20. Treasure
TREASURE
I’m still humming when I grab my purse off the passenger seat and climb out of the car. The lot light buzzes over my head. I take the stairs up with my scalp itching under this bun. It’s coming down as soon as I get through my door.
I work my key into the lock and step inside. The apartment sits darker than it should.
I flip the living room switch and get nothing. I try it again, and the room stays dark on me. That makes no sense, since the other units had lights on when I walked up and I know I paid my bill.
I toss my purse on the table. Out on the balcony, Soren flips my latch with one claw, and the glass door slides open. He ducks through. He broke into my apartment again, and I could not care less. It’s the hours apart that got me.
I cross the room and run right into his arms. He catches me, and then I go “oof.” My gargoyle turns and hands me straight out the balcony door to Sable, who hangs off the rail with his arms out and a frown already set.
“Whoa, whoa, what’s happening?” I twist around in his hold.
“Someone is in here.” Soren keeps watching the hall behind him. “My brother made me wait until you were off the stairs. Forgive me.” He slides the door shut between us.
“Put me down.” I kick my feet, and Sable adjusts me like a sack of flour that talks. “The treasure is in there!”
“Some of those jewels are priceless,” Sable says, drifting us back from the rail. “But nothing in that chest would be missed the way you would be missed, Treasure. I will not release you.”
“Ugh.” I quit kicking and hang there. “How is it fair that I got the noble monsters? I want to decorate our home, Sable. You can’t just let some thief??—”
Soren moves deeper into my apartment and disappears down the hall toward my bedroom. I swallow the rest of that argument.
I kick again. Sable brings his face down level with mine, still holding me over open air. “Enough, Treasure. Quiet down, or I will take you back to your cabin.”
I huff my mouth shut.
Something breaks in my bedroom, and it better not be my lamp. A bigger crash follows, and now I don’t care what it is. Soren is in there.
A man flies out of my hallway and slams into my living room wall hard enough to shake the balcony rail.
I gasp against Sable’s arm. Soren is out of that hall before the wall quits shaking. The man never gets the chance to stand.
The intruder is human. He punches and claws at Soren’s arms, and it does exactly nothing. Soren shoves the balcony door back open and drags him out by the hood. He throws him off my balcony.
Sable’s wings spread wide, and we drift down after him. I’m watching my mate.
The man hits the grass and rolls. He comes up roaring, his arm folded wrong against his chest. Under the lot light I get a good look at him. He’s Black, tall, and wiry, in a plain hoodie, and his brown skin carries an ashy gray underneath it. His eyes sit in rings so deep he looks drained.
Soren steps off my balcony and drops. He lands at the man’s feet without a sound, and the face on my gargoyle is one I have never met. There’s no warmth in the gold of his eyes at all. It burns flat and hot.
The man scrambles up and tries to run.
Soren is simply in front of him. I never saw him move.
He leans down over the man. “What witch do you serve, ghoul?”
“Ghoul?” I twist in Sable’s arms. “What the hell is a ghoul?”
Sable lowers us the rest of the way and touches down in the grass.
He still doesn’t let go of me. “A ghoul is a human who accepts gifts from a witch. Magic, charmed treasures, small powers. The gifts dry them out, and the debt never closes. Judging by the state of that one, he was not offered much.”
“My lights. He was already in there while I was playing with that switch.”
“Waiting,” Sable says, and his arms lock tighter around me. “The latch on your glass door is chewed down to bare metal. Small powers open small locks.”
Then he tips his head back and sends a call up into the night, long and low. It rolls off toward town.
Soren plants one clawed foot on the man’s back and presses him into the ground. His claws curl in, and the man yelps into the dirt.
“Who do you serve?” Soren asks it again, so soft now that I press back into Sable’s arm.
“She told me?—” The man’s voice cracks. “She told me you’d give me whatever I wanted for Treasure!”
I slap my hand over my mouth. Sable doesn’t even tighten his hold.
“So someone sent this man after me? Me?” I study him, pinned there in the grass. I’ve never seen him in my life.
“Who is the witch?” Soren’s claws sink deeper, and the yelp goes up an octave.
The man screams it. “Delilah! Her name is Delilah!”
Smoke rolls over the lot, and I snap my head up to a pair of dragon wings and a very human body soaring across the night sky. He drops fast and lands beside Soren. His wings fold flat into his back.
“See,” the dragon says, strolling up to the pinned man, “I heard that whole confession coming down. I knew your pretty little Treasure would appraise high.”
I frown. I know that voice.
He looks over Soren’s pants, then Sable’s, and gives me a thumbs-up. “Good seam work. It’s about time these two covered their asses.” He spreads his hands at Soren. “See? Not so bad wearing pants, is it?”
“I do not like this dragon,” Soren says, to no one in particular.
“Get in line, big guy.” The dragon slaps an arm over Soren’s shoulder. He has to reach up to do it, and that doesn’t stop him even a little.
He turns to me, and Sable finally sets me on my feet. The dragon gives me a little bow. “Hello. I’m Jalen.”
I smooth my dress down where Sable’s arm crushed it. “I know who you are. You’re the messy dragon from the podcast.”
He smiles big. “Ahhh, a loyal subscriber.”
I give him back the fake smile I keep for bad tippers.
“Speaking of my podcast.” He tips his chin at my neck, right at my claim mark. “How about an interview with the lovely new couple?”
I put my hand over the mark. Soren shrugs the dragon’s arm off and steps off the ghoul’s back in the same motion.
“No matter,” Jalen says, breezy. “I’ll just run a story about pitching a loincloth ban to the town council instead.”
Soren does not find him funny.
“Okay, Jalen?—” I put a hand up.
“Call me Jay,” he cuts in.
I want to strangle him. I fold my arms instead. “Okay, Jalen. Someone better tell me why a witch is sending people after me.”
Jalen pulls out his phone and puts it on speaker. It rings.
A tired voice answers. “Shadow Wolf Creek Sheriff’s Department.”
“Hey. It’s Jay,” he says.
The deputy on the other end sighs, loud.
“You might want to send someone out to Creekview Apartments,” Jalen says. “I got a lead on your robberies.”
“Robberies? What robberies?” I don’t bother keeping my voice down.
Up and down my building, porch lights flip on. A man leans over the rail above us, phone already out and filming. Two women in bonnets drag their kitchen chairs out onto the walkway. Not one soul out here is minding their own business.
Soren steps right over the ghoul and comes to me. He picks me up and cradles me against him, right there in front of half the building.
I sigh into his neck. “Guess I’m not allowed to walk anywhere when you’re around, huh?”
He presses his forehead to mine and stays there long enough that I quit joking.
I rub the back of his neck. “I’m fine, Soren. All I did was walk in my own front door.”
He lifts his head. “You do not know what you mean to me.”
Sable moves around us to Jalen, who stands over the ghoul. The man has rolled onto his back, holding his arm.
Sable turns his back to the balconies. “The solution stolen from Shadow Suds carries a scent close to our Settling. I confirmed it myself at sunset.”
“Now what does Delilah want so bad with a Settling?” Jalen taps the phone against his chin.
Sable studies him. “You know this witch.”
“I’m aware of her.” Jalen shrugs. “She likes to stir up shit in Shadow Wolf Creek.”
Soren pulls me in tighter. “You used my mate to lure them out.”
Jalen loses his grin and holds Soren’s stare. “Why do you think I asked y’all to stand watch? Her ghouls quit Shadow Suds and started circling Stanley’s, and a witch got no business at a diner. Now I know what she was circling.”
Soren lowers me toward the ground, slow.
“Brother.” Sable steps in. “Calm yourself.”
“I am going to kill this dragon.” He steadies me on my feet. “And then I am going to kill the human.”
I grab his arm with both hands. “Come on, baby. Take me home.”
He grumbles, and he doesn’t pull his arm away. Instead he scoops me up and squeezes me too tight for comfort, so I hug him right back.
His wings spread, and we go up.
I guess my home is the cabin now.
I hold on tight. “It’s okay, Soren. I’m okay, baby.” He keeps flying.
I poke at his shoulder. “At least swing back and grab the treasures. And some clothes and stuff, so I can be comfortable.”
He gives me nothing. I roll my eyes where he can’t see them.
We land at the porch steps, and he still doesn’t set me down.
I lean back in his arms so he has to look at me. “Ohhh, you are a grumpy grouch when you’re angry.”
The growl drains out of his voice. “You do not know the fear that hit me when I realized I let you walk into danger.”
I flick the end of his ear. “Nuh-uh. You don’t get to ‘let’ me do anything. You were already there.”
He holds my eyes a moment longer. Then he puts me down.
I hug myself against the night air. “So who is this witch, and what does she want with your Settling?”
His wings drop low behind him. “I do not know the answer to either question.”
I look up at him. “Well? Don’t you think we should find out? Because I’m not gonna live scared of my own light switch.”
“I will,” he says. “But I want you safe.”
I pat at this sad bun. “And I want to do something with this hair, which you sweated right out after hours of work, by the way.”
That gets a grin out of him, fangs and all.
I throw my hands up. “Alright, fine. Apparently I’m the treasure this witch is after. So you can go get my stuff. I’m not worried about the car, but I want my purse, my phone, clothes, toiletries…”
He stares at me hard, filing every single item away.
It makes me snort, so I speed up to test him. “My hair products, my good shampoo, my pillow, my pajamas, my slippers, and let’s not forget about the chest.”
He bows his head to me. “I will make sure you have everything.”
I blow out a breath. “And here I am, right back where I woke up this morning. And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone? Who’s to say I’m safe all the way out here?”
He draws himself up to his full height. “We are on wolf territory. A witch is not getting on this land.”
I put my hands on my hips. Okay, that was kind of hard.
He guides me up the steps with a claw at my back and ducks in behind me.
I spin on him in the middle of the front room. “So what now? I’m just some princess trapped up in a castle?”
He walks right past me into the kitchen. He opens the fridge, then goes through the cabinets one after the next while I stand there wondering what on earth this inventory check is about.
“You are not a princess, Treasure. You are a queen.” He shuts the last cabinet. “And this is a cabin, not a castle.”
I make a face at the correction.
He turns around. “I will build you a castle if that is what you prefer.”
I go quiet at that.
“There is food. There is the television.” He nods at it on its stand. “I will come back with your things.”
He steps out of the kitchen and stops in front of me.
I point a finger up at him. “Don’t you dare leave me without a kiss.”
He smiles and picks me up. I cup his face in both hands and kiss his cheek, taking my time about it.
“I want this to be over,” he says against my temple, “so I can spend forever with you.”
“Then hurry up,” I say against his cheek.
He carries me to the sofa. He picks the remote up without crushing it and holds it out to me.
“I’d rather have my books, but this’ll do.” I take it from his claw and grab the blanket off the back of the sofa. “Ooh, it’s freshly washed. They really cleaned this place up nice.”
“Order what you wish tomorrow. We will make this cabin ours,” he says, and the gold in his eyes goes warm.
I smile up at him. He stares until it turns into a groan, then makes himself go for the door.
I wait until he’s halfway out the door, then I sweeten my voice up nice. “Baby? Don’t forget my hair supplies. I’m doing another silk press soon, and I’m real curious how fast you’ll sweat this one out of me.”
He groans from the porch loud enough to scare something off in the woods.
He stops with one claw on the door frame. “Do not tempt me, Treasure. I will snatch you off that sofa and put my tongue where it wants to be.”
I scoff and clutch my invisible pearls all over again.
He steps out. When he lifts off from the porch, I curl up and point the remote at the television.
The TV can’t keep my attention tonight. I keep thinking about how he protected me without one single question, and how he loved on me after.
I pull the blanket up, and that tongue threat has me kicking my feet under it. When we settle in for good, I’m gonna mess with him.