Page 35 of Something Handsome This Way Comes

Milo glanced toward the bedroom. Something enormous thumped against the wall. His jaw tightened.

“This counts.”

He unlocked the cabinet, snatched one of the precious bottles, popped the stopper, and drank. The potion burned cold going down.

Milo shuddered as magic spread outward from his stomach, racing through exhausted muscles and sinking warmth into every aching joint. Fatigue peeled away by degrees. The soreness dulled. His limbs stopped feeling as though someone had replaced his bones with wet noodles.

He stared mournfully at the empty bottle.

I won’t use another. This was an exception.

Another heavy scrape came from the bedroom. Milo discarded the bottle and walked down the hall. Grievance was waiting exactly where Milo had left him, his massive body still spilling across the floor.

The forked tongue appeared again, tasting Milo’s scent on the air. He must have liked what he found, because a moment later, a steady hiss sliced the air. It didn’t come from his mouth, but somewhere deeper in his chest.

Milo’s pulse jumped, and he stopped short at the foot of the bed. Grievance watched him like a crocodile from the riverbank, waiting for a wildebeest to grow desperate enough for a drink.

Patient despite the hunger in his expression. Always waiting for Milo to choose.

Asking.

Milo drew in a breath.

He climbed onto the mattress and crawled toward the creature who was somehow both the most frightening thing he had ever willingly approached and the man he trusted more than anyone in the world.

Grievance reached for him, not with his arms, which stayed at his side, but with the looping coils of his body. They looped around Milo, creating a living cage of muscle. Yet despite their power, not a scale touched Milo’s skin. The coils remained an inch away. Waiting for permission to constrict.

Milo looked into his mate’s hungry eyes. They were different in this form, blinking with double reptilian lids. But the color—those irises.

They were the same.

They were his.

Another long hiss filled the room, dropping the temperature several degrees. Milo shivered.

He didn’t know this body. He didn’t know this creature. But he knew those eyes. He trusted those eyes.

Milo drew in a deep, steadying breath.

“I’m ready.” His body trembled as adrenaline surged through his veins. “Ravage me, monster. I’m yours.”

The coils snapped around him like a spring trap, pinning his arms to his sides before Milo could even draw breath.

The Naga slid its upper body toward Milo until they were eye to eye. Milo struggled to take a breath as the creature tilted its head, observing him with unnatural stillness. It blinked, the double lids sliding closed over its eyes in a transparent film before clearing again.

“Please don’t eat me,” Milo said, jokingly. But also—not.

The creature smirked at him. And even with a newly shaped mouth, Milo recognized the teasing tilt in that look, and his body relaxed.

“Don’t blame me for asking. You’re freaking me out a little, Grievance.”

At the sound of his name, another pleased hiss cut through the air, seeming to come from everywhere all at once. His body slid against Milo’s, as though every scale wanted the chance to touch him. It was cold and sent a shiver racing from Milo’s neck all the way to his toes.

Grievance leaned close until only a breath separated their faces. His inhales were slow, the exhales slower still. Steady. Controlled. Very different from the Kava that had him earlier. This creature was cold-blooded. Patient. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

“What will you do with me, Naga?”

He didn’t smile; Milo wasn’t sure he could with this new face, but the corners of his eyes lifted ever so slightly. As though to say,