Page 15 of Trick Me
“That’s an interesting way to describe a scent.”
She pulls back just enough to glance up at me, butnot enough to actually create distance. We’re still pressed together in ways that would be considered foreplay in some cultures. “Seriously, what cologne is this? It’s intoxicating.”
“I don’t wear any.”
“Sure you don’t.” Her nose wrinkles adorably, and then she’s leaning in again, this time toward my neck, and I have to lock my knees to stay upright. “Nobody naturally smells this delicious.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“Pine,” she says, but her face flushes. “I think it’s, like, pine. And musk. And something sexy too…” She trails off, genuinely blushing. “Something that makes me want to do inappropriate things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as continuing to sniff a complete stranger.”
“I’m not judging. You smell like you’d taste like electricity and wild woods.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“You’re making it a thing.”
She laughs, this throaty sound that has my cock throbbing. “Do you practice lines like that, or do they just come to you in the moment?”
“This is not practiced.” I mean it. Nothing in my experience has prepared me for a woman who crashes into me, smells like heaven and danger, and apparently wants to inhale me like a drug. “I’m Ash, by the way.”
“Erynn.” She tries to step back, but her heel catches on the uneven rug. She pitches forward, hands shooting out for balance.
Her nails rake across my forearm as she tries to steady herself, and pain flares sharp and unexpected. Not normal pain, but the burning lines of actual wounds. I hiss, more from surprise than hurt, and look down to see torn fabric and blood welling from four perfect scratches.
“Shit!” She jerks back, staring at her hands in horror.
Her nails have become claws. Not the painted nails from moments ago, but actual claws that are pristine white, curved, at least an inch long, and sharp enough to part flesh without effort. They gleam under the hallway lights, beautiful and terrible.
“I did that?” Her voice pitches higher, panic threading through it as she stares at my arm. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit, my hands, what’s wrong with them?”
She holds them up, fingers spread, staring at the claws with revulsion and terror. They’re not retracting, not shifting back to normal. Just remaining there, permanent, and she’s looking at them with the expression of someone who’s discovered they’ve grown extra limbs.
“You’ve never shifted before?” I ask carefully, watching her face pale to the point where I’m concerned she might faint.
“Shifted?” The word comes out as almost a shriek. “I don’t transform. I’m not a shifter. I don’t turn into… into… whatever this is!”
“But I assumed by your scent and your ears that you were mixed blood, shifter and fae.” They’re slightly pointed, barely noticeable unless you’re looking, but definitely there.
“No.” She shakes her head violently, platinum hair flying. “No shifter blood. My grandmother was fae, but of mixed heritage. Some siren, some earth fae, maybe a touch of banshee, which would explain the death stuff, but not shifter. Never shifter. We don’t have shifters in my family. We have alcoholics and mediums and the occasional pyromaniac.”
Behind her, through the wall, Mikael reappears. He seems more solid this time, details sharper—the freckles across his nose, the way his left eye was always slightly greener than the right.
“She’s not lying,” Mikael observes, circling us with interest. “But she’s not entirely right either. Something’s different about her. Wrong. She smells like wolf, but not wolf. Death, but not dead. Yours, but not yours.”
“Not now, Mikael,” I mutter without thinking.
“Who’s Mikael?” Erynn asks, looking around with those too-green eyes.
Shit. She’ll think I’m crazy. “Nobody. Just… thinking out loud. Bad habit.”
Mikael grins, and it’s the same shit-eating grin that got us into so much trouble as teenagers. “Nobody? I’m hurt, brother. Here I thought we had something special. Remember when you cried because Sean ate your last piece of birthday cake? You were fifteen. It was adorable.”
“I was not fifteen, but eight,” I snap, then realize I’m arguing with a ghost.
