Page 22 of Forget Me Not

Cal was not calming down.“What if…what if the bond was all there is? This instinctual thing telling him he has to be with me even if he doesn’t like me? I mean, he’d have to get to know me all over again. Last time, he didn’t even…we just worked together and I grew on him. Like mold.”

“That’s bullshit.”Benny seemed irritated now.“Knock it off or I’ll hug you.”

“It doesn’t feel like bullshit right now,”Cal protested quietly.“It feels real. What if it was just the bond, Bens? What if without it, we’re not…. You know what I’m like. You know what he’s like. He won’t want to hurt me, so he’ll just…stick around and be embarrassed when I get distracted in the middle of making a sundae and he finds the melted ice cream. Or annoyed. And he’ll try to hide it—terrible fucking liar that he is—and get snappish and clean it up and hate me and—“

“Okay, you are officially overthinking now. Do you need to sit down and put your head between your knees?”

“Am I hyperventilating?”Cal wondered breathlessly, pulling in air without much pause to exhale.

Ray was up and halfway to the door before Penn grabbed his arm.

“Ray!” she hissed. “Calm down, for your own sake. Please? I’ll go get him, okay?” She poked Ray in the chest once, hard, to make sure he didn’t move, and then she went off in the direction of the kitchen and then the garden.

Ray thought his hands were clenched but didn’t stop to check for claws. Penn’s nearly silent footsteps reached the outside of the house, and then she spoke, measured and careful.“Cal, if you could… oh.”Ray swallowed a rumbling growl as he imagined what Cal must look like for Penn to falter. Penn started again.“If you could come back, please. I think that would be the easiest thing for the both of you right now.”

Cal didn’t answer. Not out loud. What sounded like a light-footed stampede followed and then Cal was bursting back into the room, wet sparkles all over his reddened face. He looked Ray over intently before he’d even fully stopped, far away again, in the doorway. But at least he wasn’t crying any longer.

Ray took a long, deep, sweet breath and held it for a moment before letting it out.

Cal studied Ray’s hands, his shirt with its blood-stained buttons, his eyes, and then exhaled with Ray. “I didn’t leave,” he said, perplexingly. “I won’t. I just went outside. The fresh air was…it helped me think clearly. Wake up, I guess.”

“Do you need a lot of sleep?” Ray heard himself asking, just as confusing. “Most fairies don’t seem to. You should rest.”

Penn gave Ray an arch look as she slipped around Cal to come back into the room. “Wow, Ray. You really do ignore your own problems to worry about someone else.”

“I’m his favorite person to worry over,” Cal informed her without looking away from Ray. He wiped his cheeks dry and dragged his palms over his jeans. “Or, I was, I guess. Although, you know, if I had to deal with everyone’s emotions all over me all the time, I’d be a lot less controlled than Ray always is. Usually is. Sorry.”

Benny came up behind Cal and seemed a little startled when Cal turned toward him and practically climbed into his arms. But he patted Cal’s back and exchanged a glance with Penn before facing Cassandra. “Did you figure out what it is?”

“She doesn’t think it’s a curse,” Penn filled them in. “Not a human one, anyway.”

“Powerful magic to knock out—or practically knock out—a werewolf and then inflict some very specific damage.” Cassandra gentled her tone for the first time since they’d arrived, probably for Cal. “An old fairy would be that powerful. Though I can’t see the motivation.”

“Fairies like Ray,” Cal mumbled into Benny’s neck. “Despite the…” he waved one hand vaguely, “thing.”

“Wolf thing?” Ray wondered.

“Cop thing,” Cal answered shortly.

Penn noisily cleared her throat. “He is right, though. Rare though it is for a fairy to report a crime, they prefer to talk to me or you, Ray.”

Ray met her gaze. “That’s not personal. That’s just because we’re the only beings there.”

Cal scoffed, still hiding against Benny.

“This feels personal,” Ray insisted, arguing with a set of wings. “They should have killed me.”

He was abruptly confronted with swirling, furious fairy eyes. “Raymond Branigan,” Cal’s voice was hoarse, “shut up.”

“But they could have.” Penn was frowning now. “They should have. If they were close enough for this, whynotjust kill you?”

“Penelope!” Cal shouted.

Benny patted the top of Cal’s head but looked thoughtful. “Maybe they couldn’t. They meant to, but something stopped them, or the magic went wrong. It’s easy to get wrong.”

“Everyone take a breath,” Cassandra ordered, still petting the murderbird watching Ray. “The facts as I know them: whatever it is has not strengthened but so far shows no signs of weakening. However, no spell lasts forever on its own—if it is a spell. Like anything else, it requires energy to keep going.”

Penn was tentative as she broke the silence. “What does that mean?”

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