Chapter 4
She was right about his stamina. While she was discreetly trying to hide her huffing and puffing, Ash didn’t even seem to notice the upward climb to her floor.
His long legs ate up the steps, with Callie struggling to stay ahead of him.
Eventually she just let him go since, if he passed the tenth floor, it would be his fault for not paying attention.
Still he followed.
In front of her apartment, she dug around her purse, searching for her keys. She grabbed them, then quickly opened the door before one of her neighbors popped their head out to say ‘hi’.
Once inside, she set her camera bag and her purse down on the nearest flat space, waiting for his reaction.
When he didn’t say anything, she followed his gaze, seeing the shabby furniture and the scattered mess in a whole new light.
It was all she and Mitch could afford when they pooled their resources after they moved in together after graduation and, well, if it ain’t broke, right?
Still, she sent a glance over at Ash as he ran his eyes over the living room. He was the first otherworldly being she’d ever allowed into her space.
Sue her for being a little nervous.
“You live in an iron cage,” he said at last.
“Oh. Um. Well, yeah. I guess I do.” She darted around the room, clearing up some clutter and garbage, using a decorative couch pillow to cover up the laundry she meant—and forgot—to fold last night. “It’s kind of all I can afford. City prices, you know? And I even have to share it with my roomie.”
“Someone else lives here?”
Callie nodded. “Mitch. He should be home in a bit if you want to meet him. Not that I’m asking you to. I mean, we just met. But… just so you know. He usually gets home by eight.”
“After the shadows come?”
Did he mean night? “I think so.”
“I’ll be gone by then.”
“Sure. Yeah. Of course.”
Ash moved toward her, closing the space between the two of them.
She was holding a stack of empty paper plates, some crumpled napkins, and a half-filled can of Diet Coke.
Without really knowing why, she gulped, then turned away and darted into the kitchen.
Callie hurriedly placed it all on top of the tiny, crooked table placed up against the wall.
He moved gracefully into the cramped space, blocking her from her next escape.
“Tell me about this Mitch.”
Her hands clear again, she wiped them nervously on her jeans. “What do you want to know?”
“Is he your ffrindau?” Ash asked, emphasizing the last word.
“My friend?” she clarified. “Yeah. We grew up in the same neighborhood together. When neither of us could afford to move out on our own, we decided to split this place after we finished school. It’s alright.
Small,” she admitted, thinking about the way he called her space a cage, “but it’s better than nothing. And we get along pretty well.”
Ash took a step into her, cocking his head slightly as he studied her closely again. His long, tawny hair shifted, settling over his lean shoulder. He frowned for a heartbeat before his expression settled into that haughty glare she was beginning to think of as his default.
“Is he your mate?”
“Mate?” she echoed. “Yeah. I told you. He’s my friend.”
“Not friend,” corrected Ash. “Mate. The one you allow to touch you. The one you take into your bed. A lover?”
Callie nearly choked. “God, no. Why would you ask that?”
He didn’t answer her.
“He’s just my roommate,” she said again. “He has his room. I have mine. We share the kitchen and the living room. That’s all.”
Ash pursed his lips, then said the last thing she expected from a fae she’d just met: “Tell him not to return.”
“What?”
“The other male. Mitch. If I’ll be coming to see you in this place, I want him gone. The iron is bad enough. But another male? I won’t tolerate it.”
Callie blinked. Okay. The scrutiny was one thing. Walking her home to her apartment after her scare in the park, that was a nicety she wouldn’t expect from one of his kind. Then again, maybe it wasn’t a nicety.
Somewhere along the way, signals had been majorly crossed. She had to fix them and now.
“I’m sorry, but… you’re fae, right?”
He didn’t seem surprised that she knew. In fact, his sun-colored eyes brightened in… pride? Huh. It almost seemed like he was proud that she could tell.
“Yes,” he told her. “I am one of the Blessed Ones. A Light Fae who serves the Seelie Court.”
So she was right. Score one for her research books.
“Like I said. Fae. Okay. Are all fae nuts? You’re the first I ever talked to—the first who actually treated me like a person instead of a curiosity—so I’m not sure. But… and I’m not trying to offend you or anything… but that’s nuts. I can’t kick Mitch out for a faerie creature I just met.”
Though Ash’s golden eyes seemed to blaze with some fierce emotion when she called him a “faerie creature”, he didn’t erupt like she almost expected him to. Instead, he quirked his lips in a mockery of a charming smile.
“You can, Callie,” he said cajolingly. “You will.”
“Um. No.”
“No?”
“No.”
Something happened. She couldn’t understand it—didn’t know how to explain it—but she felt it. A pulse of electricity, a sudden surge, and every single bulb in the kitchen simply exploded.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Callie shrieked, covering her head at the first pop-ping sound. Her first wild thought was it’s gunshots and she desperately tried to shield herself as she threw herself to the ground. Glass shattered, hitting the hardwood floor around her.
After a moment, she dared a peek up. Ash was standing in front of her, twinkling dust glittering in his long hair. He gave it a royal shake, knocking some of the shards to the floor.
What the—
She looked higher. And that’s when she noticed that the four light bulbs screwed into the ceiling fan over Ash’s head had blown out.
Scrambling to her knees, she snapped, “What the hell just happened?”
“Don’t worry about that. Now come here.”
She was right. She was so, so right. The fae was nuts and she invited him into her home.
She knew better than to do that. Twenty years of seeing creatures from Faerie—twenty years of pretending she couldn’t—and she lost her head over the first pretty one who paid her any attention.
If it wasn’t for the fact that her gift meant she was basically immune to their charm and their compulsion spells, she would’ve thought that Ash had glamoured her, tricked her into taking him home with her.
But no. That bit of brilliance had been all Callie.
When she stayed where she was, Ash held out his hand. “Callie. Come.”
Seriously? Slowly, Callie stood, something warning her against touching him even as she just resisted the urge to shove him out of her apartment.
That haughty expression of his was really starting to piss her off.
“Do you think I’m a dog?” she demanded, glass crackling under her sneaker as she firmly planted her foot. “Because I’m not just going to come when I’m called.”
For all his looming and his arrogance, she had a hunch that the most he would do was bully her to get his way. He’d never force her. So, hoping she was right, she stayed right where she was.
There was that frown again. If she didn’t know better—if she thought a fae male could be vulnerable enough to let her see any kind of weakness—she would’ve thought he looked confused.
Or maybe he forgot that he was dealing with—what did he call it? Someone with the “gift of sight”.
She could see him as his eyebrows drew in; if he wasn’t such an ethereal beauty, she was sure his forehead would’ve wrinkled, too. His lush lips parted before his eyes widened in sudden understanding.
“Callie is not your true name.”
That was the last thing she expected him to say.
“You’re talking about my real name? No. It’s not. It’s a nickname.”
“Did you mean to deceive me on purpose?”
“By telling you that I’m Callie?” She shook her head. “It’s my name. You didn’t need to know what’s on my birth certificate.”
Especially since this wasn’t Callie’s first run-in with a faerie creature sneaking around the human world, sure that their glamour would fool her.
She might not know many of their secrets—and that was on purpose, too, since she was a profound believer that ignorance could be bliss—but she knew very well that giving one of the fae her true name was one way to give them power over her.
“Tell me. Tell me what you’re really called.”
He had to be kidding.
“No.”
Ash was quick. With a glide so graceful it belonged on a stage, he crossed the lingering space between them, his hands hovering over her upper arms. She could sense him, but he didn’t quite make contact with her skin, and she wasn’t so sure why that was an overwhelming relief, but it was.
His face only inches from hers as she jerked her head back, he cooed, “You will tell me.”
This was getting to be too much. She might’ve had her own moment of temporary insanity when she invited this capricious creature into her home, but that was easily corrected.
The same gut instinct from before whispered that he would bully and he would push until she stood up for herself.
Only then would this magnificent male back off.
She swallowed and, shuffling a few steps away from him, she stubbornly said, “No. I won’t.”
“You refuse me?”
There was something in the way he said refuse that had Callie choosing her next words carefully. “I think you should go.”
“I have plenty of time until the sun sets and I have to return to Faerie. You invited me in. I’m not going anywhere.”
Oh? Was he so sure of that?
Remembering the way he stepped into the elevator and quickly moved back out again, the sizzling sound as his hand made contact with the metal door, and how he commented with a faint sneer that her apartment was a cage of iron, Callie slowly moved back and away from Ash.
Iron… how could she have forgotten the fae’s disdain for iron?
He followed her with his unblinking gaze, but he didn’t make another move.
Good. That gave Callie time to make a break for it and lunge for the kitchen countertop—the countertop and Mitch’s favored cast iron pan resting on top of it.
He always swore it made his steaks taste better than any of her cheap set of cookware, and because it was so big and so heavy, he just kept it stored by the stove.
For the first time ever, Callie didn’t give a shit that it was an eyesore.
It was heavier than she remembered, but she was panicking a little at the way he watched her like a spider sizing up the poor fly caught in its web.
Weight didn’t mean a damn thing as she used two hands to grab the handle, swinging the cast iron pan up like it was a baseball bat and she was Mark McGwire.
“Back up,” she warned Ash. “Back up or I’ll use this. I swear I will.”
One glimpse at the murderous expression that flitted across his flawless features told Callie that she was right. Ash wouldn’t push her while she was wielding the pan, but he definitely wasn’t happy about that.
Like before, though, he wrangled his expression quickly.
He obviously wasn’t used to dealing with a human he couldn’t control.
Her gift—her sight—made them more evenly matched since Callie knew to be on her guard.
He got under her skin once. She wasn’t so sure what this fae would do if she let him do it again.
And he proved it a moment later when he scoffed and said, “You won’t escape me that easily, Callie.”
“Are you threatening me?” A waver slipped into her tone. So much for being brave, but the look on the fae’s face… it would bring even the strongest human to their knees. Were her instincts wrong? On a shaky breath, she demanded to know, “Are you going to hurt me?”
Ash stayed silent for a moment before he asked, “Why would I?”
Good question.
Callie hefted the cast iron pan as high as she possibly could. She didn’t know him. She didn’t really know what he was, what he was capable of. He was fae, but what exactly did that mean?
One thing she did know? From the way he glared at the iron pan, she was convinced that it was probably the only thing keeping him away from her at that very moment.
For some strange reason, he seemed to be fixated on her; wrangling an invitation after he crossed into her world and skewered the kobold was one thing, but the way he tried to order her to kick Mitch out proved that to Callie’s mind.
And, sure, he had saved her from that thing …
but that didn’t mean she was going to let him walk all over her just because he was powerful enough to do so—and cocky enough to think that she would let him.
She swallowed, and though her arms were killing her, she held on tightly to the pan. “Goodbye, Ash.”
“You’re daring,” he said. “I’ll give you that. But you’re making this more difficult than it has to be. You’ve caught my attention, human. For good or for bad, you have it.”
“What if I don’t want it?”
A small quirk of his lush lips. “You should’ve thought about that before you invited me home.”
And then, before she could retort, Ash walked out of the kitchen without another word.
Callie didn’t lower the heavy pan—or take another breath—until she heard the front door open, then close.
Though she knew she was probably making a huge mistake, she lugged the cast iron pan out of the kitchen, down the hall, and over to the door. She wasn’t brave enough to open it in case Ash took it as another invitation, but she peered out through the peephole.
Then, in shock at what she saw, she fumbled with the knob before throwing her shoulder into the wood, swinging the door wide just in time to watch the last of the tower of flames dissipate.
Because that’s what she had seen. A wall of fire that stretched from the ceiling to the industrial carpet.
Ash’s mysterious portal? It had to be, especially since there was no sign that it had been there except for the heat licking out at her and the scent of flowers that filled the normally musty hall.
No scorch marks.
No smoke.
No Ash.
He was gone, but Callie’s instincts told her that he wouldn’t be for long.