Page 153 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
Oh, will I?
“When Howlite wakes, he’ll be on the hunt for you. He’ll know it was you who roasted his coffer. You were the last with him, don’t forget.”
I cringed, feeling foolish. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Pete’s twinkling eyes said he could tell. “A fire’s smoke would betray our camp. Moreover, I wouldn’t put it past the vengeful sod to send the dell’s law force after you. As a royal official, he has that authority. So, you’d best sleep under dense cover.”
Before I knew to scurry away, Pete’s velveteen shadow cloak swallowed me whole, arousing both my claustrophobia and my fear of being lost to a vast and unending void. My only buoy in my welling panic was Pete’s face, which glowed a yard away.
“Fret not,” he dismissed my strained expression. “This isn’t a ploy to debauch you. You need not sleep too near me. Think of the cloak as a tent.”
“Not the problem, Pete.” I fisted my hands. “How can I see your face so clearly when I can barely see myself?”
“Magic.” His lips quirked boyishly.
I swallowed hard. “Right.”
“What’s the matter?”
I bit my lip, knowing I’d sound like a child when I answered, “I’m—I’m afraid of the dark.”
“You didn’t seem frightened the first time I showed you my cloak.”
“I wasn’t faced with spending a full night in it the first time, and your nightlight face was much closer then.”
He arched a questing brow. “Then you do wish to sleep near me?”
Man, did I ever.
“To the light,” I corrected him—and my reckless libido. “And I may need to listen to one or two songs to relax because I can’t see myfreakinghands!”
Pete swooped closer, chuckling as he grasped the invisible hands in question. Our fingers lit in his cozy, supernatural radiance. “That better, Shorty? Do calm down.”
Taking his advice, I inhaled.
“As for the songs—I haven’t the foggiest why you think I can sing.”
“Not songs from you. Songs from my iBloom.”
“That little whatnot you wouldn’t sell to the pawner?” Clearly, he still thought me frivolous for refusing to sell it.
“That little whatnot holds hundreds of the best songs ever created on Earth, buddy. No pawner could pay us enough for it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah!”
“Prove it.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t mumble. Let’s hear thesetours de force. Perhaps that strain you incessantly sung to me on the road this morning?”
My breath stilled. “You heard?”
“Aye, I heard. What do you think rebalanced my magic?”
“My singing?”
