Page 72 of Somnium

Her heart swelled when she heard it again, and this time, he let the soft vowels and curling R’s flow freely. It was softer, warmer than she’d expected, a part of himself that he kept hidden from the world, now only meant for her.

She carried that warmth with her into the kitchen, slipping onto a stool at the island where she watched him assess the questionable contents of the fridge. Since the power had been out all night, it was a gamble as to whether or not anything was still good.

“Probably should have put some of this in a cooler,” he muttered, crinkling his nose as he sniffed a sweaty bag of cheese.

“Whatever happened to being prepared?” Cadi teased.

He shot her a look that should have shut her up, but she only smiled wider.

Elias sighed as he glared into the darkened interior of the fridge. “I don’t think any of this is salvageable,” he said, “and I’m pretty confident no one is delivering right now.”

He glanced toward the window, where debris and water still littered the streets below, leaving them effectively useless until the city managed to get them cleared. And gods knew how long that would take.

Cadi pursed her lips, wracking her brain for any solution to her growing hunger. As if wanting to add its own two cents, her stomach let out a low rumble, the sound amplified by the quiet of the apartment.

“Don’t stores usually have backup generators?” she suggested, recalling the overpriced specialty food store she passed on her drive over. “We could go get something that we don’t have to cook.”

Elias scratched at the dark layer of stubble that covered his chin. “Nothing like a nice muggy walk at six thirty in the morning, I suppose.”

“Great!” Cadi cheered, ignoring his sarcasm as she scurried down the hall to change. A dramatic groan followed her, and she shook her head in amusement. He really should have asked if she was a morning person before they started dating.

A bead of sweat dripped down Cadi’s back as she wove through the brightly lit aisles of the store. The walk there had been stifling, the early morning sun drawing wisps of steam into the air as it dried the sodden asphalt, and if she was being honest, the inside of the store wasn’t much of an improvement.

The backup generator was doing a fantastic job of keeping the fridges, freezers, and lights up and running, but there wasn’t quite enough oomph behind it to run the air conditioners on top of everything else. The employees had turned off the automatic doors and left them open in the hope of providing some sort of circulation, but that had only served to bring the heavier heat farther inside.

As she walked past a row of standing freezers, a flicker of movement behind the glass had her doing a double take before she let out a surprised laugh. In a desperate attempt to escape the oppressive heat, an imp had wedged himself inside the case and was resting his small, leathery body against the bags of frozen peas. Cadi had to admit, the look of bliss on his face had her wondering if maybe the mythic was on to something.

She turned to Elias, her inappropriate joke about frozen peas cutting off mid-sentence when she realized he wasn’t next to her. Turning around, she retraced her path until at last she spotted him, unable to stop her snort of laughter. There he was, all six foot four of him standing at the mouth of the bread aisle, resting his head against a loaf of sourdough.

Slipping up behind him, she wound her arms around his waist to rouse him from his attempted nap. “Why don’t you go see if their coffee machine is working?”

He gave her a sleepy half smile and nodded before he turned to shuffle back toward the front of the store. She shook her head as she watched him go, making sure he didn’t take any detours at the bagels before she continued her search for the premade sandwiches.

The air from the open cooler provided a much needed, albeit brief, respite from the heat as Cadi went back and forth between turkey or ham. Electing instead to let Elias deal with the pressure, she grabbed one of each, just glad none of the options were egg salad.

“Hi, Cadi.”

A tingle raced over her neck at the sound of the familiar voice, and she spun around to find Zoe nervously fidgeting with the handle of her shopping basket.

So much for her streak of avoidance.

“Hi, Zoe,” she replied flatly. A part of her hated being rude, but after what had happened, she wasn’t about to put on a smile and pretend that everything was fine between them.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Zoe said, her tone cautious. “I didn’t realize you lived in this neighborhood.”

Cadi raised an eyebrow. It was no secret that she had requested the transfer, and even Zoe couldn’t pretend not to know why. But given the option of navigating a conversation about why she was in that part of town or reopening old wounds … well it was hardly even a choice.

“I don’t, I was just staying with a friend because of the storm.”

Disappointment flashed in Zoe’s eyes at the obvious deflection, but she quickly fixed a smile back onto her face.

“Oh, yeah, me too. That was nasty last night. They even canceled Somnium, which is just wild. I hate storms so I came up here to stay with Collin and pretty much just hunkered down and prayed for it to stop.”

Cadi smirked as the memory of her own night played through her mind, all of it burned into her soul. It was fair to say that she and Zoe had lived through very different storms.

“Is Collin the⁠—”

“The satyr, yeah,” Zoe said with a wide grin. “He’s sweet.”