Chapter 2 #2
“Because libraries have the best energy.” His eyes met hers. “And this one has excellent staff.”
She cleared her throat. “Any history of criminal activity?”
“None that stuck.”
“That’s not comforting.”
He shrugged.
She fumed.
Because damn him, she wasn’t really getting anywhere.
He couldn’t know about her, um, questionable relationship with sleeping and dreaming in general, and yet, wasn’t it odd that he had a working interest in the ugliest part of her life?
She would totally chalk it up to coincidence if she believed in such.
But then again, why on earth would he care about that? And he didn’t ask, didn’t say a single damn thing. Only sat there, reading his books, and making her feel completely exposed.
No. She needed another angle. Another way to get him talking and tell her what he wanted with her. Something that could get him to slip, or snap, or maybe just to get rid of him. In a legal way, of course.
And then he spoke, and all she was thinking came to a full halt. “Want to get coffee later?”
“I—what?”
“You. Me. Coffee,” he repeated. “Nothing fancy. Small talk. You know, the thing where you ask me questions that don’t involve criminal background checks.”
“I can’t,” she said, too fast. “I have a class.”
“That’s okay,” he said smoothly. “I’ll come and wait for you.”
She blinked. “You don’t even know what kind of class it is.”
“I wouldn’t really care. I’d just be waiting for you.” He gave a half-smile. “One coffee. We talk. And then you can get rid of me. In a legal way.”
Her breath caught. There was no way he could have heard those words in her head.
That wasn’t possible.
Right?
Daphne straightened.
He wanted to play? Let’s play. She’d faced worse, so much worse than this.
Let him come to her class, in the gym where she’d been an instructor for years.
And where five other instructors, who happened to be friends, could kick his ass into next week if needed.
She taught the best self-defense classes around, but she wasn’t stupid.
The first thing was getting away, which she could.
But five burly guys who knew where to punch and kick to make it hurt were better than her lone ass.
“Fine,” she said. “There’s a gym on Cedar and a coffee shop two doors down. Thursday at 7.”
He nodded. “I’ll be there.”
She gave him her best don’t-mess-with-me glare. “If you’re a minute late, I leave.”
“If I’m early, do I get extra credit?”
“No.”
He smiled like this was a game he’d already won.
And for the first time, she wasn’t sure he was the one being played.
~*~
The rest of the week passed with an eerie calm.
No nightmares, and that alone was a welcome deviation from the usual. Most nights, her dreams were warzones filled with burning books and her father’s voice echoing down corridors that didn’t exist.
For the past few nights, it had been nothing but sleep. She wasn’t foolish enough to call it peace, but it was a reprieve, and she’d take it.
Daphne worked. Sorted returns. Reshelved volumes. Corrected the library classification system with the fury of someone holding back a tsunami of overthinking. And she tried, really tried, not to think about the looming meeting, but her dumbass mind looped back to him. Over and over.
Hunter.
There was something about him that made her skin crawl, but not in a red-flag way. It wasn’t danger, not a threat. Simply the intensity of someone who seemed to be made of tension and shadows and action. Which should’ve been enough to scare her off.
It would’ve been, if he were anyone else.
But no matter how much she circled it, she kept coming back to one maddening, contradictory truth: there was something in her that trusted him.
Not trusted him, trusted him. Please. She barely trusted her friends, and she’d known and tried them for years.
The part of her that had seen real violence and survived didn’t brace when he got close.
It didn’t flinch when he looked at her. A part that recognized, in a very deep and unwilling place, that he wasn’t dangerous.
Uncomfortable? Absolutely.
Invading every corner of her brain like a cocky, beautiful, absolutely fuckable plague? Check.
All of those reasons were more than enough to get rid of him.
But he was not a threat.
Which, of course, made everything worse.
Because if he wasn’t dangerous, then she had no reason to avoid the meeting–no way in every hell she’d call it a date. No reason to feel this ridiculous surge of nerves every time she thought about seeing him.
And when Thursday rolled in, she was ready to strangle him for making her do enough mental gymnastics to win the freaking Olympic Games.
She told her friend Harper, who also happened to be the town deputy, about it. She’d talked about it to her gym buddies with enough sarcasm to keep it from sounding like anything important. Just coffee with some guy who might be a little unhinged and probably made up his job title.
Harper offered a background check.
The others agreed to stick around. “You’re not dying alone in a coffee shop,” Sean said flatly, cracking his knuckles like he hoped someone would give him a reason, not even a big one, to throw hands.
“Appreciate the vote of confidence,” Daphne muttered.
Sweet and firm, already texting the gym group chat with the time and place, Tom sighed. “You’re not dying at all.”
So backup was firmly in place.
And yet, when her class started, she couldn’t focus. Every jab was off. Every block came half a second too late. Her voice was clipped when she barked instructions, and she caught herself looking at the door between drills like she expected him to walk in early.
By the time it ended, she was sweaty, pissed off, and more rattled than she wanted to admit.
Because whether or not she trusted him, whether or not she liked it, he was coming.
And she was going to be fucking ready. Daphne exited the gym, rolling her shoulders, jaw tight with adrenaline and frustration.
The cold hit her first, and then the Christmas lights tried to soften the blow.
Like every year, Mystic Hollow had gone full snow globe.
Strings of warm white lights looped from lamp post to lamp post, blinking through the gentle swirl of falling snow.
The sidewalks glittered; store windows frosted over in soft-edged magic.
The whole town had been covered with powdered sugar and sentimentality.In any other moment, she would have let it touch her heart, give her a whisper of hope.
But he was there.
Leaning against the brick wall like he had come from some Christmas edition of a sexy noir novel.
No jacket, again, just a worn-out grey t-shirt that fit a little too well and jeans that looked like they had been around.
Snowflakes clung to his hair and shoulders, possibly wanting to touch him too.
Of course, he looked completely unbothered, because standing in thirty-degree weather in a fitted t-shirt was nothing but normal.
God, she hated how perfect he looked in the snow. Or anywhere else.
Fuck.
She walked to him, took a good look at his face, then simply walked to the cafe, knowing he was following.
They crossed the street in silence and stepped into the coffee shop, the doorbell jingling as warmth wrapped around her.
They placed their orders. Peppermint mocha for her.
Unexpectedly, a billion-calorie coffee-and-chocolate monstrosity topped with whipped cream for him. Both slid into a corner booth.
He didn’t waste time. “You don’t trust me,” he said, leaning back, hooking an elbow on the backrest, all chill vibes and charm.
She snorted. “Of course I don’t. You’re gorgeous, intense, and weird.”
“Do you have something against any of those?”
“Not unless any means trouble.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, we’ve already established I don’t trust you, so there’s no point in you telling me that.”
Hunter nodded. “Fair. How can I prove myself?”
She eyed him as Shawn and Tom took a seat at a table on the other side of the café. “You can start by telling me how you knew about me wanting to get rid of you.”
He tilted his head, expression unreadable behind that half smirk. “Are your friends sticking around?”
Her blood turned to ice.
There it was again. That uncanny feeling that he was inside her head.
Trying to say something that would pull more out of him, she stared at him.
Really stared. At the face that was too symmetrical and perfect.
At a body that looked like it had been manifested from a wet dream.
The way he moved, like he was listening to music no one else could hear.
All the times he’d seemed to respond to things she never said out loud.
At how he always seemed to be a step in front of her.
And it hit her.
Oh, fuck me.
Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Maybe tonight is a little soon, but I can’t say I haven’t thought about it.”
Daphne ignored the fact he’d legit read her mind for a second. She leaned forward. “You’re not human.”
He actually paused at that, and for the first time since she met him, he looked uneasy.
“You’re magik,” she said slowly. “Aren’t you?” Magiks were always beautiful. Ridiculously so.
He gave the smallest, most maddening shrug. “I might be.”
Her pulse thudded in her ears. “What are you?”
Another shrug.
“Tell me right now.” Her voice dropped. “Are you a shifter?”
“In a way.”
“I swear to god, Hunter, if you don’t start talking, I’ll leave right this moment.”
He looked away for a second as if searching for a half-answer and sighed when he found nothing. “Alright. I’m a demon.”
Ah. Demon. That tracked. She’d read about them, and while saying he was a demon was not the most specific answer given how many kinds were out there, they all shared some traits. Elusive. Dangerous. Seductive.
Trouble.