“Oh!” Altamira gasped, the light of a Valkyrie in her eyes. “Want to bet on that?”

There was a pause, and then Ian and Rosetta burst into the relieved, hysterical laughter that comes after a big shock. Jamie didn’t feel like he was even close to laughing yet, but he put an arm around Terracotta. She wrapped hers around his waist, which of course made Altamira demand an equally sizeable hug, and then Rosetta squeezed her way in, too.

Ian stood, letting out a long breath. “Tea?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In the past, Mika had woken with half a bottle of gin lying on its side beside her, she had woken with menstrual cramps that had come from Dante’s worst circle of hell, and she had woken with a dog’s tongue halfway up her nose, but she had to admit that she had never, ever woken feeling like she had been hit by a bus.

Not, of course, that she knew what it was to be hit by a bus. But she couldn’t believe it could possibly be any worse than this. Every part of her hurt. Her legs hurt. Her arms hurt. Her head hurt. Her nostrils hurt, for fuck’s sake. Both of them.

She cracked her eyes open and instantly regretted all her life choices.

“What is this evil?” she croaked. “Why have I been engulfed in the fires of a thousand infernos?”

“I believe some call it the sun,” a dry voice informed her.

“Take it away. I want nothing to do with it.”

“There’s irony for you,” said the voice, sounding distinctly amused now.

The nerve. Mika was dying, and he had the audacity to be amused?

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’ll probably survive.”

Oh. Had she said that out loud?

“You did, yeah.”

“Jamie. The sun. Remove it from the sky at once.”

“Anything for you, love,” came the wry reply. “Especially when you ask so sweetly. But I’m afraid the removal of the sun is beyond even my powers. Pulling the curtains shut will have to do.”

It did not do, because there was still far too much light streaming in, but she was a reasonable person and she understood that she had to perhaps make the best of it. Then, before she could resign herself to a lifetime of martyred agony, something warm pressed against her side and a calloused hand settled over her tightly closed eyes, cutting almost all the light out.

“Just until you adjust,” Jamie’s voice said from close by.

“Oh my god. Don’t stop.”

“I will stop if you keep making sex noises.”

“The only reason you think these are sex noises is because you haven’t yet had sex with me,” Mika felt compelled to inform him.

Yet?

Fucking yet?