Moonshadow

Chapter Nine

When Nikolas left the bedroom, Sophie half expected she would lie awake and kick herself for indulging in that stupid kiss. Instead, she fell immediately into a dark pit and slept like the dead, without dreams, until she came alert with a jerk.

The feeling was reminiscent of the first time she had laid eyes on Nikolas, in that blasted vision back in LA. She could sense the day had advanced well past early morning. Ugh, at this rate, she was never going to get her days and nights sorted out. At least she had slept, really slept, and not tossed and turned from nightmares all night long.

A slow, rhythmic scraping sounded from somewhere else in the cottage. It sounded metallic and grated on her nerves. Pushing out of bed, she ran her hands through her hair in a lame effort to tame it somewhat, but it sprang from her fingers in a wild, untamed mess.

She felt dull and hungover, and oh my God, had she really kissed Nikolas last night? Where was her sanity?

I’m not just blaming it on jet lag, she thought. I’m blaming it on post-battle emotions.

She knew others who experienced post-battle highs. The guys she had worked with at the precinct were often edgy and boisterous after a conflict involving violence, and those who were unattached often indulged in one-night stands.

But she never had.

She glared at the bed as if it were responsible for her own lapse in judgment, while the memory of Nikolas’s mouth moving over hers sent a thrill of remembered heat through her body. He was off-the-charts sexy, damn it, and an asshole, two things that were, apparently, her kryptonite.

Sophie Ross, she told herself, you need therapy in the worst way.

Just don’t kiss assholes. That’s all you’ve got to do. You can eat anything you want, drink anything you want, you can do anything else that you want, and if you get into that house like you think you can, you’ll be able to sleep in every morning all you want.

You have one job. Just don’t kiss assholes.

The cottage was cool, and she shivered as she dug through her luggage for a pair of flannel pants and a long-sleeved knit shirt. Donning the clothes, she slipped her feet into flip-flop sandals and went to see what was making that irritating noise.

She found Nikolas in the kitchen. He appeared to have recently showered. He wore another pair of black pants, but he hadn’t put on a shirt yet, and his hair was wet and slicked back, outlining the strong, graceful bone structure of his head, neck, and shoulders.

He had positioned his chair so that he sat in a patch of sunlight streaming in through the window, and he was running a whetstone along the edge of his sword, sharpening it with slow, steady strokes.

She glared at him. His beauty was hard and uncompromising and completely, entirely masculine. Without a shirt, she could see scars on his torso, and for all his lean height, he had the bulky muscle of a swordsman across his shoulders and down his arms and back. The slanting sunlight sliced across his face, highlighting the sharp cheekbones, the bold, straight nose and lean jaw, and it lit the flat surface of his signet ring into a blaze of fiery gold.

So he was mouthwateringly handsome. Inhumanly handsome. So what. Enjoy the view while you’ve got it.

Just don’t kiss assholes. One job, Sophie. Only one.

“I don’t know how you can stand to sit there without your shirt on.” Her voice was too husky, and she was blaming that on having just gotten up. “I’m freezing.”

He glanced at her, a sharp, piercing look, then went back to sharpening his sword. “It’s not so bad in the sunlight. If you want to take the chill out of the kitchen, you can fire up the stove. There’s not much to eat for breakfast. You can have dry toast and black tea if you want.”

She gave the large, foreign stove a leery look. Paul, the solicitor, had called it an Aga, but it looked like a machine out of a 1950s sci-fi film. “Not much to eat? What happened to the box of stuff Maggie gave us last night?”

“A certain puck must have gotten into the supplies.” His voice was dry as he bent his head over his sword. “When I got up, I found all the eggs had been sucked out of their shells. He also ate the butter and cheese, and drank the milk. On the upside, the cottage is sparkling clean, which was a surprise since usually brownies are the ones that like to clean house.”

When she started to laugh, he gave her a speaking look.

She moved to fill the teakettle with water and set it on the stove. “I won’t hold it against him. He was painfully thin when I found him. If he can eat his fill enough times, he probably won’t need to clean out the kitchen.”

The monkey appeared at the top of the fridge and jumped to land on her shoulder. His little fingers began to work through her hair. She tilted her head to give him a leery glance. As long as he wasn’t pinching her, she supposed he wasn’t doing any harm. Looking through cupboards, she found an ancient, heavy toaster and plugged it in.

“Do you want toast?” she asked Nikolas. The prosaic, domestic question sounded odd to her ears. They barely knew each other, and they had argued for most of that time.

And kissed once. Her cheeks heated, and she was glad she had her back to him.

“Yes.” He paused. Maybe the exchange sounded odd to him too. “Thank you.”

While the water heated for tea, she popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, then turned to lean against the counter to watch Nikolas work, remembering the flashes she had seen of him in the fight. He had been quick, fierce, and powerful, and her first impression had been accurate—he knew his sword like it was an extension of his own body.

Sophie didn’t know much about swords, but even she could tell his was a beautiful, sleek work of art. Silver was worked into the flat of the blade in a Celtic-looking pattern. She squatted in front of it, and Nikolas paused with the whetstone as he watched her. His expression was unreadable. What did he see what he looked at her?

With light fingers, she touched the blade. “The silver. Does it help when you’re fighting a lycanthrope?”

“Yes,” he said. “When I cut them with this, they can’t heal at an accelerated rate. They bleed, and they die.”

“I should have studied swordwork.” She sighed.

“You have no business engaging a lycanthrope anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” he told her. “They’re faster, at least twice as heavy, and much stronger than you. You’re lucky you lived through last night.”

She glowered at him. If he hadn’t spoken in such a cool, analytical way, she would have bristled more than she had, but the truth was, he was right. The kettle whistled, and she rose to make the tea. “Maybe so, but I regret nothing. Arran and Maggie are still alive.”

He set aside the whetstone and sheathed the sword. “About that offer I made, to get you a gun and silver bullets. I should have asked. Can you shoot?”

“I don’t have much experience with rifles or shotguns, but I’m experienced with a handgun. I prefer carrying a Glock.”

As she finished putting together their Spartan breakfast, the monkey left her shoulder and climbed up to the top of the fridge. While he had been riding on her shoulder, he had done something to her hair. She wasn’t sure what, but it felt like he had worked several braids through the unruly mass, and at least it kept it off her face at the moment.

“How good?” Nikolas asked.

She handed him a mug of tea and a plate of toast. “Good. I hit what I’m aiming at.”

“That’s the weapon you need against a lycanthrope.” He bit into a piece of toast with strong, white teeth. “But if the authorities caught you with it, you’d be deported. You might possibly face jail time, unless…”

As he paused, she leaned forward. “Unless what?”

“Unless you become a member of the Dark Court, perhaps in a consulting capacity, much like the work you did in LA. If you’re affiliated officially to our demesne, you would have weapons privileges.” His eyelids lowered, shielding his expression. “I’m not necessarily offering the position to you. I’m just saying that would be one way to solve the problem if you were caught with the gun in your possession.”

She frowned. “Okay. The pro is, it would give me some legal protection, if I ever end up needing it.”

“The con is, you would become publicly associated with the Dark Court, and you would absolutely become a target for Isabeau and her Hounds. Right now you exist with some anonymity and ambiguity. There’s nothing tying you to us. There’s just a few accidental meetings. Robin and I could disappear, and your story could be that you helped a stray dog and gave it to its owner—me—and you don’t know anything else about either of us. You don’t know where we went or where we live.”

She breathed deeply and nodded. “You’ll get me the gun and the silver bullets.”

“I promised I would, and I will. And you’ll show me how to make the colloidal silver and cast the rune.”

“I said I would,” she told him. “And I will. If the situation comes up, and I’m caught with the gun, I’ll say I’m a member of the Dark Court, and you’ll back me up?”

The stern, beautiful line of his mouth twisted as if he tasted something sour. “Yes. If it comes to that.”

“Well, it may not. It’s not like I’m going to be walking down the town’s high street waving the gun in the air. I’ll keep it tucked out of sight but on hand, just in case.” She smiled. “Okay, fair enough. I’ll feel better having it as backup.”

“Actually, I would feel better if you had it as backup too. If it comes down to your needing to use the gun, declaring yourself a member of the Dark Court is going to be the least of your worries.”

She made a face as she ate her toast. “You can sure be full of doom and gloom.”

“That I can.” He finished his tea. “About that colloidal silver.”

She sniffed. “Not so fast, buckaroo. I have my own agenda for the day. Remember the reason why I said I came to England in the first place? I want to test my theory for getting into the manor house.”

His dark brows came down again. Really, he was very talented at throwing a fierce frown when he was displeased. “And this is important, why?”

She didn’t fault him for feeling the pressure of his own concerns. She might fault him for a lot of other reasons but not for that.

She replied patiently, “Because if I do manage to get in, I’ll inherit five acres of this land and receive an annuity, and that means I can take my time getting back to work. I can train and condition at my own speed, build back the muscle tone and stamina I’ve lost from the surgeries, and I won’t have to take on any new jobs until I feel like I’m ready for them. That’s very important to me.”

His frown eased. “I see.”

She carried her tea and plate to the sink. “After I get dressed, I want to walk around the house and get a feel for things in the daylight. When I’m through with that, I’m going to send you shopping with a list of things we’ll need to make the colloidal silver.”

His brief expression of understanding vanished as he raised one imperious eyebrow. “Why should I be the one to go shopping?”

“Because I don’t know where to buy things,” she told him, exasperated. “I also want to get groceries.” Tilting her head to look at the monkey still perched on top of the refrigerator, she added, “A lot of groceries.”

“All right,” Nikolas said. He carried his things to the kitchen sink too. “I agree. It sounds like a sensible plan.”

He stood at her shoulder as he set the dish and mug in the sink. Turning, she angled her face and went to nose to nose with him as she said, “Not that I needed your approval—but good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

His eyes narrowed, and they dropped to her mouth as she shaped the words. Good Lord, when was he going to put on a shirt?

She mouthed at him silently, “Stop looking at my mouth.”

His eyes darkened as she saw his pupils dilate. He mouthed back, just as silently, “What if I don’t want to stop looking at your mouth?”

The air sucked out of her lungs. What was the one job she had? She couldn’t remember. All she could remember was repeating it to herself as she walked out of the bedroom. Licking her bottom lip, she whispered, “I’m still jet-lagged.”

“And I still have no damn excuse.” He snaked an arm around her waist and hauled her against his torso, angling his head to swoop down and cover her mouth with his.

His kiss was just as hot as she remembered. It was better than last night. Last night really had felt dreamlike, but this felt all too real.

This felt shocking and blatantly sexual, and part of her was overcome with glee that she was crushed all up against that broad, muscled chest of his, while the other part melted down into wordless gibberish.

He took her by the back of the neck and ate at her like he was a starving man, pushing her back against the counter so that his hardened body was flush against hers. Her arms lifted of their own accord and wound around his neck while she kissed him just as hungrily.

Heated images ran through her imagination. What she wanted to do to him. What she wanted him to do to her. She dug her nails into the back of his neck. He growled, thrusting the bulge of a long, hard erection against the bowl of her pelvis, and his heart thudded, heavy and powerful, against her breasts.

Nothing else existed, just the two of them together.

Male. Female.

An electronic sound blinged in the intense silence. It sounded like the kind of noise a phone would make, but it didn’t come from her phone. He paused and lifted his head. His lips were wet from her mouth, while the dark look in his eyes was so heated she knew the same images had run through his imagination too.

“You’re still insufferable,” she said. “Just saying.”

“And you’re the same mouthy broad you were last night,” he growled.

“I don’t even like you,” she snapped.

There went that eyebrow again. He had that imperious expression down to perfection. “What does liking have to do with any of this?”

She started to laugh under her breath. “Not a damn thing, apparently.”

Holding her gaze, he took hold of her hips, firmly enough so that she felt the pressure from each of his long fingers, and with slow deliberation, he pushed his hips against hers. It felt so good she let her head fall back as she watched him.

“The gods only know why,” he whispered. “But I find you sexy as hell. So far, you’ve been nothing but trouble.”

“Ugh, stop talking,” she told him, putting the fingers of both hands over his mouth. “You ruin it when you talk. I find you sexy as hell too, as long as you stay silent.”

She felt him smile against her fingers. He bit at her forefinger lightly, then stepped back. “Get dressed. We have things to do.”

Angling out her jaw, she said, “I think I’m going to choose to get dressed now, and I don’t really care how you feel or think about that. I’m doing it because I want to, and I’ve got things I’m interested in doing today. Thanks for asking again, asshole.”

As she stomped out of the room, the dark sound of his laughter followed her. It had almost the same effect as if he had licked down her naked back. Shivering from reaction, she slammed the bathroom door and stared at herself in the aged mirror over the sink.

“One job,” she whispered to the wide-eyed woman staring back at her. “You had one job, and you blew it. Again.”

Here was a serious consideration: She found him hot, and he found her hot, as long as they didn’t talk to each other. So, what if they didn’t talk to each other? What if, instead, they turned out all the lights, stripped off their clothes, and came together?

Male and female.

How amazing would that be? She almost melted into a puddle at the thought. Her body wanted sex, just sex, lots of exuberant pleasure without any emotional entanglements.

Worst of all, her body wanted sex with Nikolas. Not just any sex, with any random person. Not sex with his companion Gawain, who was pretty buff all on his own and a good-looking guy, and also, she thought he was a nice man to boot.

No, Sophie didn’t want Gawain.

She wanted the asshole.

There might be a certain kind of freedom in that. He didn’t like her. She didn’t like him. They could have (tremendous, mind-blowing, screaming, utterly fantastic, wildly pleasurable) sex and then go their separate ways. No misunderstandings, no long-term commitment, no commitment of any kind, no friends with benefits.

Only the benefits…

How crazy and stupid was she to be considering it? She wasn’t sure. She just knew she had a talent for crazy and stupid.

Her attention caught on her hair, and she tilted her head back and forth as she considered what the puck had done to it.

He had braided several smaller braids down each side, just enough to tame her hair and keep it back off her face, while leaving the rest of it to tumble crazily down her back. It actually looked pretty nice, kind of tribal.

She decided to leave it and got on with the business of washing up and brushing her teeth. Then she slipped into the bedroom to dress in jeans, the Doc Martens, and a black scoop-neck T-shirt. She glanced at her makeup bag and laughed under her breath—like anybody cared what she looked like, least of all herself—and left it tucked in the open suitcase. Then she grabbed up her own cell phone and the heavy, old keys to the manor house and walked out.

Nikolas had finished dressing, and he had strapped the sword to his back. He stood as still as a statue, arms crossed, staring out the kitchen window at the manor house.

He had absolutely none of the affectations or sense of male fashion she had seen in many other men. None. His hair was cut short. He wore simple plain black clothes and his weapon, yet there was a simple, powerful lethal quality about him that made her weak at the knees.

He looked like he could face down an army, and he was fully prepared to do so.

As she cleared her throat, the statue came alive, and he turned to face her.

“Give me your list of things to buy for the colloidal silver,” he said. “I’ll send Gawain after them.”

She nodded. “Okay. I brought magic-sensitive silver with me, so he doesn’t need to waste time looking for that. I know it’s pretty rare and expensive here since most of the mines are in the States. You’ll need to get some, but for now we can use mine.” She thumbed the screen of her phone on. “What’s your number? I’ll text the list to you.”

He told her, and she keyed the numbers in, copied the list she had already made for him, and sent it in a text. When he received it, he studied the items. “Interesting.”

“We’re going to be building a machine,” she told him. “It’s a very simple one, but this version won’t work in an Other land because it requires batteries. There’s another system you can set up that doesn’t require batteries, and I can show you how to make that too. In the States, I could pick up everything I need at a local hardware store. I’m sure there’s a version of something like that here, but I don’t know where to look for it.”

“Not a problem.” He worked briefly on his phone then slipped it in his pocket. “Gawain will pick up everything we need. I also rang the local butcher and the grocer while you were dressing. They’re putting packages of groceries together. The orders will be ready to be picked up in a few hours.”

Not what would you like to eat, Sophie? Do you drink coffee? Are you allergic to nuts? Of course not.

He was so arrogant she was beginning to suspect he didn’t even know when he was being arrogant. Was she even going to bother to point it out, yet again? Gritting her teeth, she decided not to waste the time or the energy. If she wanted to buy herself groceries, she was by God going to go into town and buy herself some fucking groceries.

Shaking her head, she stalked out of the cottage, and she didn’t stop walking until she stood a few feet in front of the manor house.

Nikolas caught up with her and stalked along by her side. After a minute, he said between his teeth, “I took care of all your needs with a few phone calls, and you’re acting like I committed some kind of crime. What on earth is your problem now, woman? Because clearly there’s a problem.”

“I’m not talking to you. Hush, and let me think.”

He muttered something in his language. It sounded beautiful, and it probably had something to do with her being insufferable again. She curled a lip at him and turned her attention back to the house.

The day was gorgeous, a perfect hot summer day in England. Bees droned by. Lavish, untamed greenery spilled from underneath trees, barely held in check by the simple, crude mowing job that kept the wide lawn from turning into an overgrown pasture.

Soon her shirt began to stick to her back, and she almost wished she had put on a pair of shorts. She asked him, “How many gables do you see?”

He had crossed his arms again and stood with his chin tucked close to his chest. At her question, he gave the house an indifferent glance and shrugged. “Five.”

Smiling, she shook her head at him. “There’s more than five. I want to walk around the whole house.”

His attention sharpened, and he gave the house a second, more thoughtful look. “How many gables do you see?”

“I’ll tell you after I’ve gone all the way around.”

They strode the circuit around the massive house in silence. For the first time since she had arrived, she caught a glimpse of the small lake behind the house. Nikolas remained watchful, his expression grim. It must still be difficult for him to be in the place of such a painful defeat. He had lost friends and comrades here. She couldn’t imagine how that must feel, actually, and since she couldn’t find the right words to say in sympathy, she left him to his own thoughts.

When they finally stood in the same spot in front of the house again, she said, “How many did you see?”

“Still five,” he told her. “What about you?”

“On this side of the house, I can see seven. But there’s an eighth gable tucked around the back.”

“I want to say that’s impossible, but mostly I think it’s inexplicable,” Nikolas muttered. “How do you see more gables than I do?”

She held up her hands and gestured around her. “I think it’s the land itself. The crossover passageway is broken, but all the pieces of that magic are still here. Kathryn, the surviving member of the Shaw family, said that when her father was young, he was able to get into the house, but that was quite some time ago. She didn’t say exactly when, but she indicated it had been hundreds of years ago.”

“They’re not human,” he said.

“No, they’re Wyr. From the story she told me, I gather her ancestor fought for the Light Court. The last time her father tried to get into the house, the key turned in the lock but the door wouldn’t open. Nobody can break a window, she said, or make the door budge.” She turned sparkling eyes to Nikolas, who was listening to her with close attention. “I think it’s because the house isn’t fully here. It’s mostly here, but it’s slightly—ever so slightly—not in sync with this Earth where we stand.”

He frowned. “But we can see and touch it.”

“You can see some of it and touch some of it. I can see more of it.” She put her two fists together, side by side and aligned the knuckles of each finger to their opposite. “Think of tectonic plates, and then the earth moves. Maybe it’s a massive earthquake, or maybe it’s just a small shift.” She moved one fist slightly. “Then all of a sudden, the two plates don’t match up the way they had before and the land isn’t quite aligned as it was. I’m wondering if this is something like that, only more so. This isn’t just a place shift. This is a time, place, and dimension shift.”

He was wholly engaged now, listening closely to every word. He jerked his chin at the house. “Do you think you can see more of it because you’re part Djinn?”

“Yeah, maybe. If I’m right.” Looking back at the house, she chewed on a thumbnail. “Kathryn said the family had gotten experts to try to get into the house, but she didn’t say who those experts were or what they were experts in. It had all happened so long ago, and nobody had kept decent records of what they had done. I’m guessing they didn’t engage a Djinn as one of their experts. Why obligate yourself in an unnamed, possibly dangerous favor to a Djinn for something that was, to them, merely an exasperating mystery?”

“And why would they consider a Djinn for the job anyway?” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “They could see and touch the house, just as we can.”

She nodded. “Exactly. But I noticed the anomaly in the photos Kathryn showed me. The camera had captured something of the magic in this place. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and I’ve been dying to see it in person.”

His dark eyes studied her. “And you still think you might be able to get into the house.”

“Maybe. I’m not a full Djinn. I can’t dematerialize—not fully—and whisk off to the other side of the world within a few moments, but I do have a certain affinity for manipulating my placement in time and space.”

“You can’t dematerialize fully,” he repeated. Fascination gleamed in his eyes. “Are you saying you can dematerialize partially?”

“No, not that.” She paused, frustrated with the limitations of language. “I can slightly shift things around me. Or a better way to say it is, I can shift myself in relation to everything else around me. Slightly. Not enough to really dematerialize, but enough sometimes to go unnoticed when I want to.”

“Is that how you hid with Robin from Gawain?”

“Yes. In my mind, I say that I pulled shadows around me, but really what I’m doing is stepping into shadows that existed at some time in that specific place. It’s—it’s like turning a corner. I know that sounds kind of mind-bendy, but believe me, it’s nothing like listening to full Djinn carry on a conversation. They literally don’t experience reality the same way we do.”

He shifted his weight onto one hip and gestured to her. It was as princely a gesture as she’d ever seen him make. “Show me.”

She scowled. “I’m not a trick pony to perform on your command.”

“No, a trick pony doesn’t know how to talk back like you do.” The exasperation was heavy in his voice.

What on earth did he have to be exasperated about? It was enough to make her exasperated with him.

She rolled her eyes. “Besides, it doesn’t work very well out in the open, in full sunlight. You know I’m standing here, and you’d be watching for it, so I wouldn’t be able to fool you. So getting back to what is actually relevant, what if the house is ever so slightly out of alignment with this Earth? And what if I could shift slightly enough to align with it, open the door, and get inside? If I’m right, a full Djinn could do it, but again, who wants to owe an unnamed, possibly dangerous favor to a Djinn? I certainly don’t want to ask one, and I don’t want to suggest it to Kathryn, because if I can do it, I win the land and the annuity.”

“If you’re right, the house is dangerous and probably unstable,” he pointed out. He turned to study it again. “According to the story Kathryn Shaw told you, it shifted even further while her father was alive. Parts of it must exist in different broken pieces of land magic.”

“Kathryn called it a Rubik’s cube, but all the colors don’t line up. It might be more like a jigsaw puzzle, with pieces sitting on different planes. All the pieces together make up a full house, but the separate pieces themselves exist in different time-space-dimensional realities.” She shrugged. “As far as it being unstable goes—it hasn’t gone anywhere for several hundred years, so I’ll take my chances. I mean, who knows what’s still inside there? There could be anything. The family didn’t keep records of what they had left behind.”

“You said nobody could break a window when they tried,” he said slowly. There was something dawning in his expression, an extra alertness or a comprehension.

“That’s what Kathryn told me. Apparently, the house as it stands right now is pretty impregnable.” It was her turn to watch him closely. What was he thinking?

He said, “Okay if I give it a try?”