Page 123 of Forget Me Not

“I think,” Cal began carefully, “that we should finish what you started. In the bedroom,” he explained when Benny gave him a questioning look as if about to remind Cal that theywerefinishing what Ray had started. “Let Ray reassure himself that we are safe and whole and well taken care of.”

Ray looked down to Cal, a frown probably on his face.

“We?” Benny echoed, the way Ray had not.

Cal considered Ray with all evidence of being serious. “’Pack,’ he said, and handed me the end of the leash.” He fluttered his wings. It seemed intentional because he calmed them immediately, then nodded. “And he’s not objecting now. Is it different when it’s pack? And it’s private? And it would make you feel better?” Cal took his eyes off Ray to turn to Benny. “The rest is really up to Bens.”

Callalily was too clever but hardly wicked, though he could have been. A shiver went down Ray’s back but his hackles weren’t raised. He thought that a hand at his throat would settle him, and shivered for that too.

“Oh.” Even Cal could have heard Benny swallow from across the room. “That’s new.”

“Yes and no, I think,” Cal mused out loud. “I’m still figuring it out. So is Ray, for that matter. But you are pack and he is worried and I bet—no, I know, that Ray thinks you’re pretty, and he would like to make sure you’re okay, and that he wouldn’t offer this sort of thing to Penn, if any of that helps at all in your decision-making.”

“Iampretty.” Benny huffed, but faltered a little when Ray turned to look at him. “I was pack before.Packdoesn’t mean that on TV.”

“I think this is a Ray interpretation.” Cal pulled Ray’s hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “But it’s okay if you’d rather not, Bens. He just wants you happy.”

Ray looked back at Callalily. He took a breath and let his frown fall away.

Benny exchanged a glance with Cal, then moved his attention to Ray. “I’d have to talk to Divinity,” he answered at last.

Cal beamed like the morning sun. “Just so you know that you’re welcome,” he practically chirped, and swung a much more calculated look up to Ray.

Ray’s face and neck were hot. “I didn’t expect…”

“I know,” Cal cut him off. “But you liked it once I said it. This can also be how I keep you. Anything,” he paused to kiss Ray’s hand again. “We can do anything now, Ray Ray, as long as we’re happy. We get to decide. Not anybody else. Isn’t that wonderful?”

It was terrifying. But wonderful too, like Cal himself.

And, trusting in that, Ray let himself be tugged back to the bedroom.

Chapter Eighteen

THE BEST EARPLUGS the nearest drug store had did not block out all sound, and Ray refused to wear a set of headphones over those. He would not be without that sense if Callalily was going to be out of his sight. His stand on the issue had started a small argument in the car that had only ended when they’d arrived at Rainbow Wings and met up with Penn, who had taken one look at them and said first, “Have you been arguing all afternoon? That’s not what I thought you’d get up to without me.” And then, after a small moment of silence broken only by Cal’s buzzing wings, she’d added, “I won’t leave his side, okay, Cal?”

Cal had sighed and given in but continued to watch Ray with narrowed eyes for the rest of their time together. A dramatic change from how he’d been cooing over Ray and petting his hair not long before. But he smelled worried, so Ray had stopped arguing.

Much like the protection charms in his pocket, Ray did not think the earplugs would do much to save him from a determined spell worker, or an assassin for that matter. Perhaps buy him a few seconds, maybe dampen the effects of a spell. So he waited until Cal and Benny were off with Calvin, and then, alone with Penn in a room inside the Rainbow Wings center, he locked the door and took the earplugs out of his ears.

Penn made a noise, objecting but not really surprised.

The sounds from the street came through the walls and closed door easily despite the distance, though the concert hadn’t even started yet. Ray could hear a thousand conversations, footsteps, and heartbeats. Excited young voices. Some jostling. Car horns, farther away from all that.

He sat down heavily in a chair that was too small for him. There ought to be larger chairs available, if not for weres then for anyone else who might need one.

Penn was slouched over the table, sipping some water and occasionally checking her phone for responses. The older magic-users could be shy, which Ray supposed made sense in a world that had once hunted them. Even though schools existed for magic-users now, and most humans had some magic items in their home, caution must be ingrained in many of them. The younger ones seemed to have no problems talking, according to Penn, but so far, none of the younger ones knew about anyone asking about sketchy, complex spellwork.

“Someone with magic experience probably knew who to ask, or at least where to start looking,” Penn had bemoaned earlier. After getting the rundown on Benny and Cal’s theory of it all, she had added, “The kind of thing a low-level staffer might be tasked to do, on some pretext. The one around the office who wears charms often enough that someone approaches them with a “research” idea. Or, you know, they knew the whole time as well. There’s plenty of people who do magic ‘for fun’ who would deny it when asked.”

When Ray sighed, Penn sat up a little and said, “You know this won’t be the sort of investigation to be over quickly or easily.”

Ray did. He also might not have the time that she did to see it through. “They know it too, I suspect,” he thought of Cal and Benny out there, helping Calvin but probably also still talking this out with each other, already thinking up places to begin a real investigation, “but right now the scale of the puzzle has them dazzled. Hopefully, Calvin will rein them in a bit.”

Penn made a doubtful face at her phone. Off-duty, but not exactly not working, she wasn’t dressed up, but her tucked in t-shirt and leather jacket had drawn the attention of several beings and humans as they’d passed.

“All right,” Ray was willing to admit it when not in his mentor’s presence, “Calvin might not rein them in. He might aim them directly at the problem. He will definitely give them ideas.” Ray drummed his fingers on his knees, tried to change positions until the chair creaked, then went still. And Cal would then aim Ray at the problem. He had shown himself quite willing to do so, maybe because he knew it’s what Ray wanted. He seemed to know everything Ray wanted now.

It made Ray’s heart beat faster, even though he was the one who had given Cal that power. If Calvin listened to them and approved of their suggestions, eventually, Callalily would approach Ray with one of them and expect Ray to deal with it.

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