Water splashed in my face and soaked the front of my clothes. I pushed up, but Hood sprawled over me, a growl revving up his throat. His massive paws dug into the mud on either side of my head, pinning me under him.

“What are you doing?” I wedged my knees beneath me, leveraging him up but not off me. “Linus?”

An arrow sank into the earth a foot away from the tip of my nose.

“Stay with Hood.” Linus rolled his shoulders, and his tattered cloak unfurled. “I’ll dispatch the archer.”

“Wait.” I flung out my arm, but he was gone between one blink and the next. “Hood, go after him.”

The gwyllgi chuffed an amused noise low in his throat then poked me with his paw, urging me forward.

“I hate this,” I hissed, rocking onto my hands and knees. “It’s too wet for me to use sigils for protection.”

All the necromantic tricks in the world wouldn’t help me while I was sloshing through water.

First the Cora Ann and now the marsh. Both locations nullified our greatest advantage. Magic.

Prickling stings washed over my skin as Hood shifted forms, all the better to bark orders.

“Stay low.” His wide palm spread between my shoulder blades. “Keep moving.”

A faint moan drew my attention skyward where Cletus covered our retreat.

We made good time crawling back to the van, and I had a plan ready when my knees hit asphalt.

“Watch my back.” I didn’t give Hood or Cletus a chance to catch me. I shoved to my feet and sprinted the rest of the distance. “Come on, come on.” I yanked on the handles at the rear of the vehicle, and they parted, each supporting half of the cabinet. “There’s got to be ink in here.” I riffled through the drawers until I hit pay dirt. “Gotcha.” With a jar in hand, I kept going until I located a selection of brushes and grabbed the round style I favored. “Hood, get close.” I located the wraith. “Cletus— Actually, never mind. You’re good.”

We needed protection five minutes ago. That meant drawing a quick and dirty circle then assessing the situation.

The first whiff after I cracked the seal made my stomach growl. This was Linus’s ink, his blood, and my gut tightened with want. Talk about your embarrassing side effects.

“Hop in the van,” Hood snarled. “I need to get you out of here.”

The emphasis he placed on need told me Lethe was right. Protecting me was imperative to him.

“I’m not leaving without Linus.” I kept going, marking as fast as I could on the thirsty blacktop. “Get ready. Ward is going up in three…two…” I covered the final six inches, “…one.”

Magic snapped into place around us with an audible click that made my back teeth ache. This was a large circle. I could hold it, but I would have to underpin it better than this if Linus took much longer.

“What can you tell me?” I searched the marsh for signs of our attacker but saw none. “Can you tell if it’s the same clan from the docks?”

“Yes.” Hood stepped up to the line, his chest expanding as he filled his lungs. “I recognize the scent from the arrow fletching.”

About what I figured since death by arrow had to be on the rare side these days. “Any idea how many?”

“Five or six at the start.” He flashed his teeth. “Hard to tell how many are left.”

“Linus…?”

“He’s a powerful man, Grier.” He settled a hand on my shoulder. “He’ll be fine.”

“He almost died after Atlanta.” I shrugged him off me. “He’s not invulnerable.” An ear-piercing shriek rent the night, and my heart leapt as birds took flight. “I can open the wards—”

“No.” Hood sobered. “I owe a debt to you, not to him.”

“Cletus?” I called out to the wraith. “How’s it going out there?”

The hooded figure drifted closer, his gnarled fingers stroking the barrier as if he might soothe me.

“He’s still here,” I told myself in a quiet voice. “That means Linus is okay.”

Wraiths were the first thing to vanish when the person they were bonded to weakened.

An arrow sailed through Cletus and pinged off the barrier. The wraith cocked his head as a vampire dressed in black tactical gear stepped into view with his next arrow nocked. His lip curled up over his fangs when he grasped the situation.

We might be stuck in the circle, meaning he was safe from us, but he couldn’t attack either.

Stalemate.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “Who sent you?”

The archer ventured closer, studying the ward, Hood, and then Cletus. His avaricious gaze slid over me last. A cocky grin lifted one side of his mouth, and his eyes flashed black. When he spoke, a thick French accent flavored his voice. “You smell divine.”

“Cute.” Divine because I was goddess-touched. “Got any more?”

“I will save the best for later,” he promised. “I would have you die with a smile on your face.”

A chill rippled down my arms at the casual promise, the utter confidence he would kill me.

On the bright side, he answered the most pressing question. Whoever these guys worked for wanted me dead. That eliminated the master, if not the Marchands. Gramps wanted me alive. Hard to marry me off otherwise. After Heloise, Mom’s family might prefer revenge to leaving me under the Grande Dame’s influence. Neither option appealed, if you asked me.

The wraith’s utter calmness kept me level. I was safe, so he must not have felt the urge to act.

“The only one dying today is you, friend.” Hood shimmered, red magic lapping at his feet and splashing up his shins until it submerged him. “Don’t break the circle, Grier.”

The muscular body of Hood’s other form hit the ground with a snarl, the coarse hairs raising along his spine.

Proving he had some sense, the vampire edged back a step when confronted with the slavering beast.

“We need to leave.” A second vampire trotted into the parking lot. “We cannot contain Eidolon much longer.”

This vampire made the second creature to call Linus by that name. First Ambrose and now these rogue vampires. It had the ring of a title, not a slur.

“I cannot breach her wards,” the first vampire told him. “There are other complications as well.”

He fingered the fletching on an arrow he had yet to draw, one I bet was bronze-tipped.

“We will have to convince her to come out, then.” The second vampire plucked at his bowstring as he called, “Bring him.”

Two more vampires emerged, Linus held on his feet between them. His head tipped forward, his neck bent. Blood smeared the front of his shirt and pants. I chose to believe it belonged to them. The alternative made me sick. Even his cloak flickered, insubstantial, his power struggling against whatever they had done to subdue him.

“We have no orders surrounding Scion Lawson,” the second vampire assured me. “We will only harm him if you refuse to cooperate.”

Casually, Hood planted one of his enormous paws over my foot to pin me on the spot.

“What did you do to him?” The inkpot and brush fell from my hand and shattered as I pressed against the barrier. “Linus?”

“Grier,” he grated out, unable to lift his head. “No.”

“Hood.” I offered him my hand. “I can fix this, but I need blood. Fresh blood.” I swallowed. “My blood.”

Further research into my condition had convinced Linus it was safe for me to use my blood in temporary sigils. The design flaked, and the connection to me, if there was one, broke. I had drawn my last tattoo, and solo resuscitations were tabled for now. Those both left permanent marks we were no closer to erasing.

“Hood.” I flexed my fingers. “This is no time to be squeamish.”

The gwyllgi didn’t look thrilled about it, but he pricked the center of my palm with a single claw.

“Thank you.” Dipping my finger in the crimson pool, I drew a sigil pulled from the recesses of my mind onto the compressed wall of air. I added another and then another and then another. “That ought to do it.”

“What are you doing?” the second vampire demanded. “What do those symbols mean?”

“They mean you shouldn’t mess with my friends.” I slapped my palms together, smearing blood over each, then smacked them against the symbols, one after another. Each touch ignited a sigil, and a wave of power blasted out with flawless precision to knock the vampires off their feet.

Linus hit his knees and toppled forward onto his palms.

“Sorry about this, Hood.” I erased a six-inch section of the circle, darted through the opening, then inked it back before the magic fell. Hood slammed into it seconds later, bouncing off the inside of the bubble. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

The furious baying noise shredding his throat caused my hindbrain to sprint away like a startled rabbit.

Cletus, fingertips lengthening into claws, swooped in low circles around me, running interference.

Low on ink, I dug a fingernail into the wound and drew protective sigils on me as I ran for Linus. I hooked an arm around his middle then wedged my shoulder under his as I hauled him to his feet. While we shuffled for safety, I spread healing and protective sigils over his cheeks.

“I got you,” I soothed when he tried to speak. “You’re going to be okay.”

“No.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No,” he said, frustrated. “Told you…no.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yes,” he hissed, his strength returning. “That.”

“Remember when Maud used to say Make no apologies for surviving?”

“Yes.”

“I took that to heart, so you can suck it. I’m not apologizing.”

A pathetic excuse for a laugh moved through him that gave me the boost I needed to reach the circle I was shocked to find intact and not a ring of magical residue on the asphalt.

“I can’t breach it from this side.” Not with Linus in my arms and vampires snapping at our heels. “Hood?”

Growling the whole time, Hood smudged the line and brought the magic crashing down around him.

“Thanks,” I panted, gunning for the van. “Now grow thumbs. We need a driver.”

While Hood shifted in a wash of red energy, I tugged the side door open and dumped Linus on the floorboard. He was so tall, I had to grab his ankles and tuck his legs in before I could join him. Even then, I was straddling him, my head bumping the ceiling.

“Sorry about this.” I sat on his lap to give me leverage for throwing my weight into closing the door. As I sealed us inside, Hood slid into the driver’s seat, and the engine roared to life. “Go, go, go.” I pressed my nose to the glass. “They’re starting to twitch.”

“They aren’t…the only ones.” Linus trembled beneath me. “They…drugged me.”

“Let me—” I rocked forward to stand and smacked my head against the window when Hood made a hard right. “Ouch.”

Cool hands bracketed my hips, holding me steady as I rubbed the tender spot, and he whispered, “Stay…with me.”

Once the ache dulled, I twisted around to check on him. “Where else would I go?”

But his grip had slackened, and his face had too. Linus was dozing. Or was he?

Last time I almost lost him during what I mistakenly assumed was a nap.

“Wake up.” I gripped his shoulders and shook him. “Eyes on me.”

“I’m…okay.” Dark-blue eyes cracked open and held mine. “Just tired.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.” I fisted both halves of his shirt and ripped, sending buttons pinging around the interior. Dried blood streaked his chest. I smoothed a hand down the tattoos decorating his torso, and his abs clenched. Chills pebbled his skin in the wake of my fingers, and his nipples tightened under my palm when I braced it on his left pectoral, over the tattooed seal of the city of Atlanta. “None of the blood is yours.”

“No,” he breathed softly.

“In that case, I’m sorry I groped you.” I indicated the ruined fabric with my chin. “You can also bill me for the shirt. This is the second one of yours I’ve debuttoned in a panic.”

“Don’t mind.” He wrapped a palm around my wrist, holding it steady over his heart, and I was grateful he couldn’t feel mine galloping. “More shirts where those came from.”

Taking the out I was given, I checked on our driver. “Hood, you okay up there?”

“You spat on my honor when you left me behind,” he gritted from between clenched teeth. “You could have been killed or taken, and I would have had to stand there and watch.”

The charge echoed Amelie and Boaz so closely, my throat squeezed, but I had bigger problems.

“Wait.” I paused his rant. “You broke the circle to let me in, so why didn’t you break it to follow me?”

“It obeyed you,” he snarled. “It kept me contained until you gave me permission to erase the line.”

“I had no idea I could do that.” I slumped against the nearest wall. “I figured it would slow you down long enough for me to reach Linus, but I didn’t realize you couldn’t get out. I didn’t mean to trap you in there.”

Hood didn’t acknowledge my semi-apology, and I deserved the silent treatment for what I had done.

That didn’t change the fact I would do it again in a heartbeat. Amelie, and now Hood, had no trouble expecting Linus to fend for himself. Clearly, as his sprint toward danger proved, he was used to working alone. Maybe he even preferred the solitude. Or, perhaps, he didn’t know any other way.

The guy experimented on himself, so he couldn’t be trusted to value his life any more than they did.

Guess that left it up to me to haul his butt out of whatever trouble he got into on my account.

Hood didn’t forgive me in the time it took to drive home. He barely held on to his skin long enough to get out of the van before shifting and ditching me to care for my patient alone. With that attitude, I didn’t mind watching him go. We would have to make up eventually, but I wasn’t in any mood to tuck my tail for the sake of his honor.

Woolly, picking up on my emotions, flickered the porch light at me in question.

“We had a fight,” I told her as I climbed out. “I’ll make it up to him later.”

Her curtains rustled in affront that I would have to apologize, but she was Team Grier all the way. She didn’t have to know what I had done to be on my side. Even when I was in the wrong, she was right there with me. Yet another reason why I couldn’t have loved her more if she were flesh and bone.

After helping Linus sit up, I placed his feet in the cool grass. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.” He smoothed a hand down his torso, over the flaking sigils. “You patched me up well.”

“I had a good teacher.” I tucked my shoulder under his arm and helped him stand. “Take your time.”

Once he regained his balance, he took his first wobbling step. “Vertigo.”

Tucking myself tighter against his side, I searched his face. “I can get Midas or Lethe…”

“I can manage if we go slow.” He steadied more with each step, the exercise clearing his head. “How did you know you could manipulate sigils that way?”

Tension radiated through me, wringing my gut dry until I almost heaved. Trust. This was all about trust. Anything I told him might get repeated to his mother one day, and that was dangerous. But he hadn’t let me down so far.

“I figured it out the night we came home from Atlanta,” I admitted. “You were unconscious. I had to get you help, but the vampire kept coming, and I…just knew.” I eased him down onto the bottommost step for a short break before we tackled the stairs. “It feels like I’m remembering when it happens, but it’s nothing I’ve ever been taught.”

“Genetic memory.”

“That was my first thought, yes.”

Necromancers had a predisposition toward being born with an innate understanding of their talent. Not as in we were in danger of experiencing an epidemic of vampires raised by toddlers, but some practitioners exhibited keen insight into the craft from an early age, before proper training commenced.

Linus was one of those precocious youths. Now it appeared I might be another.

“I can show you sometime,” I offered in the space where his accusation of Why didn’t you tell me fit. Guilt, pure and simple, motivated me, but it didn’t stop his eyes from brightening. “I’ll even let you film it. That way we can reverse engineer the sigil I’ve been using.”

“I’d like that,” he said, and I heard understanding between the words, his acceptance for why I might keep secrets. Even from him. Maybe especially from him.

A door creaked open some distance away, and Amelie called softly, “Is everything okay out here?”

“We’re fine.” I rubbed the base of my neck. “Sorry we disturbed you.”

“I don’t mind,” she rushed out in a single breath. “I wanted to—”

“Not tonight,” I said, exhausted by the frantic evening and the sound of her hope.

“It’s just,” she pressed on, “I found that skeleton key, the one Boaz and I used to lock the trunks we took from Woolworth House. I never noticed, but it reeks of blood magic. I thought you might want to…”

“…remove temptation,” I finished. “I’ll be right there.”

“I can manage.” Linus leaned against the railing, and the old house creaked beneath him, worried. “Woolly can keep an eye on me.”

“This won’t take but a minute.” I took a few steps toward the side of the house. “Don’t budge.”

“I won’t,” he promised, closing his eyes.

“No closing your eyes.”

A slight curve in his lips warmed me as he opened them. “All right.”

Backing away while keeping an eye trained on him seemed like a good idea right up until I tripped over a rosebush and hit the lawn on my tailbone. Teeth gritted against the pain, I laid back in the cool grass and let the dew soak into my shirt for a moment.

“Okay over there?” Amelie craned her neck as far as she could see. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m good,” I groaned as Cletus materialized. “Did Linus send you to check on me?”

The billowing hood dipped, the cloak fluttering over me.

“Do me a solid and tell him I stubbed my toe. Let’s leave my tailbone out of this.”

Fingertips tapping absently, he drifted off to make his report. Hopefully in my favor.

“Where did you find the key?” I asked to buy me time to get back on my tired feet. “I looked everywhere for it when we cleared out the carriage house.”

Linus and I had searched the small home from top to bottom before we allowed her to move in.

“It was on the trim above the window that looks out onto the garden.” She stood in the doorway with the key in her fist. “It’s funny. That’s where I found it in the first place. I put it back there since it seemed like as good a spot as any. Guess you thought so too and just forgot.”

Except that’s not where I left it. I used it to retrieve the old-fashioned doctor’s bag Maud carried her supplies in from a pernickety steamer trunk, and then I tucked it beneath a loose brick on the fireplace in the carriage house’s living room.

As much as I wanted to blame the switcheroo on a third party relocating the key, it wouldn’t explain how they knew where she had originally found it. The key itself was a temperamental piece of work. I wouldn’t put it past the thing to have placed itself back above the window, and if Amelie hadn’t chosen that spot, it meant odds were high it had a mind of its own.

“Keep an eye out.” I accepted the key, its lukewarmth a comfort. “Let me know if you find another one.”

There were no more keys like this one, thankfully, but it still might return to its perch.

“I can do that.” She scuffed her bare foot on the welcome mat. “If I see you around.”

The cover story we concocted to explain her six-month absence from work and life in general while she was under house arrest at Woolly included a sudden move to Atlanta to pursue an internship. Outside of Low Society friends, who would be forbidden by their families to talk to her, none of her local human friends knew she was staying one house over from her childhood home.

Loneliness was a topic with which I was well acquainted. I had dragged Lethe in to join me for breakfast to keep from being alone, so I could sympathize. What I couldn’t do, until I finished healing the wounds she had inflicted on me, was be there for her.

“I’ll talk to Odette and see if she can swing by a few nights a week.” I flinched as her expression fell. “You can invite your brother over if you want,” I added, cementing my sucker status. “Just make sure he understands he’s not welcome at the main house, and he’s not allowed to loiter. He visits you, he goes home.”

“Thanks.” Her gaze panned the yard. “Will the gwyllgi hurt him?”

“As long as he follows the rules, he’ll be safe.” I jerked my chin toward the front of the house. “I can’t leave Linus out there forever. See you around.”

She let me reach the fence leading into the front yard before saying, “I was wrong about him.”

“Most people are,” I said, not unkindly. After all, he was wrong about himself too.

Linus had managed to keep his eyes open, but it was a near thing. “You’re back.”

“Made it back the same day I left,” I agreed, helping him stand. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

“I need to shower.”

“How about a bath instead?” I held him closer as we navigated the steps. “I can trust you not to fall in one of those.” I pictured him folded up in the antique tub where he used to play with his molded plastic army of fantastical creatures, acting out scenes from whatever book he was reading. “I don’t think I have to worry about you slipping under the water and drowning. It will be a miracle if we can fit your legs in with the rest of you.”

Up in his room, I parked him on the toilet after closing the lid and started running water.

A quick check of his cabinets produced the fancy-pants shampoo I used at his loft along with matching conditioner and body wash. “Bubbles? No bubbles?”

“No bubbles.”

I lined the items up on the floor beside the clawfoot tub. “Do you need help with your hair?”

While I was rooting around, he had slumped forward, his forearms braced on his knees. “I can manage.”

“Are you sure?” I bit the inside of my cheek, but the question was out there now.

“It depends.” He lifted his head a fraction. “Can I change my answer to bubbles?”

“If it will preserve your dignity, sure.” I snorted out a laugh and dumped in a healthy amount of body wash. “I seem to remember your orcs liked bubbles anyway. Or was it the elves? They’re the ones with all the silky hair, right?”

“They weren’t bubbles. They were quicksand.” His shoulders hitched with quiet laughter. “How do you know about that?”

“I went through a spy phase.” The old house groaned around us. “Don’t act all innocent. Who do you think tipped me off when the coast was clear?”

“What was worth spying on in my bathroom?”

“Um, you.” A frown gathered across my forehead. “I used to want to be just like you.” I had forgotten that until our current situation reminded me. “I wanted Maud to be proud of me the way she was proud of you.”

“She was.”

I rolled a shoulder, uninterested in going down that road again. “I’ll step out and let you get in.”

For his safety, I didn’t go far. I stood to one side of the doorway with my back against the wall. The sound of fabric hitting the tiles carried to me, so did his throaty groan when he hit the piping-hot water.

“I’m in.”

I stuck my head around the corner. “Bubbles at the ready?”

“I believe my modesty is sufficiently preserved.” He held up a mountain of froth. “However, I’m not sure you can rinse my hair with this water. It’s…slimy.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad.” I snagged the cup he used to hold his toothbrush off the counter by the sink and took position behind him. “I’m a pro at the perfect water-to-soap ratio.”

“Is that why Maud always made you mop the floors twice? Once with your perfect ratio and then with a bucket of water to get rid of the tacky feeling?”

“Um.” I pulled up short while deciding where it was safer to test the water for alleged sliminess. “You might have a point. There’s a reason I shower.”

The faucets cranked on again, and water glug, glug, glugged down the drain as Woolly took charge.

Linus’s hands shot to his lap as the waterline lowered. “Woolly, I need that plug.”

The house ignored him and kept dumping out the slick mixture while pumping in fresh water.

“Grier?” His eyes pleaded with me. “You’re going to have to step out if she drains much more.”

Already the dimples on either side of his spine above his hips were visible.

Eyes up, Grier. Sheesh.

“Woolly, cut the guy some slack.” I tapped my foot. “We can take it from here.”

With a huff from the nearest floor register, her presence exited the bathroom, leaving us alone.

“I got the drain plugged.” Linus exhaled. “That was more excitement than I signed up for.”

Hiding a smile, I moved to the middle of the tub. “I’m going to use the water from the faucet, okay?”

“All right.”

“Head forward or head back?”

“Forward.” He was already slumping, so that was an easy choice. “I’m not going to last much longer.”

Hands folded in his lap, Linus bowed his head. I poured cup after cup of water over him until the auburn strands clung to his skin like seaweed. There was nothing for it. He was as wet as he was going to get. It was time to put my hands on him.

“Let me know if I’m being too rough.” I squirted a dime-size amount of shampoo on top of his head that ended up more quarter-sized. Fine. Half-dollar. Oops. “I don’t have much in the way of fingernails, but I’m a vigorous scrubber.”

His low groan encouraged me to keep scratching his scalp and also discouraged me from twisting his hair into lengthy spikes just for giggles.

“Let’s get you rinsed.” The cup kept slipping through my hands, which made him laugh. I suspected he was aware more than the recommended amount of shampoo had made it onto his head. “Conditioner?”

“This is fine,” he said a little too fast. “I’ll deal with the tangles tomorrow.”

“You do have pretty hair,” I admitted while chasing foam with each pour. “Any particular reason why you grew it out?”

“I kept forgetting to cut it without Mother’s supervision when I moved away.” He reached up to check my handiwork. “I got so shaggy at one point I decided growing it out longer would be easier. I was wrong, it’s more work, but I enjoy it. She isn’t of the same opinion.”

“You little rebel, you.” I raked my fingers through the long ends. “I’m surprised at you, Mr. Lawson.”

“One of the many perks of living on your own, the ability to make decisions for oneself.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I bet she gritted her teeth every time she saw his hair. And I bet he smiled as her eye twitched, even if it was where no one else could see. “It doesn’t hurt that girls swoon over it, huh?”

“Do they?”

“You’re not that oblivious.” I tugged the handful in my fist. “You know women love your hair.”

“I might have noticed the occasional sigh when I take down my hair after a long morning.”

“You’re horrible.” I slapped his shoulder. “I bet all the girls in your classes watch the show like it’s one of those slow-motion clips in a shampoo commercial where the model is shaking out his shiny locks.”

He twisted his upper body, angling his face toward me. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

The best response I could think of was to dump a cup of water over his head, so that’s what I did.

While he spluttered and choked, I set out some towels and mopped up the mess I’d made with a spare.

“I would offer to lay out some clothes for you, but I’ve never dressed a guy. I wouldn’t want to pick boxers I like only to learn they’re the masculine equivalent of lingerie. How awkward would that be?”

“Men don’t do lingerie.” He coughed again. “We don’t dress up, we dress down.”

“Commando.” I worried the cloth in my hands. “I wonder why women heap on lace and frills like we’re cupcakes in need of decorating while men strip down like their perfection can’t be improved upon?”

“Lace and frills,” he said cautiously, “tell the person you’re with that your time together is special.”

The towel slid from my hand to slap the tile. “Speaking from personal experience?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll wait outside.” I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. “Call if you need help.”

Handsome, wealthy, powerful, brilliant. Funny, shy, kind, thoughtful.

Of course he would have had lovers. He’d admitted as much at the Faraday. I just hadn’t wanted to believe him.

Boaz had slept with half of Savannah while keeping the other half on a waiting list, and it didn’t bother me. Okay, it got under my skin. Fine. I hated it. But it was him. It was what he did. I expected it of him. I didn’t hold it against him. Mostly. And neither did the women, for the most part. They wanted a good time, and he provided.

But hearing Linus admit he had been with a woman who cared enough about him, about their intimacy, to invest in silk and lace twisted my stomach into uncomfortable knots. That type of relationship was what one friend ought to want for another one, right? The meaningful kind?

Fiddlesticks.

That was the difference.

Boaz might have gotten his itches scratched elsewhere, but he always came back to me. I never had to worry I would lose him on that front. Our friendship meant too much for him to supplant me. He didn’t invest emotionally in those girls. He was fond of them, but he didn’t love them.

Linus…must have cared deeply for the woman who taught him icing wasn’t meant for the cupcake but for the person about to take a bite.

I fell backward into Linus’s arms when the door opened without warning, and we both almost ate tile. I twisted sideways, hooking one arm around his bare waist while I gripped the countertop with the other. His arms closed around me, locking me against him. Fingers slipping off the marble, I held tight while I got my legs propped under me.

“I got you,” I panted. “You should have knocked.”

“I did,” he panted right back. “I thought you must have left.”

“No, I was just...” Slowly, I released my death grip on his person and unglued my cheek from his lukewarm skin. “You’re too naked for me to have this conversation with you.”

He kept me in the circle of his arms. “I’m wearing a towel.”

“You’re not helping your case.” Or the hot flash creeping up the base of my neck. “Let’s get you in bed.”

“What about my clothes?” He glanced toward his armoire. “If you could just—”

“I really need to get you in bed.” I winced at the instant replay in my head. “You’re a fall risk.”

“All right.” He sat on the edge of the mattress. “You didn’t strain yourself catching me, did you?” He cupped my cheek. “Your face is flushed.”

“I— No. No strain here.” I withdrew from him and fanned my face. “It was just muggy in the bathroom.” He started to rise, but I palmed the round of his shoulder and pushed him back down. “Do you have a modified pen in here?”

“In my drawer.” He indicated the nightstand. “What are you going to do?”

Knocking him out to avoid this conversation sounded amazing right about now, but that was an abuse of power, and it was also rude. I still considered it longer than I should have, though.

“I’m going to ink on more healing sigils. You’re perking up, but I want to be sure we flush the drugs from your system.” I skirted him to reach the pen then flicked my wrist. “Lay down.”

He reclined on his pillow, his lashes sinking lower. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You think you’re being funny, but no Southern woman under the age of fifty wants to be ma’amed.”

He did his best to restrain his grin as I sank beside him, leaned over him, and braced my left hand on the comforter. That propped me up well enough to start drawing sigils across his chest. I was determined not to glance any lower. Especially after I noticed the towel, which wasn’t big enough for a man, had parted over one of his thighs. Thighs that happened to be below his chest level.

Argh.

“Okay, you’re all set.” I practically jumped to my feet. “I’m going to leave the door open. Between Woolly, Oscar, and me, we’ve got you covered.” I made a point not to look him in the eye in case he had caught me leering. “I’ll be downstairs studying. Ignore the smell of burning feathers. Keet and I will be working on the whole familiar-battery thing. Bye.”

I bolted from the room with a wave and made it to the top of the stairs before smacking into Oscar.

“No running in the house,” he said smugly. “Those are the rules.”

“You’re right.” A quick glance over my shoulder gave me a prime view of Linus reclining on his bed. “Those are the rules.”

But sometimes rules are meant to be broken.