Fuck.I close my eyes, willing this conversation to go in another direction.Anydirection. But of course it won’t. It can’t.
“What were you fighting in there?” he asks.
A shock of guilt races down my spine, pooling in my gut like hot stew spiked with glass. My face goes red—I can feel it happening, not a damn thing I can change about that.
But I’m not interested in inviting my demons out for drinks—no thanks. Especially not so soon after Judgment paid me his little fireside visit tonight.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Point is, Judgment may be fucking with us from the great beyond, but Stevie’s the one he’s really after. She’s the key toallof this—her mother knew it too. It’s probably right there in one of her damn prophecies. Tell me you can’t feel it.”
“I agree with you, but we still don’t know exactly how the prophecies tie into the—”
“Fuck the prophecies, man. They want her dead!” Goddess, just saying the words out loud puts my heart through the shredder.
“If you’re so worried about our girl,” Kirin says, getting to his feet, “why are you here, jerking off with a bottle of moonshine instead of helping us figure out how to defeat these monsters?”
“Because I love her, dickhead.”
“We all love her. That’s exactly why we need to get back to Red Sands Canyon and figure out our next move.”
“I’ll tell you what our next moveisn’tgoing to be—marching back into the dream realm with a hunting party, looking for more trouble. I know that was the plan, but that’s off the table now.”
“I’m not saying we—”
“The Dark Arcana can go fuck themselves.”
“Baz, listen to me. After Cass’s party tonight, things—”
“Artifacts? Grimoires? Magick? Let ‘em have it. All of it.”
“We need to get back to—”
“Let ‘em burn the whole world down for it.”
“You don’t understand. Ani—”
“Far as I’m concerned,noneof us is going back to that fucking realm. Got it?” Rant over, I finally meet his gaze again, hoping he’s ready to go fuck off somewhere else and leave me to close out this miserable Harvest Eve alone.
But Kirin just sighs and shakes his head, his eyes full of that special kind of pity that can only come from someone who knows he’s about to upend your entire world.
“Yeah, about that whole not-going-back-to-the-realm thing…” He holds out his hand, offering me one last chance. “I got some bad news for you, brother.”
Ten
STEVIE
A hurricane. Strong, powerful, impossible to outrun. A tempestuous force of nature that steals my breath and rivals the storm in his eyes.
That’s how it feels when Doc kisses me.
His mouth is hot and fierce andeverywhere—my lips, my neck, my breasts, a sharp bite and a soothing lick as he teases my nipple. I lean back against the door again, barely able to hold myself upright as he strips off my underwear, kissing his way down.
I slide my fingers into his hair and breathe his name, and his lips buzz between my thighs, tongue flicking against my clit, a red-hot preview of what’s to come. He waits for the tell-tale tremble in my legs, the heat unfurling low in my belly, a fire licking its way across every nerve ending…
And then he’s pulling back, unleashing a whimper of protest from my lips before he’s back to my mouth again, silencing me with another kiss.
He grabs my ass and lifts me up, fingers digging into my flesh as I wrap my legs around his hips. The smooth, hard planes of his chest and abs radiate heat against my bare skin, and in that moment, Ihatethat he’s holding me so close. All I want is to run my tongue along those firm ridges, to taste the salt of his skin, to feel him.
I try to touch him, but I can’t reach.
