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She glanced at me, then back at Chase, and shook her head. “Really, I didn’t intend to be rude. You okay, Chase?” Without waiting for an answer, she whirled back to me, and a goofy grin spread across her face. “You need to come downstairs, or you’ll miss everything!”
“Miss what?” I scrambled for my sleep shirt and dragged it over my head. “What’s going on? Do I need to get dressed? Are there demons in the yard? A goblin brigade marching through our kitchen? Another unicorn visit?” Knowing our luck, it could be multiple choice: Take your pick, any and all. Or something worse.
“No, no brawls tonight.” She clapped her hands. “I just got home. Iris is up. Maggie said her first words, and she’s awake and babbling up a storm. Most of it’s nonsense still, but she really can say a few things! Iris is recording it on the camcorder. So hurry up and get your ass downstairs.”
As she shut the door, Chase pushed himself to his feet. He fumbled for a moment, then sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his penis. The blood had stopped, but the thin red wheal left a reminder of where my left fang had lacerated him.
I winced as I rooted around in the pile of clothes, looking for my slippers. “That’s gotta hurt.”
Chase glared at me. “You think? Ever decide maybe you should warn a guy first? We already tried that maneuver before, and I’ve got the scars to prove it, thank you very much.” He sighed. “I’m okay with forgoing blow jobs, you know that. So Delilah, honey, what on earth gave you the idea to try it again?” He gingerly examined his wounded pride, shaking his head.
I let out a little growl. “You don’t have to act so pissy. I wasn’t planning on giving you a blow job. I was just teasing you awake so we could have a little late-night fun. Everything would have been okay if Menolly hadn’t come in. Great gods, we’ve barely touched each other—” One look at his face, and I stopped that train of thought. Best not to go there right now.
“I said I’m sorry. Let me get the antibiotic ointment.” I stalked into my bathroom, which was right off the bedroom, and brought back a tube of unguent. He relented and let me slide a thin layer down his skin.
As I gazed into his eyes, he leaned forward and kissed me. Slow, deep, with tenderness. I was tempted to catch Maggie’s first words on the morning rerun. Maybe we could get in some hot sex without hurting him any further. But then Chase abruptly pulled away.
“Come on, let’s get dressed.” He slid into a pair of burgundy boxer shorts and the velvet robe he kept in my room. “This is about the only good news we’ve had in a while. We don’t want to miss it.”
As I found my slippers and slid them on, he headed out the door, and I scurried to catch up. Chase adored Maggie, that I knew. But for him to forgo sex for something like this . . . there had to be something going on. And whatever it was, he obviously wasn’t letting me in on the secret.
Iris had the camcorder in hand, while Menolly knelt beside Maggie. Menolly had taken our baby calico gargoyle under her wing and played substitute mama as much as possible. We all loved the little twerp, but a special bond had grown between the vampire and the gargoyle. Maybe because they were both out of their element—both adrift, thanks to the demonic envoys that walked the world.
Maggie looked a lot like a cross between an imp and a large cat. Short, downy, calico-colored fur covered her body. She had pointed ears and whiskers, but her wings were still far too small to support her, so she couldn’t fly yet.
The baby ’goyle could barely walk, actually. She’d taken her first steps a few months before. Maggie had a long tail, with a devil’s tip at the end, and it, too, was covered with fur. With Menolly’s help, she’d gotten the hang of using her tail to balance herself. Now she could stand for several minutes without leaning against the coffee table and even walk a few steps, but after that things got shaky, and her wings would flail, and she’d land on her butt. She never hurt herself when she fell, but her bewildered little moophs always managed to get her a treat of some roast beef or a little more of her cream drink.
Maggie gazed up at me with yellow topaz eyes as I knelt in front of her. Would she speak in English? The Fae dialect we often used among ourselves? Or something else?
I glanced up at Iris. “Well?”
Iris, a Talon-haltija who lived with us, shook her head. “She’s taking a break, I think. I swear, the moment she said one word, she opened up like the clouds, and she’s been babbling on ever since. I wasn’t sure whether to disturb you, so I waited till Menolly arrived home.” She lifted the camera again and zoomed in on Maggie as I reached for her.
Maggie shook her head at me. “No!”
Surprised, I sat back, waiting.
“No sit. No sit. Deeyaya no sit on me.”
I stifled a laugh. Maggie had already proved extremely sensitive to anything remotely decipherable as ridicule. “I think she’s got that backward, but she’s definitely talking. That’s for sure.”
Menolly perched on the edge of the coffee table. “Yeah, and she knows all our names. When I walked in, she called me Menny.”
“Menny!” Maggie looked extremely proud of herself. “Menny, Deeyaya, Camey? Where Camey?” She glanced around, a confused look on her face.
“Camille will be back in a while,” Menolly said, slipping her hands under Maggie’s arms as she lifted her onto her lap. “Who’s that?” She pointed to Chase. Chase had spent a number of hours babysitting Maggie.
Maggie giggled and clapped. “He-man! He-man!”
I looked over at Chase. “What the . . . is she trying to say human?”
“He-man!”
Chase blushed red, right to the tips of his ears. “I don’t think so.”
“Then why is . . . oh good gods, did you teach her that your name is He-Man?” I snorted as he rolled his eyes.
“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.” He appealed to Iris for help, but she just pressed her lips together in a winsome grin. “I didn’t think she’d remember it,” he said, “let alone repeat it.”
