I felt everything moving in slow motion, muddled and delayed by something. It was like constantly being on the edge of passing out from drinking too much, like on my twenty-first birthday when I’d tried to be like normal people. I’d hated every minute of it. Everything blurred into darkness and softness and a lingering trace of something very masculine.

But I woke up and there was only a slight sense of lingering disorientation. I pushed up on my elbows, once more in a strange bed, and managed to keep one eye open as I studied the room around me. It wasn’t the guest suite I’d been given at Evershaw’s giant house, nor was it in any of the coven’s houses. It was vaguely familiar, so I didn’t panic right off the bat, but I definitely couldn’t orient myself to figure out whether I should have been worried. I frowned, hungry and thirsty and confused, and froze as something moved under the covers next to me.

Screaming and running seemed like a great option until I heard the purring and knew the motorboat who wormed around under the sheets was Cricket. That was even stranger. Where the hell was I that they let me bring Cricket? And why would I even need to bring Cricket? Surely I wasn’t going to be away from home for long enough to make it sensible to drag the cat around.

He popped up from under the covers and immediately head-butted me, purring enough to rattle my brain between my ears, and started kneading his paws against my chest. He was my white noise machine; I immediately started to feel sleepy again, wondering if I could reasonably just fall asleep in a strange place like that. As long as Cricket didn’t act too stressed, there didn’t seem to be much use in getting energized.

And the bed was easily the most comfortable thing I’d ever lain on. The mattress was super sink-able and plush and perfectly soft, with the sheets smooth and cool against my skin and the down comforters creating a cloud-like layer over me. The pillows crushed easily under my head and made a convenient throne for Cricket as he maneuvered to knead his paws against my shoulder and sprawl across the top of my head. I reached up to scratch him, sighing.

“Wave your hand if you’re being smothered and need assistance,” a dry voice said from across the room, and I tensed.

Cricket growled and coughed a warning, but didn’t stop pushing his paws against my head and hair. I peered across the room as Evershaw appeared among the four plain doors. I hid a yawn behind my hand, a little perturbed that I wasn’t more upset at him walking into the room when I was half-naked in bed. “What…where am I? What the hell happened?”

His eyebrows arched as he walked a few steps closer, though he’d lost some of his arrogance. He actually looked relaxed for maybe the first time I’d ever seen. “You’re at my house, as we agreed.”

“Agreed?” I frowned and tried to sit up more, though I made sure the sheets were hiked up enough to cover all of me. My head ached and pounded at the same time. “I don’t remember that. And…this isn’t the guest quarters.”

“No, it isn’t.” He eased to sit in a comfortable-looking chair near the window, still a good ten feet away. “You ran when the fight with RedCloud started. We found you at home in the middle of passing out, so I brought you back here.”

I rubbed my forehead, earning a grumble from Cricket as I disturbed his rest, and struggled to find my way through the fog in my memory. The last thing I remembered was going to the coven meeting, parking my motorcycle in front of Palmer’s house, and the front door opening. Everything else kind of blurred into nothingness, then went completely dark until I woke up. My throat closed. What the hell had happened? Why couldn’t I remember anything?

Evershaw looked at his hands, his voice low. “I had Tom test your blood, since you were pretty out of it, and it came back positive for Rohypnol.”

“Rohypnol?” I shook my head. “That’s not possible. I was at a coven meeting. No one there would...” And then I heard what he was saying and what I was saying and realized someone at the coven probably would slip something in my drink. Estelle might have seen it as the only way to control me, the only way to know where I was going to be. Maybe she wanted me trapped at Palmer’s house.

My hands trembled as I tried to smooth the tangled hair out of my face, the snarls of a rough night even worse after meeting Cricket’s paws and claws. I couldn’t formulate a coherent thought, and I fought the scary blankness in my memory for a hint of what had happened. All my joints ached and it felt like I had a sunburn all over, my skin too sensitive and tight. My eyes burned at the hint of such a serious betrayal. I could have passed out anywhere or died alone in my house or been attacked while I was too out of it to defend myself. Who could hate me enough to do that?

“Smith checked you over and didn’t think there was anything magically wrong—just the drugs. He couldn’t find anything else that would have caused the disorientation and slow heart rate.”

I blinked and dragged Cricket into my lap so I could sit up more and distract myself from Evershaw’s unnerving attention. The man had focus like I’d never seen, and when all of it landed on me—and wasn’t backed by fury and arrogance—I didn’t know how to react. It made me feel all shy and uncertain, and I became acutely aware that I did not have pants on and I wore a big T-shirt that wasn’t mine. “A medic and Smith? Who am I, the queen of England?”

The corner of his mouth twitched, but the rest of him looked a touch uneasy. “We cannot afford to lose you.”

Of course. I looked up at the ceiling, sighing, and worked my fingers into the soft creamy fur on Cricket’s stomach. He purred louder, rolling around, and braced his back paws against my side so he could rub his back in the sheets. “Right. Although—didn’t you catch the poisoner? Smith’s geas should have disappeared the moment the danger was addressed.”

Evershaw frowned and rubbed his jaw, the gentle rasp of his hand against the beard filling the room. “I don’t know. Is there a way to test it?”

I waited for the cursing or some kind of joke, but it was like someone had hexed him with a different personality entirely. Cricket started chirping when I stopped scratching under his chin, so I had to focus on placating the giant cat before I could make myself look at Evershaw again. “I guess I could try to hex you and see what happens.”

His eyebrow arched. “Let me clarify. Is there a way to test it that doesn’t get me killed?”

“Not a killing hex,” I said. A smile started to slip free, even though the underlying terror of the gaps in my memory lurked just in the background, as I started to relax. “Just a…prank.”

Evershaw pondered it for a moment, then stretched his legs out in front of him and studied his socks. It seemed suddenly intimate to see him in his socks, like we were used to seeing each other in the morning before we’d decided to face the day. “Okay, then. Give it a whirl.”

“Why are you being so nice?” I blurted out. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Something was definitely off, and it wasn’t just my memory. “Don’t be nice. It’s too weird.”

His smile twisted. “I’m not always an asshole.”

I focused on Cricket so I wouldn’t see his face or those calm dark eyes studying me. “I don’t think I’ve seen you be civil to anyone, Miles. Am I dying? Is that why you’re being nice?”

“And you’ve been a coldhearted bitch for most of our time together, but that isn’t all that you are. Right?”

I recoiled, although maybe I’d deserved it. He didn’t say it with malice, just an observation, and even though it was something I knew about myself and even practiced, him saying it hurt more than I thought it would.

He must have seen my reaction, because he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Just because we’re one person in public doesn’t mean that’s really who we are, Deirdre. Don’t you agree?”

I cleared my throat to try to get rid of a sudden knot; I didn’t want him to think I was a bitch, although I couldn’t tell why that had changed. I’d relied on being a total witch to protect me, and yet somehow, somewhere, he’d gotten around that. A vague memory of a gentle stroke of my cheek, a hand warm on my knee, and the firm muscle of an arm supporting me drifted over the surface of my mind and made me flush from head to toe.

His head tilted as he studied me, a hint of a smile touching his face, and I wondered if he could read minds. Evershaw didn’t even blink. “I don’t think you’re actually a bitch, Deirdre. I think you’ve been hurt and you don’t have many people to trust. And anyone you let in or rely on...” He gripped the arms of his chair. “You trusted Smith and he betrayed you by tying you to me.”

I avoided looking at him. “Well, I should have learned my lesson the last time that sort of thing happened. Fool me twice, you know.”

“I know,” he said. “Believe me, I know. But I would hate to see—” He ran his hand over his mouth, like he wanted to hold back the words, then sighed and tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I would hate to see this make you cold. Colder, perhaps. Don’t block more of yourself off, Deirdre. You should try to stay open to people, to experiences. Don’t let the world make you hard.”

“You’re one to talk,” I said, trying for levity. I drew my knees up to my chest so I could rest my chin on them, studying him when I thought he wasn’t looking. “You’re the king of blocking yourself off.”

“Yes, but I’m a bitter, angry old asshole,” he said. His smile widened just a touch. “You’re still young and beautiful and powerful, and it would be a shame to see you retreat from all that.”

Beautiful. My nerves thrummed in warning or anticipation; both felt the same. He thought I was beautiful. After all the shouting and magic and threats, he thought I was beautiful.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” he said.

Maybe he could read minds. I sniffed and put my shoulders back. “I don’t see how you acknowledging a simple fact would go to my head. I’m objectively the most beautiful person in this whole building, clearly, so why should that feed my ego?”

He snorted, lacing his hands behind his head, and eyed me where I sat. “Yeah. With your hair like a rat’s nest and wrinkles in your cheek and an old T-shirt, you’re real hard to resist.”

I wanted to laugh but I couldn’t give him the satisfaction. “You’re not a very clever wolf, if you’re insulting me right before I hex you.”

“Do your worst,” he murmured, his eyes flashing with something that could have been mirth or desire or just amusement. “Let’s see what kind of firepower you’ve got, witch.”

Maybe we were flirting. Were we flirting? What the hell had happened between the coven meeting and waking up in that bed? Why was he suddenly relaxed and talkative and nonthreatening? It was like he’d decided he didn’t want to scare me, or at least wanted me to stay around. Maybe it was because Smith’s geas no longer obligated me to save his life. Maybe he wanted me to join the pack or be their captive witch.

But the way he watched me, his head tilted, and the hair that fell a bit over his forehead definitely distracted me from the possibility that his kindness came from ulterior motives. I carefully put Cricket on his own pillow so he wouldn’t get caught in any of the hex, and rubbed my hands together as I eyed Evershaw. I had a particular hex in mind that I’d occasionally used against the extended family and unwary coven members when I was young enough to pretend my magic had gotten away from me.

And he would look quite fetching soaked through and covered in enormous soap bubbles.

I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and untangled the sheets, just in case I needed to get out of the way if he lost his temper, and ignored that my legs were bare from mid-thigh down. Before I could react to the way his gaze drifted down to consider my thighs, I held my hands out and dragged the hex out of my memory to send at him.

The moment I thought of hexing him, of doing more than just joking about it, static snapped through me and suddenly I was on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.