Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Izzy
When the watchman saw us, his eyes went wide, his mouth falling slack, as if he were stunned. “Well, this is fun,” says an unfamiliar voice in my mind. I push the voice away, even while I can feel my magic stretching out around us in a strangely comfortable way.
“That’s it,” Wilder says in my ear, an edge to his voice. “He saw our faces, Izzy. Either the game’s all over and we’re dead, or…”
“He’s not seeing our faces.” Even I could hear the mischief and the laughter in my voice--was that me or Loki? “He thinks the three of us are raccoons.”
“Raccoons?” Wilder frowns down at me.
Then the watchman flutters his hands at us. “Get...get out of here.”
I turn my delighted smile onto Reid’s shocked face, then to Wilder. They know I’m telling the truth, even if they can’t see my magic. The watchmen wouldn’t be shooing the three of us away if he saw us as humans.
Wilder’s expression is still…not quite him. I can see the man I care for in his eyes, but I can also sense the god there. So I do the only thing I can think of: I lean forward and kiss him.
At first he’s tense, then slowly he relaxes against me, and we’re kissing for real, our lips melding with each other, arousal wrapping us in its hot grasp.
When I force myself to pull back, I’m panting.
“Wow,” Wilder murmurs.
I smile. Now this is my Noah.
“How did you get in here?” the watchman demands, and I turn back to look at him, having forgotten for a moment where we were. He looks around for something to chase us off with, then grabs a disembodied steel leg from the suit of armor that had attacked us earlier. “Go on, get!”
To my surprise, Reid runs past him and jumps agilely onto a table. He throws out his arms, looking to me with a grin on his face. “Does he hear what we say as raccoon chatter?”
“Yes, he does,” I say, absolutely certain, even though this is technically my first time making someone think I’m a raccoon.
“We could lead him out into the main library and then double back to meet the others,” Wilder says.
“Now you’re thinking, my friend,” I say, grabbing his hand to tug him after me before I slipped past the guard.
Wilder chases after me. Reid jumps off the table and runs straight for the watchman, who stumbles back in a panic before Reid veers to one side.
Reid turns around, grinning. “Is he… scared of raccoons?”
He is. I chose this glamour for a reason. Even though, again, I wasn’t sure how I knew. But I wasn’t going to try to explain something to the guys that I myself didn’t understand.
“Unbelievable. Raccoons are really just weird cats who love trash,” Wilder says. Then he admits, “And they’re kind of adorable.”
His admission makes me grin, feeling even more fond of Wilder than usual, and that’s saying something.
“Be nice, you guys,” I chide. “Don’t scare the poor security guard too much.”
The three of us run around the room, jumping on the furniture and generally causing chaos, leading the security guard toward the door. He bangs the disembodied leg against walls and tables, trying to scare us, even though he’s the one who seems overwhelmed.
“Are raccoons horny?” Reid asks. “I feel like I definitely saw a Youtube series of horny raccoon videos.”
Wilder shoots him a look. “Sometimes you really worry me. Why can’t you watch hentai like a normal guy?”
Reid just rolls his eyes, a faint smirk coming to his lips, before he reels me in against his body and kisses me.
Reid’s fingers thread through my hair, possessive and confident, just before his lips sear mine.
I almost gasp in surprise, and then I’m kissing him back. Suddenly Wilder is against my back, his hand sliding around my waist.
Wilder’s lips brush my cheek, and I tilt my head back to kiss him. Our lips meet in a soft, sweet kiss.
Behind us, the security guard wails at the sight of three fornicating raccoons in the middle of the relic warehouse.
Grinning, I break away from the guys and they chase me as I scampered for the door. Whenever one of them catches me, he pulls me closer and covers me in kisses, his hands wandering, and the other would catch us both and continue kissing me.
My cheeks are flushed with exertion and desire by the time the watchman runs ahead of us to open the door for our escape.
“Go on, get!” he shouts again. The three of us streaked out of the warehouse…
...and deep into the stacks of the library.
He heaves a sigh. “Oh my God. I don’t get paid enough to deal with this.”
We lead him on a merry chase through the library. Luckily, there are a couple of mice creeping around the library this late at night, and I stop and put a spell on them. Then, as newly-promoted raccoons, they ran off, and he blundered after them.
I’m laughing as I straighten. “Well, that’s made for an odd night for him.”
“You’re amazing, Iz,” Wilder says, and I turn around to find myself in his arms.
I smile wickedly up at him as he cages me against the bookshelves. “We should stop meeting like this.”
“I like meeting you like this,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to mine in a kiss that turns into another and another. He breaks away after a minute to add, “I don’t just mean that your magic is amazing. I mean that you’re amazing. Keeping us all out of trouble.”
My lips purse ruefully. “I wanted to come in here more than the rest of you did. I think I’m responsible for a whole lot of the trouble.”
“We’d do anything for you,” he tells me, and I knew that he meant it. “Let’s get back to the painting and ask about your sister, okay?”
I nod, and when he offers me his hand, I take it.
A shout goes up from somewhere in the library, and I didn’t think it was the watchman and his new bestie racoons.
Reid ran past us, headed for the warehouse, and Wilder and I followed close on his heels.