Chapter 8
The first time Callie saw Ash conjure a portal, she’d been amazed after she got over her surprise.
The second?
She barely paid it any attention.
Still stunned by Mitch’s note, she felt the air shift in the hallway a few seconds before the rush of warmth licked at her back.
Ash murmured a soft greeting.
He didn’t knock, she noticed. Five days since she last saw him and he came with barely a ‘hello’ and no pretenses whatsoever that she could actually keep the powerful fae out even if she wanted to.
It had been barely a week since the first time she spotted him lurking on the edge of the park and already Ash had made himself at home in her apartment.
Her apartment. Not their apartment. And all because Mitch had suddenly decided that he needed to head back to the suburbs.
Coincidence? If only she was the type of girl who believed in coincidences.
It seemed too much to be one, but Mitch made it clear in his letter.
He promised to keep paying his half of the rent until she could find a new roommate, but he’d learned earlier this week that he was denied the promotion.
Worse, his start-up company expected him to keep up the same level of work with a notable pay cut.
The stress had broken her poor friend. Too embarrassed and ashamed to tell her the truth, he’d spent the last few days making arrangements to move in with his parents.
She shouldn’t blame her sister for not telling her sooner since he’d made his mom and dad swear not to let his brother or his wife know.
It was bad enough he’d felt like he had to abandon Callie and the city.
The last thing he wanted was to deal with Tony telling him “I told you so”.
He didn’t answer his cellphone because he didn’t have it anymore.
He turned it in when he quit his job. And until he could get his head screwed on straight, he was begging Callie not to call him at his parents’ home.
He’d get in touch with her when he felt like he could face her again but, until then, the money would be in their rent account for the first every month.
He swore it.
Too bad that Callie didn’t give a shit about the money.
She just wanted her friend to be okay. And if that meant giving him his space, she would—and when she heard from him again, she’d rip him a goddamn new one for feeling like he had to sneak out in the middle of the night like some kind of thief or something.
So maybe Callie couldn’t help but wonder if Mitch had a push out the door. On two separate occasions Ash had made it clear that he wanted Mitch gone… but he wouldn’t really have done something about it, would he?
No. No, Callie told herself. How could he?
Mitch had been working toward this promotion for months, long before that June day when she first spotted Ash in the park.
Mitch had known it was only a chance even then, and he’d always been a bit overdramatic.
She could totally buy him turning tail and running home again when they denied him.
She sighed and, shoving the letter she’d read countless times that morning back into its envelope, turned to look behind her at Ash.
The reality of Mitch leaving had one bonus.
Since this morning, she’d managed to wrangle her lusty libido under control.
She’d showered, dressed, and plopped herself on the couch without sex—or Ash—crossing her mind again.
Looking at him now, she appreciated how gorgeous, if aloof, he was, but she could smile at him without wondering what he looked like under the same white trimmed with gold uniform he always wore.
“Something wrong, Callie?”
At least he wasn’t starting up with that ‘human’ BS again.
They were beyond that now. She could see the truth of that written on his flawless features.
The touch they shared had done something to them both, and she probably would’ve been more worried about that realization if it wasn’t for Mitch’s sudden disappearance.
She set the envelope down on the couch cushion. “Hey. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for a place in the human world, would you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing. Forget about it.”
“But I don’t want to,” he told her, a sly smile tugging on his lips. Her stomach flip-flopped. “Are you inviting me to stay?”
“What? No. It’s just… I’m out one roommate.” She watched him closely, looking for a reaction she instinctively knew she’d never get. He didn’t disappoint, either. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine. It was just a joke.”
“If you mean you finally got rid of that male like I told you to, then I’m glad. But let’s get back to your request. Are you asking me if I’d stay the night with you?”
His lyrical voice was almost a purr.
Callie thought of the way she went all hot and liquid-y at his touch. In an instant, Mitch was shoved to the back of her mind—and that probably should’ve worried her a bit, too.
“That’s not what I—”
“I’m a creature of Faerie, a member of the Summer Court. A Light Fae, Callie. A Blessed One. I can only cross into the Iron during the daylight,” Ash explained. “When the shadows fall, I must return. I could never stay the night with you.”
“I didn’t—”
“But,” he continued, as if she hadn’t said a word, “we don’t need the night. Now that the other male is gone, we can share our days together. Come with me.”
“Wait.” She blinked. Maybe she was still pretty horny, and she was definitely not in the best state of mind right now, but she’d been half-expecting him to proposition her. Especially the way he said come like that, only that wasn’t the vibe she got from him. Was she wrong? “What?”
“Come with me.”
“What type of ‘coming’ are we talking about?”
Ash laughed. It struck her then that that was the first time she ever heard his laugh. It was clear, almost crystal-like, and it delighted her in a way she would’ve thought impossible the first time she read Mitch’s goodbye letter.
“I’m willing to wait for what you have in your mind, dear Callie.
You weren’t lying when you told me you were no innocent, but that can wait.
Let me seduce you. Let me make you want my touch.
Let me get to know you, and show you that I’m more than what you think I am.
I beg of you, don’t refuse me again. You won’t regret saying ‘yes.’”
Callie wasn’t so sure of that. And, yet, her knee-jerk reaction to reject this fae male was nowhere near as strong as it had been.
“Okay. Say I bite. You want me to come with you. I assume you mean a place. So where? Where are we going?” she asked, not even trying to hide her suspicion. He hadn’t tried to convince her to visit Faerie with him again, but that didn’t mean she believed he gave up on the idea.
Which was why she was surprised when his eyes brightened.
“Wherever you want to go, my ffrindau.”
She didn’t have half a clue what that meant, but it sounded so much like ‘friend’ that it had to be that.
Friend.
She could use a friend right now.
“You know what? Okay. Let’s go.”
“It’s almost sundown.”
Ash joined Callie at her living room window. “So it is.”
It was the end of July. She’d lost track of how many times they’d ended another afternoon together at this very same window, watching the sun threaten to separate them. Only it wasn’t a threat so much as it was a promise since Ash would have to leave before the sun completely set and night fell.
Since he’d come to see her more regularly, her fae had explained how the iron in the human world affected him, how his magic and his aura interfered with her tech—specifically her lightbulbs and her appliances—and how the shadows on her side of the veil were more poisonous than those in Faerie.
If he stayed, he’d weaken so greatly that there was a chance he’d never be able to create another portal to return to his world again.
So he had to return. He also finally admitted what he was doing in that hazy patch the day they met.
He was a fae soldier, serving the most powerful fae in all of Faerie—Melisandre, the Fae Queen—and when he wasn’t in battle or guarding his queen, he was posted along the borders, protecting Faerie from any intruders that might make their way through the thinnest points of the veil.
Just like she guessed, the patch marked a breach between worlds, and he’d been guarding it when he first caught sight of Callie and knew that she was different.
To Ash, she couldn’t help being human anymore than he could help obeying the rise and fall of the sun. He’d never use the word weakness, but she knew how he felt and decided early on that she had to accept him for what he was unless she wanted to say goodbye to him, too.
Not that she expected he’d let her, but since he never forced her to do anything she didn’t want to, she knew her rejection would hurt him more than it would amuse him now that she’d learned to know more about him.
Lately, though, Ash had been staying longer and longer, pushing his return to Faerie back.
He confessed he felt unsettled when they were apart, and wished they didn’t have to be.
Surprisingly, he didn’t bring up her visiting Faerie again, and when she subtly mentioned that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal being locked out of Faerie if he decided to stay with her, Ash didn’t deny it.
In fact, he said, “Perhaps. At any rate, maybe I should learn about the world that has your heart. You belong to the Iron. I’d like to understand why.”
So she brought him to movie matinees, trying not to laugh when the projector gave out halfway after Ash’s aura surged during one of the horror scenes.
They went out to lunch, sharing human food while Ash told Callie solemnly never to accept or eat food from Faerie unless she never wanted to experience the deliciousness that was pepperoni pizza ever again.
They went for afternoon strolls around the city, helping Ash build his tolerance to the iron that surrounded them. It was at his insistence, too, since he didn’t want it to ever come between the two of them.