“I’ll have to remember that one,” he said, arm draped over me. “Get you to think about pixies and vampires to get you to let go of me.”

Embarrassed, I ran my fingers over him, following the line of his muscles. “I’m worried. They don’t have three miles of forest and a gatehouse between them and the crazy people.”

I sat up and he sighed, shifting to sit beside me. “I know,” he said shortly as he stood, gathering up my clothes before he pulled me up into his arms. “I’ll get you back into Cincy before the sun comes up. Promise.”

I gave up, the feeling of being loved pushing all else away as he carried me through his rooms to the warm bath he had drawn for me. And as he used his foot to open and close the doors, I found myself looking over his simple yet complex world, wondering how I fit in. Maybe I should give up on the thinking and just do it.

That had always served me well in the past.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

I couldn’t see the sun apart from the glow on Cincy’s towers, the blood red slowly shifting to a more familiar gold as it crept down the sides of the buildings as the sun rose. Mark’s was busy, the music muted and the conversations tense with fear. It would’ve been impossible for Trent and me to have found a seat when we’d arrived a mere five minutes ago, but Ivy had been here for hours, rightly worried that the streets would be closed off when the suncides began. We clustered at her table to watch the news on her charging laptop.

Trent fidgeted as we waited for both our drinks and David, the Were currently at Cormel’s emergency city meeting. They’d started about an hour before sunrise, continuing as the expected suncides became reality. Trent hadn’t been invited, but I’d convinced the shocked man that crashing the meeting was a bad idea. David could bring back the real dirt, and Cormel wouldn’t dare stuff the alpha Were in a hole to be forgotten—not as he would Trent. And whereas yesterday I might have gotten mopey about how Trent had been kicked out of his own meeting, now it only made me mad. I loved him, damn it. And everyone else, demons included, would have to get over it.

But the insecurity remained.

Grimacing, Ivy waved Jenks off as his dust blanked the screen, and I leaned forward to hear. Most of the people here were watching something similar on their various devices, and the unending circle of the same bad news of suncides and interviews was making me nauseated.