Scrambling up, I threw myself into the teleportation form one more time. The ache twanged through my limbs, but darkness snapped around me. And then I was stumbling forward, my shin bumping the coffee table in the garage-top apartment.
Gabriel appeared in the kitchen doorway. He blinked at me for a second. “Rose? I… wasn’t expecting you quite that fast.”
Maybe I should have given him more warning. I dragged in a shaky breath, swiping my hands across my face. “I’m sorry. I just needed to get out of the house, to get my bearings. And there’s nowhere on the estate I feel safe right now except here.”
“Hey.” He walked up to me and set his hands on my shoulders. “It’s not a problem. What happened?” His eyes darkened. “Who made you feel you weren’t safe over in the house?”
“It’s nothing you need to fix,” I said quickly. “There’s just so much… I’m feeling a little overwhelmed—not knowing if Kyler’s okay, and Derek just found the ‘proof’ I tried to plant and grabbed it before Dad could see it. And now Dad’s leaving for at least a day, because apparently he knows where my stepmother is…”
“Is there any way you can stop him?”
“Not without revealing my magic, and all the consequences that’ll come with that.” I drew my spine straighter. “It might not even be a bad thing. My spell on her should hold. It doesn’tseemlike he’s in on their plan. There’s just too much I’m still not sure of.”
A flicker of some emotion passed through Gabriel’s eyes. “I’m here,” he said. “Whatever I can do to keep you safe. You can be sure of that, at least.”
His hands were still on my shoulders, the heat of his body flowing from them into me. A pang of desire ran through my chest and down to my core. I closed my eyes against it.
I couldn’t have him like that. But there were simpler things I could ask him for.
“Can you just talk to me a little before I go back?” I said. “Anything that has nothing to do with witches or getting married would work.”
Gabriel laughed under his breath. “All right,” he said. “I can do that. Come sit down, and tell me when you’re ready for me to shut up.”
I followed him over to the sofa. We sat a short distance apart, but he reached out to curl his fingers around my hand, his gaze bright as it held mine.
“Do you remember that time—we were maybe ten or eleven?—and we found that stray kitten hiding out by the hunting cabin? Kyler ran to read up on how to handle feral cats and Seth snuck us into the kitchen to steal some fish—Damon acted like he was too tough to care about some cute kitten so of course he was the only one it really warmed up to.” Gabriel grinned. “Not that we were successful enough to keep it around for more than a few days before it went looking for new adventures. But that experience was actually useful a couple years back when I ended up sharing a hostel room in Costa Rica with a resident cat that might as well have been feral. The thing I realized…”
I sank into the sofa cushions, letting his warm voice wash over me, feeling my nerves settling even more. Knowing I was never going to be ready for him to stop. I wished I could listen to him talk all night.
* * *
When we’d finished our second round of euchre, Derek set down the cards. My body tensed. After listening to Gabriel talk about the mountains and the ancient ruins he’d explored, I’d been able to return to the house calm and collected—and not the least bit regretful that I’d made Derek wait a half hour for that card game I’d promised. But now he clearly had something else in mind.
“Why don’t we take a little time just to talk,” he said, but he immediately scooted his chair closer to mine. A jitter ran through my nerves. Somehow I got the feelingtalkingwasn’t exactly what he had in mind.
“Maybe I came on too strong the other night,” he said. “We don’t have to move quickly. I’m not asking you to let me into your bedroom. But it would be to our benefit to start getting to know each other alittlebetter before the consort ceremony, don’t you think?”
He set his hand on my knee, sending a shiver of revulsion up my leg. I shifted away and stood up. Dad had already left for his flight. I didn’t have to pretend I was still planning on getting consorted to this snake.
“I think we know each other exactly as well as we need to,” I said crisply.
“Come on now, Rose,” Derek said, getting up too. “What is it you need to feel more comfortable with me?”
I needed him to not have been plotting against me and sleeping with the staff and saying horrible things behind my back. Since I wasn’t going to get that, he was shit out of luck. But I couldn’t say anything about that.
As I turned over my possible answers in my head, Derek seemed to take my hesitation as giving in. He touched my shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like a little taste of your spark?”
Without waiting for an answer, he lowered his head to kiss me.
It was a soft kiss, meant to be gentle, but the brush of his lips made my stomach turn. I jerked my head to the side, and my hand shot up in a burst of anger, with a quick snap of a magicking just out of Derek’s view.
His expression twisted, his arm coming around his belly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think we’ll have to briefly postpone any—”
He scrambled around the table and dashed toward the nearest bathroom.
Philomena strolled past him with an amused glance. “Thank the heavens you got rid of him. What did you do to him?”
“Just made him feel even queasier than he made me,” I said. Maybe I’d let him stay that way until he decided to leave here for good.