Chapter 7
I opened my mouth to scream, but before I could, the whole damn lot dropped down, covering both the floor and me in a mass of tiny black bodies.
Horror filled me, and for a moment I couldn’t move, frozen to the spot and praying like hell that this was nothing more than a nightmare. Then thousands of tiny fangs began to dig into my flesh, and I screamed and jumped and swung Amaya around wildly, swatting at the creatures I could barely even see.
Azriel pulled me into his arms, then swept us away. We reappeared in my bathroom, but it wasn’t enough. I could still feel the fangs. I raced under the shower, throwing off my clothes and stomping on the black bodies that fell like rain around me. Despite the heat of the water, I was shivering like crazy, and my skin crawled with the sensation of movement.
“Are there any left?” I asked, spinning around almost wildly, trying to spot the creepy little bastards.
“No.” Azriel caught my arm and made me stop. “They’re gone. It’s okay.”
I shuddered. “It still feels like they’re on me.”
“No.” He hesitated. “But we should go back—”
“There is no way in hell I’m going back into that room.”
“If you’d let me finish a sentence occasionally,” he said, voice a mix of amusement and annoyance, “I was going to suggest you talk to the manager while I investigate the room to see if the woman left anything behind in her haste to escape.”
“Oh.” I gulped down some air in an attempt to calm my still-racing pulse. “That I can do. Just wait until I get dressed.”
He handed me a towel. “I was not intending otherwise.”
I raised my eyebrows. “If I didn’t know you better, reaper, I’d suggest there was an almost propitiatory note in your voice when you said that.”
“Then you would be wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“So if I started shagging Lucian again, you wouldn’t care?”
He gave me a look. One that suggested I was being silly. I grinned.
“There is a vast difference between not caring about who sees your outer layer and whether you’re with Lucian.”
“So, Lucian aside, you wouldn’t care if I found myself another lover?”
He crossed his arms, his expression giving little away. But tiny flickers of annoyance danced both along Valdis’s sides and through the outer reaches of my mind, a sure sign that he was not as calm as he appeared. “That is not your intention, so why bring it up?”
“Because it’s sometimes amusing to see your very human reactions.” I rose on my toes and kissed him. “And now I’ll get dressed.”
“And I would like to point out that the workings of your mind are sometimes incomprehensible.”
“Does that mean I sometimes make sense?” I brushed past him, dumped the wet towel down the laundry chute, then headed for my wardrobe.
His gaze followed me, a caress that sent a tingly warmth skittering all the way down to my toes. It was certainly a more welcome sensation than the tiny tickles of thousands of spidery feet.
“Occasionally. Very occasionally.”
I grinned again. “Just think how boring your life would be without me.”
“I do.” He hesitated. “Possibly more than is wise.”
I shot him a glance. “So you’re actually going to miss me when this assignment is over and you leave?”
He hesitated again, and my amusement died. Hesitation was not what I’d expected. Not now. Not after all that had happened between us. And yet, as Ilianna had so rightly pointed out, the future was not something I should be worrying about right now. But, at the same time, how could I not when it came to him and me? Because I didn’t want him to leave. Not now, not ever.