Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

It took a bit more effort than I'd ever admit in order to coax my power back out of the night-of-the-living-dead roadkill, but soon enough, the raccoon had gone back to being a stiff legged little bit of kitsch.

As to where the other taxidermized things were? I was sure they'd be fine. Without the magic animating them, they'd just be a curiosity at best, and a conspiracy theory at worst.

I even felt a tiny bit better, what with that power soaking back into me. I still kept my forehead pressed to Lorcan's shoulder, though. He didn't need to know I was recovering.

"It would serve Hughes right if he had to reenact Pet Sematary," I groused.

"Sweetling—"

I held up a hand, interrupting him. "The man deserves some kind of punishment, Lorcan. Who tries to grift the Fae?"

Lorcan's hand smoothed up my spine, making me feel almost boneless. "To be fair, love, he probably didn't know Beddow was a Fae. Or that Fae are even real."

I snorted, unimpressed. "My point still stands."

I shifted to lean on him more fully, because really, what was super strength for if I couldn't take advantage of it? But then my foot kicked something in the dark. A long piece of broken shelving slid across the floor, and my heart seized at seeing the jagged length of wood. Just like that, fury detonated inside my chest, and I leaned back to start whacking Lorcan on the shoulder.

"You big undead dope!" I punctuated each word with another smack, ignoring the way he yelped and tried to grab my hands. "What were you thinking, just charging in like that? You could have gotten hurt! You could have gotten something worse, like dead—as in forever dead! Don't you ever put yourself at risk like that again! The last thing I want to do is worry about you like you made me worry about you tonight!"

He was a vampire. It was ridiculous to get so worked up about him getting hurt. I'd seen him shrug things off that would have laid other people out in the hospital for weeks or killed them. But I couldn't shake that fear that gripped my heart—fear that he'd come to help me, and he'd gotten hurt doing it. Knowing it was silly didn't actually make it any easier.

I just kept replaying that moment—when Lorcan's body had folded from the Nucklevee's kick, and he'd gone flying backwards through the shelf. That was a memory that was going to haunt my nightmares.

"Sweetling, I'm fine. Really."

I was too tired to really keep up the anger, and it guttered out faster than it normally would have. When he felt my arms drop back to his side, Lorcan reeled me in against his chest and tucked his chin on top of my head.

And if I melted into the hug, I'd never admit it, not even under oath.

Truth be told, it was a lovely moment. Peaceful and reassuring.

Right up until I felt something cool and damp soaking through Lorcan's coat under my cheek. I jerked back, something way too close to panic bubbling up from my gut and saw the red smear on Lorcan's coat. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest.

"Is that blood?"

"Darling—"

"—are you bleeding? Lorcan, why didn't you say something? Stupid, idiotic vampire, lie down. I'll get help. I'll get supplies. Just lie down."

Trying to push a vampire down, even one that was apparently injured badly enough for blood to be soaking through the cloth of his coat, was an effort in futility. Lorcan just stood there like a big, dumb brick wall, a vaguely sheepish look on his face. Like he was embarrassed by the giant chest wound.

"Sweetling, please. I'm fine, really." He cupped my shoulders, resisting my efforts to make him lie down, or elevate, or whatever people did when they're badly hurt. Though, ‘resisting' might have been too strong a word. He just didn't go along with what I was trying to get him to do, and that was enough to keep him firmly on his feet.

I was not hysterical. I did not dohysterical. I was simply getting a rush of adrenaline based on the fact that my husband was apparently too dumb to know what was good for him.

I started pulling at his coat, yanking it down his shoulders so I could take stock of the wound that, at this very moment, might have been killing him. "Don't worry, Lorcan, you'll be okay." My voice came out strange, squeezed down by the pressure of my heart in my throat. My hands were shaking as I undid the buttons of his shirt.

Lorcan took my hands gently in his and forced them to a stop. The skin around his eyes crinkled as he gave me a soft smile, squeezing my fingers gently. "Normally, I'd be a huge fan of you trying to tear my clothes off, and the concern is absolutely lovely, Sweetling. But I really am fine."

He kept saying that. But how could he be? Maybe he was in shock? Maybe he didn't realize how hurt he was, because he was losing too much blood.

With a little squeeze, Lorcan let my hands go. He looked down at the mess of red soaking into his shirt, staining the pale fabric. Frustration twisted his face, and he let out a sharp huff of breath as he ran one hand back through his hair. "Well, that's not ideal."

"Lorcan?" I searched his face, fighting back the tide of fear that threatened to pull me under at any second.

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sadly crushed box. It took me a moment to recognize the glossy packaging as my very favorite truffles. On the odd time I had a sweet tooth, they were my go-to. The Sistine Chapel of confections—dark chocolate wrapped around a raspberry liqueur center, with a hint of sea salt sprinkled over the top. They were delicious, and decadent, in all the very best ways, and the shop that made them only did a limited run to make them even more exclusive.

But the box was crushed past all hope of salvation, and thick red filling oozed out from the corners to drip down to the floor. Lorcan heaved an enormous sigh, his shoulders rounding forward.

"I drove all the way to Portland for these things and was on my way back when I got your request for backup."

"Which was why it took you so long to get here."

He nodded. "Bloody Fae. Did the Nucklevee not realize what a pain in the arse these things are to get?"

I blinked at him, still trying to piece together the fact that Lorcan hadn't, in fact, been stabbed. That the mess on his shirt was just the raspberry center from where the chocolates had burst.

"You drove to Portland?" He nodded. I shook my head. "To get my chocolates?"

He grimaced, the busted box balanced on his palm. "I was picking these up, special order. I could have hardly told you that, though, could I? Where would the surprise be in that?"

I was still so lost. The stress of the evening was catching up to me. It was barely an hour until sunrise, and I ached everywhere. My limbs felt like they'd been carved out of lead.

"Why would you go all the way to Portland for a box of chocolates, Lorcan? That makes no sense."

He reached back to scrub his hand over his neck and thought better of it when he realized his fingers had raspberry goop on them. "Well, they're your favorites."

I would not smile. I would not. It was not cute. It was dumb. And he'd scared me to death. "You drove to Portland to get chocolates for me?"

As if he could sense the crack in my armor, Lorcan tugged me closer. Luckily for him, he did so with his clean hand. "Well, of course. It was all supposed to be part of your anniversary gift. I had it all planned out."

I stared at him, my eyes narrowing dangerously. "You said you had to do a surgery on our anniversary. You said you were busy that night."

Lorcan grinned, flashing just the tips of his fangs. "Well, of course I did. How else was I going to convince you that I'd forgotten about it?"

"Forgotten about it?"

He nodded. "Yes, I've been planning a surprise for our anniversary for a while and the chocolates were just part and parcel of that surprise. Though, I'll admit, it was getting harder and harder not to give it away. I thought I was going to have to make up a symposium or something and hide in a hotel until Friday, or you'd have had me cracked like a nut."

The realization hit me like a sucker punch. Standing here, in the ruins of a gross old pawnshop that should have been condemned, looking up into Lorcan's face, I could see the faint lines around his eyes. They were a holdover from when he'd still had a pulse. I could see the tiny scar, just above his lip, that made him look a little less perfect, and a little more real. The beautiful green of his eyes, the cornsilk fall of his fair hair. It stunned me a little, how much I loved him.

A vampire.

A creature I'd been taught to hate, basically since birth.

And yet, he was the stupidest, sweetest man I'd ever met. So ruled by his sentimentality that I could almost forget the monster lurking underneath the urbane surface disguise. But he'd showed up tonight, just because I'd called him. And he'd fought, with fang and claw, he'd fought for me.

And he still did the silliest things, like drive all the way to Portland for chocolates, and sneak around trying to set up surprises, and trying to trick me into thinking he'd forgotten an important date. And more than that, I'd actually fallenfor it. He'd pulled one over on me. That was possibly hotter than the plan itself. Who knew he'd had it in him?

It all welled up in me, a fountain of emotions that I didn't think I could talk around, not without making an embarrassing spectacle of myself, and I wasn't that far gone that I was willing to get all maudlin.

So, to spare myself a little humiliation, I dragged him down to me with a grip on his collar, and I kissed him. I yanked him right up against my mouth and kissed him with every ounce of everything I was feeling, kissed him like I'd crawl inside his ribs to curl around his heart. I kissed him like I wanted to devour him in huge, desperate bites.

Lorcan made a little sound of surprise at the back of his throat, before his arm snaked around my waist and he dragged me closer to his chest. He kissed me back, and the world fell away. There was no weird old man passed out in the next room. There were no slivers of glass in my knees. We weren't standing in the rubble of a store like something out of an apocalyptic teen romance movie that I would have refused to watch on principle.

There was just the hot glide of Lorcan's tongue against mine, the press of his lips, and the firm wall of his chest under my hands. I finally had to pull away, because unlike some people, I still needed to breathe. Lorcan dropped his forehead to mine, and we just stood there for a long moment, hanging on to each other.

Then I pushed back far enough that I could see his face, and grinned. Lorcan knew me well enough to know that he should be concerned.

"Okay, Rowe. Spill it."

Lorcan blinked, still a little dazed from the kiss. "Spill? Spill what?"

I gave his chest a gentle slap, careful to avoid the mess of raspberry filling that was still soaking into his coat. The smell was divine. Way better than the dust and mildew stink of the pawnshop.

"You have to tell me what your plans are for our anniversary. And then I'll tell you what I had planned, and we can fight over which of us had the best idea. Whoever wins, that's the date we'll go on." He grinned widely. "So, come on, dish," I continued.

"I don't know," he began.

I shook my head, interrupting him. "You have to tell me. It's the rules."

Lorcan's shoulders started to jerk, and he just managed to turn his head away so that he wasn't laughing straight into my face. He buried his nose into my hair, doing his best to rein in the absolute guffaws that were trying to burst free.

"You are ridiculous."

I sniffed, tilting my nose up into the air. "Spoken like a man who knows he's going to lose. What's wrong, Rowe? Worried your dating game isn't up to snuff? Come on, tell me. I'm going to win, my idea is amazing, but I want to know how badly I beat you."

He could barely get the words out, his chest shaking, arms clutching at me. "It's not a competition, Sweetling."

"That sounds like loser talk to me," I said with a snort.

"Ridiculous," Lorcan wheezed. "You're absolutely ridiculous."

And then, before I could say anything else, he pulled me into him and stole my response with another kiss. The laughter shrivelled up, destroyed by the gentle movement of his mouth over mine, and the hands that cupped my face like I was something important. Something precious.

I barely even noticed the raspberry liqueur that was now soaking into my sweater.

Honestly, I didn't care.

Not one bit.

The End