Page 137 of The Rogue's Curse

“I trust your steady hands more than mine,” Misha said. “It’s just glorified cooking.”

In truth, this glorified cooking could still earn him a swift death at the hands of the Court of Thanatos and their zealous blood witches. If Rafaela knew he was letting Paris look at his spellbook, let alone use it, she’d kill Misha herself.

As things stood, the issue was moot. His tablet had been reset to factory settings. Checking his email showed a message from Rafaela saying that his device had been remotely wiped to ensure his spellbook didn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Thankfully, he’d brewed enough of the mixture over the last week to remember the simple recipe. He set Paris to work measuring ingredients and grinding them into fine powder while he quickly drew the arcane symbols on a slate beneath his brewing apparatus. With Paris to help, it took half an hour to create a large batch of strong pagos, which he hoped would be enough to keep from frying his own brain before Shoshanna arrived.

He set out his blade and said, “Watch my back, please.”

“You don’t even have to ask,” Paris said.

Setting his hands on the array, he unleashed a small spark of power. With one dose of pagos already in his system, it felt like trying to punch through sludge, but he managed to pierce it. The sensation of power was usually comforting, if a bit dangerous, but now it made him feel sick. The room darkened, and he closed his eyes.

Please, stay away, he thought.

The array ignited, reddish light illuminating each of the carefully drawn symbols. Finally, the circuit was complete, and he broke the connection. But now the spark was pulsing in his belly again, like a beacon to draw the shadowy creatures. Black ooze dripped from the far corner of the lab ceiling, sliding down the wall and coalescing into a misshapen, eldritch horror.

“Paris,” he murmured. “That corner.”

“Can you drink it now?” Paris asked.

“It has to steep for an hour,” Misha said.

“An hour?” he spluttered. Then he laughed and said, “I just killed a fucking vampire warlord. I can handle a shadow.” His eyes went brilliant red as he faced the corner. “I can’t see it, but let’s see if it sees me.” Paris sliced his palm and held it up. “Smell something good?”

The shadow creature snarled, its eyes brightening. It lunged for Paris, who let out a yelp as it bit into his palm. Then he crowed in victory and brought the blade around into its head. The creature solidified, allowing Paris to slam the knife into one of its glinting silver eyes. It disintegrated into ash, and the room brightened again.

“You keep an eye on your soup,” Paris teased.

For sixty-three minutes, Paris circled his lab, fighting off four more slithering monstrosities that spoke of Misha’s growing instability and waning sanity. Finally, Misha put a thermometer into the mix, found it cooled, and immediately gulped down a double dose. The cold sensation hit him like a punch to the gut, and it felt as if the color leached entirely from the world. In a particularly cruel stroke, Paris’s lovely blue eyes went flat gray.

He felt woozy as he sat back on his stool. Paris hovered nearby, one hand just inches from his. “Now that it’s done, do you want me to go? I know you’re angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Misha said.

Paris chuckled. “Liar.”

“It’s complicated. I’m angry, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you here,” Misha snapped. “But you have more important things to do. I can only imagine the fallout.”

“There are no more important things to me right now,” Paris said earnestly.

“We both know that’s not true,” Misha said.

Paris smirked. “And we both know that I don’t sleep. While you were enjoying your pharmaceutically assisted nap, I was dealing with the fallout.”

“So it’s all dealt with?”

“Fuck no, it’s not,” Paris said with a laugh. “But I delegated everything as soon as I got word Shoshanna was on her way home. After being stuck inside for two days, Julian is more than happy to make all the decisions while I’m out of commission.” He propped his head on his other hand. “You look like you’re going to fall asleep.”

“That’s what happens when you’re taking magical narcotics,” Misha quipped.

Paris smiled and said, “Come on, sleepyhead. I’ll watch over you while you rest.”

Forcing a smile, Misha bit his tongue and let Paris lead him out of the lab, hoping his face didn’t betray the shock, the raw emotion that swept over him at Paris’s casual words. Without speaking, Paris sat in bed, and Misha laid his head on his thigh. One hand toyed with his hair gently, so soothing and kind.

“Paris?” he murmured.

“Yes?”

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