“I’m still not ready to date you. I feel I should make that clear.”

“I am willing to meet you half-way,” Zed said solemnly.

“Again, very diplomatic.”

“Always accept romance advice from dragons,” he murmured against her mouth, making her giggle. She pulled at the button of his jeans, popping it open and shimmying them down his hips, revealing a sharp vee of muscle. Dani grinned at him, pushing the jeans down his thighs.

“And then, when we’re done here, I’m going to take you upstairs, where I happen to have a bed that hangs from the ceiling.”

Zed’s expression went from hopeful to distinctly uncomfortable. “Um, I happen to know that Bael and Jillian spent quality time together in that bed. They put a new mattress on it before Jillian moved out, but …”

Dani pursed her lips, thinking of the series of perfectly straight scrapes on the plaster, parallel to the frame of the bed. “That explains those marks on the walls.”

“Yes, it does. I mean, I want to be close to my friends, but not that close.”

“Well, then we’re just going to have to content ourselves with multiple rounds in the shower.” She pulled him into the shower stall under the hot spray. “If the wall falls over, we’ll know you did a bad job.”

10

Dani

Dani was sitting on the second story front porch, resting. She hated to admit that working with the rift, combined with the library ambush—also multiple rounds of shower sex—had left her pretty wiped out.

She tried not to let the fact that she’d been attacked and damn near strangled unnerve her, but she’d had a really difficult time sleeping since the attack. She would jerk awake in the middle of the night, absolutely sure that someone was lurking in the shadows of her house, waiting to hurt her again. And it would take her hours before she could relax enough to go back to sleep. Sometimes, she was still awake when the rising sun showed through her window.

The lack of sleep meant lack of focus, and it was messing with her ability to go to the rift site and work safely. A sleep-deprived dynakinetic was a dynakinetic that could end up turned inside out and pinched between dimensions.

Something was bothering Dani about the library attack, and not just the “strangulation” of it all. That over-sweet smell that had clung to Dani’s skin all night afterwards. She knew she should be able to place it, but it was blocked from her memory.

Maybe if she got some sleep, she might remember.