Chapter 5
She was just sweeping up the last of the glass when Mitch let himself into the apartment.
Thinking ahead, Callie changed out the lightbulbs before she started cleaning. She could explain away the glass shards way more easily than she could a dark kitchen so she looted the under the sink area for as many spare bulbs as she could find first, then reached for the broom second.
While she cleaned, she had some time to think.
As grateful as she was that the fae male—that Ash—had crossed over to save her from the fierce faerie creature heading for her, it all seemed so very coincidental now that he was gone and she could think more clearly.
He might not be able to use his glamour to trick her into believing everything he said, but his natural, glamour-free form was still so dazzling that Callie had definitely fallen under his sway a bit.
Why else would she have brought him to her home?
He wasn’t a vampire, so it wasn’t like he needed the invitation, but when it came to entering into bargains and contracts and agreements with the faerie folk—whether she meant to or not—she had to be careful not to give him so much an inch otherwise he’d take a mile.
It was bad enough that his rescue came with an unknown price tag. After the way she had to all but chase him off with her roommate’s cast iron pan, Callie was beginning to have serious doubts that she could pay it.
Not that she could tell Mitch any of that. By the time she heard the door opening and, peeking into the hall, saw that it was her roommate, she had pulled on her own version of glamour. The last thing she needed was Mitch letting slip to her family that she was “having trouble” again.
Twenty-two or not, her parents would insist on more therapy—and that was if they didn’t guilt her into moving back home, too. Callie would rather deal with the fae on her own than have her parents think she was struggling.
So, quickly sweeping the last of the broken glass into the dustpan before dumping it in the trash, Callie offered Mitch a welcoming smile as he tossed his messenger bag on top of the couch.
Mitch was the same age as Callie, and she might have downplayed her relationship with him just a bit when Ash asked her about it.
While it had never been a romantic one, mainly because it seemed weird to her to be into her brother-in-law’s brother, Callie considered Mitch her closest friend.
He knew about her history with “seeing things” and had never treated her any differently for it, even if she knew her mother and her sister quizzed him about her whenever they got a chance.
And that was when they weren’t already playing matchmaker, convinced that Mitch and Callie were meant to be together.
He was good-looking in his own way, she admitted.
He had shaggy dark blond hair that was perpetually in need of a haircut, and his tall, lanky body always seemed a little too big whenever his office required him to wear a suit.
Most days, though, a polo and jeans were fine, and that’s what he was wearing now.
“Good day at work?” she asked him.
He groaned, rolling his head on his neck. His shoulders looked tight, and he lifted a hand to rub away at the obvious tension.
“Long day, Cal,” he said. “And I got a longer one tomorrow. Gotta be up at the crack of dawn for a whole slate of meetings. I was thinking about ordering in, then heading right to sleep. You hungry?”
Huh. With everything that happened, Callie hadn’t had anything to eat since her early lunch. Glancing out the kitchen window, she saw that it was dark. It must’ve been more than seven hours since her last meal and, now that Mitch mentioned it, she realized she was starving.
“I can eat.”
“Pizza?”
“You buy, I tip tonight?”
While they usually cooked for themselves, on the rare occasion that they spent money on a meal out, they were on a rotating system. Callie got the last round of take-out for them so it was Mitch’s turn.
“Sounds good. Pepperoni on your half?”
She nodded. “Get some garlic knots, too. Okay?”
Mitch nodded, pulling out his expensive Nokia cellphone.
Callie hadn’t bothered getting a cell—partly because of the price, and partly because she’d never get her parents off her back if they could contact her at any given moment—but Mitch’s job provided him with his.
He was kind of pretentious with it, but at least when he wasn’t using it he let Callie play “Snake”, so it wasn’t so annoying.
“I’ll place the order, then hop in the shower. Here.” He reached into his front pocket, pulled out a twenty, and offered it to Callie. “In case I’m still getting ready. Nunzio’s is usually pretty quick.”
She accepted it, making a mental note to grab a couple of singles from her purse to give him as change since twenty was more than enough for food and tip. “No problem. Take your time in there,” she said, a teasing note finding its way to her voice. “You look like you need to relax a little.”
Mitch didn’t even try to deny it. With a shrug, he said, “It’s what happens when I live with a babe who doesn’t want to be friends with benefits.”
In response to his obvious innuendo, Callie stuck out her tongue.
Mitch pointed at her. “Hey. Don’t stick it out unless you want to use it.”
“You wish.”
“I do, Cal. I really do.”
She rolled her eyes. Their relationship was built on mutual affection, but despite his teasing and his flirting, she knew that he only made comments like that because he knew she wouldn’t take any offense to it.
Of course, if she offered to join him in the shower, he’d never say no, but it wasn’t like he was carrying a torch for her or anything and they both knew that.
Mitch chuckled at her reaction before waving his phone at her, then heading down the hall toward the bathroom.
“Don’t forget my pepperoni,” she called after him.
“I won’t,” he promised as he went inside to start the shower.
A few minutes later, Callie heard the water come on, then the bathroom door open again. As she set the broom to the side, she waited to see if he would call out to her. Maybe the pizzeria was out of pepperoni or something—
A towel draped around his naked waist, Mitch’s bare feet slapped against the hallway floor. Callie held her breath, hoping none of the glass made its way out of the kitchen, as her roommate padded past her, toward the front door.
“Mitch, I don’t think the pizza could’ve gotten here yet.”
“Not the pizza,” came his reply. She heard him mutter a couple of words under his breath, the sound of something sliding across something else, and then, “Cal, did you see my watch?”
“What?”
“My watch. I forgot to grab it this morning, and I just remembered when I went to take it off for the shower. I’m pretty sure I left it over here on this table, but it’s gone.”
She joined him by their front door.
Mitch was standing next to the same side table near the couch where she’d dropped her purse and her camera bag. There were usually a few other knickknacks scattered along the top—a remote, an extra scrunchie, a pair of sunglasses—and she tried to remember if Mitch’s watch had been there earlier.
If it had been, it wasn’t now.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
Callie had a bad feeling about that.
Her purse was shoved to the side, the mouth of it open. Her camera bag was resting precariously on the edge of the table. She didn’t know if Mitch had moved it during his search, or if a sticky-fingered fae might have had a chance to go through their things on his way out of the apartment.
It had seemed like forever before he actually left. But would a magical, otherworldly being snatch Mitch’s Timex watch, so cheap that it wasn’t even waterproof?
More importantly, if she dug through her purse, would anything of hers be missing?
Her heart started beating triple-time again. She didn’t know for sure, but she’d learned a long time ago to trust her senses—her instincts, her hearing, her sight—over anything else.
And her senses were telling her she had a pretty good idea where Mitch’s watch had gone.
Even so, she shrugged, and then she answered him while hoping like hell it wasn’t a lie.
“Nope. Never saw it.”
In his barracks once more, Ash went to his private quarters and, pressing his thumb to the crystal knob he’d imprinted on once he made Melisandre’s elite guard, he locked himself inside.
Up until that instant, he refused to allow himself to focus on the events of what happened in the Iron.
Dwelling too closely on it would’ve ignited in Ash the desire to compel his white-haired human—his Callie—to come with him, to talk to him, to even tell him no repeatedly as she refused him if only because he was sure he’d get her to change her mind eventually.
But he had also felt the pull of the shadows and he knew that it wasn’t worth fighting the darkness when his time with the human was only beginning.
She’d had a fright that, he admitted, he was solely responsible for, and now that he had proved that she had the sight, he had to be far more careful in how he approached her.
Because never seeing her again was not an option.
The moment he let the kobold loose, directing it to run through the veil and cross over into the human world, Ash had just wanted to know what it was about her that kept him coming back.
Sure, Melisandre’s command had him at the post, but he didn’t try to convince her otherwise because he wanted to go.
Because he was interested in a human. There was no denying that.
Just like how there was no denying the way his protective instincts came roaring to life as soon as the kobold took off after her.