Page 45 of Reap the Night
It twines and twists and forms knots inside me, so I barely feel it when Crush takes my hand and leads me into the throng. But I do feel his arm snake around my waist. I feel the world fall away as he scoops me off my feet and holds me to his chest.
“Loop your arms around my neck, Merry.”
I do so, holding on to him, his breath on my cheek as we whirl and whirl and whirl under the light of the Silvercrest moon.
Chapter 16
ORINA
My favorite part of the day was morning coffee in the office where we planned the rest of the day and bantered. Of course, we spent time together at the chapter house, but there was something special about these morning sessions, and we always held back something to talk about at these.
This morning we began with Merry’s account of the Silvercrest dance where she’d met Crush’s scary, growly ogre blood friends, who’d turned out to be not so scary or growly, and who she was excited to hang out with again. Edwin nursed a hangover while Padma delighted in reminding him of the fae woman who’d been all over him on the dance floor.
“You let her stick her tongue in your mouth, and ear, and then your mouth again.”
Edwin gagged and Padma pressed back a smile. “I think I spotted tentacles at one point.”
“And you didn’t save me?” He looked genuinely upset by that, and her smile faltered.
“I thought you were having fun.”
He dropped his gaze. “And I thought you knew me better than that.”
Silence strained as an awkwardness fell over us all for several seconds before Holly broke it.
“Orina, where did you go?” she asked. “You left early, right?”
“Something like that.” I filled them in on what had happened with Shay, keeping my tone light to keep my emotions about what could have happened in check. “Ezekiel saved me.”
“I should have been there,” Padma said, but she was looking at Edwin.
“We were all high on fae wine,” Holly said. “Not just Orina. Pretty sure that was Shay’s doing too.”
I shook my head. “I think it was more than the fae wine for me. Apparently, he’s a Baobhan sidhe. I think his touch has some power.”
“That would explain the gloves,” Merry said. “You need to tell Crush about this. Shay can’t be allowed to get away with it.”
“Oh, don't worry, I sent a Raven last night.” Well, Kaster had done it for me, and then he’d made me cocoa and hugged me to sleep, and I could totally get used to that kind of treatment.
“Well, I'm interested to see what Crush has to say about this,” Padma said. “He introduced Shay as his friend. The friends we keep say a lot about us.”
“Crush is a good guy,” Merry said.
“I have no doubt.” I sipped my coffee. “But Shay is not, and Crush needs to know that. Kaster’s filed a report with the Sangualex too, so between us we’ll get the bastard.”
The Raven bell tinkled in reception, and Merry jumped up. “I’ll get it.” She rushed outside to the perch where any Raven with messages for us landed and returned a few moments later carrying a note which she handed to me.
I read it quickly. “It’s from Crush. He says he has people looking for Shay, and he’ll contact me once they find him, andit also says he’s only ever known Shay to be a gentleman and is disgusted by what he did.”
“I told you,” Merry said.
I popped the note in my desk drawer. “So now we wait.”
“If I come across him first, I’ll chop his balls off,” Edwin said.
“It’s lucky that Ezekiel came along.” Padma gave me a sidelong glance. I knew what she was thinking, what they all must be thinking, that the fact that he’d gotten there so quickly meant that he must have been following me. Watching me.
I was grateful for his obsession with me, and there was no way I was telling them what happened afterward at the apartment that he had bought for me. Sharing that moment felt like a betrayal to him, to us. But there was no us. There could never be an us.
