Page 66 of Wicching Hour

It took me a moment to realize the rumbling sound I was hearing was Declan growling, low and mostly to himself. I patted his knee. “I’m okay.”

“No,” he said. “You’re not. You’re going to have to start coming up to Big Sur with me. I can’t leave you here all by yourself.”

“You’re notleavingme” I said. “This is my home. I’m perfectly safe and can handle whatever gets thrown at me. I’m just trying to do that within the legal bounds of human society.”

When Declan started to argue, Osso growled, “Fight about it later. Do you still have the poisoned food in your truck?”

Jaw clenched, Declan nodded.

“Can you get it for me?” Osso asked, pulling out his notebook.

Reluctantly, Declan got up and left, his boots heavy on the deck as he went to his truck.

Osso sat on the coffee table beside me and lowered his voice. “He’s exhausted, trying to look after the pack and you, whether you need it or not,” he said, holding up a hand to placate me. “I get it. You’re a bad bitch, but he loves you. If you didn’t want a protective boyfriend, you shouldn’t have started dating a wolf.”

There was that word again. “He doesn’t love me,” I whispered back.

Rolling his eyes, he moved to my worktable and sat down. “Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.”

THIRTY

Beer: The Breakfast of Champions

Declan came back in and dropped the knotted garbage bag just inside the back door.

“This doesn’t look like your usual stuff,” Osso said, studying the watercolor and ink pieces I’d done last night.

Declan was clearly still worked up, but he walked to the table to see what I’d done, and my annoyance melted away. He cared and wanted me safe. It was as simple as that. He wasn’t the fae king. There was no resentment or jealousy, no desire to stifle me in order to feel more important. He worried about me, and wasn’t that lovely?

Declan stood behind Osso and joined his study of the four pieces. His jaw unclenched and his expression softened. He looked up from the worktable. “After what happened last night,thisis what you painted?”

“Oh,” I said, putting my feet up on the coffee table. “You haven’t heard the half of last night.” I told them all about my father and our journey, the orcas and rays, the whales, the cavern at the bottom of the ocean, and then about the queen. “I doubt she wants me to share what I saw when I touched her, so we’ll leave it as I saw something she hadn’t intended for me to see, and she gave me a map with two possible spots as Cal’s lair.”

The men stared at me, speechless.

“I know, right?” Declan was holding his stomach, so I asked, “Are you hungry?”

“What?” he responded.

Osso glanced over at Declan and told me, “You’re going to give him ulcers.”

Declan moved his hand and rubbed his forehead instead. “Your father took you out into the middle of the ocean, miles and miles below the surface, where the queen appeared and told you she had plans for you?”

I nodded. “That about sums it up.”

He went to my fridge. “I need a beer.”

“It’s morning,” I protested.

“Get me one too,” Osso said.

“And you’re on duty,” I reminded him.

Declan slapped a bottle into Osso’s palm and then they both popped off the tops and took long swigs.

“And I’d thought a sorcerer was the worst of our problems,” Declan said before he downed the rest of the bottle.

“Yeah,” I replied, “my dad wasn’t happy about it either. He said he really wished the queen didn’t know about me.”

---