The daemon’s enthusiasm got away with him the first time, and he flung molten marshmallow from the end of his stick right into Clay’s hair. The way Clay shot up, smacking his head and howling, I thought he was on fire at first. But no, he was just being a drama king. The goo washed out of the wig no problem.

  Delight brightened the daemon’s face. “Deal.”

  Without another complaint, he fisted the back of Aedan’s pants and lifted him like a sack of groceries.

  “That’s not what I…” I bit the inside of my cheek. “Never mind.”

  Aedan hung low enough for grass to tickle his nose, but I was sure he would be fine.

  “I’ll get the cage.” Clay locked it tight. “Don’t want these little fellas to escape.”

  “No,” I agreed. “We don’t.”

  We backtracked to the pickup, where I waffled on my options.

  Had this been an official case, I could have had an agent come out, pick it up, sanitize it, and return it. But, as Clay was fond of reminding me, this wasn’t an official case. That meant one of us got the honors.

  A call had Clay shoving the cage back into the truck bed, leaving more scratches and dings.

  “Kerr.” He sat on the tailgate, and the truck creaked. “What’s up?”

  To give him privacy, I turned to check on the daemon. I found him standing with his arm relaxed, which dunked Aedan’s face in the piddly creek and held it there.

  “You know that won’t kill him, right?” I folded my arms across my chest. “He’s aquatic.”

  “He like water.” The daemon tried for innocent. “I give him drink.”

  The line was delivered with an air of benevolence, which I might have believed if I hadn’t seen him sigh when I informed him cosmetic alterations to Aedan’s appearance didn’t change his fundamental self.

  He might no longer have blue skin or visible gills, but they were only a layer of magic away.

  “You’re a brat.” I really had to stop finding his shenanigans adorable. “Put him in the truck, please.”

  The daemon lifted Aedan, cocking his arm, and I leapt in front of him with my arms outspread.

  “In the cab,” I clarified, which earned me a grumble. “Gently.”

  “Bad news.” Clay tapped my shoulder. “Ace and I have to roll out.”

  The daemon finished his task and returned to my side, stuffing his hair into my hand. “No go.”

  “You have to go.” I smiled at the show of solidarity. “It’s your job.”

  “Pet.” He gave me more hair. “Maybe I go then.”

  “Are you—?” I gawped at him. “You’re blackmailing me?”

  “Asa get in trouble if I not go,” he said thoughtfully. “That bad.”

  Karma for pocketing that fake camera to hold over the mayor’s head was swift in revisiting me.

  “Why you little…” I yanked on his hair. “That’s not nice.”

  “Your boyfriend is a toddler.” Clay snickered. “He’s going to tantrum any minute now.”

  “Don’t give him ideas.” I shoved Clay. “What’s the case?”

  “I don’t know if I should share intimate details with a part-timer,” he began. “This is real agent work.”

  The low-key bullying to return to active duty never ended with Clay. He wouldn’t be happy until we were partners again. But, as I liked to remind him, he already had a partner. He didn’t need another. Our team dynamic worked well for us. Plus, it allowed me to live a somewhat normal life between cases.

  Colby deserved to enjoy her endless childhood without the constant reminders of how she came to exist thrown in her face with each new case. I wanted to give her time to forget the darkness. Just for a little while.

  “Keep your secrets.” I cut him a smug grin. “Colby will tell me after you leave.”

  Clay, to make Colby feel like a valued member of the team while keeping her out of the field as much as possible, decided to teach her how to access the Black Hat Bureau database under my accounts.

  She could contact the Kellies. She could download case files. She could make work-related charges to my shiny new black card.

  Colby could do anything at my security clearance level. As me. But, for a curious moth, that hadn’t been enough. She dug and dug and dug until she hacked the system. She learned paranoia at my knee, and she had become vigilant when it came to skimming for any blips that mentioned either of us.

  I was proud of her. So proud. But hers was a dangerous undertaking for anyone, let alone a kid.

  Knowledge was power, and too much power was poison.

  “That girl.” He shook his head. “How did you get so lucky?”

  “What happened to her was as unlucky as it gets.” I leaned against the truck. “But she…saved me.”

  “Don’t give her all the credit.” Clay ruffled my hair. “You had to already be standing on the cliff for her to tip you over the edge.”

  For whatever reason, Clay had always believed the best in me. I still didn’t understand it. I was grateful for it, but it confused me then, and it baffled me now. How was he so sure of me? What did he see that I didn’t? And was it real? That was what concerned me the most. If I hadn’t known him pre-Colby, I would have worried he saw me following my Good Person Guide and bought into the act.

  “Anyway.” I forced my thoughts back to what mattered. “The case?”

  “A kelpie.” He watched the pups snoozing in a pile. “Three towns over.”

  Kelpies were ethereal horses, truly gorgeous fae beasts, who lived in bodies of water. They walked the roads near the waterways, tempting the unwary onto their backs. Once they had a rider, they galloped back to their home and drowned their victim before devouring them whole.

  They targeted humans. Specifically. Most fae were too smart to fall for their tricks.

  “What?” I glared at his phone like it might tell me different. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  Two aquatic fae breeds reported in the same area? Alabama wasn’t exactly a hotbed of fae activity.

  “No,” he agreed. “It can’t be.” He frowned. “You understand Samford might get pulled in by proximity?”

  Better to be crime scene adjacent than crime scene central. “Do your best to keep our problems quiet?”

  “You really have to ask?” He thinned his lips. “You know how kelpies are, though.”

  “Spook it in the wrong direction, and we’ll have a kelpie.”

  “Exactly.”

  Angling toward the daemon, careful to keep stroking his hair, I asked, “Can I see Asa before you go?”

  “You smell mad at him.” He snuffled me. “You never mad at me.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I said dryly. “Please?”

  “Fine,” he huffed but gave himself over to Asa for my sake.

  Influence over a daemon of his stature was terrifying for a person raised to hunger for power.

  Asa, and his daemon, were temptations in more ways than one.

  “Walk with me?” Asa held out his hand. “I would like a moment with you before we go.”

  The certainty that the sucker cleaning up this mess was me left me tired before I started.

  As our palms slid together, he exhaled a breath that mirrored the one parting my lips.

  Whatever this was between us, it was getting stronger, kiss or no kiss, and I couldn’t deny that.

  We walked the creek bed, the water a faint suggestion the farther we traveled from the truck.

  “You want me to kiss you.”

  “Um.” I planted my feet like that would throw on the conversational brakes. “Well…”

  “That’s why the distance,” he said, as if analyzing the problem. “I asked for your permission, but I didn’t follow through.”

  “The distance is because I want to give you as much space as you need to feel comfortable.”

  There.

  That sounded confident and concerned, not like a woman who fell asleep dreaming how he might taste.

  “I should have explained myself.” He angled in front of me and slid his hands over my waist. “I was…”

  “Nervous?”

  “Yes.” His thumbs smoothed across my hipbones through the denim. “I’ve never kissed anyone.”

  The air punched out of my lungs, and I couldn’t swallow enough oxygen to reinflate them. “What?”

  “You’re aware of the limitations on my person.” He eased farther into my space. “There hasn’t been a woman I have given such permissions to, only you, and I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  “I thought you changed your mind, or that you didn’t want me.” I leaned forward, resting my forehead on his chest. “I didn’t want to throw myself at you, but I was getting close.”

  “You’ve had sex.”

  Sweat slicked my palms, and I was glad he was no longer holding my hand. “Yes.”

  A lot of sex. All of it meaningless. Except the first time. But that act was borne out of necessity.

  He sought my chin, tilted my head back, and forced me to hold his vibrant stare.

  “Teach me,” he murmured. “I want to know how to pleasure you.”

  Heat curled through my middle as a blush painted my cheeks with a stinging brush.

  “Here,” I croaked like a laryngitic frog, impossibly sexy. “Now?”

  “Not unless…” A curious glint lit his eyes. “Do you enjoy sex in mud?”

  “No.” I flicked muck off my boot. “Mud is not great.” It got in too many places. “Water is okay.”

  The mention of water sent his gaze skating past my shoulder toward the truck and Aedan.

  “I meant to say that water is terrible.” I gripped his shoulders. “No one should even drink it.”

  A smile quirked his lips that brought my attention zinging back to his mouth.

  “Will Aedan stay with you?”

  “Yes.” I thought about the damage he had taken today. “He’s banged up, again, and I owe him.”

  The three of us could have rounded up the pups without his assistance, but he took the hurting for us.

  “He’s a good man.” Asa slid his focus back to me. “He won’t survive long without you.”

  “Your other half would be thrilled to hear it.”

  A soft huff of laughter was his only response.

  “Do you think you’ll be home—back?—tonight?”

  Home was too presumptuous, even if it felt that way with him and Clay, but there was no taking it back.

  “No.” He caught my hands as they eased down his chest. “We’ll stay in Munford until we corral the kelpie.”

  “I figured.” I toyed with the buttons on the front of his shirt. “Keep me in the loop?”

  “Of course.” He leaned down until his warm lips pressed against my forehead. “Will you think of me?”

  Without further ado, he turned us around, and we began the short walk back to Clay. No doubt, Asa had wanted to give me a second to compose myself before I answered him, since I had trouble articulating mushy stuff in the best of times.

  “I always think of you when you’re not here.” The honesty left me raw. “I like having you around.”

  The slow grin that spread across his face was radiant, and I wanted to stop and stare.

  Like a creeper.

  Or a lovesick fool.

  I wasn’t sure which was worse.

  “I would like to take you on a date when I return.” He flashed me a smile. “Will you go out with me?”

  “Hmm.” I scrunched up my face, pretending to think about it. “Depends.”

  The tiniest line appeared between his brows. “On?”

  “Whether Aedan has dragged me beneath the waves to his undersea kingdom to be his bride.”

  “I would kill him.” Asa brought my hand to his lips. “I wouldn’t be able to help myself.”

  “The first part I believe.” I held out a hand and wobbled it side to side. “The other part…” It hit me then, what he meant. “You mean the daemon would kill him.”

  “He would do anything for you. Name it, and it will be yours. Ask it, and it will be done.”

  The way his mouth lingered on my skin made me bold. “What would you do for me?”

  “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” His teeth scraped my skin. “I am utterly fascinated by you.”

  The tightness in my throat made it hard to swallow. “Same.”

  “Truly?” He jerked his head up to study me. “You mean that?”

  “I am utterly fascinated by you too.”

  And I was afraid of what I might do for him, if he asked me, if he needed me to do it.

  I had been a creature of bloodlust with flesh between her teeth, a monster with no morals or cares. That vicious, craven thing had been driven by her own selfish needs and wants. Imagine what I might do to protect those I loved, to keep them safe.

  For Colby, I had sacrificed that power, stepped out of that darkness.

  For Asa, I would paint my face in crimson and prowl back into the void.

  “I wish you two would mate already.” Clay wrinkled his nose. “This lovey-dovey crap gets old fast.”

  “Your ex-lover tried to kill us all last month,” I reminded him. “You’ve got no room to talk.”

  “I have bad taste in women.” He shrugged. “That doesn’t mean you don’t also have bad taste in men.”

  “We’re getting sidetracked.” I massaged my temples. “You two are leaving, yes?”

  “Yeah.” Clay turned serious. “I hate to ditch you with a mess, Dollface.”

  “It’s fine.” I wasn’t totally up a creek, well, yes, I was, but anyway. “Aedan can help.”

  Clay cocked an eyebrow at Asa. “That cool with you?”

  “Rue makes her own choices,” he said wisely then glanced at the cage. “She’ll need help with us gone.”

  “Okay.” Clay lifted his hands. “It’s not you I’m worried about, if you catch my drift.”

  “It won’t be a problem.” He rubbed a hand across his chest. “I think.”

  The daemon had trouble staying away when Asa was nearby, but maybe he would behave this time.

  What did it say about me that, deep down, I held my breath in the hopes he would be a brat as usual?

  “We’ll burn that bridge when we get there.” I checked, and the truck keys were in the ignition. “When do you expect those lab results?”

  “Maybe tomorrow.” Clay scratched his head. “I’ll check in with Lindy and see.”

  Lindy.

  I filed the name away, but off the top of my head, I didn’t recall having met a Lindy.

  Anyone with a private lab was worth remembering.

  “See you in a day or two.” Clay dragged me in for a hug. “Make my apologies to Shorty.”

  “I will.” I walked into Asa’s arms and rested my cheek above his heart. “No pony rides, okay?”

  “I will do my best to resist.” His arms came around me. “I expect to be wined and dined when I return.”

  A surprised laugh shot out of me, which must have been his intention, given his grin.

  “I see how it is,” I teased. “Spoil me with cupcakes to lure me in then turn the tables.”

  “I couldn’t help overhearing.” Clay wiped a smile off his mouth. “Rue doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body. You know that, right? Are you really leaving a date night up to her?”

  “I can do romantic.” I honed my glower on him, my competitive nature rising. “I will do romantic.”

  The joke was on him. I had read enough romance novels to plan a date night in my sleep. It might not be tailored to Asa and me, the way perfect moments unfurled in books, but I could do generic. No problem. All thanks to the education Clay foisted upon me when he stuck the first romance novel in my hand.

  “I trust her.” Asa stroked his hands up and down my back and whispered in my ear, “You’ve got this.”

  That he was cheering me on made me feel like a bad bet and more determined than ever to figure out a way to repay his thoughtfulness for the cupcakes he still sent daily whenever we were apart. He hadn’t fixed the quantity either, so I got mountains of baked goods to remind me of him whenever he was away.

  The girls thought it was swoony. I did too. Even if I fussed about the expense, I was pleased he felt I was worth it.

  “I appreciate your faith in me.” I breathed him in once more. “Drive safe.”

  Asa pressed his warm lips to my temple and shut his eyes. “I hate this.”

  “Me too.” I stepped away, forced my hands not to reach for him. “Okay, I need to get to work.”

  The night was wasting, and I had a shift at the shop in the morning.

  I climbed into the cab, and Asa shut the door for me while I strapped in. I cranked the engine, happy to hear it rumble to life with no problem. I hadn’t been certain the truck was abandoned on purpose, or if it suffered a malfunction during its ordeal with the pissed-off soon-to-be-momma dobhar-chú.

  Clay and Asa began their walk back to the SUV they would drive to their next assignment.

  Me?

  I elbowed Aedan until he cracked open one bloodshot eye, then began the slow process of unsticking the heavy truck from the mud gripping its tires. I wasn’t sure how the driver had gotten into the field. There was no obvious damage to the fence. He must have spotted a gate or road and used that.

  Which meant now I got the fun of backtracking to cause as little damage as possible.

  No Black Hat backing meant any repairs came out of my pocket.

  “I should have let Astaroth kill me,” he mumbled. “It would have hurt less than this.”

  “It wouldn’t have felt like anything at all,” I countered, “and you never would have felt anything again.”

  A quiet settled over him, but I couldn’t tell if he thought that was a good or bad thing.

  With a long night ahead of us, I put my temporary partner to good use. “So…where are we going?”

  That jarred him out of his head. “What do you mean?”

  “These pups have to go somewhere that’s not here. Where do you recommend?”

  “Coastal would be ideal.” He pushed himself up straight. “I have a friend who can take them to Florida.”

  “The Everglades?”

  Lots of paras called it home, and they were all invested in spooking off humans who got too close.

 

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