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“Do you too have an appreciation for the double weave of our Verdana silk?”
It would’ve been an innocent question in most other contexts, but there was just enough of a velvet lilt to the phrase for me to catch a lick of flirtatiousness. I could see how that worked on plenty of people, but I was completely uninterested.
“It’s nice,” I said flatly, putting my usual cold mask on. I hadn’t worn it in some time, but it slipped into place as comfortably as ever.
“You have an eye for quality, then.” He grinned, but his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Instantly my inner wolf growled within me, knowing something was up. “I can sense a strong magic about you. Forgive my twenty questions, but are you a witch?”
I didn’t answer, which probably was incriminating in itself, but Darla did.
“I appreciate we might be novel to you, but we really do have to be on our way.”
“Ah, apologies again. I normally am more gracious about not being an obstacle, but I’ve always been so fascinated by witches’ unique magicks and lifestyles. It’s so different from many of the sorcerers and other arcane I know of.
“I have to admit, sometimes the capital makes me wish I lived in a peaceful coven away from the rest of the world.” He laughed, and it was such an enticing sound, I understood why, long ago, humans were so afraid of falling under a fae’s influence. “Are you from a coven around here? I know numbers have been dwindling of late, but I might know a few folks from your home.”
He couldn’t possibly know I was the last surviving member of my coven I knew of, that my presence tortured those poor witches for years and finally killed them all off when I visited again. They’d had centuries of peace, centuries of safety, all ruined by me.
“Ay mate, if you’ve met other witches, I think you’d know they’re the private type. So, you can take that stars in that night sky smile of yours and put it in your pocket, all right?”
I blushed at Mad Dog’s stern words. I felt as if I had an older brother in him. Or what I imagined having an older brother would be like.
It was nice.
The funny thing was, his words did seem to startle the fae, who looked between the three of us before answering.
“I fear I’ve gotten onto the wrong foot here. I was merely curious.” Then his gaze landed fully on me. “I apologize for prying. I just wonder about companions for our prodigal Prince Nikolai. Where he’s been all these years is a popular point of speculation.”
“We’ve heard,” I said, which seemed to cheer him.
“How about we start over? As I said, I am Aodin, and you are?”
“I’m Sergeant Khan,” Darla said pleasantly, but I could tell her guard was up, too. “This is Healer Everton, and, uh, Mad Dog.”
Aodin chuckled at that. “Mad Dog? The nickname’s a bit… on the nose, don’t you think?”
Mad Dog drew himself up to his full height and crossed his arms. “No, I don’t.”
“I’m not sure I could call a grown man ‘Mad Dog’, even if he is a wolf shifter.”
“Well, luckily it’s not really your choice because it’s not your name,” Darla said with the same false pleasantry. “If you saw him on the battlefield, protecting the front lines, you’d know how apt that name is.”
Aodin made a quick hushing sound while mouthing, “Not the war.”The whole situation was becoming rather messy before Mad Dog just sighed.
“You can call me Maddox if it bothers you so much.”
“Maddox?” Darla asked, her eyes going wide. “You’ve been having us call you Mad Dog this whole time when you were rocking a name likeMaddox?Or did you just come up with that now?”
“No. Maddox is my birth name.”
Darla huffed, and Aodin seemed officially out of the hot seat, saved by the psychic’s incredulous discovery.
“I am never calling you Mad Dog again. God, I’ve felt like an edgy teenager whenever I’ve said your name for years when I could have been calling you something distinguished likeMaddox.”
I personally didn’t get the big difference, but it was entertaining to watch Darla bloviate about the situation. Before I could pitch in something to egg her on, I caught a faint hint of Kai and Oren’s scents.
I leaned over the banister and craned my neck, finally seeing them come into view below us while they made their way up. It was so tempting to call out to him, to run and throw myself into his arms, but I couldn’t. We had to pretend we didn’t exist to each other for everyone’s safety.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep my pheromones and heart rate in check, but thankfully, I was safe as they turned off the staircase a floor below, going out of my line of sight and saving me from an awkward interaction with the observant fae standing right there.
