Page 105 of A Shade Too Far
I let out a soft cry at the damage in my backyard. My patio furniture had been trashed, the rattan lay in ratty chunks on the ground, and the pillows were ripped open and bleeding foam. My beautiful rhodo bush looked like half of it had been eaten and then spat back out onto my lawn.
A young man wearing gardening gloves was raking up the debris. “Are you Miriam?”
He didn’t even blink at my appearance.
“Yeah. Is… When…?” I shook my head blankly.
“Two of them showed up early this morning,” he said, “but we got them.”
“Did anyone see?” My neighbor Luka was already wound tight. The existence of demons would do nothing for neighborly relations.
“Nope. All good. No one was up yet and we told the guy who lives on that side?” The young man pointed at Luka’s place. “That you’re having extensive landscaping work done.” He paused, then leaned on the rake with a grimace. “Maybe don’t look in your kitchen?”
I immediately sprinted in through the back door. Food had been flung out of the cupboards and fridge, and plates were smashed on the ground. There was a steaming pile of…something in the middle of the room that stank of rotten eggs.
“I told you not to look,” he said woefully from behind me.
I pointed to the lump with a shaking hand, my magic swirling around my feet. “Did it shit on my floor?”
“It was marking its territory.” He stepped in front of it to block the offensive coil from my view, but then I caught sight of the scorch marks burned along my baseboards.
I let out a defeated whimper.
“Oh. Yeah, those too.” He brightened. “But we’ll set everything to rights.”
“Uh-huh.” Upstairs, Sadie’s bed was its usual mess, with a heap of clothes piled on it, and my bedroom hadn’t been disturbed either. It was a small comfort.
I threw my clothes in the trash and had cranked the shower to scalding when my phone rang. However, I wasn’t up to polite conversation so I stepped under the spray.
Demon vaginas, evil fire piss, unholy shits, my poor garden—I screamed for a solid minute. Then I slid down the shower wall, curled into a ball under the water until it ran cold. Once I was clean and clothed in yoga pants and a T-shirt, I checked my voice mail.
Eli had apologized, admitting that he should have listened to me about Zev and the ward and never brought Ryann into it. I appreciated that, but not enough to phone him back. I swallowed the last couple of painkillers in my medicine cabinet and left by my front door so as not to see the demon damage again.
The second I drove off with a screech of tires, my stomach growled so I stopped for a triple shot iced latte and snacks. Lots of snacks. I consumed two chocolate bars before I got to Hotel Terminus.
There was nowhere safe to leave Laurent’s stuff, so I waited for him, running down the battery on my phone with endless games of Tetris.
He didn’t return until later that evening, still in wolf form.
The soft golds and peaches of dusk’s light caressed him, catching the wolf tossing his muzzle, his muscles rippling as he drove forward. He was an explosion of motion yet fluid, like a powerful plume of water had been captured, quicksilver and beautiful in its violence. He was magnificent.
I warily got out, keeping the car door between us.
The wolf’s ears flattened out and to the side. His eyes hadn’t lost their wildness.
“I’ve got your keys,” I said hesitantly. “Want me to let you in?” I wasn’t sure how he usually handled this feat, but maybe he always shifted before returning home. Unless he could clear his eight-foot-high back wall and get himself in that way.
He leveled me with the full focus of that animal stare while I held on to my door, prepared to lock myself inside the car. Then he stepped all of two feet to the left.
“Thanks so much for allowing me to help you.” Grabbing his clothes, I slammed the door and marched toward him. Once I’d unlocked the hotel, he snagged his pants between his teeth and raced off toward the back where his bedroom was.
I lined his shoes up in the small foyer area, hoping his run through the Park had helped burn off some of his anger.
“Did you want me to wait or what?” Toeing off my sandals, I dropped his keys on his dining room table and sat down on the sofa, all my energy seeping away. He’d shift, we’d have a quick talk about the meeting tomorrow, and I’d figure out where to sleep.
The couch was so big and comfy that even his frustrated growl and the sound of something heavy being knocked over didn’t get me up. In fact, it made me more exhausted. First, I cost him his magic, now he couldn’t shake it off and transform back to being human.
The wolf slunk back into the main room and his air of defeat broke my heart. He lay down on the floor, illuminated by the honey-rich glow of a single sconce, his head on his paws and his tail wrapped around his hind legs.
