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“He’s back?” I asked, surprised. Since it seemed like Aram was content to comb every inch of planet Earth looking for the missing Red.
“Shit going on like this, I don’t want us separated if we can help it. Which is my somewhat subtle way of reminding you that I need you back sooner rather than later.”
“Another three or four days should be all I need,” I assured him. “Is there anything else specific you want me to ask?”
“I don’t even fucking know at this point,” Ace admitted. “Just get what you can. We can all put our heads together to make sense of it all. Then maybe work on some sort of plan.”
“What kind of plan could there possibly be for us? From what I can tell, Hades is going to want the underworld. There is no future left for us.”
“There wasn’t a future for several of us down there anyway,” Ace reminded me. “But we all have some sort of future. We don’t have a choice in the matter,” he added. “So it would be smart to figure out how we are going to navigate this new world before too much more goes down.”
I guess that was fair.
“I will update you if or when we hear from Daemon. Make sure you keep your phone charged,” he added, and it was like he had some sort of sixth sense, knowing that my battery was almost dead.
“Will do,” I agreed, ending the call, then going in search of a charging cord from Charlotte’s collection that might fit my phone.
Only then did I go back and check on her again, finding her still out cold.
With a sigh, I moved back out into her common space, gathering a few of her well-worn books on the old gods, and spending the rest of the night studying them, trying to get more of my own idea of the major players, so I wouldn’t have to keep asking her basic questions.
“Did you stay here all night?” her soft voice called some unknown time later.
My gaze lifted, finding her standing there, changed out of her clothes from the night before and into some soft-looking matching pajama set, her long hair loose around her pretty, but bruised, face.
“Wanted to keep an eye on you,” I admitted since, well, there really wasn’t any other way to put it.
I never expected her to respond to that declaration the way she did.
By walking across the room, climbing onto my lap, and sealing her lips to mine.
CHAPTER NINE
Charlotte
I hadn’t meant to attack him.
See, the thing was, I woke up a little disoriented. Pain and confusion and a sort of hung-over sensation all assaulting my system at once.
It wasn’t the migraine pain, at least, though. Thank God. It was just a sort of throbbing ache around my eye and on my forehead. From colliding with the car.
The whole night came back to me like a film on fast-forward. The attack. Bael dangling the man in the air. Bael taking charge and bringing me to the hospital. Bael holding me while I waited to be seen. Bael bringing me back home. Bael getting me my meds, getting me drinks, a blanket, and, I assumed, getting me to bed. Since I was pretty sure I’d passed out in the bathroom.
As I padded across the hallway and into the bathroom with a fresh set of pajamas, since there was no way I was going into work after getting attacked, so I’d shot off a text before my eyes were even opened to have someone cover my class or cancel it, I felt an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude for the strange,handsome, rough-around-the-edges man who’d taken the time to get me help and home safe.
I just… didn’t have that.
I’d never had that.
Not since I’d gone away to college, several years younger than all my peers.
I had my father. Of course I did. But he was working halfway around the world. He was available by phone on occasion, but never to be there for me when I needed a little help, a little care.
And, well, I simply didn’t have anyone else.
I’d been so content with my life until then that I didn’t realize how sad it was that I didn’t have anyone to lean on, anyone to call after such a traumatic night.
So having Bael, well, it meant a lot more than I felt comfortable admitting. Even if he’d been an asshole to act like nothing had happened between us.
