Page 23 of Collected By the Crow

“How in the nine rings might I redeem myself now?”

Serenade her.

He turned to the pair of sleepy mates who now perched on the table. “Serenade her.”

You’re courting her, no? She has accepted your advances. A serenade is necessary for a successful courtship.

Qadaire tapped his chin. Was he courting her? He was, wasn’t he? She had accepted his advances thus far.

She would be expecting more from him now. He regarded the couple as they nuzzled each other, seemingly unable to help themselves. He wanted that for himself, with Cassandra. He could feel the phantom of her curves in the palms of his hands now.

“She loves music.” An idea took flight. “Surely there’s something here I can use.”

He searched the palace for instruments but only came up with the hollow metal rings and columns that’d been popular in the old days. When at last he found a few discarded harps, he rejoiced and went straight to the shop, laptop in tow.

He’d never found a subject he couldn’t conquer. If it was a serenade Cassandra required, he would learn to emulate this Jimi god of hers.

Chapter Thirteen

Cassandra

The short conversation with Ali was much needed. The crow at the window, however, was less appreciated.

Cass didn’t regret the heated moment with Qadaire. She’d been intrigued by him since the first moment, and attraction had blossomed closely behind. Deep below his rough surface there was a lion begging to be unchained. He couldn’t see it, but she did. Some people were born into misery and some chose it, but he seemed a mix of both.

Except when he coaxed her to let go. He radiated calm authority, his demeanor stable as metamorphic rock. It’d been easy to lay her burden on his shoulders. Absentmindedly, she rubbed the heel of her palm gently over her breast, where it ached around her areola.

Had she made a mistake? If he wanted something serious, she knew she would let him down. As one of her exes had so eloquently put it, she had the emotional availability of a Venus fly trap. Her habit of working late and ignoring everything outside of work, work, work, hadn’t boded well for intimate relationships in the past. A guy she’d been with for over a year said she’d Cassed it all up by not prioritizing him. At the time, it was a sucker punch.

Had she Cassed this up, too? She wasn’t herself lately, exacerbated by Zero’s sickness. But Qadaire made her feel alive. With him, the flow of work felt more like a dance and less like a race.

Ugh. She emptied her brain of thoughts and finished writing the note she needed to pass under her boss’s door. The crow had interrupted her train of thought. She wasn’t totally sure if he could see what the crows saw or if they communicated telepathically, but she hypothesized they communicated somehow. Never outside of the professional context, he’d said. That should still make her feel the ick, but after being around him, it seemed harmless. He seemed harmless. Aside from being of a notoriously bloodthirsty species and having murdered a descendant of Dracula for the sake of humanity.

When she’d first seen him, she’d been devastated that someone would be so drastically changed by some twisted science. Once she found out it was magic that’d caused his situation, she was no less heartbroken. Now, she wished he could get past his appearance and see how beautiful he was, with his otherworldly dexterity and wings as dark as night. His marvelous mind, full of problems and solutions.

She slid the paper under the door, repacked her things, and headed to her car. The whole way back, she calculated which words to say once she arrived. She could spend minutes, hours, sometimes days planning what she would say to someone about a boundary. Usually, she ended up saying something, but rarely was it exactly what she’d recited. I don’t think you meant anything by it, but I don’t appreciate being spied on. Now that I’ve agreed to work with you, you can stop checking up on me. Please respect my boundaries.

She stopped at her house for her favorite board game—The Quiet Pond, a palate-cleansing tile game that always calmed her down when played one-player—some treats for Zero, and more snacks. She’d spent way too long at the lab. Her muscles were sore, her eyelids droopy. She hurried around the house and sped down the road, streaks of pink lining the sky.

She didn’t bother knocking on the door. She pushed right in and tiredly beelined to the lab, suspecting Zero would be there under Q’s chair while he worked. Maybe vampire brains were wired that way, or maybe he had a bit of the same neuro-spiciness she did, but they shared the workaholic bug.

“Qadaire?”

The lab was empty. She paused in front of the row of chalkboards and followed the scrawled lines. Damn, this man was so fucking smart. Without having a sample of the new strand to work with, he’d calculated multiple possibilities and formulated plans for each, further evidence of his remarkable intelligence. She bit her lip at a wave of admiration. She was lucky to work with someone so inspiring. The rest of the world was missing out.

“Qadaire?” She wandered around the main rooms they’d occupied together, from the main lab and extra lab to the room she’d danced around in. His dinosaur of a laptop was sitting open on the table in their game room. Her hip bumped the table and the screen flickered on.

The open tab was an instruction video for learning guitar. It seemed she’d inspired him, too. She liked the fuzzy feeling that engulfed her.

A twinkle outside the window drew her attention. The telescope glinted in the sun. The sun?! She hadn’t slept a wink. Fuck. Her conversation with Qadaire would have to wait.

Zero was asleep on the bed when she walked in. She laid a treat in front of his nose and then curled up under the covers, wiggling her feet until her toes were under his warmth. She smiled to herself as she heard the wet chomp when he awoke enough to slobber down the treat, then she drifted off to sleep.

When she woke, her phone read 3:00 p.m. She rose, stretched, and leaned over Zero to scratch his belly. He trailed behind her when she headed to the lab, her belly full of moth balls. They certainly weren’t butterflies. The air between her and Qadaire would be uncomfortable for a while. She wondered if it would ever return to normal now. What’s worse, a trickle of heat pooled between her thighs at the thought of his dexterous hands. She wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to deny him, should he try again.

“Hey,” she greeted politely. He showed no sign of acknowledgment, though he’d probably known of her arrival sooner than she thought. Little dewdrop. The memory set one of the fuzzy insects in her tummy into flight. “Listen, about yesterday. I’m sure you didn’t mean anything by it, but could you quit spying on me? Please.”

Not a twitch. His top hands poured vials while his bottom ones took notes. Geez, he really was efficient with all those hands. She was a little jealous. And a little turned on.

---