Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files 8)

"Okay, kid," I said. "We survived. I only had some very limited plans to cover this contingency."

She blinked at me. "What?"

"I didn't think I'd pull this off. I mean, raiding a faerie capital? Standing up to the Senior Council? All those movie monsters? Your mom? Hell, I'm shocked I survived at all, much less got you out of it."

"B-but..." She frowned. "You never seemed like... I mean, you just went through it all like you had everything under control. You seemed so sure what was going to happen."

"Rule number one of the wizarding business," I said. "Never let them see you sweat. People expect us to know things. It can be a big advantage. Don't screw it up by looking like you're as confused as everyone else. Bad for the image."

She smiled at me a little. "I see," she said. She reached down to stroke Mister and mused, "I must look horrible."

"Been a rough day," I said. "Look. We'll need to talk about where you're going to live. I take it that you had already decided to break things off with Nelson. I kind of picked up that vibe when we bailed him out."

She nodded.

"Well. Inappropriate to stay with him, then. To say nothing of the fact that he's going to need time to recover."

"I can't stay at home," she said quietly. "After all that's happened... and my mom will never understand about the magic. She thinks it's all bad, every bit of it. And if I'm there, it's just going to confuse and frighten all the little Jawas, Mom and me arguing all the time."

I grunted and said, "You'll have to stay somewhere. We'll work that out soonest."

"All right," she said.

"Next thing you need to know," I said. "As of now, you get no slack. You aren't allowed any mistakes. You don't get to say 'oops.' The first time you screw up and slip deeper into bad habits, it kills both of us. I'm going to be tough on you sometimes, Molly. I have to be. It's as much for my survival as yours. Got it?"

"Yes," she said.

I grunted, got up, and went to my tiny bedroom. I rooted around in my closet and found an old brown apprentice robe one of the shiny new Wardens had left at my place after a local meeting. I brought it out and handed it to Molly. "Keep this where you can get to it. You'll be with me at any Council meetings, and it is your formal attire." I frowned and rubbed at my head. "God, I need aspirin. And food. You hungry?"

Molly shook her head. "But I'm a mess. Do you mind if I clean up?"

I eyed her and sighed. Then I said, "No. Go ahead and get it out of the way." I stood up and went to the kitchen, muttering a minor spell and flicking several candles into light, including one near the girl. She took the robe and the candle, grabbed her bag, and vanished into my room.

I checked the icebox. The faeries usually brought some kind of food to stock the icebox and the pantry when they cleaned, but they could have mighty odd ideas about what constituted a healthy diet. One time I'd opened the pantry and found nothing but boxes and boxes and boxes of Froot Loops. I had a near-miss with diabetes, and Thomas, who never was quite sure where the food came from, declared that I had clearly been driven Froot Loopy.

Usually it wasn't that bad, though there was always a high incidence of frozen pizza, for which my housekeepers maintained the ice in my icebox with religious fervor. I often left most of a pizza lying around uneaten when I figured they'd be coming to visit, and thus continued my policy of shamelessly bribing my way into the Little Folk's good graces.

I was too tired to cook anything, and nothing was going to taste good anyway, so I slapped several hot dogs between two pieces of bread along with a couple of lettuce leaves and wolfed them down.

I got out some of my ice and dumped it in a pitcher, then filled the pitcher up. I got down a glass and filled it with ice water. Then I and my glass and my pitcher moseyed over to my fireplace. I set the pitcher on the mantel, idly flipped the neatly laid fire to life with my ignition spell, and then waited for the inevitable while sipping cold water and staring down at the fire. Mister kept me company from his spot on top of a bookcase.

It took her a little while to work up to it, but not as long as I had expected. My bedroom door opened and Molly appeared.

She had showered. Her candy-colored hair hung limp and clinging. She'd washed away the makeup entirely, but there were spots of pink high on her cheeks that I figured had little to do with cosmetics. The various piercings I could see caught the firelight in a deep, burned orange glow. She was also barefoot. And wearing her brown robe. I arched an eyebrow at her and waited.

She flushed more deeply and then walked over to me, quite slowly, until she stood not a foot away.

I gave her nothing to work with. No expression. No words. Just silence.

"You looked into me," she whispered quietly. "And I looked into you."

"That's how it works," I confirmed in a quiet, neutral voice. She shivered. "I saw what kind of man you are. Kind. Gentle." She looked up and met my eyes. "Lonely. And..." She flushed a shade pinker. "And hungry. No one has touched you in a very long time."

She lifted a hand and put it on my chest. Her fingers were very warm, and a rippling flush of purely biological reaction bypassed my silly brain and raced through me in a wave of pleasure-and need. I looked down at Molly's pale hand. Her palm glided over my chest, barely touching, a slow, focused circle. I felt faintly disgusted with myself for my reaction. Hell. I'd known this kid before she'd had to worry about feminine hygiene products.

I managed to thwart my hormones' lobby to start growling or drooling, but my voice had gotten a shade or two huskier. "Also true."

She looked up at me again, her eyes wide and deep and blue enough to drown in. "You saved my life," she said, and I heard her voice shaking. "You're going to teach me. I..." She licked her lips and moved her shoulders. The brown robe slipped down them to the floor.

The tattoo that began on her neck went all the way down to her pierced navel. She had several other studs and fine rings in places I had suspected (but never confirmed) they would be. She shivered and took swifter breaths. The firelight played merrily with her shifting contours.

I'd seen better. But mostly that had been from someone using her looks to get something out of me, and the difference had largely been one of presentation. Molly didn't have much experience in displaying herself for a man, or in playing the coquette. She should have stood differently, arched her back, shifted her hips, worn an expression of thickly sensual interest, daring me to come after her. She would have looked like the patron goddess of corrupted youth.