Page 84 of The Human’s Heart

He chuckled and easily carried me through the house. “You’re gonna bite me, right?”

“Psh. Like you have to ask.”

He chuckled, threw me on the bed, and stripped.

Chapter 27

Hugo

Zay’s gasp of terror woke me up, and I reached for him. He leaned into me and managed to rasp out, “Sorry. The wards woke me up, and it scared me.”

I tensed. “What do you mean? I… sort of felt something, like a little… brain poke. Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah.” He sent me a small smile and patted my hand.

“What does that mean, though? Why are they reacting? Is someone trying to get in?”

“It means someone came through them.”

I sucked in a breath, my chest tightening in fear.

But before I could freak out too badly, he said, “It’s okay. It’s just Uncle Bas.”

“Holy shit, you just scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.”

Closing my eyes, I blew out a breath and tried to gain my composure. When I did, I asked, “How can you tell?”

“It takes practice. Maybe we can have my siblings and cousins over one day and make them walk back and forth so you can start picking up their magical signatures.”

“Yeah… yeah, that sounds good. But… Uncle Bas?”

“Oh right. Shit. Let’s get dressed and meet him out there. I think he’s about to knock on our door.”

How the hell did he know that? Could he still sense him or whatever that was? Or could he hear him? Or maybe smell him?

As I put on some sweatpants, I took a deep breath, trying to inhale everything. Maybe I could smell him too.

I got a whiff of everything, alright. Including the trash.

I coughed and choked as I held in my bile, and Zaos was immediately at my side, rubbing my back.

“You okay? What happened?”

I laughed through a cough and waved him off. “Nothing… just me being stupid.”

“How?”

I rolled my eyes, coughed a few more times, and straightened, throwing on a t-shirt. “I tried to sniff your uncle and got a nose full of trash instead. We really need to take that out. Like as soon as we walk out there or I’m gonna puke everywhere.”

His eyebrows lifted. “You wanted to sniff my uncle? Not a sentence I ever thought my viramore would say, but okay.”

I laughed at that. “I thought that maybe you could smell him, and that’s how you knew he was at our door.”

He shook his head, looking amused. “I can sense his magic, you goofball. Now come on before he gets impatient and just blasts through our back door or something.”

I laughed at that and let him grab my hand and lead me out. He dropped my hand as soon as we walked into the kitchen, pointed at the back door for me to answer it, and started pulling out the garbage bag.