Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
I ’m not really a TV watcher, so while Fox watches whatever he’s into, I lie with my head on his lap reading on my new kindle app.
I didn’t even have a kindle account until Google explained that I should get Google Play and then told me that kindle had more options.
I swear, it’s like Google thinks I should give it my money. SMH.
Cozy under the throw Fox covered me with and happy with cuddling like this, I almost wish I could vocally groan when a text from the depot comes in while I’m reading.
Apparently, they like to cut it close on deadlines—see what I did there?
Puns are awesome—because the address is close enough to walk and I only have fifteen minutes to get there.
I sigh, put my phone in my pocket and stand, grabbing my vest off the back of the couch and buttoning it on, then adding my suit jacket over it and heading for the door where I’ve decided to utilize one of the entryway tables (there’s three) for my shoes.
While I pull on my combat boots, Fox starts strapping on his guns and ammo and, oh look at that, he’s got another sword out from the ethereal hiding place where he stores his weapons when not in use.
No, I don’t know that he actually hides them in ethereal dimensions; I just haven’t seen where he gets his weapons from since most of them are just sitting out all the time.
He’s going to have to learn to use a gun safe when we start having kids.
If we start having kids. Honestly, I’m not sure I’m parent material.
Husband material? Yeah. I’m so down for marital bliss.
Kids? That might be something to talk about in like ten years.
Maybe we skip the helpless baby stage and go for adopting middle schoolers. Eh, we’ve got time to figure it out.
As soon as I get my boots on, I traipse over to him and pull him down for a kiss, marking my territory and saying goodbye before heading out ahead of him.
Since it’s pretty late now, I hail a cab, and traffic doesn’t stop us from getting to the address in a timely manner.
In fact, I have a few minutes before I need to walk in, so I wait in the cab, setting a timer so I don’t lose track of time as I pull up my book and start reading again.
It’s a pretty good college nerd/jock romance, and I am all in on whether the game of gay chicken the side characters are playing is going to implode or not.
Spoiler alert. It will; that’s the next book in the series.
When my timer goes off, the cabbie jumps, making me realize he’s probably afraid that my sitting here means that he’s the target, but honestly, if he’s not doing bad things, he shouldn’t be worried about getting a visit from Fox.
I give him a “ really? ” look and get out, wasting zero seconds on trying to comfort the guy.
I have an appointment inside what looks like a tattoo parlor.
Well, it’s a body art shop, and they also do piercings and henna art.
Fun. I wonder if anyone will survive, and if they do, if I can get some henna designs.
I realize that, in America, they’re popularly known to be for brides and special occasions for women, but I don’t care about gender roles and would totally rock henna art.
As soon as I walk in, I realize that there’s just no hope that I will be able to make an appointment with anyone here. The atmosphere grows heavy and dark while what appears to be a gang of fifteen heavily tattooed skinheads all look at me like I’ve lost my goddamn mind.
The tension barely shifts as a man the size of a linebacker ducks through a doorway and stops to stare at me. His eyes narrow, and his hand goes to the gun on his hip. “Which one of these fuckers are you looking for, Harbinger?”
Seriously, why does everyone ask? Don’t do shit bad enough to get on Fox’s list and don’t attack him if you see him, and you’re not in danger!
If I had a voice, I would tell him that, but I don’t, so I just take a seat on the arm of one of the couches, pull out my phone again, and start reading.
I came, I showed myself, I took a seat, and now I get to read until Fox arrives.
Since he’s been a few minutes behind me the last two times, I can probably get a few pages read.
The guys are just about to fuck for the first time, and I really want to know if the jock’s going to have a gay freakout.
I love gay freakouts. They’re hilarious.
Hmmm, this might be another one of those things I should probably navel gaze about: angst in books makes me laugh.
I find it utterly ridiculous and laughable, probably because the worst problem the jock has is possible locker room homophobia, and I’ve lived on the streets for years because I actually had no prospects at all.
Jock can still get his college education even if he has to quit the team (he won’t because this is entertainment ), so the angst just makes me laugh because he’s not really down by much when he realizes he’s gay for the nerd.
Not that I know this one will have a gay freakout, I’m just hoping for it.
“Harbinger,” the leader guy growls when I don’t respond to his question.
I glance up, but seeing as I can’t exactly tell him anything at all—and I'm beginning to suspect that’s why Fox chose me—I turn my nose back to my book.
Fox brings me out of the story just as the nerd gets his third finger shoved into his own hole, so I put my phone away and watch with hearts in my eyes as he points his sword at one of the squirrelly guys on the couch next to me.
That must be Martin, the guy we’re here to kill. And since I don’t want blood on my suit, I move away from him, walking to the leader when he barks at his men, “Keep it in your pants! Martin’s the only one who needs to die tonight.”
“No!” Martin squawks, scrambling over the back of the couch to get away from certain doom. I mean, he’s not going to get away, but it’s interesting to watch the byplay of his thoughts and emotions as he tries to escape his fate.
He manages to get his gun up and a shot off, screaming, “Help me! Don’t let him get me!”
The leader barks another disengage order, but only about half of the gang decides to follow his command. The other half decide to help Martin since he did in fact manage to shoot my soon-to-be lover. Not that the bullet so much as slows Fox down.
The blade of Fox’s sword glints as he starts moving through the small crowd of skinheads, freeing limbs and heads until everyone who decided to attack him to protect the Martin guy is dead.
He marches on to Martin, who shoots him again before losing his hands and then his head in two swift, merciless strokes.
When my man is done with the killing, and I’m sporting a serious boner, I look up to the man I’m standing with and pat his leather vest right over his heart, giving him a sympathetic frown.
It’s not my most sympathetic look, but I feel like I should reserve that for people who don’t base their personalities on the things that they hate.
The guy looks down at me, hard eyes glinting with actual fire—oh my god, is he a demon?
—and then he looks around at the survivors.
“Half our crew died fighting a Reaper, which made them too stupid to live. Don’t mourn these fuckers; just bury them and move on.
Clean up the mess and start making a list of prospects.
” He turns to Fox as he places a hand on my shoulder.
“Your Harbinger is just like you. Congratulations, Mr. Fox.” He sounds almost sincere, so maybe I prejudged these men because they have tattoos instead of hair.
Fox glances at where the guy has his hand on me before looking back to the gang leader. “You will lose that hand, Dante.”
Dante immediately removes his hand, and I step away from him, heading to the exit while trying not to slip on the blood and body parts. Tile plus pools of blood; I think I’d have to be wearing non-slip shoes for that to not be a serious hazard to the health of my clothing.
Fox follows me out of the shop and takes my hand as we start walking back home. Normally I’d just let the walk pass in silence, but I really want to know what Dante is, and I am totally guessing demon because of the fire-eyes and association with Santanos.
Is Dante a demon?
“Just an eighth. He’s mostly human,” he responds quietly.
I give myself one point because I was partially correct. I got the species correct even if I was a few generations off from the truth.
Switching gears completely, I type out a quick note.
We should go on our second date tomorrow because I’ve decided not to put out until date three, and I might combust if we take too much time getting there.
Fox, my competent, sexy, confident Reaper, shoots me a smirk and pulls me into a dark alcove, leaning up against the wall and pulling me close enough to kiss. “I don’t remember taking you on the first date,” he hums softly, the movement of his lips whispering against mine.
If he wants to have a conversation with me, he’s going to have to learn to give me breathing room and not get me riled up beforehand.
I can’t just whisper back how the restaurant last night was definitely our first date, so instead I close the miniscule distance between us and push my tongue into his mouth.
My brain misfires when I get the coppery taste of blood instead of the flavor he had before lunch.
It reminds me that he’s been shot a couple of times and I’ve just ruined my suit by pressing up against him, but then I decide that Fox knows Fox’s limits and I can get a new suit, because his hands squeeze my ass and pull me close, and he grinds my cock into his, and I’m about three seconds away from saying fuck it and demanding a sloppy, rushed handjob with this make-out session.
I don’t, because I have a plan and self-control, but ohmyfuckinggod I want to.
At least I do until Fox being yanked away from me knocks me to the ground.
I hit my head pretty hard, but the invisible force that keeps me protected from harm makes it so that I don’t even feel my head bounce off the sidewalk.
I scramble to my hands and knees as four people, all sporting pink mohawks, wrap Fox up in chicken wire, which causes him to smoke everywhere it touches his skin.
I launch myself at the nearest one, pissed that they interrupted an amazing makeout session.
I’m not a trained fighter, but I can scrap with the best of the street kids, and I take out all my frustration on the guy I land on, pulling his head back by his mohawk and punching him in the neck, fully intent on breaking his hyoid.
I have zero interest in a fair fight, so as soon as he starts choking, I grab the next person, a chick with some amazing wings around her eyes, and pull her away from Fox, punching her as hard as I can in the neck too.
I don’t even know why Hollywood tries to sell fights with people hitting each other in the head.
I have no desire to break my hand on some fucker’s skull, and hitting people in the neck is a great way to cause a ruckus in their body.
Coughing and choking tend to keep people from being able to effectively fight back.
I turn to grab the next one but find Fox standing over two headless corpses with his phone next to his ear.
He jerks his chin for me to get behind him, and I do because I didn’t kill my two.
I mean, they’re going to die, and if I broke their hyoids it’s possible they’ll die because of what I did, but they’re not dead yet .
At least not until Fox swings his sword twice and alleviates them both of the burden of their heads.
Maybe I should take up yoga. Isn’t yoga the meditation exercise that helps people become better humans?
I should look into that; I’m beginning to think I might have a kink for watching my man work, and if he was a baseball player, that would make sense, but since he’s apparently a Reaper , that’s probably something I should talk to a therapist about.
Not that I would be caught dead talking to another therapist. Fuck that.
I’ve had more than my fair share of couch time.
Not that I think other people shouldn’t have therapists.
Other people definitely should. In fact, I would say almost every person I’ve ever known would have benefited from some therapy…
Ok, back to Fox talking on the phone, because that’s more important than my thoughts on therapy for humans.
“If the council doesn’t want Santanos dead, they need to call him off me.”
That’s all he says, then he hands me the phone and I put it to my ear, clicking my tongue because it seems polite to let whoever I’m not talking to know that I can hear them.
“Sugar baby! I assume that’s you clicking at me. Click once for yes and two for no.”
I click once, grinning at the sound of Annette’s voice.
“Are you hurt?”
That’s a dumb question, but I click twice anyway.
“Don’t sass me! Harbingers are non-violent.
You lose your protection if you attack someone.
It’s not permanent. You get it back as soon as you stop attacking, but if you’re stupid enough to get into a fight, then the magic won’t protect you because it’s an imbalance and magic is all about balance.
No one told you that you can’t get involved, so I forgive you for putting your life on the line, but don’t do it again. Fox can handle himself.”
True, but before now I didn’t know that I lose my magical protection if I fight, so it’s not my fault no one explained the rules to me. I click once at her as I look Fox over, checking for more injuries than the bullet holes from Martin.
“Ok, good. Come visit me soon. Don’t get yourself killed. Let Fox do his job. And if Santanos sends anyone else after Fox, that’s basically the council green-lighting the fucker’s death. You won’t get a text from the depot about that one.”
I click once more and then she ends the call with a quick goodbye.
I hand Fox his phone back and look at the bodies just decorating the sidewalk like Halloween isn’t five months away.
Fox tends to leave corpses lying around, but I feel like maybe leaving these ones on the sidewalk is probably a bad idea.
Fox huffs an amused laugh and points up. “The cleaners follow me around. They take care of the bodies when I’m done with them.”
I look up, but don’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Well, except the gargoyles watching over the alley—oh, wait.
They’re stone right now, but I bet my left nut they’re not actually grotesques (never thought I would ever have an opportunity to use that architectural term).
So, I wave at them, take Fox’s hand, and pull him along to head back home, this time for sure.