Page 48 of Shadows of Nightshade
I’d been so mean to him, yet he’d been so nice to me. He got me a nice phone, and he was the one who pulled me out of the bathtub.
I was the worst person ever.
“T-Titus…” I reached for him, waiting until his attention was on me. “Please don’t be mad.”
He blinked at me, and when he spoke, his voice was gruff. “What?”
“I wasn’t yelling at you,” I explained. I hadn’t been thinking. After all, what could be scary about a grown man who loved cutethings? We had so much in common beneath the surface. “Forgive me?”
Titus pushed his hair back from his face. “You’re something else,” he grumbled. A pink imprint was blossoming along the bottom of his jaw, and I bit the inside of my lip.
“Are you okay?” I asked, allowing the guilt to chase away my fear. “I’m sorry.”
Everyone looked at the two of us, waiting for his reaction as if it signified some sort of pivotal moment. And I suppose it did—I was always apologizing to him, but this time, it felt different.
I really, truly did not want to be afraid of him anymore.
This was harder than facing that ghost.
He made a sound under his breath but then sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck, his guard dropping.
“Give me that,” he said, and Julian responded, handing Titus a second towel. Damen moved as Titus stepped in front of me and dropped it over my head. I stayed stunned, as he gathered my hair into the towel.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
Was he talking to me? I was going to need some time to come up with—
“We can’t stay here tonight,” Damen mused. He was stroking his chin in thought. Titus put his arm under my elbow and helped me to my feet, and Damen continued, “Miles put up some wards, and Kasai is keeping an eye out, but it’s clearly targeting her.”
“Were you able to see what it was?” Julian asked.
Damen shook his head. “Everything happened too fast,” he sounded disappointed. “But it’s definitely not demonic.”
“Yeah…” I mumbled. I could have—and did—tell him that already. I pulled the towel over my shoulders, trying to hide my trembling. I was still wet, and the towel only covered me to my knees.
It was so cold.
The four of them looked at each other and launched into action.
“They’ll pack everything up,” Julian told me as Titus and Miles left the room. “In the meantime, let’s get you dried and dressed.” He pulled me to him and rubbed his hand up and down my arm. “Then we’ll head back to Damen’s.”
“But…” I couldn’t just leave. I’d made a promise, to myself at least, to help. “What about the gh—house?”
“We need to do some research before we decide on our next steps.” Damen leveled his face to mine. “The house will be fine overnight. I’m assuming you’ve done all your house-sitting duties?” He waited until I nodded before he added, “Then we’ll continue at my place.”
Did he still want to do that? I guess it made sense. What else were we supposed to do?
We could all get to know each other.
“Okay!” I answered. This was kind of exciting. Who knew that almost being murdered had an upside?
If everything went well, this could be our new monthly tradition. I had so many things I wanted to do, and Finn refused to humor me. Our parties had always consisted of violence and pizza, with no true tradition being involved.
It was impossible to hold back my smile. Despite everything, they still wanted me. “That could be fun. I love slumber parties.” It certainly sounded better than being stalked by a ghost.
Damen and Julian blinked at me, surprised, before shooting each other another one of those communicative glances. Of course, their hesitance threw off my mood. Slumber parties were a normal thing that friends did, and now I’d made it sound all weird.
I lowered my eyes, frowning. “I mean, it sounds cool. Whatever you want to do. It was your idea.”
