Chapter 30 Asher
ASHER
The bus hits Heidi in slow motion.
I know that's not what happened in real life, but that's how it plays on the screen of my laptop, which I pulled out of a pocket void nearly half an hour ago. Frame by frame, pixel by pixel, that motherfucking bus taking its sweet time wrecking the gorgeous woman I'm supposed to be protecting.
The woman I shouldn't have cornered on her bed last night.
I grit my teeth at my own lack of self-discipline as the clip loops again.
Heidi stands on a sidewalk in Chicago, hugging herself warily, her eyes wide as fae reporters crowd around her along with jackass onlookers too curious for their own good.
One of the fae onlookers grips her elbow as they grill her.
When she tries to get away, she accidentally hits that asshole in the face, giving him a much-deserved bloody nose before she shoves through the crowd.
They follow her, though. Hounding her. Harrassing her.
The instant she finally panics, darting away from the journalists—
Boom.
"Fucking hell," I swear as Heidi's body disappears out of the camera's frame, propelled by a bus that didn't brake in time.
The blurred video cuts off again as I pinch the bridge of my nose.
She was starting to shift when the bus hit her. Not to fucking mention, she's a type four empath—all those hostile emotions being shoved down your throat would have made anyone panic.
A side panel on this site auto-plays a clip of a fae chancellor, Marwood, standing at some podium, his white hair slicked back and his pointed ears bigger than most as he speaks passionately.
"…that everything recovered belongs to the fae alone.
Now that the Nether is beginning its long recovery from the corruption of the Entity, we pray to the gods that in a few years, we fae may begin to move back into our ancient motherland.
But the fact that Heidi Murley attempted to steal precious fae relics from our worksite in the Nether shows that many people, especially entitled trust fund children born from the tasteless, deservedly wiped-out elite legacy families, do not respect our claim to our heritage, and—"
I mute the video so this fucker's voice will stop poisoning the air in Heidi's guest room.
Unwillingly, my attention drops to the two million and counting views on this viral video of Heidi getting hit by the bus, shared by some asshole who filmed her trauma for content.
Comments are popping up beneath it in real time. Trying not to read them is like trying not to watch—well, a godsdamned bus accident.
Imagine being born into Frost level money and STILL trying to steal from dead fae
Bus did nothing wrong lmao
Okay but the empath thing feels fake as hell. Handy excuse when Skidmark gets "overwhelmed" with questions
Maybe try not crowding her into traffic next time? Smh
Every time I see her name, I lose a little more respect for Everett Frost. Control your sister, dude.
"Empath" but she can't feel accountability #Skidmark
I'm sooo tired of seeing this video on my feed & btw the people accusing her have no proof of anything so there's that
Not the bus's fault, I'd lose control seeing that body too
Slamming my laptop shut, I lean back in the desk chair of Heidi's second bedroom, massaging my head when I feel a migraine starting to form.
If I ever find the journalists who scared her into running in front of that bus, there won't be enough left of them to identify with dental records.
Turning in the pink office chair, I glance over Heidi's dead roommate's room again, lit softly by the late morning sunlight coming in through one window.
It's tidy enough, but it definitely doesn't match the rest of Heidi's cozily decorated house.
One wall is covered in band posters, a hanging mirror is framed with ticket stubs and lipstick prints, and a few dozen well-read romance books are stacked in various places.
I slept like shit in here last night, knowing Heidi's dead friend is still haunting this place. Talk about fucking creepy.
Then again, I also couldn't sleep knowing my gorgeous charge was in her room, just down the hall. All flushed and lying in her bed.
Make me.
Fuck.
Whether she meant it to tease me or not, all I can picture now is Heidi moaning. Whimpering, her sweet lips parting as she agrees to let me do all the filthy fucking things I can't stop thinking about doing to her.
Taking me so good the way I fucking know she can.
I have to adjust my hardening cock in my pants as I stand from the guest room computer. Needing any distraction, both from wanting to kill the assholes who hurt Heidi and from the insane urge to slip into her room and hold all her sweet body for a while, I quietly leave the guest room.
Low voices are coming from Heidi's living room. Leaning around the corner, I watch as the damn half-demon tries to teach English to Kaenon while they sit on one of Heidi's couches.
"Not as, ass," Zak is saying, standing from the couch to gesture at his own ass for reference. "That one's the fucking worst. It's sprinkled all over the place for no reason and means something different every time."
Kaenon frowns. He showered earlier, and his dark hair is tied back from his face now. He's finally wearing some real clothes since I dug an old white T-shirt and shorts out of my pocket void early this morning after I managed to drag myself out of Heidi's room.
"Ass is a word of many meanings?" Kaenon clarifies.
"Yup. Fucking confusing, too. Like, if someone says something's a bag of ass, they're saying it's shitty—but dope-ass means it's cool. Saying someone's a badass means they're kick-ass, but if they've got a bad ass, that usually means they're not sexy."
"But it means…" Kaenon is clearly beyond lost as he gestures at Zak's butt again.
"That too," the half-demon nods. "But if you're being an ass, it means you're being a dick."
"Dick." The shifter touches the translation device Jada made for me around his ear, thinking before he gestures toward his own crotch. "Ass is being a cock?"
Poor ancient fucker is doomed.
I'm about to tell the half-demon to knock it off and stop confusing Heidi's professed mate when the front door opens, and Ian Boone returns.
“Where the hell have you been for the last few hours?” I ask.
He glances at me standing at the end of the hallway. I’m expecting a brush-off, but he shrugs. “Dropping off Heidi’s brother’s pet dogs. He told me to stay the fuck away from her.”
“Yet here you are,” Zak grins.
“Is Heidi still asleep?"
"She is," Kaenon eagerly answers Ian before I can. "Her blue-haired spirit guardian has told me so. She also told me that when Heidi wakes, we must please her with a…what are the words again?"
The shifter frowns at an empty spot in the room, which makes me shudder. Knowing there's a ghost hanging out in here makes me think I should salt the entire fucking place without telling Heidi.
But clearly, she's fond of her ghosts, so I guess we'll stay haunted.
"Yes—a strip show and lap dance," Kaenon says, smiling at us as he struggles slightly with the pronunciation. "Heidi's companion tells me they are a necessary and revered mating ritual of this time."
"Heidi's companion is full of shit," I inform him before squinting at the emptiness he was just talking to.
"Don't you dare fucking haunt me for exposing you.
" Then an idea strikes me. "Kaenon, ask the creepy-ass dead girl if she knows Heidi's login to her security camera footage.
I want to see who busted up her car's window. "
Kaenon looks distracted by the ghost, but Ian scratches the back of his neck.
"No need. I can get you in."
"You know her password or something?"
Instead of answering, Ian leads me back to the guest room with Zak and Kaenon following us—Zak because he's a nosy son of a bitch who's been impatient for Heidi to wake up all day, while Kaenon is curious about everything in this modern world.
I fold my arms and watch as Ian opens my laptop. I don't even give him the password. Several rapid-fire, vamp-speed keystrokes later, which definitely involved some coding shit I'll never understand, a page labeled "Recorded Footage" pops up, showing views of Heidi's house from a few angles.
I eye the thrall, putting things together. "You stalked her."
"Go cry about it," he snarks, unashamed as he clicks back through the timeline with little yellow flags marking motion triggers on her security cameras.
He clicks on one of the flagged recordings, and we all lean in to watch as a slightly blurry video plays.
A white truck pulls up and parks in front of Heidi's house, but it's impossible to see inside it. Some time later, her car rolls into the driveway, farther from the camera. When some drunk asshole gets out of the truck and stumbles toward her car, Ian's lips curl back from his fangs.
"Ryan," he hisses. "Heidi dumped this jackass for cheating on her right before the Upheaval."
On the recording, they're arguing. Heidi doesn't get out of her car during the altercation, but then her ex grabs a rock from the ground and swings it wide at just the right spot.
Glass explodes in a spray of glittering shards. From this angle, Heidi is barely visible, flinching back before her ex reaches into the car to shake her shoulder hard, screaming at her.
Bile tries to crawl up my throat as, for a fraction of a second, I'm reminded of all the times my father screamed at my mom. The way she'd just freeze up, unable to function in the line of fire and from the terror of what else he might do.
Heidi is frozen just like that in her car as he shouts at her.
Kaenon's voice is quiet, but there's an edge to it. "That is her ex-mate?"
"Ex-boyfriend," Ian mutters. "Humans don't usually call each other mates."
"I'm going to remove his arms for daring to touch her so cruelly," the ancient warrior decides.
"You can have his arms. I'll shred the rest of him," Zak seethes.