Black Wings, Gray Skies (Black Hat Bureau 4)

More sweet words.

This, I realized, was how Dad had conquered a black witch’s hunger for power.

He replaced it with an equally addictive drug that hurt no one and could be gotten only one place.

Mom.

“You’re a million miles away.” Asa slid his hand into my hair. “Where did you go?”

“To a place we shouldn’t visit until we have wards on our rooms for privacy.”

His eyes promised me those wards would be set before bedtime, and I couldn’t wait to test them.

“Let me know if I can help.” He rubbed a lock through his fingers. “Where do you want me?”

Climbing onto the bed, I sat in lotus position. “That’s a loaded question if ever I heard one.”

Smiling softly, Asa mirrored my pose to make sitting knee to knee more comfortable.

“What Clay said…” I cleared my throat, “…about your horns.”

“Yes?”

“I thought I was alone in my suffering, since I had the verbal diarrhea, but fascination is prodding you too.” I reached up to run a fingertip the length of one horn while watching his eyes shutter from the pleasure. “You were raised fae, so I’m guessing that means you have some natural resistance to certain urges.” I lowered my hand to his cheek. “I suck at feelings, so it’s been forcing me to word vomit—”

“I thought it was diarrhea.”

After tweaking his nose, I rolled my eyes. “I’ve had it coming out both ends.”

“Fair enough.”

“You suck at accepting yourself, and you also suck at believing anyone else will either.” He leaned into my palm, but he didn’t say a word, so I rambled on. “That’s why your inner daemon pops out, and stays to chat, when he never did before.” I eyed his horns again but kept my hands to myself. “It also explains why, when it became apparent that I accepted him, you allowed your horns to show.”

With curious fingers, he explored the ebony curves as if they were a new feature rather than being born under the weight of them. “Do you think I’ll be like this for a month?”

“Would it bother you if you were?”

“No,” he said after careful deliberation, “but I would be forced to take leave.”

There were exceptions, even for Black Hat agents, that could get you out of fieldwork for a time.

An inability to blend in among humans was right at the tippy top.

“The director won’t be thrilled with the excuse.”

Your granddaughter literally makes me horny, and I need nakey vacation time with her to fix the problem.

“Does it bother you? That your family might not approve?”

“You’re mine.” I slid my palms over his knees, down his shins, to his ankles. “Every single inch.”

And yes, that sounded pervier out loud than in my head.

But no, I didn’t care one whit.

“Hmm.” He caught my wrists before I could trace the arch of his foot. “Does that mean you’re mine?”

In the past, say, yesterday, I would have snarled I wasn’t a piece of furniture, that I couldn’t be bought or borrowed or sold like one. But this wasn’t ownership. He was a part of me in a way no one had ever been. That made him mine, and it made me his too.