Page 100 of The Deer and the Dragon
Even under the ugly, flickering lights, both men could have been gods on the runway. Az’s skin should have been greenish in the light, but alas, I doubted the man ever had so much as a bad hair day. And Caliban…well, I was still pretty frustrated over how badly I wanted him to rip off my clothes. Looking at him now, chiseled from starlight itself, I had trouble staying mad. Still, there was work to be done, though being sandwiched between two of Hell’s finest made focusing a challenge.
If the men saw the drool dripping from my lower lip, they pretended not to notice.
Caliban’s brow lifted. He tasted the name. “Azrames… Did you go by Farefax in the first century? I want to say it was until…”
Az’s face lit. “Ten sixty AD! Yes!”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Have you two met?”
Azrames looked like he’d met a celebrity. His glow was almost sweet enough to distract me. Almost.
“No, no. I was still going by Farefax when I met Fauna in the Viking Age.”
Pride glinted off of Caliban’s smile. “You were well known and deeply valued. I was wondering why I hadn’t heard anything.” He extended a hand.
Az’s eyes widened.
Caliban fought an obvious smirk at Azrames’s reluctance to take his hand. After a comical pause, the men shook.
“I already liked you, Farefax, but now that I know you’ve been taking care of Marlow and know her Norde—”
“Know,” I snorted. “Oh, sorry. Heknowsher in the biblical sense.” I giggled at my own joke as I looked between the demons. “Anyway, they’re star-crossed lovers. I’m not totally sure what Fauna is to me, other than my sugar-addled bully of a Nordic nymph, but apparently Hell and the Nordes have excellent…relations.”
Caliban’s smile remained as he released Azrames’s hand. “Hell has good relations with all realms but one. We’re either lauded as partners or politely ignored, which is how we like it.” He jutted a thumb to the catatonic clerk staring blankly at the wall over our shoulders. The man hadn’t so much as blinked since we’d entered. “That your handiwork?”
Azrames dipped his chin. “Indeed, it is.”
Caliban clapped him on the shoulder once. “Then I know he deserved it.” He frowned, then slipped his arm around my waist as if to comfort himself. It seemed to work, if only slightly. “This isn’t how I imagined the day Love finally wanted to end her mortal cycle, but alas, here we are, and we have a lot of day ahead of us. Shall we stick around this little haven? Or do you want to meet the Phoenician goddess standing between us and a good time?”
It was my turn to frown. “Could you two do what Fauna does? Step into mortal bodies?”
They exchanged looks. Azrames shook his head. “I can’t speak for the Prince, but I don’t have that ability. I’m strictly behind the veil, as you’d say—between your sigil and fae blood, you’re the exception, Marmar, not the rule. Nymphs and the like are known for the corporeal forms. Fauna’s lucky that way.”
Caliban nodded slowly. “I can, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. I…stand out. Right now, we’re trying to evade the public eye.”
“Won’t the goddess be able to see you?” I asked.
“Undoubtedly. But I’ve kept a low profile so far, and we don’t need the entire town buzzing about it before we get there.”
As I was the only human visible to the public eye, I would, of course, be driving. I escorted us to our beat-up chariot. Caliban opened my door whether or not the world around us noticed, which made me bite my lip.
He was real, he was real, he wasreal.
I would never get sick of those three words.
He leaned across my lap and buckled my seatbelt for me before closing the door, and I knew it had little to do with my safety. I couldn’t speak for my other lifetimes, but I’d never let him interact with me outside of the darkened shadows of my dream-like states in this age. I’d never given him free rein over me. He was making up for lost time. He wanted to touch me every bit as badly as I wanted to touch him.
Azrames, to his credit, was the sort of person—demon, entity, fae—who could be comfortable in any situation. Normally, in such close proximity, I’d be able to smell his smoke. Instead, there was only the fresh perfume of the forest. Az slid into the back while Caliban took the passenger’s seat, relaxing his hand behind my headrest as I pulled out of the motel and pointed the compact car toward downtown.
Once again, I found myself disturbed by Bellfield’s too-perfect charm. I glared at each grassy hill as if it were my personal enemy, blaming every uniform blade of grass for what it had done to Caliban—and simultaneously faulting it for the reason I couldn’t get laid. I couldn’t fathom what stories the residents told one another as to why their city had the most bizarre landscaping in North America. Maybe they thought it was quirky to live in a blessed, lush small town with perfect weather and a cornucopia of produce every season. Perhaps they’d grown attached to their little dots and lines and bumps.
I frowned as I drove, listening to Caliban’s cool delivery of driving instructions with one part of my brain while contemplating the seal with the other.
While it had taken a minute to see it on the satellite image, I knew that we lived in a day and age where most people had searched their home from space at one time or another. Airplanes existed throughout the state, even if Bellfield lacked a major airport. I’d been warned about the orchard, but the grain fields had to require agricultural planes. Surely, people had to have seen how peculiar the shapes were from the top down.
“What’s on your mind, Love?”
I blinked twice. The first was over my surprise that he’d been able to read my emotions, and the second was that I’d been dense enough to be surprised. He knew me better than anyone, in all forms and shapes and lifetimes.
