A Little Night Muse

He edged past the woman. The scent of her—lush and mysterious and dark, like the tiny seep springs in the woods, trickling from rocks and roots—swirled around him. He inhaled, and his boots angled to follow her without his conscious effort.

In the kitchen, the mini flood washed away his distraction. “Shit.” He dragged one hand through his hair, trying to get his head on straight. “The freeze last night must have broke a pipe.” He crouched by the sink and opened the cabinet underneath. There, right at the wall. “Best to turn off the whole house until we check the rest. Vaile will kill the contractor.” When he turned and straightened, the woman’s face was drawn tight. “Hey there. You okay?”

He put his hand on her arm. Through the silky fabric, she was cold to his touch. But the spark that leapt between them was hot. Crazy-hot scorching, like his nerves had turned to electrified fence.

She flinched. When she pulled away, the edges of the veils separated, revealing bloody streaks.

The water, the spark, everything faded as he took her arm again. “Miss, are you hurt? Where did this blood come from?” Fuck, now that he thought about it, where had she come from? His head seemed all hazy, but he forced himself to concentrate.

Without touching her again, Josh used the mass of his body to steer her out of the kitchen mess. In the adjoining living room, an overstuffed leather couch faced the valley view. Bunco’s hoof prints had melted into dark circles in the snow, the only sign of life. No tire marks, no ski tracks, no sweep of helicopter blades pushing up snow. How had she gotten here?

He herded her toward the couch. “Sit.”

She did and when he took a half step back, she looked up at him, green eyes sparkling. Tears? God, he hoped not.

Though she had recoiled from his touch before, she reached out and flattened her palm on his groin, just off center from the stamped bronze of his belt buckle. It was his turn to jump. “What—?”

The intensity of her gaze pinned him as effectively as her hand. “Where is the Hunter?”

Distracted again—hoo boy, was he distracted—by her hand so close to his fly, he shook his head and tried to pretend she wasn’t touching him. “Vaile and Imogene said they were going...somewhere. For...awhile.” Everything seemed vague lately. His body was reacting to the woman’s innocent touch as if he’d been alone forever...

“What do you know of the Hunter?” Though her hand trembled, her tone held an irresistible insistence.

But he reacted more to the fear she tried to hide—and the bloody bandages wrapped under the sleeve of her flimsy dress—than the demand in her voice. “Vaile is a good guy,” Josh said gently. “If you need a safe place to stay, he’ll give it to you.”

She shook her head, and the smooth darkness of her hair slid forward over her shoulders. “There is only one place for me, and I can’t go back.”

From his standing position, Josh looked down—inadvertently, helplessly—at the upper curves of her breasts and the shadow between revealed by the shifting veils. Only one fragile lacing seemed to hold the thing together. He stepped back before her hand on his thigh triggered greater embarrassment for them both.

The woman’s gaze arrowed up to him. “I need to find the Hunter.”

“You can wait until they get home, but you won’t have any water except what you pump from the well. And you’ll be cold as a witch’s...” His face heated, and the words popped out of him. “You can wait for them at my place.”

Her eyes widened—so did his; he couldn’t believe he just offered this gorgeous creature a bunk—then narrowed with judgment. He knew he’d be found wanting. He always was.

“Very well.” She pushed to her feet—was she wearing gold slippers?—which put the top of her dark head below his chin, but she never dropped her gaze. “Take me there.”

Imperious little thing. Misgivings nipped at him. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t leave her there alone. Really, taking her back with him was the neighborly thing, the only thing he could do.

Chapter 3

Adelyn stood between the strange beings known as Bunco and Wolly while the human known as Josh Reimer—he had given her this information freely, as if he didn’t know that names carried their own secret force—went to find what he called the main water valve turnoff. Maybe in the sunlit world, giving words to everything diluted the power of naming.

The dog and horse stared at her suspiciously. She knew Wolly was just a dog because she had tried to impose the verita luna—the Second Truth—on him. Even in her weariness, her musetta powers should have roused him to his alternate shape had he been a wereling, but he only sneezed. And the mere horse—sadly lacking both a spiraling horn and wings—sidled from her, putting one big hoof in the middle of her phae gate.

Adelyn scowled at the ruined mushroom ring. She had used up all her spoors getting this far. She had jumped from the coastal side of this place known as Oregon, to the pointy mountain in the middle, following the signs of fleeing phae. While the ocean and the mountain had a certain rough charm, this place was just desolate, cold and stark and ugly. The memory of the phaedrealii’s intricate dances and sumptuous feasts made her eyes prickle with frustrated tears that threatened to freeze on her cheeks.

She lifted one ruined slipper to kick the last standing mushroom, but stopped herself. She had no way to return to the phaedrealii—no way to get word to Raze—until the mushrooms released more spores. Just as well, the Hunter and his sylfana hadn’t been here. She needed a few days to get her harvest and her bearings.

The human—Josh, she reminded herself—reappeared from around the house. He retrieved the gun from beside the door where he had left it and came toward her.

She swallowed hard.

Not that she feared his gun. It was steel, not iron. And he was no Hunter that she should fear him, gun or no. But something about his steady gaze and unfaltering step made her heart double its pace. She was too tired from her ordeals to maintain a thick glamour and had only blurred the preternatural edge of her beauty. She wanted him to tell her about the missing phae, not contemplate odes to her eyeballs. She’d had entirely enough of odes.

Still, she had the sense he was seeing more than she might like. That muddy-colored gaze of his—neither blue nor green nor brown under the shadowing brim of his hat—seemed too perceptive for a mere mortal, despite the faint clouding of a scar in his right eye. Perhaps he had a trickle of phae blood in him. That would explain the strands of gold in his sandy hair, seeming to beckon her fingers to run through the thick, ragged locks. And that would also explain why the missing phae were comfortable in this land of small, bitter, ugly valleys.

She supposed the Hunter and his paramour weren’t exactly missing. They had fled. And she had been sent to return them. The reminder of the vizier’s charge made her shift uncomfortably, her feet cold in the thin slippers on the icy ground. Every phae should want to be back with the court. Even if some—musetta among them—might occasionally venture into the sunlit world, they belonged in the phaedrealii, not wandering among sharp-eyed humans like this Josh who might bring the iron back.

He reached around her to slide the gun behind the horse’s saddle. “You ready to go?” When Wolly barked, he smiled at the dog before returning his gaze to her. “Where are your things?”

She resisted looking down at the remaining mushroom and lifted her satchel in mute explanation.

“No boots even?” Josh shook his head. “Never seen a woman travel so light.”

If only he knew.

He swung up onto the horse in a fluid move she didn’t quite follow. Then he reached a hand down to her and waggled his fingers. “C’mon.”

She stared at his big, wide palm and those long, strong fingers. With a reluctant sigh, she slid her hand into his.

The shock of her musetta powers seeking a target rattled through her again, weakening her bones. But he hauled her up with the strength in just one arm and sat her across his lap. The front hump of the saddle pressed her close to the human. To Josh.

Oh, he was so warm. She hadn’t realized how the cold had sunk in until his radiant heat surrounded her. For days now, she had been loosing her powers in this world that seemed endlessly hungry for the touch of her magic. She longed for the phaedrealii where—she couldn’t believe she was willing to admit—she was nothing special. Her head bobbed wearily, the warmth and the rocking of the mere horse lulling her.

“You never told me your name.” His voice rumbled through his chest, intimate with their forced proximity.

“Adelyn.” The truth escaped her lips before she could censor it. A sliver of shock pierced her. Why had she told him that? Did his voice have a power over her?

No, he was a simple human. He couldn’t use her name against her.

“Adelyn.” His tone was soft, soothing. “Pretty. Does it mean something?”

“No.” Agitation made her twist upright. “And I ask you not to share it with others. I prefer not to be known.”

“Fine by me. This is a good place for people who want to get away.”

So Vaile and Imogene and the other escaped phae must have discovered. Adelyn had never wanted to get away. Fleeing had been forced on her unfairly.

“I meant to ask you,” Josh said. “How did you get here? I didn’t see a car.”

“Oh, I just...dropped in.” Adelyn gestured randomly, using the misdirection of her hand to pull a bit of the swirling mist around them to cloud his mind.

“Just dropped in,” Josh echoed obediently. A fleeting note of disbelief canted his tone upward, and she cursed her lack of experience with stubborn human males.

She needed to occupy him with other things. “Have many more like me come here?”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen a few of the Hunters’ friends when I run stock through here. Vaile says he’s happy not to mow.”