LITMIR.BIZ

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the door behind Nash, then sank into his favorite armchair as I settled onto the couch, trying to decide whether or not to tell him the whole truth. About the Demon’s Breath. He was being pretty cool so far, but the Netherworld element was guaranteed to push him over the edge.

      “I told you. Doug Fuller hit my car.”

      “How bad is it?”

      I sighed, mentally steeling myself for an explosion. “He wrapped it around a neighbor’s brick mailbox.”

      Air whistled as he inhaled sharply, and I flinched.

      “He was drinking, wasn’t he?” my father demanded, and I almost smiled in relief. Part of me had been sure he’d know about the Demon’s Breath from my posture, or my expression, or some kind of weird bean sidhe parenting telepathy I didn’t know about. But he thought it was just regular teenage drama, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he looked a little relieved, too.

      I was not going to burst his bubble. “I don’t know. Maybe. But he is about as smart as a tractor.”

      “Where’d they take the car?”

      “To the body shop on Third.”

      My dad stood and actually smiled at me, and I could almost taste his relief. He was thrilled to finally be faced with a normal parent’s problem. “I’ll go look at it in the morning. I assume this Fuller kid is insured?”

      “Yeah. The cops gave me this.” I held out the form with Doug’s contact information and his insurance company’s number. “And he said his dad would pay for it.”

      “Yes, he will.” My father took the form into the kitchen, where the light was better. “Go get some sleep. You and Em are working in the morning, aren’t you?”

      “Yeah.” From noon to four, we’d be selling tickets and serving popcorn at the Cinemark in the never-ending quest for gas money. Which we spent going to and from work. It was a vicious cycle.

      Dismissed, and feeling like I’d just been pardoned from death row, I changed into my pj’s, brushed my teeth, and lay down next to Emma in the bed. And as I listened to her breathe, I couldn’t help thinking about how badly everything might have turned out if she’d actually gotten into that car.

      I’d already lost Emma once and had no intention of losing her again anytime soon. Which meant I’d have to find out how her boyfriend got his human hands on Demon’s Breath—then make sure that never happened again.

      3

      “KAYLEE, COME ON IN!” Harmony Hudson brushed blond curls back from her face and held the door for me as I stepped into her small, neat living room, stuffing my freezing hands into my jacket pockets. “Do we have a lesson this morning?”

      “No, I just came to see Nash.”

      “Oh!” She smiled and closed the door, cutting off the frigid draft. “Then you must have served out your sentence.”

      “As of yesterday.”

      Nash had been grounded, too, but he only got two weeks, to my four. I think he would have gotten more if he’d still been underage, but it’s hard to ground an eighteen-year-old. And punishing Tod wasn’t even an option, considering he was fully grown and technically dead, and had unlimited access to the Netherworld. She couldn’t even keep him in one room—not to mention corporeal—long enough to yell at him.

      “He’s still asleep. What did you guys do last night, anyway?”

      I dropped my duffel on the faded couch, going for nonchalance, though I hated withholding information from her even worse than from my father. “Party at Scott’s house. Doug Fuller rammed my parked car with an ‘08 Mustang.”

      “Oh, no!” Harmony stopped in the kitchen doorway, holding the swinging door open with one palm. “You’re insured, right?”

      “Liability only.” That’s all I could afford, working twelve hours a week at the Cinemark. “But Doug’s parents are loaded, and there’s no way they can say I’m at fault. I wasn’t even in the car.”

      “Well, that’s good at least, right?” I nodded, and she waved one hand toward the short hallway branching off from the opposite side of the living room. “Go wake up van Winkle and see if you can get him to eat something. I’m making apple-cinnamon muffins.”

      Harmony was always baking something, and always from scratch. She was really more like a grandmother than a mom, in that respect, though she looked more like Nash’s older sister. She was eighty-two years old, with the face and body of a thirty-year-old.

      So far, slow postpuberty aging was the only real advantage I’d discovered to being a bean sidhe. My father was one hundred thirty-two and didn’t look a day over forty.

      Nash didn’t answer when I knocked, so I slipped into his room, then closed the door and leaned against it, watching him sleep. He looked so vulnerable in his boxers, one side of his face buried in the pillow, one leg tangled near the bottom of his sheet.

      I knelt by the bed and brushed thick brown hair from his forehead. The room was warm, but his skin was cool, so I started to cover him up, but before I could, his face twisted into a grimace, his eyes still squeezed shut.

      He was breathing too fast. Almost panting. His teeth ground together, then he made a helpless mewling sound. His arms tensed. He clenched handfuls of the fitted sheet.

      I watched Nash’s nightmare from the outside, trying to decide if I should wake him up or let the dream play out. But then his eyes flew open and he gasped, his gaze still unfocused. He scuttled over the mattress, bare chest heaving, and stood against the far wall, staring across the bed at me. His irises churned in terror for several seconds before recognition settled into place and by then my own heart was racing in response to his fear.

      “Kaylee?” He whispered my name, like he wasn’t sure he could trust his own eyes.

      “Yeah, it’s me.” I stood as his breathing slowed and he started to calm down. “Nightmare?”

      He rubbed both hands over his face, and when he met my gaze again he was calm, back in control of his expression. And of his eyes. “Yeah, I guess.”

      “What was it about?”

      “I don’t remember.” He frowned and sank onto the mattress. “I just know it was bad. But the waking up part is good so far …”

      Nash pulled me onto his lap. “So, what’s with the personal wake-up?” He swept my hair over one shoulder and suddenly I was acutely aware that he was half-naked and now very close. “Phone calls just aren’t as satisfying anymore?” he whispered, trailing feather-soft kisses down my neck.

      He leaned us both back, and before I even realized what had happened, I was lying on his bed, his weight pressing me into the mattress. His lips trailed down my neck again and his hand roamed over my shirt, and all I could think was that I didn’t want to stop him. He’d waited long enough. I wanted to just let it happen …

      My next exhale was ragged, and I couldn’t control my racing pulse.

      “I, uh.” What was I saying? What did he ask? Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter… .

      His hand slid beneath my shirt, but his fingers were freezing on my skin, and the shock woke me up. Irritated, I pulled Nash away and sat up to frown at him. “Are you Influencing me?”

      He shrugged, a heated grin turned up one side of his mouth. “Just helping you relax.”

      “Don’t Influence me, Nash!” I stood, struggling to sustain my anger with his voice still slithering through my mind. “Don’t ever do that to me when I’m not singing for someone’s soul.” Sometimes his voice helped me quiet my bean sidhe wail, but that’s not what this was. Not even close. “I hate losing control. It’s like falling off a cliff in slow motion.” Or being sedated. “And that’s

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