Just a visiting rodent after all, then. That was fine. Everything was fine.
Mercer forced himself to shake off the twist in his gut. William Douglas had stopped contacting him yesterday, and no other holy silver solicitors had found his home; and he could hardly check on Kat every time she barked. He turned back to his workbench. Fighting to regain his focus, he skimmed his fingers aimlessly over the supplies he’d gathered before Rahil’s arrival, still uncertain what to try next. He settled on simply the prototype metal, scowling at it. Maybe he needed a different approach…
“It sounds like you were always working toward this kind of craftsmanship then?” Rahil asked, clearly referencing their original conversation.
“Ever since I learned how to spark,” Mercer replied. Between the conversation and the metal in his hand, he could feel his body finally relaxing. He glanced at Rahil with one eyebrow purposefully raised. “I was properly good at it, too, until you arrived.”
Rahil outright smirked. “Distracted by my many fine attributes, huh?”
“And your terrible flirting.” Mercer bounced the metal up and down a few times, feeling the subtle pressure differential he assumed had to be his fae abilities interpreting a transfer of energy with each touch and toss. He was getting nowhere.
Maybe he needed a reminder of where they’d left off.
“Give me your hand,” Mercer instructed.
“Well…” Rahil teased, opening and closing the one bound up in Leah’s cords.
Mercer stared at him flatly until the cheeky bastard finally extended his free arm. Carefully holding Rahil’s hand with only his fingertips, Mercer pressed the metal to the vampire’s palm.
A little shudder went through Rahil that Mercer worried had nothing to do with their attempt at unholy gold.
When Mercer laid his own palm over the metal, he could sense the subtle radiation emanating off the gold, the tiny shifts in Rahil’s cells because of it. Rahil slid his fingers between Mercer’s, squeezing them gently. His smile was so soft it hurt.
It was just nonsense flirting. Just—
Mercer inhaled sharply, half the unwarranted tug at his heart and half the feeling of the ways that the gold’s radiation was subtly influencing Rahil’s body, transformed by whatever molecular processes kept him safe from the influence of regular holy silver, then refractingbackin far smaller quantities into the metal. There was something there, something—
Mercer pulled away so quickly that Rahil swayed, giving a little whimpered sound that was probably just surprise filtered through this playful persona Rahil had chosen to adopt with him. Mercer ignored him—ignored the stupid thing his own heart wasstilldoing—and put his mind to the shift he’d felt in the metal. If he could just mimic that, they might actually have something.
Alone, no amount of Mercer’s fae spark could shift the atomic arrangement in the exact way he needed it, but he retrieved a few other compounds that felt right and set to work. This was art as much as it was chemistry and physics. Asking the universe to change for him did not come for free; he had to give something to the process: love and understanding, a nurturing touch with a desire for beauty, for creation and not destruction.
It was a little like being a father, he thought, as he pressed his golden alloy into the first of its transformative helpers, feeling the hopeful transition of it under the influence of his spark.
He could barely hear Rahil’s questions behind him, but somehow his brain picked up on the distant slam of a car door, just distinct enough to trigger a leap in his chest as hope collided with worry. The subtle rumble of a portable speaker followed, blaring one of Lydia’s favorite songs.
She was early.
Mercer’s spark snapped out, the transformation he’d triggered stopping with it. The softball practice he’d hesitantly let her join on a trial basis just for the summer training season wasn’t meant to end for another hour—which meant something had happened. She’d been hurt. Or her heart wouldn’t stop palpitating. Or they’d sent her home because she’d seized, and—
They’d have called him. If there was an emergency, someone would have called him; someone would be coming to his door, not just the meandering sound of Lydia’s music and her off-tune singing beneath it. But if shewashere already, that meant…
Mercer’s gaze shot toward Rahil, and despite all his practice shielding his true feelings, Rahil must have seen the panic in his eyes.
Rahil’s brow lifted. “Who’s that?”
“No one,” Mercer answered, as the music very obviously moved toward his house.
“I bet you tell that to all your vampires.” There was an edge to Rahil’s saucy tone, but he didn’t seem upset, so much as offended. Hurt.
Mercer couldn’t let himself be swayed by that. “It’s not important for you to know,” he said, trying to keep his voice free of emotion. Lydia’s music was still getting louder—which meant she’d diverted around the front door, maybe when she’d realized Mercer wouldn’t be inside.
In a guttural, sing-songy voice, Lydia shouted, “Daddyo?”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Mercer shoved his metal back into its lock-box and latched it as he called back, “Coming, Puck.”
Rahil was staring at him now, his eyes big and his brows high. He hissed under his breath, “You have akid? Why didn’t you mention you had akid!”
A million reasons, Mercer wanted to say, but he knew they all boiled down to a couple that he, frankly, didn’t feel much like putting words to. He retrieved his phone to disable the trap cords. “We’re done for today.” His fingerprint reader misaligned on the first try.
