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When he hung up, Willow touched his arm. “I’m glad you’re staying here.”
“I wouldn’t be at ease anywhere else.”
She glanced around, then drew a deep, bracing breath. “I want to see the rest of my complex.”
“Okay, but let me lead the way.”
“Happily.”
Malik half expected to see the rope bridges sliced up so that Willow wouldn’t be able to easily reach her different houses. Instead, it looked like the worst of the damage was in the main house and for that he was grateful.
But someone had gone through and ransacked each room, hunting for things, maybe, as Willow had suggested earlier, to use in spells against her.
“Let me know if you see anything missing.”
“My brush,” she said, moving into her bathroom. “My brush is gone and it has my hair in it.”
Malik frowned. “As I recall, some of my hair was in there, too.”
“That’s not good. A lot can be done with hair in the creating of spells with an evil taint.”
Malik saw the drawn look to her cheeks, and he crossed to her. “Listen, you’re exhausted, and now isn’t the time to try to deal with any of this.”
“You’re right.”
“How about we head to your meditation porch and finish our beers? Once Hank and his team arrive, I’ll have them go to work on the bedroom first, then we can both retire. The only problem is all the noise.”
When she crossed the rope bridge to her meditation treehouse, she glanced at him and smiled. “Do you know that is one thing I can take care of? I don’t do a lot of spell casting but working as I do, especially when I really need to sleep, sometimes the day-birds keep me awake. So, I devised my own noise-shield.”
“Perfect.”
Willow sat down in one of two chairs on a small porch that overlooked the forest.
He sat down beside her and for a long time, neither spoke. He finished his beer, then fetched two more for them. She took her second one readily, and once more he took up his place beside her and swigged.
The night sky studded with stars could be seen through the forest canopy, although with his vampire vision he saw everything as in a glow. Realm night-birds fought for the best nesting sites and kept up a mad chatter.
When he finally heard Hank calling to him, he told Willow to stay put while he headed to the primary house. The troll, bless him, had brought two very large crews, one for clean-up, the other for repair.
Of course, Hank let a few more ‘fucks’ and ‘Goddess be-damneds’ fly before he finally set his repair crew to work.
Malik waited on the front porch of the main house for the delivery of his clothes and once those arrived, he brought them back to the meditation treehouse.
“Hank said the work in the bedroom would be done in half an hour.” He settled the clothes-bag by the doorway, then took up his chair once more.
“I’m so grateful, because I’m dead tired. Of course, the buzz from the beer is forcing my eyelids to sink when they might not otherwise.” She sipped again, afterward shifting toward him slightly. “Should we just jump in and complete the blood rose bond? I mean, we’re in the middle of rough seas, so do we risk way too much by holding back?”
He was so surprised by the question that for a long moment all he could do was stare at her. For himself, bonding was out of the question. He’d avoided any kind of relationship because his Vampire Guard battled both the dreaded Invictus wraith-pairs and The Society. He needed to stay centered on his duties.
But he was curious about her reasoning. “Do you want to bond with me?”
“No, of course not. Wait. That sounded bad. I really like you Malik and the sex is amazing, but I have a job to do that requires every ounce of my strength.”
“But it would appear I can help with that.”
She chuckled softly. “Are you planning on attaching yourself to
my hip, because if you’re not physically touching me, I don’t see how this could actually work.”
