And she needn’t ever know that he would carry the memory of that all-too-brief brush of lips in his heart to the end of his days.
With a rustle of wings, the raven flew into the passage. She landed on the floor in front of him, strutted over to his feet, and plucked at his shoelaces. Tilting her head, she looked up at him from a beady black eye.“Never mind.”
“Thanks, Debbie,” Nigel said. He hung his head. Then: “I just want her to be happy. That’s all. Just let her be happy. And safe.”
The bird hopped up onto his shoulder and stayed there with him in the dark passage until closing time.
Nigel did not rest well that night.
He kept seeing images of The King’s Crown, playing out in his mind’s eye. All suffused in the golden glow of chandeliers gleaming on holiday florals. It was a nice restaurant. The kind of restaurant a man took a woman to when he wanted her to know he was serious. The sort of place that would make her feel special. Like the angel she was.
It was also adjacent to a hotel.
With rooms.
Bedrooms.
But no. Surely Officer Ward wouldn’t havedesignslike that. Not for a first date.
But was it their first date? Ward had spent all day dancing attendance on Luna at Saint Jollify. Buying her food, paying for her tickets. He’d won her a pink unicorn, for gods’ sake!
Pink unicorns didn’t automatically entitle a man to hotel rooms, however. Not even dangerously good-looking men like Officer Ward.
But what if that’s what Luna wanted?
“If that’s what she wants, so be it,” Nigel muttered to the poinsettias the following morning, as he absently overwatered them. A puddle formed around their pots and his feet, to which he was completely oblivious. “Miss Talbot deserves every good thing in this life, including . . . including glamorous hotel rooms. If that’s her choice.”
His stomach knotted itself several times. Then turned over and knotted itself again.
It was all too easy to picture them. Laughing together over the gold-crown tablecloth. Clinking long-stemmed glasses of sparkling wine. In Nigel’s imagination, the light from the thaumatic chandelier caught in Luna’s hair and transformed her simple workday blouse into something far more sophisticated than she actually owned. Something satin, perhaps. Slinky. Fitted smoothly to her curves. All while her feet remained safely ensconced in her nice, warm, new boots.
“You know,”Ward would say, leaning a little closer and trailing a finger down her wrist, raising the fine hairs on her arm,“I could speak to the manager. Get us a room for the night.”
Luna, of course, would flush and lower her gaze, dark lashes falling across pink-stained cheeks. Then that smile of hers, pulling at the corner of her mouth . . .
Only, as the image progressed in Nigel’s mind, that smile became wider, fiercer. Wolfish.
It became Jastira’s smile.
Suddenly, it was Jastira he saw, sitting across, not from Ward, but from himself. And the chandeliers in the room were snuffing out, replaced with burning orbs of anti-glitter. The Shadowbane Lady, clad in clinging black, gripped his hand in hers, her long, sensual fingers toying with him.“I’m going to take hold of you, like this,”she purred, her hooded eyes burning into his, causing his blood to boil.“Then I’m going to make you beg for mercy—”
A knock sounded behind him. Nigel startled, straightened up, spilling the last of the water from his watering can all over his shoes. He turned to the door. His heart dropped.
Ward.
Wardsman John Ward,of all people,stood under the awning. He nodded and waved at Nigel through the square glass in the door.
Nigel stood as though rooted. Mouth gaping. Only after several breaths did it occur to him that his hand—the onenotholding the watering can—was starting to form a Dire sigil, all on its own volition. Hastily, he squeezed his fingers tight.
“Never mind?”said Debbie, flapping from the counter to perch on Nigel’s shoulder.
Nigel frowned. “I know, right? What in the gods’ names . . . ?”
Ward knocked again, brows rising. He made a motion for Nigel to let him in. Which was thelastthing Nigel wanted to do. What, was he supposed to exchange pleasantries with the wardsman, the morning after he took Luna on a date? But he couldn’t exactly pretend he didn’t see him.
Biting down on a curse, Nigel set aside the empty watering can, stomped across the puddled floor, unbolted the door, and flung it open. He tilted his head back—farther back then he liked—to look the officer in the eye. “Miss Talbot isn’t here.”
“She’s not?”
