Gray Witch (Black Hat Bureau 5)

Before my emotional allergies got involved, I crushed him in a hug. “My family is your family.”

Aedan buried his face in my neck and held on for just a moment before awkwardly stepping back.

“I wouldn’t want Asa to get jealous.” He cleared his throat. “I also don’t want to get my butt kicked.”

These days, he got tossed around by Asa on the regular, but it was all in service to the greater good.

The guys’ self-defense classes were wildly popular in town, especially with teenage girls, which I’m sure had nothing to do with the hot instructors. It made me glad Asa intimidated people. I don’t think, at this point in our fascination, I would handle him handling another woman well.

Considering how Arden was hit-or-miss in her attendance, she must have felt the same about Aedan.

Goddess bless, I did not want to think about what a catastrophe that pairing would be.

“I’ll call the girls and give them a chance to yell at me instead of you.”

More and more often, they were shouldering the burden of running Hollis Apothecary on their own.

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” he promised. “And the shop.”

From his tone, I heard he would watch over the town too, which was a weight off my mind. I don’t know how I ever did this without him. If I hadn’t known he was here, I couldn’t have left Samford half as often.

“Keep an eye out for yourself too,” I warned him. “You are not expendable.” I honed my glare. “Got it?”

“Got it,” he said softly, ducking his head to conceal the vulnerability he couldn’t quite hide.

Back at the house, the guys had finished packing. Colby was mostly done too. She had gotten distracted by turning her dragon eggs in their incubation cave, which was apparently a time-sensitive deal and part of the reason why no one wanted to raise their own dragon horde when they could buy hatched adults.

One good thing about frequent deployments? We always kept a half-packed suitcase on standby.

All the last-minute items were perishable. Fresh pollen granules or bottles of sugar water. To prevent container theft—cough, Clay, cough—I started leaving the set I used to transport moth grub in the luggage between jaunts. As I grabbed for them, I discovered they had made an unwelcome friend.

Lounging on top of my bras, the grimoire lazed in my suitcase as if it had every right to be there.

“Will you bring it?”

Never taking his welcome for granted, Asa leaned against the doorframe.

A quick shower had left his silky hair too damp for his shirt, but he already wore his Bureau-issued pants and shoes. His piercings from the challenges matched nicely, so he left those in. The black stud in his ear tempted me to nibble his lobe until he made that rumble low in his throat that never failed to melt my knees.

“The wards on the house would keep it safe from the average threat, but from someone like Dad? From one of the other authors?” I hated to admit it. “They could peel back the layers like onion skin.”

“Then you should take it.” Asa noted the book’s nest and cocked an eyebrow. “How will you secure it?”

A finger pressed to my lips, I rose and dragged him into my room then shut the door behind him.

With Asa and I splitting time between each other’s bedrooms, I had magically soundproofed both.

One way only.

Little moths had no business hearing about the birds and the bees, but I had to keep an ear out for her. And Clay. Honestly? Mostly Clay. She might be the instigator, but he was her willing partner in chaos.

“I have a nasty pendant that belonged to a djinn once upon a time.” I pushed Asa down on the bed then knelt before my open closet door. “It’s a classic case of bigger on the inside than on the outside.” I cracked open the safe where I kept my dark artifacts hidden. “The djinn had an entire estate in there. It’s empty now, of course. He’s dead.”

“You killed him?”

“Me? No. I found the necklace in evidence and added it to my collection. He murdered his masters by shrinking them to the height of a pencil, cramming them into a mason jar, then letting them suffocate.”

Jewelry on my mind, I removed the mistletoe necklace Asa had given me and placed it on my dresser.