The timer dinged and Zoë shot upright, leaving the stake on the floor. The next part of the blend recipe must be enacted immediately.
“Now for the magic.”
She tapped the glass with her matte-black-polished fingernails that were tipped in white. A smidge of secret potion was added to the faery ichor from a long, narrow vial—tap, tap, the iridescent particles fluttered into the alembic—and then she recited the spell that she’d worked for months to perfect after dozens of hours studying the family grimoire.
“Feé substitutuary lente.”
This kind of molecular magic tended to zap her energy. All other magics barely taxed her system, though she did have difficulty wielding any magic in public. Call it a lack of confidence, or never having been taught to use her magic around others.
“Dissimulate,” was the final word.
The ichor in the alembic turned purple and she knew the process had been a success. Now she need only reduce the ichor to dust, package it in vials and hand it over to Mauritius’s courier, who always arrived on Sunday morning, bright and early, despite the fact she was a vampiress.
Reaching for a tray of glass vials, Zoë paused and tilted her head to listen. She eyed Sid. The cat’s ears also perked.
Someone knocking on her front door after midnight?
“Unusual. Absolutely unprecedented, actually.”
Leaving the spell room, she carefully locked it with a snap of her fingers. Sid pussyfooted in her wake down the iron spiral stairs that landed but a few paces from the front door, and assumed his protective stance behind her legs.
Confident of the protective barrier that shielded her threshold from vampires, werewolves and faeries, Zoë gripped the doorknob and opened it to reveal a sexy smile and beaming brown eyes.
Her rescuing knight said, “I’ve come for another kiss.”
Chapter 2
Leather coat draped over one arm, Kaspar—or rather, the man who allowed those he kissed to call him Kaz—stood in her doorway, not crossing the threshold. Zoë could usually feel her wards tingle when an unwanted visitor activated them. Not even a ting in the air. He was human; she was sure of it.
Yet it was well past midnight. She never received such late callers.
“You found me,” she stupidly said, glancing over her shoulder and up the stairs. The dust mix needed to sit for an hour before she reduced it, so she could manage a chat.
He rapped the bright door. “Figured out what cerulean looks like. It’s so bright it glows even in the dark. Nobody could miss it. You going to invite me in?”
“Depends on what you want.”
“I like a cautious woman. Smart. Especially this time of night. I’ve already said what I want. Another kiss. In fact, I figure I should get one kiss for every one of those bastards I laid flat. Four down. Four kisses.”
“You’ve already taken two kisses.”
He stepped up to the threshold, towering over her, but not making her feel small in any way. “Two left.”
And too many ways she imagined those kisses. Long and lush, deep and delving, hot and achy. But she hardly knew the guy.
Zoë leaned up and kissed him quickly. “There’s one.”
“That wasn’t a kiss!”
“You didn’t specify length.”
He beat the door frame with a fist, but as a sign of his own frustration, nothing threatening.
“We’ll call that one half a kiss,” Zoë conceded, because she wasn’t going to deny herself this man’s delicious kisses. She may be a bit of a recluse, but she wasn’t a hermit. And oh, but this felt like some kind of faery tale when the handsome prince showed up to woo the princess with glass slipper in hand.
Not that there was any slipper she could see. What girl could walk on glass, anyway, without breaking it? She preferred to keep bloodshed out of her faery tales.
Zoë crooked her finger, inviting him inside with a silent dare. Her normal cautionary inhibitions slipped away as she stood in Kaz’s intent brown gaze. Sort of brown and gold blended together, she decided of his eye color. Freckled eyes alive with expression. She could stare into them all night long.
Kaz walked her up against the wall, and braced a forearm against it, paralleling her head.
“Your hair is interesting,” he noted in a bemused tone. He swept his gaze down the white streak that spilled from roots to tips in an inch-wide swath.
“Does it bother you?”
“Not at all. It’s pretty to look at. Like your mouth. Your lips are soft and pink and when you dash out the tip of your tongue like that I want to taste it.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Kiss number three landed on her mouth with a sigh and a press of skin to skin, yet it encompassed things about her that felt needy and wanting. Kissing usually happened in the dark, and during a heated race to sex. She rarely enjoyed a kiss merely for the sake of it. And the thought of starting a race felt wrong.
Such luxury he gifted her. And wrapped in a dreamy kind of faery tale she wanted to read all night long.
Inviting him to taste her breaths, Zoë opened her mouth a little wider. Kaz’s tongue explored and caressed hers. Slow, lazy, he moaned as he placed his palm against her back, gently affirming his control.
And then suddenly the kiss was not there. Instead, Kaz beat the wall beside her head with a fist.
Rudely startled from the amazing fall into bliss, Zoë gaped up at the stranger she had foolishly allowed across her threshold.
“There’s another reason I’m here,” he said. Now his look admonished, yet curiously. “About a matter of something gone missing from my, er...person.”
Zoë flashed him her best innocent cat-burglar smile, and followed with a flutter of how-can-you-not-forgive-me lashes tossed in for good measure. “Something you were carrying before the fight?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever it was, you probably dropped it while beating on those idiots.”
“Possibly, but I looked around and couldn’t find the missing item. I’m inclined to believe this a case of sticky fingers.”
“Huh.” Zoë made a show of looking at her fingers. “My fingers are not at all sticky and—” Was that faery dust embedded in the whorls on her fingertips?
“Sparkly?” Kaz noted the shimmer despite the spare light in the hallway.
She rubbed her hands down her pants legs. “You know us women. Always putting sparkly stuff on our faces and skin. Just some glitter.”
“Give me back what you took, Zoë. Please?”
He said it so gently, and yet with a sure tone of command, she simply nodded and pointed over her shoulder.
“Up there?” he asked.
With a guilty shrug, she offered, “Sometimes I can’t help myself. It’s a habit.” It was also fun, daring and the only way she could find a thrill lately.
“I need it back. Can’t buy those things at the supermarket.”
“I’ll uh, go get it. You wait here.”
But he didn’t wait in the foyer, and instead, followed her up the spiral staircase. Zoë ran the steps, beating him to the fuchsia door and turning to put up her palm.
“This is my private—” She couldn’t call it her spell room. Kisses aside, she didn’t