thing. He had added milk and sugar too, and she decided she liked the combination.
Giving her space to wake up properly, the men resumed talking about people she didn’t know, but she presumed she would probably meet in the next few days. Gawain stood and worked at the stove, and within a few minutes the smell of frying bacon and eggs filled the air.
When she had drained the first mug of tea, without a word, Nikolas took it from her and set another full mug on the table near her elbow. This time Gawain also slid a plate filled with a hot, cooked breakfast in front of her.
She stared at the plate. Bacon, sausages, beans, eggs, fried mushrooms, sliced tomatoes, and what looked like fried bread. It looked like enough food to feed someone twice her size. For a moment her stomach reacted with an uncertain queasiness, then sharp, genuine hunger set in. The last time she had eaten a proper meal had been two nights ago, in the pub.
She fell on the food and practically inhaled it while Nikolas and Gawain also ate. The talk fell away, and for a while all three existed in the quiet comfort of the sunny kitchen as they finished breakfast. To her own astonishment, she ate everything on her plate, and afterward she finished the second mug of tea too.
Finally she felt comfortably full and alert. She pushed that empty mug away too and looked up to discover both men watching her, Gawain with a slight smile, while Nikolas wore a brooding expression she didn’t know how to interpret.
She knew what his mouth tasted like. She knew how his hair felt, as the short, silken strands slipped through her fingers. Scowling, she averted her face and said to Gawain, “Thank you for breakfast. That was amazing.”
“You’re welcome, lass.” Gawain stood. “I need to get the packages in the storage compartment of my bike. Be right back.”
After he walked out, Nikolas said, “Why don’t you sleep well?”
“It’s just a thing,” she said. “It’s who I am. It’s not a big deal.”
“You say that a lot,” he told her. “I don’t believe it now, any more than I did before.”
She remembered the last time she had said it and how he had brought her to climax in spite of herself. A flood of warmth washed over her face. “Well, sometimes when I say it,” she said between her teeth, “it’s a boundary that you’re not supposed to cross. This is one of those times.”
She rose to slap their dirty plates together in a stack and carried them to the sink. He wasn’t going to let it go, she just knew it. They were rubbing each other the wrong way this morning, and this wasn’t going to end well.
But just in that moment, Gawain stepped back inside and the invisible pressure that had been simmering in the kitchen eased.
He set the packages on the table and unwrapped them while she finished clearing the table. When she started to wash the dishes, Gawain said, “Sit down, lass. You’re helping us so much you
don’t need to do the washing up too. I’ll do those in a bit.”
“You can’t,” she pointed out. “Not and keep the null spell active.”
By the chagrin that passed over his face, she saw that he had forgotten. Nikolas stood. He told her, “Leave that for now. Come show us how to make the colloidal silver.”
“And that leads us to something we’d been talking about before you came to join us,” Gawain said. “The rent we’ll be paying you is more than fair, but we should be also paying you for your other services—for this and for helping us to explore the possibilities in your witchy house.”
She couldn’t wash dishes and have this conversation with them at the same time. Turning her back to the sink, she wiped her hands on a towel while she shook her head.
“My consulting services cost the LAPD a hundred grand a year,” she said. “But that’s not what we agreed upon. I’m teaching you the colloidal silver and null spell combination, and in return, you’re giving me a handgun with silver bullets and the legal right to use it. As far as exploring the manor house goes, I want to do that anyway. It’s my house. I should know its strengths and pitfalls and if there’s anything of worth inside that I might want to sell. If you want to engage me for anything else, we can talk about a consulting fee at that time. For now, the bargains we’ve struck are more than fair.”
Nikolas said, “Actually, there is something else we would like for you to consider doing. We want you to cast your runes and do a reading for us.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I guess that changes things a bit.” Looking from Nikolas to Gawain, she added, “I’m all about monetizing my skill set, but just doing a reading for you is not that big of a deal.”
Nikolas walked over and took the dish towel out of her hands. “It’s a big deal to us,” he said quietly. “We need to understand how and why I was ambushed, and what other magic had been in play that day and if it might still pose a danger. Also, after the attack on the pub, we need to try to figure out how much the Hounds may know about us, about the puck, and about you.”
Frowning, she looked at him directly for the first time since having breakfast. “Knowing that would be of benefit to me too,” she pointed out.
“Here’s what I propose,” Nikolas said. He laid his hands on her shoulders. “Instead of bargaining piecemeal over every little thing or added service, I want to pay you a blanket amount for a month of your consulting services. If you’re not going to go away, as you should, that’s a fair offer.”
Why did he keep approaching her and touching her? It made her cranky and confused her. She wanted to step forward into his arms. She wanted to slap his hands away.
Most of all, she wanted to get back down to the business they had begun last night before he had so precipitously walked away.
Throwing up her hands, she shrugged out of his hold. She said, “If you want to pay me for a month of consulting work, I’d be happy to take your money, but I don’t have a work visa.”
“I’ll add it to the amount we’re paying you for rent,” Nikolas told her. He turned to watch her with a sharp frown as she sidled away from him. “Fifteen thousand.”
The British pound was worth more than the dollar, and adding ten thousand pounds to cover her consulting fees was more than she would have made in LA. But it wasn’t so much over the top that it caused her conscience to twinge.
From a distance of six feet away, she gave Nikolas a thin, not-altogether-friendly smile. “You want to hand over your money? Fine, I’ll be happy to take it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Having come to that agreement, they got down to business. In short order, they had the table completely cleared and various items unwrapped from the packages Gawain had brought in. Sophie had already brought her vial of colloidal silver out to the kitchen, and she collected the rest of the things she wanted from her bedroom—pieces of magic-sensitive silver, a pen and pad of paper.
“Making your own colloidal silver generator is the easiest thing in the world,” she told the two males who were focused so intently on her. “It’s like learning to park a car. Once you know it, you know it. You need a power source, alligator clips, silver, distilled water, and containers. Silver colloidal enthusiasts who believe in using it for medicinal purposes might also use a regulator diode, because the theory is, as the electrical current grows, it strips larger particles of silver off. That’s not good for their purposes, but that’s great for ours, so we’re not going to use a regulator diode. We want the larger particles because that’s what makes magic-sensitive colloidal silver so viable.”
As she talked, her hands moved over the various items, arranging them to her satisfaction. She connected the batteries to each other, then to the alligator clips, to two of the pieces of the magic-sensitive silver she had brought, set it all in the container, and filled it with distilled water.
“And that’s it,” she said. “We’re done. The solution will be ready in several hours when it has a yellow tint to it. We can check it again this evening, and it will probably be viable then. Like I said before, there’s a way to make a generator without batteries, just by using sunlight, but I’ve never used that method before. If you’re interested, I can dig up some instructions.”
Nikolas took several photos of the apparatus while both men asked her questions. She answered them readily enough, and when they seemed ready, she pulled out her vial of viable colloidal silver.
“You’ve already seen the end result to the process,” she said. She took her pen and drew the rune on the paper, then flipped it for them to see. “And this is the rune I use.”
“Is that Nordic?” Nikolas asked as he angled his head to study the rune.
“Yes.” She paused uncertainly. “That’s not an issue, is it?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m just not as familiar with the Nordic runes as I am with the Celtic.”
“Once you know the technique, you can get creative with your spells and use the runes you’re more familiar with,” she told him. “Drawing the rune and infusing it with the magic spell is the same technique that jewelry makers use when they create magic items. If you know how to put a cloaking spell on your sword hilt, you can do this too.”
“I understand. It’s the silver in the solution that holds the spell.”
“Exactly.” She smiled. “I use the rune Algiz for this particular spell. It’s a rune of protection, which might not seem to fit, but it can also be used for channeling energies a certain way or for turning something away. Together with the null spell, it combines to turn away or negate magic. It’s a negation, not a destruction, so the magic can always return. Get it?”
Gawain murmured, “You are one of the cleverest women I have ever met.”
Surprised by the compliment, she felt her cheeks turn warm. “Thank you. I’m not, but—thank you. Remember, I learned a lot of this from other people. I’m like a magpie. I love picking up bits and pieces of things. Then I start playing with them, and sometimes they go together in surprising ways.”
“You may have learned a lot of this from other people, but you’re the one who put it together,” Nikolas said. “Gawain said it was almost like a temporary tattoo, and he was right. You’re creating temporary magic items.”
“Yeah,” she said, pleased with the description. “And you know, painting magic spells on someone isn’t a new technique—tribal shamans do it all the time. Painting them with magic-sensitive silver just means the spells can be stronger and more durable. There’s a limited application for this, and I make magic jewelry too, amulets and such, but I like painting certain spells on my skin. You can lose a necklace or a bracelet in a fight, and rings can catch on things—I know someone who lost a finger that way—but you’re much less likely to lose a spell that’s glued onto you.”
At Gawain’s blank look, Nikolas told him, “She’s referring to the spells she used against the Hounds in the attack. They were painted on her skin with…”
When he glanced at her,
eyebrows raised, she grinned. “It’s a different solution than this. I put tiny magic-sensitive silver shavings in clear nail polish.”
“Like I said. Clever, clever woman.” Gawain patted her shoulder.
Nikolas practiced working the null spell on Sophie until he cast it competently. Then it was Gawain’s turn to practice on her while Nikolas wore a null spell. By the time both men felt confident in casting the spell quickly, it was almost noon.
“We owe you a gun, along with silver bullets,” Nikolas said.
She straightened her shoulders from bending over the table. “Yes, you do.”
He picked up the last package Gawain had brought in and pulled out a metal micro gun vault, along with boxes of ammunition. She opened the vault, saw the Glock nestled inside, and patted her chest again. “Be still, my heart.”
Gawain laughed, but Nikolas didn’t. He watched her intently. “Now show me you know how to use it,” he said.
She felt a brief impulse to irritation, but it faded almost immediately into a certain kind of appreciation. He was being careful, and it was one of the things she liked best about him. He didn’t leave things to chance.
Not looking away from his face, she disassembled and assembled the gun by touch alone. It took her seconds. Then she loaded it while the men watched every move she made. She explained, “Because you should be able to do it in the dark, if need be.”
Nikolas gave her a fierce, approving smile. “Yes, you should.”
Not that she had done any of it, learned any of it, practiced any of it, to gain his approval, but that did cause the corner of her mouth to lift. Just a bit.
Setting the gun aside, she inspected the silver bullets. As she had suspected, they weren’t made of solid silver. Silver was a hard metal, and besides, solid silver bullets would be much more expensive. The bullets were jacketed ammunition, with a metal shell and tipped with silver.
As she examined the bullet, she murmured almost to herself, “You know, I’ve never run into lycanthropes in the States, but I’ve used magic-sensitive silver to make my own bullets. Once you have the hollow metal shells, it’s easy. Then I can spell those bullets any way I like. Let me tell you, a null spelled silver bullet is super useful when you’re fighting a magic user who’s out of his mind on LSD.” She glanced up to find them staring at her. She told them, “What? I was there. I saw it happen.”