Page 8 of Wildfire Witch

The sun was setting and the breeze chilly as it stroked through the red tones of my hair. I didn’t shiver, nor was I wearing a jacket despite the cool fall day. Aodhnait provided all the heat I needed.

As I headed down the sidewalk, resigned to a several hour walk to the address Ceridor had given to his and Seth’s apartment, there was movement in the parking lot. I whipped my head in that direction and lowered my duffel to the ground, making a fist and preparing to super-heat a fireball within it for self-defense.

It was Ceridor, still glamored, poking his head out of the driver’s side window of a car. “Where are you going with all that?” he asked in a panic.

I stared back at him, noting the placement of his car. “Were you watching my apartment?” I countered.

“Tell me you’re not fleeing.” He cut his car’s engine and rushed out to stand in front of me.

I put the emergency kit down too and propped my fists on my hips. “Fleeing, Ceridor? It’s the twenty-first century. Also, you didn’t answer my question.”

He stared down at me, unamused. “As you have not answered mine,” he rumbled.

Heat pooled low in my belly. He could growl like that at me any time he liked. But there was more than just anger in his expression. By the way he looked at me and the stuff I’d packed for a long trip, he was clearly putting two and two together and showing a hint of…vulnerability. Fear, maybe.

But I wasn’t running away from him yet. He still had information I needed and magic that could calm my own. I putmy palms up. “I know what it looks like, but I was just starting the walk to your apartment,” I said.

“Walk,” he repeated.

“I don’t have a car.”

His long lashes fell in a disbelieving blink. Then he bent and took my kit and duffel. “My wife will not be walking,” he muttered.

“Hey,” I protested, following when he carried my stuff to the trunk of his car and deposited them.

“He’s very helpful,”Aodhnait commented.

Ceridor lifted my backpack’s straps, and I moved my arms so he could take that, too. He shut the trunk and gestured for me to get in the car. If he wanted to drive me, by all means.

“So?” I said once I was buckled in and we were rolling away from the apartment complex. The sun’s angle lent a glare to the surrounding vehicles.

The glance he gave me was more silver than blue, a glimpse of his fae power lifting the little hairs on my arms. “Is everything you own now in the trunk?” he asked. He sounded unhappy.

“Are you still not going to tell me why you were watching my apartment?” I countered.

Lips pinching, he said, “I was following my responsibility to keep you safe. It displeases you to know I was guarding you?”

He was completely serious. I stared, considering what I wanted to say next carefully. He was obsessed. We’d only just met…but, no, that was just my perception of things. “I know our situation is, um, unique?—”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel and he interrupted quickly. “I have only just found you, Verity. I can’t risk losing you. Not again. These centuries without you, they have been…unbearable.” He cleared his throat as my brows bunched into a scowl. “Sorry. It’s Nix now. For all you know, I’m a stranger.”

“Yeah.” But wow, my heart hurt when his expression shaded with pain. Half of that was Aodhnait, but I still felt bad for this intense man and the situation my curse had put us in. “That doesn’t mean we can’t start over, I guess.” By his flinch, that was not the right thing to say. I lowered my voice. “I’m nottryingto hurt you. But you are coming on really strong.”

He took a long inhale, and the static feeling of his magic disappeared from the space between us. By the time he was done, his glamor was perfectly in place, as was a stony face he’d probably perfected as a guard long ago. “My apologies, Nix,” he said.

I nodded, letting us lapse into silence. That didn’t mean I had peace, though.“Tell him about the Fire Brotherhood,”Aodhnait urged.

“Ijustgot him to back off,”I argued.

“Maybe when we run from this place, he will know where to go next! Or he can come along and protect us.”

I studied the roadway to avoid side-eyeing Ceridor.

“We’ll bring the water witch too,”she added.

“No. They’re strangers.”

“Now you’re just being stubborn because I’m right. They have a car we can use.”

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