Chapter 35 Aurora #2
“Heh, sorry. I’ll control myself. I promise.”
As I head toward the back of the kitchen, something about the pantry door snags at my brain. Then, sharp as an ice pick, it hits.
My coffee mug shatters, but I barely hear it.
I need to get to that bag.
I grab it and rush back to Ezra and Louie.
“Shit, I forgot about this. The day you left, Ezra, I went outside to pick some flowers, and when I came back, this was sitting right in front of the door.”
I lift the bag containing the “Freak in the Sheets” travel mug.
Ezra and Louie exchange a glance before turning their attention back to me.
“What are we looking at, Aurora?” Louie asks.
“For once, I’m with Louie. What is the significance of this dreadfully unfunny cup? I find trash on my property all the time,” Ezra says, sounding completely unbothered.
When he reaches for the baggie, I reluctantly hand it over.
Maybe I overreacted. Maybe it’s nothing. Some lost hiker panicked, tripped over a squirrel, and launched his favorite mug through the trees where it somehow bounced off a rock, flipped twice, and landed perfectly on Ezra’s front porch. And I just … didn’t notice.
Yeah. Totally possible.
Except Ezra doesn’t seem concerned at all, which kind of pisses me off.
“Well, I mean, when I went outside to pick flowers, the mug wasn’t there.
I know I would have kicked it or tripped over it.
Plus, for a moment, it felt like someone was watching me from the woods.
I went inside immediately and locked the door behind me.
But my biggest concern is that Jameson had this exact fucking mug when we went on our … ”
The word curdles in my throat, rotting before I can say it.
“Fuck, Aurora! Way to bury the bloody lede!” Louie screams.
She jumps from her seat, takes the bag from Ezra, and begins sniffing.
“Lucifer’s balls, human noses are useless,” she growls.
A shadow twitches toward Louie, edging closer. Testing her. She flashes her fangs, daring it to try.
“Fucking hell, you clingy little shadow shits. Don’t you have some dark corner to slither off to?”
I turn to Ezra, and for the first time since I’ve met him, the fearsome, ancient shadow looks terrified.
“Ezra?” My voice wavers. “You good?”
When I reach for him, he takes a step back, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.
“Ezra, you’re scaring me. Please say something.”
His shadows react first.
Seething. Coiling up his arms. Vibrating with rage.
They don’t just ripple.
They riot.
Finally, he allows me to take his hand and raises his head, his gaze reluctantly meeting mine.
The look in them guts me.
His eyes are a hurricane, grey and violent, carved from fear and something darker.
“Shit. Those little simp gremlins were right. I left you here alone, unarmed and vulnerable,” Ezra whispers.
“Huh?” I cock my head. Simp gremlins? Is that … another underborne species?
Then I notice a single tear slipping down his cheek. Ezra blinks hard, swipes it away, and stares at the wetness on his fingertips like he doesn’t understand what it is.
“Nothing, darling,” he says quietly. “Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever cried before. But the thought of you coming to harm, or worse, makes me feel completely broken inside. It’s this hollow crack in my chest, straight down the middle. It’s quite unpleasant.”
His shadows curl up his chest, one of them slipping against his collarbone, trying to understand. A few tendrils slither along his jaw, almost in awe, memorizing this moment.
“She wasn’t completely alone,” Louie huffs, angrier at herself and her inability to shift than at Ezra.
“My apologies, dear pup, you’re correct. Not completely alone. We have our disagreements, but I know you would protect Aurora with your life,” Ezra says with a sad smile.
Louie responds with a polite nod, which might be the nicest interaction I’ve seen between them.
Ezra vanishes into shadow, then reappears as his Tesem—a hulking, midnight blur of muscle and teeth.
He pads over to Louie, who’s still sniffing at the bag with her human nose, muttering curses under her breath.
When he lowers himself beside her, the size difference is stark. He could rest his head on her shoulder like it’s nothing.
But his movement is careful. Almost tender.
Louie doesn’t flinch at the four-legged nightmare, just offers him the open Ziploc.
In less than five seconds, Ezra lets out a ferocious growl and, in another flash of shadows, reappears in his human form with his lips still curled in a snarl.
The moment he shifts, his shadows slam into the floor, a violent shockwave of rage. They lash out, then curl possessively around my ankles, savage and blood-hungry.
“Shit. That smells like Jameson … and someone else. Something rotten. Decay barely masked with magic.”
Ezra stares down at the mug, brows furrowed.
“I’ve noticed random shit on my porch before. A sleeping bag. A thermos. Weird, but nothing pointed. This?” He gestures dramatically at the “Freak in the Sheets” mug. “This is personal.”
He places both hands on the counter and leans forward, his voice low.
“They didn’t leave it for me. They left it for you.”
He exhales sharply. “And there’s no Orbexilum. No spell residue. No trace of magic at all.”
Ezra chews on his bottom lip and hums.
“This wasn’t a warning, Aurora.”
He looks at me, his eyes dark and full of thunder.
“It was a test. They were watching. To see what you’d do.”
His shadows twitch, eager for an excuse to commit something unspeakably violent.
I spent the last few days in a safe, warm little bubble, thinking nothing could hurt me. But the truth is, I haven’t been safe since the Disciples found me.
“Okay, Poirot, relax,” I mutter. “It’s a mug, not a murder map. What do we do?”
Ezra’s mouth twitches—just barely.
“For the record, Poirot was the superior detective. Sherlock can suck my dick, gag on it, actually, and then cry about it in his violin journal.”
Did he just declare literary war on Sherlock Holmes? Yes. Did it turn me on? Also, yes. The second he picked Christie over Doyle, I couldn’t shake the mental image of him between my legs, reciting The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Yeah, yeah; I know the title situation. But girly corrected it, perfected the “everyone’s a suspect” setup, and made sure women got to solve the crime instead of always being the corpse. That’s more than Doyle ever did between fairy sightings and tantrums.
He exhales. “Now. There are a few precautions we can take. Putting them in place may take a day or two, so Aurora, if it’s acceptable, would you consider not going to work until we can implement these safety precautions?”
The look he gives me is hopeful, and something about him learning and changing because of something I said really makes me hot.
Plus, from the look in his eyes, he’s already five steps ahead of the situation.
“Yes, Ezra. That’s acceptable.”
“Thank you, Aurora. First, we will have to be better about using the damned security system here at the house. Pathetic as it is, it’s still a layer of defense. We should arm it when we leave and at night.
“No one leaves the property or answers the door alone. I suppose I could ask Iain to place some magical protection and detection spells around the property as well. I hate to think what that’ll cost me, but it’s one more thing a trespasser will have to get through.
“I could also reach out to an acquaintance in the city. She’s a tüskvarr who runs a security service. We didn’t exactly part on good terms, but Charlie’s extremely professional. For the right price, I’d assume she has a few employees who might be interested.”
Ezra pauses, then opens a drawer, muttering something about an address book.
He’s such an old man sometimes.
“Don’t we have enough dogs ‘round here already? Adding tüskvarr to the mix is just going to make things worse. Fucking wild, out-of-control animals. It’s like asking frat boys to watch your goddamn house,” Louie grumbles while she picks bacon from between her fangs.
“What’s a tüskvarr?” Once again, I’m truly out of my depth.
“It’s what the werewolves of human lore and literature are based on.
They look like the offspring of a wolf and a wild boar, except bloody massive.
There are four packs of tüskvarr throughout the world that correspond with the four earthly elements.
They’re complex creatures that mostly keep to their packs and themselves,” Ezra explains while he digs through yet another drawer.
While I wait for Ezra to find his address book, something he said creeps into my consciousness, causing Emme to cackle with violent delight.
She? Charlie is a woman?
Jealousy’s slimy tentacles coil tightly around the rational parts of my mind.
Deep in my subconscious, Emme rages at the idea of Charlie as well, whispering truly batshit ideas that include slicing her tits off and tossing her into the Susquehanna.
Totally healthy stuff.
Emme is one dark cunt. Christ.
Ezra has lived an unimaginably long life. I was bound to meet one of his conquests at some point.
A shadow slithers up my arm, curling lightly around my bicep, as if it’s testing how tightly I’m wound … then pulses, trying to coax me into relaxing.
Ezra’s shadows have already reached for me, but this? This feels different. They’re holding me steady. It’s almost like they know.
I huff, and when I glance up, Ezra’s watching me, an amused smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“Aurora, are you jealous?” he asks, his smile getting bigger as he walks toward me.
One of his shadows slithers up my throat, pressing under my chin, trying to tip my head toward him.
Oh, great, now the fucking shadows are in on this too.
“What? Me? Jealous? Of whom?”
Way to play it cool.
I hang my head, not wanting to meet Ezra’s gaze. Meanwhile, my inner rage goddess strokes the writhing tentacles like pampered house pets, whispering, Yes, ruin everything.
Backstabbing bitch.
“Look at me, Aurora. Please.”