The boss rubbed his face again. Big hands, my mind whispered. Bet he’s good with them.

Yeah, so again, that libido thing? Totally out of control. I mean, not like anything was going to happen. I knew my place on the hotness charts, and he was well out of my category.

Those strange blue and gold eyes closed, and he drew a slow breath. Almost as if he was smelling me. Which was quite possible in the shadow world. “Feish,” he said gently, “go get some tea ready. I can see this is not going to happen quickly, and I’d like to get some sleep today.”

He walked to his workstation.

There was an anvil blackened with usage that had to be at least several hundred pounds, four kinds of hammers of varying sizes, chunks of metal in various stages of being made, and a thick table behind it all which was where he pulled up a chair and sat. With a quick gesture, he pointed to another chair, then pulled a thick apron of leather off the table, leaving it bare. “You’re new to our world, then? The Hollows Group is bringing you in?”

I shook my head as I sat on the hardbacked chair. “Yes and no. My grandmother raised me believing and seeing. I left for twenty-plus years, and now I’m back. But also, yes, I’m with the Hollows Group.”

I’d given up thinking I was crazy. I mean, hell, maybe I was crazy, maybe this was some strange side effect of early menopause, and I was really just walking around the streets mumbling to myself, but I didn’t think so. Menopause might have physical side effects—like the libido issue—but the rest was just a woman who’d given up trying to please everyone.

And the world didn’t know what to do with a woman who’d run out of ducks to give.

I was that woman. I held out one hand. “Breena.”

He eyed me up and down once and didn’t give me his hand. “Crash.”

I grinned, thinking it was a nickname. “Clutzy much?”

He shook his head and scrubbed at the stubble on his chin. “No.”

Feish—damn, I knew I’d been close, my guess had been pretty much spot on—brought a pot of tea and one cup. Crash shot him a look. “Another cup.”

Feish snorted and strode away, muttering under his breath.

“She’s a bit weird when another woman comes in here,” he said. “Protective.”

She? Well, damn, I’d been wrong on that count. He poured me the first cup of tea, and I picked up the fine china. Feish brought another cup, paused when she saw that I had the first one, then disappeared again.