Page 14 of You Give Me Fever

“You should tell them just that,” said Shiver, and though he refused to look, he just knew that insufferable smile was still there.

“And won’t they be relieved?” Frenzy chuckled. “Between us, they were beginning to suggest that I step in and… take her for myself.”

Shiver was upon him in a flash, pinning the other demon’s neck to the hot stones surrounding the spring and baring his teeth. For once, that smirk dropped off of Frenzy’s face.

“If you touch her,” Shiver said in a voice so low it seemed to shake the stones beneath them, “if you breathe in her direction, if you look at her… I will eat your soul and spit it out in hallowed ground.”

“Have you always had… teeth?” Frenzy asked.

The question was so bizarre that for a moment, Shiver grappled with his anger and lost it to confusion.

“What? Teeth?” He sat back and released Frenzy, reaching up into his mouth. He was just shadow and eyes, black upon black, able to contort and manipulate his form however he chose… but teeth were new. Lips were new.

“And horns,” said Frenzy, gesturing up to the top of Shiver’s head. “They’re starting to show.”

Shiver reached up and felt them—just a whisper for the moment but truly there, the faint outline of what had always been there unseen. He had always had horns, in spirit, just as he had always had teeth and fingers and probably bones… once, far longer ago than he could recall. But in this form he had worn for several centuries, he was nothing but shadow. Or… he used to be.

Frenzy’s look of surprise melted back into his customary shrewd smirk.

“What have you been up to with that tender little morsel?” asked Frenzy, whose expressions were significantly more readable than Shiver’s had been—Frenzy was far younger.

Shiver sat frozen to the spot. The pulse he was not really supposed to have was pounding in his neck and ears. Forgotten was his fury toward Frenzy or the lower management, replaced by a tightening squeeze of panic. He was changing, and she had started it, and this meant he had far more to lose.

“Let me give you some free advice, old chum,” said Frenzy, brave enough now to lay a hand on the bigger demon’s shoulder. “Don’t lose your head over this girl. They blink in and out of existence like fireflies. Fuck her, kill her, feed from her, and move on.”

Shiver could only react by sliding his gaze toward the red embers of Frenzy’s eyes, burning brightly in the underground.

“Or I will.”

Shiver shot to his feet, ready to rip his rival from nose to tail, but he found himself alone again in the steaming water.

Without a thought to the many eyes that might be watching, Shiver zipped Above, back to that farmhouse where lived everything in the world he cared for. And a few chickens, but he could learn to like them too.

Inside was quiet and dark, the familiar scent of fever heavy in the air.

“Clara?” Shiver looked around, ready to be discovered and screamed at — but no one answered.

He moved through the rooms and up the stairs, a strange intruder who had lived here for a full week, familiar but unwelcome. Fear squirmed into his chest, sharp and wriggling, as he had never felt it before, fear that made his throat hurt and his hands clench—and then he saw her.

She was crumpled on the floor of her room, one hand outstretched toward the doorway she must have been reaching for. Now that fear was a snarling beast, ripping at his chest and back as he rushed to her, lifting her head.

“Clara! Open your eyes, honey, come on..” He patted her cheek and nearly hissed at the burn. She was pale, grey beneath the eyes, freezing cold in her hands, but an inferno from the neck up.

She groaned, turning her face away, and he crushed her to his chest, relief and terror fighting for dominance. He was going to lose her. If he lost her, he could live. If he lost her, he would be praised, rewarded.

If he lost her, he would go mad.

He scooped her into his arms and carried her to her washroom, bending to plug the clawfoot tub before snapping his fingers and filling it with warm water. This frivolous use of his abilities would be noticed Below, and he would certainly be made to pay for it, but at the moment, Shiver didn’t care. He’d made up his mind—whatever happened to him, he would save her.

“Thousand pardons, Miss Bailey,” he said in a low roll of a mumble as he yanked at her dress, tiny buttons scattering across the floorboards.

Clara groaned and shifted, beginning to stir. The sight of her fluttering eyes, to say nothing of the exposed curve of her breasts, grievously tucked away in her underthings, was difficult to ignore, but Shiver still had much work to do to undress her. Damn these modern garments, trapping and hiding a woman’s loveliness and forcing it into unnatural shapes. Shiver had no choice but to tear through it all, the dress, the brassiere, those delectably innocent cotton bloomers.

Clara shifted again.

“Hey, wise guy,” she said in a voice so faint it might have come from a ghost. “Hands off.”

“I did say I was sorry,” he said, tearing the last of her clothes from her before lifting her into the warm water.