Then she saw Shane.
He was fast asleep with his head on her mattress, his lanky frame folded in half and crammed into an uncomfortable-looking chair. There was an orange sucker half-hanging out of his mouth, and he had one hand protectively clamped on her leg.
He was snoring.
“Shane?” Her voice was rough, and she found it difficult to speak. She wanted water.
“Unh?”
“Shane, wake up.”
Finally processing what was happening, Shane snapped his head up, the sucker falling from his mouth and onto the floor. “Red?”
“Hey,” she said, still groggy. “What happened?”
“You almost died.”
“Did I…? Did the…?” Seeing a plastic pitcher next to her bedside, she nodded towards it, unable to raise her arms easily. He got to his feet and poured water into a paper cup, holding it to her lips so she could drink. The room-temperature water tasted better than anything she’d ever had. Once her throat no longer felt like it was coated in sandpaper, she spoke again. “The banishment?”
“It’s gone. You did it.”
Siobhan heaved a sigh of relief. When she placed a hand on her stomach, she gasped from the sudden shock of the pain. The scorpions swirled and jabbed at her.
“Hey, hey…gentle.” Shane lifted her hand and set it by her side, keeping it cupped in his own. “You’re lucky, you know. It didn’t get anything serious, but you lost a lot of blood. And I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who got that many stitches at one time. They even took care of the bump on your noggin you got the first time it hit you.”
She smiled weakly. The reminder of her head wound made the pain flare up anew. “Can you turn off the light?”
She remembered the first night she’d had him in her bed, when she’d tortured him with her lamp. This would have been the perfect moment for revenge, but Shane didn’t seem to have any interest in tormenting her.
“Sure.” He released her hand and flipped a switch on the wall. The overhead lights went out, but there were recessed lights that remained on, casting a cold blue glow over the room.
After a long pause, Siobhan said, “You sticking around?”
Shane took her hand again. “You want me to?”
She closed her eyes, trying to block out the searing pain the small lights caused her. “I don’t have much left. My people—well, what’s left of them—won’t want anything to do with me after this.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“I still need to defend the gate. The fae won’t stop coming. And I have to make sure something like that monster never gets out again.”
“You don’t need to justify yourself, Red. I kill vampires, remember?”
“Think you can deal with having a has-been druid tagging along?”
He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “I guess we’re going to find out. But if you turn out to be dead weight, I’m kicking you to the curb.”
Siobhan smiled and ran her free hand over his rough, stubbly cheek. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a stone-cold romantic, Shane Hewitt?”
He leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips, one so sweet it made her wonder if he was the same man she’d asked to sully her virtue.
Shane’s mouth brushed against her ear, and he whispered, “There’s a first time for everything.”
About the Author
Sierra Dean is a reformed historian. She was born and raised in the Canadian prairies and is allowed annual exit visas in order to continue her quest of steadily conquering the world one city at a time. Making the best of the cold Canadian winters, Sierra indulges in her less global interests: drinking too much tea and writing urban fantasy.
Ever since she was a young girl she has loved the idea of the supernatural coexisting with the mundane. As an adult, however, the idea evolved from the notion of fairies in flower beds, to imagining that the rugged-looking guy at the garage might secretly be a werewolf. She has used her overactive imagination to create her own version of the world, where vampire, werewolves, fairies, gods and monsters all walk among us, and she’ll continue to travel as much as possible until she finds it for real.