Page 42 of Toadstools and Vampire Kisses

Crossing her arms over her chest, my mate’s irritated gaze bores into me. “Reynard, what the hell? Why are we way out here? We can’t stay here. We have to go back.” She gives a quick glance around. “Where exactly are we?”

“Just a short distance from the coven manor,” I assure, my wings flexing and vibrating around with barely controlled frustration. “And we shall return the moment that Ulrek alerts me that the danger has been dealt with. I refuse to risk your safety, Fran.”

“And this qualifies as safe? There could be anything out here if that abomination entered from the forest as you say.”

“There is no trace of its smell here. I believe we are outside the area it was created, and it would not have wandered this far out away from its target.” I give her a meaningful look, and she wilts, though the scowl does not quite leave her face.

With an admirable growl, she sinks down onto a log and proceeds to catalog our surroundings. “So I guess we do what? Wait?”

“That is precisely what we are to do,” I agree. As much as I want to sit beside her and comfort her, I cannot ignore my instinctive need to stand over her protectively, my wings stretching rhythmically over her in a gesture threatening to anything that might even dare approach uninvited.

Fran groans and tips her head back, rolling her neck slowly. “We should be doing something,” she protests.

I drop down to sit beside her on the log, my wing wrapping around her. Despite her irritation with me, I am relieved that she leans into me, seeking comfort. My hand strokes up and down her arm, careful as always with my claws as I nuzzle the top of her head. “You know that if I truly believed it would accomplish anything, I would be returning to help immediately the moment I had you stashed away. But there is little that can be done at this juncture beyond what Adeon is doing.”

“Stash me away, huh? How appropriately damsel in distress,” she mutters.

Despite her tone, I smile into her hair. It is hard not to when her powerful will and sense of self is one of the things that I love so much about her. She would not be my Fran if she were not willing to get into the thick of it to help.

“I know you are capable, Fran,” I murmur. “Please just allow me to protect you for now. Knowing that something out there is targeting you makes me very uneasy.” I sigh, my breath teasing the strands of her hair. “I have never had so much to lose until now. Being known as a death dealer, one who carries out the maximum sentence for crimes amongst my kind, always had its own weight that had to be borne, but it was done without a second thought. I did not care who came after me because I would happily destroy them too. Now, however, I hate it for the danger it has put you in. Whoever it is, they want me out of the way so that they can do gods know what to your coven. They will not outright attack when there is nothing to gain, when it cannot personally hurt me. You are life itself for me, and right now, protecting you is everything.”

Her begrudging sigh is barely audible, but she nods, bumping my chin with her head. “I suppose that it’s hard to argue that. I just hate feeling useless. It’s one thing to hide myself in the woods to live in peace, and it’s another to run away into them away from a threat. I don’t like it.”

“I know.” I mull over how to redirect her thoughts. Jostling her lightly, I gather her closer so that my wings can close entirely around us. “Given that the creature gave off what seems to be a very specific mold, is there something you might do to prevent a similar attack?”

She leans her head back as she gathers her thoughts. “Yes,” she agrees at length. “I believe so. I’ll need to locate a spore sample, but there shouldn’t be a problem finding a trace somewhere in the ballroom. Mother will have vacated it, but we should have plenty of time before she has the area thoroughly cleaned come morning. With it I can magically reprogram it to grow and replicate in a perimeter of toadstools around the property—a sort of giant fairy ring, I guess you could say—that will release counteractive spores.”

“That sounds complicated.” And potentially dangerous. I do not like the idea of my mate anywhere near those damned spores. “Perhaps I misspoke and another path might be better.”

I grunt as her elbow connects with my gut.

“Very funny. It’s actually a brilliant idea. It is a little complicated, true, but I have everything I need between my private apothecary and the workroom in the attic. It should be easy to construct. We just need to look for spores the moment we return to the house.”

“I still do not like it,” I grumble, my wing lightly caressing her side. “Are you certain that I cannot convince you to allow me to hide you away somewhere safe until all of this is done?”

“Not a chance.” She snorts mirthfully and glances at me from beneath her lashes. “But I’m curious what convincing you might have in mind.”

Leaning into her, I run my tongue slowly up the side of her neck. “There are ways to occupy oneself when alone in the woods with no one else nearby.”

“Usually that involves pruning shears and a hoe,” she replies dryly.

When I jerk back to stare at her in a pretense of bafflement, she laughs just as I hoped she would. “For gardening,” she clarifies. “That’s usually what I do when I am alone in my woods. I just work in my garden.”

“Gardening is a worthwhile endeavor. I once had lovely flowers that bloomed all around my keep, but I think my interest lies more in… fertilization.”

Her lips tremble, and my heart lightens as suddenly she bursts out once again laughing in my arms.

“That’s terrible. All it made me think of was bags of manure,” she wheezes.

“Sure, you would think manure when my mind is on ancient rituals of such intimacy that they are designed to awaken the land,” I scoff. “The season is wrong, but there is never any harm in practicing.”

She suddenly pulls back so quickly that I find myself struggling to retain my balance, my wings flapping haphazardly for a moment. The interest on her face is so keen it banishes all sign of irritation, and I instantly regret my jest as she grins.

“You know what? You are absolutely right!”

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no.

“I am?” I narrow my eyes at her in an attempt to determine if she is getting one over me. I have a distinct premonition that she is not, however.

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