CHAPTER SEVEN || TOBIAS
I couldn’t get comfortable. The steering wheel was in the way, for one. For another, I had never noticed how cramped the driver’s seat of my car was until I tried to relax enough to fall asleep in it. Every single ache and feeling of discomfort seemed to be magnified and I dreaded how kinked up and in pain I’d be in the morning, after two days in a row of trying to sleep in my vehicle.
Maybe I ought to go back into the front office and use a spell to force Liz to give me a room? I knew at least half a dozen that would work.
With each passing moment of discomfort, the idea became increasingly tantalizing.
It would be just a small persuasion spell, after all. Nothing even close to what I had used on the morgue attendant. Just a tiny magical nudge, to convince her that whatever reasons she had for refusing to rent a room to me were no longer important. And, judging by the more than half-empty parking lot, there were , in fact, plenty of rooms available.
But, feeling a little resentful of myself for making everything way harder than it needed to be, I ultimately decided against it, for at least the tenth time.
It was one thing to use my magic to help the coven, or to help Bryan with what he was trying to do, but it was another thing altogether to use spells every time I suffered a small annoyance. I didn’t possess any starry-eyed notions about never using witchcraft for personal gain, or never using it to cause harm. Magic was a tool. It was meant to be used to make the world a better place. That meant making it better for me and the people around me when the situation demanded it. And sometimes even a bit of violence was necessary now and then, even if I tried to avoid that whenever possible. But still, using a spell to fulfill my every whim would make me kind of a jerk, wouldn’t it? Especially if I was messing with someone else’s mind to do it.
Besides, I couldn’t have asked for a better vantage point. I could see Bryan’s door easily through the windshield and I was all but fifty feet from him. At least this way I could keep an eye on his room and be ready to swoop in to save him at a moment’s notice.
I’d already—discreetly, of course—put a simple alarm spell on his door, which would alert me if someone who wasn’t him or me tried to enter. I was reasonably confident that no harm would come to my mate at the motel, but I couldn’t be certain. Both my vision and the mirror had been fuzzy on the details of where Bryan’s death took place.
I really hated the mirror, even though it had—grudgingly—helped Ethan save the city. It had also nearly gotten him killed. And now it was giving us just enough information to know that there was some kind of big sketchy threat looming on the horizon for Bryan, but no real details as to what that threat would ultimately end up being when it came for him. And the damn thing knew exactly what it was doing, of that I had no doubt. For one thing, it could see the future. For another, it was a semi-sentient magical object, created a very long time ago by the sadistic power-hungry warlock who had helped found my coven. It probably enjoyed every moment of discomfort it created.
We ought to have destroyed it.
In theory, the danger was probably going to come from the pissed-off spirit Bryan was hell-bent on going up against. The simplest explanation is usually the most accurate, after all. But in practice, it could have been anything—or anyone—that came for him.
Maybe Liz moonlighted as a vampire slayer in her spare time. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I had ever seen.
And then, of course, there was the fact that even if— when —I protected Bryan from this, whatever this ended up being, he was still plunging himself headfirst into danger by choosing a life spent hunting malevolent supernatural beings, determined to do it all on his own.
I’m not an asshole. I understood it well enough. Giles had hurt him badly and now he felt he had something to prove. And sooner or later he would find more trouble and even more danger.
The worst part was, I had no idea how to make it better for him. I didn’t know how to fix any of this so he didn’t have to feel this way. But if I could have, I would have. Even if he never wanted to see me again afterward, I still would have done it.
I could have found some way to be happy, so long as I knew he was.
After an hour of trying to silence my racing thoughts and get myself comfortable enough to drift off, I finally scowled and sat up, still wide awake. Despite the fact that it was almost two in the morning, sleep seemed totally out of the question.
On impulse, I called Nathaniel. The vampire king had a front-row seat to my discovering that Tobias was my mate. Plus, he was the husband of my best friend. So, we had bonded.
Sort of.
He answered, sounding confused. “Tobias. It’s the middle of the night. Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. Then I let out a sharp breath. “No, not really.”
“It’s Bryan,” he guessed, sounding sympathetic. “Isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure how to fix this,” I admitted, letting out my breath in a rush. “What Giles did to him… I don’t know how I can make it right for him.”
“Maybe you can’t,” Nathaniel replied softly. “Maybe you simply give him love. And space. And time. Maybe you just let him know that you’re there for him, no matter what. And then you trust him. You have faith that he can heal from this.”
“What if I can’t do that?”
“Then maybe that’s what you should be trying to fix.” He said it kindly, without any sort of heat, but it still stung. When I went quiet, he added, “Believe me—I understand. But part of having a mate is learning how to trust them. And it’s also learning how to be the sort of man who can be trusted. How else is he supposed to give you his heart?”
“Was it hard with Ethan?”
“You grew up with my mate, did you not? You tell me if you think it was a rough go.”
I had to laugh at that. “He gave you hell.”
He laughed too, right along with me.
“It was worth it,” Nathaniel said, a moment later. “I wouldn’t trade a thing. Ethan is worth it. And so is Bryan.”
“Thank you.” I found myself surprised at how glad I was that I’d called him.
“Of course. Call me again if you ever need me. You are a friend of Ethan’s, and you are a friend of mine.” He paused, then added, “Believe me, I know some of what you’re going through. Discovering one’s true, fated mate, out of the blue…” He chuckled wryly, then added, “Well, it isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s an extreme sport, I’m afraid. As you are beginning to understand.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. It wasn’t like he was wrong.
We said our goodbyes and I hung up smiling, despite how miserable I still felt.
Except, of course, that I had already promised to leave Bryan for good once this was all done. But Nathaniel was completely and unequivocally right about one thing. I wasn’t giving Bryan nearly enough credit. I was assuming that he wasn’t strong enough to heal without me.
But he was, wasn’t he?
Because what Giles had done to him was a violation that would have destroyed most people. But Bryan wasn’t most people. He was my mate, and he was way stronger than he looked. He was strong enough to get through this without me. It wasn’t my job to fix him, was it? Even though I sure as hell wanted it to be.
The sudden knock on my window caused me to jump.
My hands flew into spell-casting positions and an extremely handy incantation to blast a potential enemy across the parking lot rose to the tip of my tongue. Then I turned and saw Bryan standing next to the driver’s side door, scowling at me.
Busted.
I lowered my hands and turned the car on long enough to roll down my window before switching the engine back off.
“Bryan,” I said brightly, as if I hadn’t just been caught camping outside his motel room at two in the morning, like a towering weirdo. I turned up the wattage on my too-innocent smile. “What are you doing here?”
“ I’m renting a room. But you clearly know that.” He sighed, frowning at me. “You’re here, what? Sleeping in your car so you can keep an eye on me?” He sounded exasperated. Which, I supposed, was better than furious.
I was pretty sure my smile turned sheepish. I shrugged, trying to play it cool. “I mean, yeah. I figured it would be best for me to be close by. Just in case.”
“You slept here last night, too.”
It was a statement of fact, not a question. I shrugged again, wincing. I waited for him to tell me to leave.
Bryan’s glare softened fractionally at that. “Well, you’re going to be a pretty shitty bodyguard if you end up being so kinked up that you can’t even move. And it’s only a matter of time before Liz notices you here and calls the cops to have you removed. So… I guess you can stay in my room with me.” When my eyes widened in disbelief, Bryan’s glare returned full-force and he added, “There’s only one bed, so you’re sleeping on the floor. ”
*
Bryan led the way, his back ramrod straight, and he practically vibrated with tension. He didn’t say another word. But he didn’t change his mind, either.
When he opened the door for us, I saw that the motel room was cheerless, a little dusty, and utterly lacking in anything that could, even generously, be called an amenity. It also smelled a little like mothballs.
It was hands-down the best room I’d ever seen in my entire fucking life.
Bryan pointed to the spot on the floor between the bed and the door. “You can sleep there. That way if something gets in, it’ll get you first. It’ll buy me time to escape.”
I snorted, unable to help my smile. “Right.”
“I’m warning you. Zero cuddles. This is strictly business.”
“Got it. I’ll behave. Zero cuddles,” I agreed solemnly.
I made a big show out of dragging the threadbare oval rug from the center of the room and placing it in the spot where I would be sleeping. Then I got a small dixie cup of water from the sink next to the bathroom and sprinkled the edges of the rug with it before using an old Welsh incantation—only three lines long and requiring so little magical power that even a mundane might’ve been able to do it—to clean the rug and make it more comfortable to sleep on.
Bryan frowned at me when I was done. After a long moment where we both stared down at the perfectly ordinary rug and it stared back up at us, unchanged, he said, “Um. Nothing happened.”
He was right, in the sense that the rug hadn’t inflated or anything dramatic like that. Technically, I could have transmuted it into something like a soft mat for me to sleep on, but that would have been a flashy waste of my magical energy. Simply laying down a spell to cause it to be comfortable achieved roughly the same effect, without needlessly taxing my powers.
I hadn’t rested properly and all the spell-casting I’d done over the last two days, including the demon I had banished right before coming here, had all done a number on me. I badly needed a good night’s sleep. Not that he needed to know any of that.
I shrugged. “Some spells are subtle, like this one. And sometimes that’s exactly what you want.”
“I half-expected you to turn it into a four-post bed or something. And maybe conjure an army of singing mice or something to tuck you in for the night.”
“In a room this size?” I laughed easily at the thought, meeting his gaze, feeling happiness surge through me at being so near to him. I added, “Besides, there’s a big difference between turning it into something close to what it already is and making something completely brand new out of it. That would wipe me out for days.”
My mouth snapped shut the moment I realized what I had just said. But the damage was done. The problem was, once I was around Bryan, it was far too easy to talk to him.
“Magic is hard on your body, then?” He didn’t look surprised, but he didn’t look happy about it, either. He gave me a once-over, frowned, then added, “Yeah, I guess I’ve been wondering that. And I’m betting you’ve had to use a lot of spells recently. Since rolling into town, I mean.”
I shrugged again, but my amusement evaporated in an instant. I didn’t like the accusatory way he’d said that last bit. The big implication there being that I shouldn’t be doing so many spells on his behalf. Though, he had already made it perfectly clear that he aggressively didn’t care, right?
“It’s not that big a deal. And I’m fine,” I lied. “I just need a little sleep. I’ll be okay after that.”
Bryan didn’t quite seem like he believed me, but after a moment that lasted longer than it should have, he seemed to decide against grilling me about it, because he nodded without questioning me any further. Then, with brisk movements, he stripped the comforter and one of the two pillows off the bed and tossed them to me.
I caught both easily.
“I’ll sleep with the sheets,” Bryan said shortly. Then he kicked off his shoes and climbed into bed without even bothering to get undressed. He rolled over so that his back was to me, causing the bed to creak under his weight. Then he reached over and switched off the light on the nightstand. Without looking at me, he added, “Goodnight.”
I stood there in the sudden dimness, with only the orange edges of the lights in the parking lot filtering in from the gaps where the curtains hadn’t completely blocked the window behind me. I held the comforter in one hand and a pillow in the other, staring at his back. But I still couldn’t help feeling calmer than I had in weeks— months —that he was right there, close enough to touch. And that, for tonight, at least, he was okay and unharmed.
“Goodnight,” I told him softly.
Then I laid the blanket out like a sleeping bag, set the pillow down, and settled onto the rug that was now far more comfortable than it had any right to be. Blissful relaxation stole over my body.
For right now, everything was just as it should have been in my world.
And for the first time in a very long time, I went right to sleep, secure in the knowledge that my mate was only a few feet from me and that I would do literally anything I needed to do in order to keep him happy and well.