Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Icame home to a young man standing in my driveway.
“Do you know him?” I asked Cain.
The driver sighed. “Yes. The Council has sent you a …”
“Spy?” I offered helpfully.
Cain pulled into the driveway, carefully avoiding the shimmering wards. “He’s a good kid, Miss Quinn. Take it easy on him, if you don’t mind.”
“Depends on how easy he takes it on me, but I have no plans to let him through the wards, so he may need a ride home.”
Cain inclined his head. “Take care of yourself.”
“You do the same. Thanks for the ride.” I dug in my purse and tossed him a twenty.
The shifter rolled his eyes but tucked the bill into his shirt pocket.
I got out and walked up to the young man. “Whatever they’ve told you is probably a lie. You won’t be allowed through the wards, and if you try to get through, I won’t be held responsible for what happens. Do you understand?”
“Umm. Yes. I’m uh Marek.”
“Evie.” He was tall and lanky, somewhere in his late teens to early twenties, and still holding on to the scrawniness of youth. One day, he’d be a handsome man, but right now, he looked like a kid who’d received an assignment he was totally unprepared for.
A pang of sympathy hit me. “Who do you belong to?”
“I’m one of Rowan’s.”
My eyes narrowed. Was this a favor or was there something else going on I wasn’t privy to? “Who assigned you to me?”
“Lord Rowan volunteered me for this assignment.”
“And when was this?”
Marek swallowed. “About five minutes ago. I was at that awesome cafe when I got the call.”
“How long are you here for?”
Marek lifted a scrawny shoulder in a careless shrug. “Until Lord Rowan says I can go home.”
“Great. And what are you supposed to do?”
Marek fidgeted. “Um. Not tell you what I’m supposed to do,” he said sheepishly.
I’d thought about powering down the wards a touch until this answer. “Alright then, Marek. I like your Lord, but I don’t take kindly to spies. The wards will fry your ass if you get frisky with them. Try, don’t try. It’s no skin off my back either way. Got it?”
“Er. Yes ma’am.”
I held my index finger up. “And none of that. Call me Evie.”
“Yes, Evie.”
“Good. I’ll see you around, Marek.”
I stepped through the wards.
“Uh. Miss Evie?”
I turned.
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?”
Lord love a duck. “Then I suggest you find somewhere other than my driveway to go. If I smell wolf piss, I’ll push my wards out all the way to the road. Got it?”
Marek swallowed hard and nodded, a tinge of fear rolling over his face before he dropped his gaze.
I turned away and headed up the driveway.
Several hours later, Caelan came into the house and kicked off his shoes. I’d felt his presence as soon as he entered, thanks to the souped-up wards. With Marek’s still hovering around the driveway, I went ahead and juiced them up today, just as a precaution.
“The wards tingled this time,” he said by way of greeting.
“You came in from the back?” I guessed.
Caelan stilled. “Why? Is there something out front?”
“The wards must be blocking his scent.”
“Your favorite Lord sent a spy here?” he said in a deceptively calm voice.
“I assumed you knew about it. He was here when I arrived home from the inquisition.”
Caelan closed his eyes for a moment. “Shit. I meant to tell you, but I got caught up. They insisted on sending someone for monitoring.” He rolled his eyes. “Rowan jumped in and volunteered his person, and Ethan said something very interesting about your virtue.”
I winced.
“Is he still alive?”
“For now.” He let out a heavy sigh as he settled his bulk beside me and opened his arm.
I scooted under it and sighed. He was always so warm.
“You did quite the number on him.” Caelan’s chest rumbled with amusement. “He’ll be healing for at least a week. The vines got a little…animated once you left the building.”
Interesting. My power continued to grow in disturbing and sentient ways. “I deserve a little credit for not poisoning him.”
“Maybe let them cool down a couple of weeks before you ask for it.”
“My hope is I never see them again.”
Caelan shifted. “Being with me will make that hope all but impossible.”
I toyed with the buttons of his shirt. “They want me to ally with one of them. Same shit, different day.”
The hand he held around my waist tightened. “And your response?”
“Do I even need to tell you?” I rolled my eyes. “Of course I told them to fuck off.”
“What about me?” he asked quietly.
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re already allied.”
“But nothing more permanent?”
I was tired of talking about this. Tired of worrying and being pushed.
So very tired of politics I never asked for.
I popped my head up to stare at him, those stormy gray eyes already carved deep into my soul.
“I care about you. More than I’ve cared about any man in my life.
But I am not the kind of woman who can be pushed into something she doesn’t want to do. ”
At his darkening gaze, I shook my head and barreled on. “I’m not saying no forever. I’m saying no for now. If you need a forever commitment right now, I am not the one.”
What came next was a long and charged silence. I dropped my head onto Caelan’s chest and soaked up his warmth for what might be the last time.
A Lord was not used to being denied.
“A courtship, then,” he murmured.
I jerked my head up and stared.
“A proper one.”
My eyes narrowed. “We aren’t in the 1800s.”
“I never said we were.”
This felt like trickery of the highest order. “I’m not asking to be courted. Only respected.”
“A courtship is the proper way to woo a woman a man wants to marry.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. This was going all wrong. “We rarely talk.”
A feral grin. “We’re usually preoccupied with other things.”
“Caelan. I’m serious. I know very little about you, and you know even less about me.”
His expression sobered. “You want me to know you before you say yes.”
This still felt like trickery. “That’s usually the way it works. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Girl and boy figure out one likes stone ground mustard, the other likes plain yellow.”
“Dijon,” the Shifter Lord said and shrugged.
“Same,” I admitted.
“Mayo or no mayo?” His eyes glittered in the low light.
“Depends. Yes, on sandwiches. No on hot dogs.”
Caelan’s nose scrunched up. “People put mayo on hot dogs?”
“Twenty percent of the population.”
“Sacrilege,” he muttered.
“You forget how I was raised. I’m very much human when it comes to the tradition of love and marriage.”
His strong fingers toyed with my hair. “Can you see yourself being married again? After…” His voice trailed off. “Is this why you’re so hesitant?”
“I don’t like being pushed into any decision I haven’t made on my own, but my past makes me more reticent to tie myself to someone else in that way. Marriage is a sacred covenant, and I won’t be bullied by anyone to enter into one.”
He nodded. “Very well, Evangeline. I will only ask you when I have met your requirements.”
I snorted. “There are no requirements other than to stop pushing me toward the altar.”
“Mmm.” The sound seemed like agreement, but I knew better.
“Do not mess with me, Lord.”
Caelan chuckled. “Messing with you got me right here.”
“Don’t push your luck either.”
He shifted and tilted my chin up, brushing a kiss over my lips. “I will abide by your rules.”
I hadn’t made any rules, but I felt like I’d somehow lost the rule book.
Little Shop of Florals was busy from the moment we opened the doors until closing time. When I finally locked the doors and sagged against the wall, Moira and I stared wide-eyed at each other.
“That was intense,” I breathed.
Moira sank into a rolling chair. “When are Tess and Ash due back?”
Both called in sick today, though Ash admitted he was more heart sick than anything.
Tess didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t press the issue.
Even though none of us could catch mundane diseases, I allotted a few sick days to my employees because sometimes you just needed a free day to veg in your pajamas and ruminate about life.
“I expect Tess will be back sooner than Ash.”
Moira spun in the chair. “This sucks.”
“Yeah. Do you think I should ban employee relationships?”
The vampire laughed. “You only have three employees and both Tess and Ash are terrified of me. You and Ash won’t be dating, and I can’t see Tess dating anyone else for a long time. I don’t think you need to worry about it.”
Something in her first sentence made me pause. “Why are they terrified of you?”
Moira’s jaw tightened. “Unimportant.”
“Moira.”
“Leave it be,” she warned. “We’ve worked it out and everything is fine.”
At my nod, she continued. “Needless to say, my dating life is drier than the Sahara. Tess and Ash will be fine, even if they decide they’re better off apart for good.” She smiled. “They’re adults. Let them solve it their way.”
“I was!”
Moira yawned and rolled the chair back. “You were getting all glinty eyed. I know that look. It’s Evie speak for I’m about to get involved.”
“Was not,” I muttered, even though we both knew she was right.
Earlier in the day I’d told her about my visit with the Council, but we hadn’t had much time to chat about it because of the stream of constant customers.
“Do you think this time the Lords will take the hint?” Moira asked.
“After what I did to Ethan?” I strode over to the coffee pot and made a fresh one. “Fifty-fifty.”
She grinned. “I would have loved to see that prick get tossed around.”
“It was awesome.” The memory of Ethan hanging upside down, still fresh in my mind, made me grin.
“You probably made an enemy today.”
“They’ve been enemies since the moment they stepped into my shop and threatened me.”
Moira stood and slung her purse over her shoulder.
“We have your back. Always. But tangling with the Lords is bad for business and our continued health. Be careful.” To soften her words, she hip bumped me as she passed by on her way to the door.
“Tangle with Caelan all you want,” she said with a wink.
“But the other ones smell blood in the water.”
A gust of cool wind blew into the shop when Moira left. I shivered and locked the door behind her.
The Lords might smell blood in the water, but when the chips fell, it wouldn’t be my blood they found.