LITMIR.BIZ

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the coffeemaker on, then found a smile when I heard Trent and Jenks in the hallway. “Coffee ready yet?” Trent called loudly.

      “Give it five!” I shouted back. Smile fixed, I leaned against the counter and waited for them to come in. But they didn’t, and I tiptoed to the archway, stopping when I heard Trent mutter, “I know how to wash sheets, Jenks. I’ve got two toddlers.”

       He’s doing laundry?

      “Hey, okay, cookie man,” Jenks drawled. “It’s your funeral if you shrink them.”

      There was a hesitation, and I leaned closer. “Shrink them?” Trent asked.

      “Those are one hundred percent cotton,” Jenks said importantly, “not your richy-rich linen stuff. If you use the sterilize cycle, you’ll not only shrink ’em, but set the oils carrying the vampire pheromones into the fabric. Look, Ivy’s got a bottle of no-nose up here.”

      My brow furrowed. No-nose?

      A cupboard creaked, loud over the sound of water filling the washer, and then Trent’s bemused “I’ve never seen this.”

      “Put a splash in. It’ll take care of the vampire cooties and the pheromones, too.”

      I could almost see the pixy preening in that he’d known something Trent hadn’t. Sure enough, Trent’s voice held a smidgen of humor and humility when he next spoke. “Thanks. I shouldn’t be so quick to prove I know what I’m doing.”

      “Don’t sweat it,” Jenks said, and I eased back into the kitchen. “That’s why Ivy has silk sheets. Me, I don’t like silk. The dust makes them as slippery as all hell.”

      Smiling, I busied myself with Trent’s book. I felt bemused and loved. Trent was washing my sheets, the one thing that I wanted most and didn’t have time for. And I hadn’t known about the no-nose, either.

      The coffee was gurgling its fragrant last when they came in, the book splayed open before me as my interest in it went from pretend to real. “Smells good,” Trent said, Jenks a humming shadow behind him.

      “You want the rainbows or the smiley face?” I asked, reaching for the mugs.

      Trent eyed the two overly happy mugs. “Ah, whatever. You need a fresh stick of yew. I’ll be right back.”

      “I’ll get the yew, cookie man.” Hands on his hips, Jenks yo-yoed before him. “I want to make sure no one peed on it.”

      “I can get it,” Trent insisted, and Jenks darted forward, rocking the larger man back.

      “I said … I’ll get it,” Jenks said, and I rolled my eyes as the pixy bristled. “Sit and drink your coffee. If I need your help, I’ll whistle. I want to check on, ah, Jumoke, anyway.”

      Eyes wide in question, Trent took the rainbows. “I’ll sit and drink my coffee.”

      “Good man.” With a relieved sigh, Jenks flew out the back door’s cat flap, whistling and calling coaxingly for Rex.

      Eyebrows high, Trent leaned past me to look out the window. The scent of cinnamon and wine dove deep, and I almost sighed. “Ah, why doesn’t Jenks want me in the garden?” he asked.

      I sipped my coffee, thinking the scent went well with content elf. “My guess is he’s looking for his cat and he doesn’t want you to scare her off.”

      “Mmmm.” Expression concerned, Trent dropped back to his heels, steaming mug behind his laced fingers. “Cats like me.”

      My head slowly shook. “Nah. A pixy dancing an inch off the ground is a lot more enticing than a man she barely knows. Besides, how often do we get the church to ourselves?”

      His eyes flicked to mine and held for a telling moment. Introspective, he went to the large table, turning one of the chairs halfway around before sitting sideways in it. “My cleaning crew could be in and out of here in two hours.”

      Again, I shook my head. The thought of more people in my church made my skin crawl. Besides, I should wait until I knew if I was going to survive the next couple of days. Book in hand, I set my mug next to his before I shifted Trent’s arm and sat right in his lap, curving his arm around me. He grunted in surprise, holding me almost in self-defense as I dropped the book open before us. “Oh, I like this,” he said, tugging me into a more comfortable position.

      “I bet you do.” Smiling, I thumbed to the proper page. I felt vulnerable, and this helped. “I’ve been looking at the charm you dog-eared. Changed aura or not, I can’t imagine the Goddess won’t recognize me if I petition for her help.”

      A memory of the Goddess shivered thorough me. Al had tried to kill me because of her, believing it was the only cure for the voices in my head. I’d had to trick Newt into admitting the Goddess was real. It wasn’t my fault the Goddess’s mystics liked living in mass better than the space between mass. If they ever found me, the only way to survive would be to kill the Goddess—turn her into something new.

      Trent’s fingers were tracing a delicious path along the top of my waistband, and I jumped when he found my skin. The memory of the first time with him surfaced like bubbles in my thoughts, breaking with little tingles against the top of my mind. It had been in the kitchen. Well, we’d started in the kitchen. We’d ended in the back living room.

      He was smiling when I turned to him, and I let the pages shift so I could trace the outline of his ear with a slow finger. “You want to find a different charm?” he asked, a new thought hazing the back of his eyes.

      I slowly leaned in and found his earlobe with my lips, tugging suggestively as I breathed him in, waves of sensation spilling through me. “No,” I whispered, shivering when his fingers gripped the back of my neck. “I want you to do it. You’ve done it before. Right?”

      I hadn’t meant to put a sexual innuendo in there, but there it was.

      “Sort of.”

      His sour tone slumped my shoulders, and I pulled back. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine, but his hands never fell from around my waist and kept me where I was. Wincing, he glanced at the book. “The charm I’m familiar with affixes souls based on aura identification. Felix doesn’t have his natural aura anymore.” My balance shifted as Trent flipped to a new page, his long fingers moving the paper like fingers over a keyboard. “We can use the first part to capture the soul, no problem,” he said when he found it, “but we’ll need to tinker with the second half to find something to affix it to, something not altogether alive and coated in someone else’s aura.”

      “Al and Newt have collections of souls. I bet they have a way to affix them.”

      Trent stiffened under me. “You’re not asking Al.”

      “I know.” I leaned to put my head on his shoulder. It was awkward, but I didn’t care when his arms went around me again. “I’ll ask Newt unless you have something in your library.” This was nice. I didn’t want to move.

      “Newt isn’t any better than Al,” Trent muttered, but we had little choice. Elves and witches seldom worked with souls, and never to affix them to a nonliving thing. The Were’s focus was kind of like a soul. Maybe I could use that curse?

      Trent squirmed, and I got up knowing he probably wasn’t altogether comfortable. “We’ll find something.” I needed professional guidance, but my professional guide was pissed at me. Fidgeting, I looked at the cookies, wishing I had something better to offer Trent. I’d seen his taste in cookies, and I was a bohemian by his culinary standards. “You don’t have any more books on the subject, do you?” I asked as I pulled the bag to me and snapped one to check for staleness. Flat.

      “No.”

      “Maybe simply capturing Felix’s soul will buy us enough time.”

      Depressed, I set the open bag down and sat in the chair next to him. He was silent, waiting until I took three cookies before he reached in and

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