I actually guffaw.
She’s shielding her eyes with her hand as she walks around to the other side of her alchemy bench. Then she picks up an apron and throws it at me. “Put that on or get out.”
I catch the apron, but don’t put it on. “You’ve heard me say it a few times now, Pie. And you didn’t ask, so maybe assuming that you’re ignorant is being presumptuous, but… do you have any idea what a satyr actually is?”
“What do you mean?” She’s doing her valiant best to not look down at my cock right now.
“You need to do some research. And if you still insist that I put on pants after you’re done, I will no longer be assuming you’re ignorant. I’ll just classify you as stupid.”
Her mouth falls open and I take a moment to notice that she has nice lips. She closes her mouth, perhaps noticing that I’m staring at it. And when my eyes dart up to meet hers, her little pink tongue slips out to wet her lower lip.
Fuck. She’s really not my type. Way too cute. But… she’s got an innocent kind of sexiness to her.
“For real,” I say. Because our silence has suddenly become awkward and Tomas isn’t here to break it up, so I guess it’s on me. “Just look us up. And then you’ll understand. Because we’re just… horny. At all times. And we have perpetual erections. This?” I point down at my dick. “This is nothing. Just a little chubby in my world.”
“Good God, you are gross.”
“There’s no way to stop it, so get over it, Pie. Because it’s a part of me and I’m not going to hide it to please you.”
Maybe it’s something in my tone, or maybe she just has the good sense to recognize me being honest, because she looks properly embarrassed. “Sorry,” she breathes. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just…” She sighs. “Never mind. I see your point.”
“And I see yours as well.” I put the apron on. “Things are much better around here when you don’t fight it, Pie. I’m not an animal. I’m not human either, but I’m not an animal.”
She blushes. “I didn’t—”
“I know you didn’t. You just don’t know any better.”
She has no idea what to say to that, so I take over and pull the book closer to me. “Oh, hey. It really did work. I can read it.”
“Really?” Pie is delighted.
I decide I prefer her delighted. She’s not bad. And she’s not a bitch, so that’s nice. In fact, she’s got an aura of goodness around her. Not a bad girl. Not at all.
OK. Enough about Pie. Back to the issue at hand. I can read the book and now it is clear that Grant was hiding things from me. Why put his notes in a language I can’t read?
“Here’s the part that bothers me about this,” I say. “He didn’t need to hide this shit. I never looked.” When I glance up at Pie, she’s paying attention, her face serious again. “I never looked at any of it. I don’t do magic.”
“Wait.” She puts up a hand. “But you do. You froze me. You slammed the door closed with your hand.”
“I have abilities. But I don’t do alchemy. The powers I have, they’re just innate. You, for instance, couldn’t learn how to do what I do the way you can learn alchemy. I was created with these powers. They can’t be taken, destroyed, or borrowed. So I never bothered with the apothecary. Before you came, I literally hadn’t been in here in…” I pause to think. “Decades. At least. I don’t even remember the last time I came in here. So why would he go to so much trouble to hide this stuff from me?”
“I don’t know, Pell.”
“We’ll have to keep that in mind and think on it. There’s something there, I’m just not sure what yet.”
She nods. Breathes deeply. “OK. So… the job?”
“Fine. You can get a job.”
“I can?”
“Yes. I’m not trying to trap you. And regardless of what you think, I had nothing to do with you coming here. I don’t know anything about how the caretakers are chosen other than it seems to follow a bloodline. I don’t know how you were recruited or—”
“It was a flyer in a gas station. Advertising for a caretaker job at the sanctuary.”
“Ah. It was magic. Bait. Charmed too. If you were able to see the flyer, you were of the bloodline.” I shrug. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you got stuck here with me. I get it. You want to live your life. You didn’t expect it to be stolen from you.”
“Yeah.”
“So you can have the job. But the date—”
“I have to go on the date, Pell! I already said yes. If I don’t show up, he’ll come out here. And if he can open the walking gate, what’s to stop him from coming through the front door?”