Page 18 of Threadbound

He fluttered his way through the broken pane, then slid out of his feathered form and into the fragile human body he needed in order to find and buy hot food. The magic fought him, leaving him trembling and sweaty and very, very cranky.

Bran knew he needed to rest and he needed food—but he couldn’t get food without changing form, and trying to sleep without eating would leave him even weaker tomorrow. So hetried to will his hands to stop shaking and crawled back out the window, pausing on the roof to look over at the glow in the half-breed’s apartment window and scowling at the odd tugging he felt under his breastbone as he looked at the soft light.

Not for the first time, he regretted allowing his curiosity to get the better of him. Regretted having walked into the half-breed’s stupid museum not once or twice, but three times.

It would have been so much easier if he hadn’t managed to put a person and a name on the other end of the thread that tied them together. Because now he wasn’t just the stupid half-breed. His name was Jamie, and he had a charmingly crooked smile that made his brilliant blue eyes sparkle and a soft voice that sounded like summer.

Chapter

Ten

It was the end of the day, and Jamie was making his last round of the rooms at the museum, telling the handful of patrons that they had ten more minutes before the museums closed. Most people smiled and thanked him, a few seemed more put out that Jamie didn’t offer to let them stay late, and others immediately began making their way back toward the main doors.

The same thing that happened every day at the end of the day.

Jamie came down a flight of stairs near the back of the pathology rooms, pretty sure he’d cleared out all the visitors, but then stopped as he caught sight—again—of the man looking down into the glass cases at the center of the room, trailing long, elegant fingers over the wooden frame of the display. As though he sensed Jamie’s presence, he looked up, his expression completely unsurprised at seeing Jamie standing in the shadowed doorway that led up to the second floor.

Now that he’d been seen, Jamie had no choice but to walk over.

“We’re closing in ten minutes,” he said, his tone a little more clipped than it usually was. He tried to smile to offset it, but the expression felt oddly forced on his face.

“Verra well,” came the response, the thick brogue shaping the words so that they sounded musical to Jamie’s American ears.

“Why are you back again?” he asked, then flushed, mortified at the fact that his mouth had decided to ask the question without consulting his brain.

He expected the man to get angry, or sarcastic, or at least to be offended or rude, but, instead, he smiled, a slight turning of his lips that was far too endearing an expression for someone Jamie was starting to suspect was stalking him.

Maybe?

Was it stalking if the guy only showed up to your work, but didn’t seem to be anywhere else? Jamie’d never had a stalker before. He kind of wished Trixie or Rob were here with him, both because the man was making him ridiculously nervous, but also for a bit of an outside perspective.

Who was he kidding? Trixie would probably tell him to get the guy’s name. Rob would tell him to get his number.

He was about to apologize for being rude when the man spoke again.

“I suppose I want to understand more about you.”

That was not what Jamie had been expecting, even given his speculations about the guy being a stalker.

“Me?” he blurted.

“Aye.”

“Why?”

The man tilted his head to one side, regarding Jamie with those vibrant green eyes, then shrugged. “Do I need a reason?” he asked.

“Do you always follow people at their work when you want to get to know them better?” Jamie asked.

“Just you,” came the blithe response.

“You could’ve just asked me to dinner,” Jamie’s mouth said. Sweat trickled down his spine, having nothing to do with the summer heat, given the fact that the museum was highly climate controlled.

Did you just tell your stalker to ask you to dinner, you complete dumbass?He was pretty sure Trixie would applaud his initiative. Assuming he didn’t end up dead in a ditch by the end of the night, anyway. Not that he was really concerned about something like that—the guy was a lot smaller than he was, for one thing.

“Verra well,” came the reply. “Would you care to join me for dinner?”

Also not what Jamie had expected to happen. Which was extra stupid because he’d literally just told the guy to ask him to dinner. But he’d expected the man to get flustered and leave, or tell him some other time or… something. Anything but actuallyaskhim to dinner.

---