Shay blinked at Nicole’s words.

She cared about him.

Sure, he’d felt her desire for him, her dreamlike longing. That was nothing new. Many women found him attractive. But no one had ever cared about him. He wasn’t even sure exactly what the word meant.

Responsibility. Obligation. Those were concepts he understood. That’s where his determination not to let any tragedy befall the Starlings had come from. Wasn’t it?

He was just looking out for those who had sheltered him. It was logical. Transactional.

But the emotion in Nicole’s voice when she said she cared about him—that was something else entirely.

It went deeper than simple desire or a mutually beneficial contract. It plucked at that tender spot in the center of his chest again.

“Why would you care about me?” he asked. “You barely know me.”

“That’s not exactly true,” she said. “You’ve lived above the store for a while now.”

“And in all that time I only said six words to you.”

“Seven words,” she corrected him. “And just because you were ignoring me doesn’t mean I was ignoring you.”

Ignoring her. That’s what he’d been trying to do. He’d done everything in his power to avoid her. Anything to avoid looking in her beautiful eyes, avoid hearing her voice, avoid any contact at all.

But it had all been in vain.

The intoxicating caress of her soul had found its way to him all the same.

“Of course, I hoped one day you might break down and talk to me,” she said.

“I never would have.” It was a hard answer, but it was the truth. A prick of regret stabbed at his heart as the corners of her lips dropped down in disappointment.

“Yeah,” she said. “I figured I wasn’t your type.”

His brows pulled together. “My type?”

“You know. The type of girl you like to talk to.”

He didn’t tell her that he hadn’t spent much time talking to any women over the years, no matter their type.

Still, there was something in this conversation that intrigued him.

“What would make you care for something more than your own life?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You nearly died banishing those soldiers from this shop.” It was nothing short of a miracle that he and Emily had managed to keep her in this world long enough for Merlin to draw the magic out of her. “Why would you choose to do that?”

Nicole lifted her chin. “Because if someone like Marrow figured out how to break the bonds that kept him out of the grimoire the consequences would be catastrophic. Countless people could die.”

“People you have no connection to.”

“Why should that matter?”

She couldn’t be serious. “Because you only have one life.”

“So do you.” She laughed. The beautiful sound filled his senses. “So does Emily. So do your friends. I’d be a monster if just stood by and let you be slaughtered.”

Emily’s life, Shay understood. They were bonded in friendship, which meant a whole lot more in this world than it did in his. He didn’t agree, but he understood. But the rest of them? Her words only left him with more questions.

“You were thinking about our lives?”

“Why is that weird to you?” She shook her head. Confusion radiated out of her. “Is it really so hard for you to understand?”

Her dark eyes were filled with a desire to understand. The innocence in her expression shot right through him. Getting closer to her had provided no new answers, only more questions. It seemed the experience was the same for her.

“What if I had been the only one in the store?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, but he couldn’t seem to keep himself from asking the question. “Would you have acted any differently?”

“No.” There was no hesitation in her voice. “I know that makes me sound pathetic, risking my life for a guy who wouldn’t give me a second glance, but I really don’t care.”

“You're not pathetic.” She was the furthest thing from it.

“The thing is, I felt a connection to you the first moment I saw you.”

Shay stilled. Now he knew he didn’t want to know her answers. Not because they were incomprehensible, but because they were everything he’d felt for her.

“Without saying a word, it was like I knew you,” she continued. “It was magical. Of course, now I realize that was because you are magical.”

The intensity of her emotions grew with each word. Her honesty shot right through him, baffling him even more than before.

She’d been feeling the same things he had these last few weeks. She’d been tuned to his energy, like he’d been tuned to hers. Note for note. Beat for beat. But they’d dealt with it in opposite ways. She’d tried to open her arms; he’d closed himself off. She’d spoken the truth; he’d kept his mouth shut. She’d risked; he’d retreated.

But that was only because he knew the risks. He knew what was at stake, and he’d done what he could to protect her from the danger he posed.

But it hadn’t mattered. The worst had happened anyway. Nicole had not only been dragged into their war with the fae, but he now held a piece of her soul.

Which meant there wasn’t any harm closing some of the distance between them.

“You aren’t pathetic,” he said, cupping a hand around her upper arm. “And you weren’t wrong to hope.”

The words felt strange leaving his mouth. They were a kind he’d never spoken before—a personal kind. The intimacy felt foreign to him.

Being a jinni meant knowing the secrets of so many creatures. He held all their hidden hopes and all their desires inside him. He fed off their power.

But Nicole wasn’t afraid of the truth. She didn’t run from the darkness inside her. She might not put it on public display, but she didn’t turn away from it. She faced it. Dealt with it.

It wasn’t that Nicole didn’t have shame, he realized. It was that her painful emotions didn’t control her.

Shay knew all too well what happened when shame took over a person’s actions. That’s when they turned to him, desperate to sell their very souls to make the pain go away. He wasn’t willing to live that way.

And that meant he needed to take a page from Nicole’s book. If hiding hadn’t helped him, maybe stepping out into the light would.

“I didn’t ignore you because I…disliked you.” Despite his best efforts the words still came out haltingly.

A puzzled frown pulled down the corners of her mouth. “So, why did you?”

“To protect you.”

“From the fae?”

Shay shook his head. “From me. When I moved in you had no idea you were allowing a monster to move in above your shop.”

“You’re not a monster,” Nicole said.

“You only think that because I’ve shielded you from what I really am,” he said. “You’ve known me as a man, as a mortal, not a jinni who could tear your world in half.”

She blinked. “That’s not something you’re planning on doing, are you?”

“That all depends on you, and your second wish.”

She gave a relieved laugh. “Well, then it looks like civilization will get to continue on for at least one more day.”

She wasn’t taking him seriously, but he knew how to make her listen.

“I thought about killing you last night.”

Her laughter died in an instant.

“Excuse me?”

Shay didn’t clarify. He knew she’d heard every word. He knew from the pulses of barely contained panic shooting out of her.

An unfamiliar part of him wanted to rush over and tell her that he wasn’t going to hurt her, but he couldn’t. Right now he needed to be cruel to be kind. So he let the statement hang in the air between them.

Eventually, Nicole was the one to break the silence.

“Why would you think about that?”

“I thought about how your death would solve so many of my problems,” Shay said. “How I would be free to do as I pleased. How I would still retain a sliver of your soul’s power, and might be able to use it to access the power of your grimoire.”

It was all true. Every one of those thoughts had flitted through his head last night as he worked on warding the bookshop. They weren’t unusual. He often thought of all the ways he could exploit the loopholes of a creature’s wishes.

What he didn’t tell her was that this was the first time in millennia that the thought disgusted him.

“But you can’t hurt me.” Her lips trembled as she spoke, and her words came out shaky. “You promised to protect—”

“The shop,” he finished for her. “Your wish was poorly phrased. You only asked me to stay by your side to protect the store. I’m under no obligation to protect you. I could’ve snapped your neck the moment you finished making your wish if I wanted to.”

She scooted back on the countertop, moving farther away from him.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you shouldn’t waste your energy caring about a monster.”

Nicole tried to draw in a deep breath, but her chest was too tight. The man she’d had a crush on, the man she thought she knew, wanted to kill her.

No, that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t say he’d wanted to. He’d said he’d thought about it.

It wasn’t a huge difference. Not to her at least. But to Shay, a jinni to whom the meanings of words were very important, it might be everything.

She forced herself to take a moment to calm down and think about what he’d said…and what he’d left out.

When she thought about it objectively, he was right. Killing her would have solved a ton of his problems. “But you didn’t do it. Why?”

He cocked his chin slightly to the side. Obviously, he hadn’t been expecting that question. He’d been looking for another reaction all together. Fear, defense, distance—that’s what he’d been hoping for.

Well, too bad. He wasn’t going to get it. Not when she could now somehow feel the longing inside him. It wasn’t a desire for sex or violence or anything so animalistic.He craved something else. Something deeper.

Nicole had no idea how she knew this about him. She only knew she did.

The knowledge made it easier to endure Shay’s long pause. He looked at her. Then down at the floor. Then back up at her. He was uncomfortable. Maybe for the first time in his life.

That was okay. She could wait him out. After all, it wasn’t like she was going anywhere.

“Because I didn’t want to,” he finally admitted. “I found even the thought of hurting you made me sick.”

Well, that was good to know…sort of.

“Almost sounds like you care about me.”

“Appreciate,” he was quick to clarify.

Apparently, the difference was important to him. Almost as important as staying alive was to her. “So, you’re not going to kill me?”

“No.” His dark hair swept across his brow as he shook his head. “I swear I will never harm you.”

Nicole did her best not to giggle at his solemn tone. He sounded a little too serious, as if he were a medieval knight making an unbreakable oath to his queen.

“You don’t have to swear,” she said. “Just so you know, enduring other people's existence is just considered common courtesy here on Earth.”

“And just so you know, we jinn don’t give our promises lightly, or our respect freely.”

Respect. So that’s what he was talking about.

“I can think of an even better way to show me respect,” she said, jumping off the edge of the counter. She landed right in front of Shay, and smiled. “Talk to me.”

The tight lines of confusion were back around his mouth. “Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”

“Not chit-chat. Really talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in your head. Tell me what you’re thinking. What you’re planning. Tell me the truth. Don’t keep me in the dark.”

He pressed his lips together tight. “That will be difficult.”

“Really?” Nicole didn’t hold back her laughter this time. “More or less difficult than drawing ancient banishing magic out of the ether and into the world with your mortal hands?”

His pained look softened. “Not that difficult. I’m just not used to talking to anyone.”

“No one?”

He nodded.

“Ever?”

Another nod.

“Every creature in the Realm knows the risks of speaking directly to my kind,” he said. “They tend to keep their distance and with good reason. That’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to grow any closer.”

“Yeah.” Nicole gave an exaggerated sigh. “Just imagine the mistakes we could make. I might end up making a wish and owing you my soul or something.”

It took him half a second to realize she was joking, but when he did tiny creases appeared at the corners of his eyes. A smile? Maybe she was getting through to him after all.

She gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, enjoying the solid feel of the muscle underneath. The man might be both self-centered and far too serious, but there was no denying he had an amazing body. It almost made her wonder what he looked like with that shirt off.

No.

It wasn’t time to fantasize about the hot jinni’s body. It was time to start her day.

Nicole stepped toward the door, but she only made it a couple of feet before Shay reached out and stopped her. “Where are you going?”

Where did he think? “I'm going open the store.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Sure I can,” she said. “I just need to turn on the lights and open the door.”

The tense lines bracketing his mouth came rushing back. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” She pulled free from his grasp and turned all the way around. “Marrow and his army can’t get in here. You said your warding extended across the street, so no bad guys can make it through. I know there’s only a few hours of daylight left, but it’s either sit around and worry or get some productive work done.”

Shay stepped closer. Distractingly close. Nicole was beginning to think that he somehow knew how his nearness effected her and was using it against her. It was a dirty trick. Not to mention a damned effective one.

“I’m still worried someone or something might get through,” he said.

“You’re worried?” She raised her chin. “Worried about me?”

“You won’t be happy until I say it, will you?”

“Nope.”

A shiver ran through Nicole as he slid his hand down her arm. There was something about his touch. Something strange that caused her to feel more than just the physical sensation of his skin against hers.

It was as if she could feel his emotions. It wasn’t much, just a hint, a whisper. But she couldn’t deny the sensation. This sudden concern for her welfare—she could feel it. It was inside her, and yet it wasn’t coming from her.

This was Shay—his thoughts, his feelings, his spirit. Even the small taste she received sent shock waves reeling inside her. The depth of his soul felt so ancient and deep. It would have been terrifying if he weren’t so alluring.

The moment he pulled his hand away the feeling was gone.

“I’m worried if you open that door something bad might happen to you.” His expression was honest and strong. Just like the sense of concern that had just rocked her to her core.

Nicole sucked in a steadying breath. What the hell was happening? Was she imagining things? Was it a byproduct of yesterday’s magic?

Whatever it was Nicole was pretty sure Shay hadn’t felt it. At least, his face didn’t show that he had, and she couldn’t think of anything good that would come from telling him.

“It’s okay. No one can eliminate all the risks in the world,” she said. “They’re just a part of life.”

“I don’t think you understand what’s at risk.”

“Really? You think I don’t understand the danger?” Nicole laughed. For an ancient being, he was naive as hell. “You’ve never had to walk through this world while committing the terrible crime of having dark skin. Trust me, I know exactly how scary my world can be.”

“But you’re not afraid?”

“Of course, I’m afraid,” she said. “But if I let fear stop me, I’d never get anything done. So, there’s a seven-foot tall fairy out there who wants us dead. I am still going to go over there and open that door.”

Shay probably never had to face anything like this before. He didn’t have to worry about fear. He didn’t know what it meant to persevere in the face of danger. He was used to being invincible and dealing with eternity, not the events of the next hour.

“It’ll be okay,” she told him.

The simple promise must have done the trick because, as she walked over and flipped the row of switches on the wall, he didn’t try to stop her. The store filled with light. The nooks and crannies of the store came to life.

It looked like it was just another day inside Starling Books. Like nothing earth-shattering had ever happened there.

“See.” She smiled as she turned to face him. “Just another day in paradise.”