“Are you still pissed about last night?”

I cracked an eye open. “You mean when you were being the World’s Biggest Prick? Nah, I’m over it.”

Dorian made a noise resembling a grumble. “I’m sorry.” He made it sound like he was grinding glass between his teeth. Apologizing wasn’t one of his strong suits, or any man’s for that matter—angels not the exception apparently.

Grumbling myself, I opened my eyes again and knew until I addressed his questions, relaxation would not be mine. “Listen, I’ll discuss everything with you if you agree to one thing.” He waited, not giving his confirmation until he heard the stipulations.

“This,” I signaled between the two of us with my forefinger. “stops.”

“What do you mean?”

Among everything else, I had thought about Dorian a lot today and our strange dynamic. I was confident in my decision, even if saddened me.

“This,” I repeated. “This bizarre thing between us. I thought it would be okay to have fun with you, but it’s turned into a complicated mess. Are you my friend? My lover?”

“Well in order to qualify me as your lover we would have had to—”

I held up my hand to stop him. “That’s not the point. The point is, somewhere between ‘just being friends’, I bent my fingers to mimic quotation marks, “we slipped off track and became friends with benefits.”

“Worst benefits ever. I haven’t even gotten to fu—”

Again, I held my hand to cut him off. This conversation wasn’t going at all the way I had planned it in my head.

“You need to stop kissing me, stop putting your hands on me. Understand? I appreciate your help with the rogues, but that’s all you can do for me.”

Man, that sounded a lot harsher once I said the words. By the look on Dorian’s face he agreed. What he didn’t know, was that staying away from him romantically was going to be just as hard for me as it was for him. Even now, I fantasized about him joining me in the tub. Dorian scented bubbles definitely a bad idea.

He nodded awhile as he thought about something. “Sorry, cupcake, no deal. I know what I want and I want you. I’ll kiss you, caress you and tease you senseless until you get it through that thick skull of yours and admit you want me just as bad.” He stood up and my body tensed. Was the relentless teasing starting now?

He bent down, resting his arm on the tub. “You care too much what society thinks. That is why you haven’t given in to what you want, isn’t it? You’re afraid of the whispers that will follow if people hear you’re with me when just weeks before you were with Aiden?” He grabbed a washrag, submerged it into the water and then trailed it over my arms. “You forget one very important thing.”

“What thing,” I whispered.

“I may not be able to see your future, but I can still sense your soul. I feel the craving within it whenever you look at me.Feel me. Kiss me. Don’t pretend for one second I’m in this alone. You can try to fool me with words and hard stares, but everything in here,” he tapped the space over my heart, “contradicts everything you say and do.” He stood up, placing the washrag on the rim of the tub and walked to the door. “Maybe for once you should listen to it instead of the voices of others.” And with those parting words, he left me alone with my thoughts. And boy were there a lot of them.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Who do you suppose he is?” Lauren asked. All three of us were sitting on the sofa. I’d just got done telling them about the musical old man. Dorian sat extra close to me to assist in driving his point home.

“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s something very…odd about him though. I think he wants me to find him in the realm of the dead, so maybe he’s a ghost. I mean, he’d have to be right?”

Dorian nodded. “Or a demon. It could be another one of the Veil’s tricks or Holly’s or the VC’s.” He looked over at me and snorted. “It’s nice to know I’m not the only one you piss off.”

Lauren and Dorian shared at laugh at my expense. I scowled at both of them. “Harhar, jackasses. Now can we figure out a way to put an end to all of this so I can return to my life in Flora?” I gave each of them a pointed look. Their laughing ceased, but Lauren still smiled.

“Well, tracking down the Veil’s headquarters is next to impossible,” Lauren said. “I’ve been working on uncovering their secret hideout and came up with nada. Your best bet to ending the chaos is to find and kill Holly.”

“Tempting, but she’s flown the coop. Not even the NAWC can track her.” I thought for a minute but my mind kept wandering back to the old man. He was just too curious not to examine more closely. “I need to go to the ghostly realm.”

“What for?” Dorian and Lauren asked in unison.

“To find the old man.” The riddle he recited the first night I met him was jumbled in my mind. I tried to discern anything from the hallucination or was it a dream? Whatever it had been… All I could remember was something about a hill and music. Not exactly a road map to finding him, but I was confident that if I crossed over I would find my way.

“You want to willingly walk into what is most likely a trap?” Dorian’s voice was incredulous. “You hold her down while I bind her hands and feet,” he said to Lauren. The scary thing was, I didn’t detect a hint of humor in his voice.

“I need to do this.” And I did, though I didn’t know why. My encounter with the strange man pulled at the corners of my mind, whispering for attention.

Find me…find me...find me…

“We’ll check it out,” Dorian said surprising me.

“Really?” I said dubiously. I was going with or without him, but his company would me the trip more bearable.

“Yeah, me and Eddie will go tonight.”

And there it was, my reason for my suspicion. “I’m the only one who knows how to find him. I’m going.”

“So you tell me and I’ll find him.” He shrugged as if it were just that simple.

“Maybe you misunderstood,” I snapped. “I wasn’t asking for permission.”

We stared daggers at each other, neither one of us willing to back down. The thing was, I really did need Dorian. I still hadn’t mastered the art of figuring out how to penetrate the realm of the dead.

“All right,” Dorian said with a huff.

“Again, I don’t need your approval,” I told him. “I was just letting you know my plans so you knew where I was.”

A smirk bent his mouth up and I grinned in response, looking away.

“Okay, now that that’s settled,” Lauren said. “I’ll head out, prowl the streets. You know, do what I do.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Lauren.”

She nodded, standing and straightening her leather jacket. “Maybe tonight one of them will talk. I’ve been coming up with new torture ideas.” The smile lighting her face made me seriously question her sanity. It was obvious she enjoyed her job, maybe a little too much.

“Good luck with that.” I stood up too, staring down at Dorian. Lauren did a little wave and disappeared in a gust of rapid wind.

“Let’s go.” Dorian didn’t budge. Instead, he sat in the same relaxed position, his arm propped up on the armrest, his legs spaced apart.

“Show me that you can step into the realm of the dead without my help.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not a joke, Gwen. If you step into the realm of the dead, then you need to be able to step back out. I don’t like this whole thing so I want you prepared for anything.”

My head bobbed up and down in an agreeing nod. “Okay.”

While I was in Moon, Holly’s right hand man, Kye, had taught me how to navigate from our world to the ghosts, but I hadn’t practiced since then. Call me crazy, but I didn’t plan on going to the bleak dimension unless I absolutely had to. Running into a demon had scared me away from exploring.

I closed my eyes, inhaling air through my nose and releasing it through my mouth. The realm sits adjacent to our world, a thin layer unseen by those around it. Death is always around us. It’s just as natural as the sun and sky. And my ability to connect with it was the reason I could sense it against my skin even now. I envisioned the gloomy landscape, listened for the rustle of the ever-present breeze.

“You’re taking too long,” Dorian complained.

“I need to concentrate,” I replied.

“You should be able to pop in and out just like I do. You shouldn’t have to think about it so much.”

I snapped my eyes open and glowered at Dorian. “I’m only as good as my teachings.”

He released a heavy breath. “Touché. I haven’t helped very much, have I?”

“You’ve been a little busy trying to take care of everything for me,” I agreed. It’s what I had been trying to tell him the entire time. His motives were commendable, but by doing everything for me he’d made me more vulnerable.

“I’m sorry. Since meeting you you’ve thrown me off my axis. I’ve never played the role of protector, and perhaps I went a little overboard with it.”

I couldn’t help the wide smile from forming on my lips. “A little?” I teased.

“All right, smartass, prepared to be schooled.” He peeled himself off the sofa, taking leisurely steps around me. My eyes tracked his movement, my body tense for his reaction. He couldn’t ‘school’ me like a normal teacher. He always had to lace his instructions with that deep sexy rasp while his hands distracted my thoughts from what I was supposed to be focusing on. The man was relentless!

He stopped in front of me, a six-foot-four solid frame of sexiness. His t-shirt strained over the curve muscle in his arms and broad shoulders. I’d seen just how strong those arms were and good they felt wrapped around my waist. The more I stared at him, the events of earlier tonight pushed their way through my thoughts. The man I was looking at was anything but. The muscles, clothes—everything—was a disguise. I had seen the shadow of wings against the bricks, seen the anger and felt the fury. A shiver, that had nothing to do with desire, caused my shoulders to shake.