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Dayshia nodded and picked up her phone to launch her photo gallery app to scroll through her pictures. She found one Sandy took of her with Henry and handed the cell to Beth.
Her sister’s eyes widened as she looked at the big man. “Ooo, he’s pretty!”
Dayshia couldn’t keep the satisfied grin from her lips. “And his kisses make me melt in his big hands!”
Beth’s eyebrows rose. “Have you determined if anything else is big?” She burst into giggles at her own audaciousness, and Dayshia joined her.
Chris, Beth’s husband, appeared in the doorway in his jammies. “Can you two keep it down? You’re gonna wake the kids.”
“Sorry, baby. We’ll be quiet. Go to bed. I’ll be there shortly,” Beth said to him.
Dayshia noticed Chris looked pretty good in his sleepwear too.
The man nodded with a little frown and closed the door gently behind himself.
Beth turned back to her sister. “Well?”
“Oh! Yes, he’s… nicely equipped.”
“So, you’ve had sex with him,” Beth said bluntly.
Dayshia’s expression lost some of its joy as she shook her head.
The older sister’s brows came down in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“You know how I am in relationships.” She took a shaky breath. “I’ve found flaws in every man I’ve been with, and I always break up with them. Nothing lasts.” She looked into Beth’s eyes. “You’re right about Henry, though. He’s… an extreme departure from my usual boyfriends.”
“He doesn’t have issues like the others?” Beth asked.
Dayshia snorted explosively, and Beth looked at her in surprise. Dayshia gave her head a quick shake as her expression became pensive. She knew what her issues with Henry were, and none of them could be explained to her sister. She shook her head again, more gently this time. When she closely examined the concerns she had, searching for the big deal-breaker, she realized none gave her the same gut-level rejection she’d felt with other boyfriends. “They just… don’t seem as important with him.”
Beth gave her sister a hug. “That’s love, baby girl.” She smiled tenderly at her sister.
Dayshia took a deep breath. “What I have now with Henry is so good, I’m terrified I’ll destroy it if I go further.”
“If you don’t take that chance, you’ll also never know how much better it could be,” her big sister admonished gently.
Dayshia looked into the loving eyes of her sister and knew she was right. She gave her a small nod.
Beth kissed her forehead as she used to do when she had her big sister talks with Dayshia during their childhood. “Time for you to get some rest. We’re going to see dad tomorrow, and he hasn’t been himself recently. It’s going to be a trying day.”
“Thank you, Beth.”
The woman smiled at her sister and nodded. “You’re welcome.” She went to the door and looked back. “You need to bring that hunk with you on your next visit.”
Dayshia smiled and nodded.
Beth grinned and went to join her husband.
Dayshia closed the door and locked it once more, just as a precaution.
As she settled under the sheets, she recalled the sensation of Henry’s touch tonight and realized she needed to get past her fear. Henry wasn’t going to hurt her. It wasn’t in him to do that.
She smiled as she thought about Beth’s words. She wanted to know how much better it could be.
-=-
Henry was feeling his energy levels dropping as he checked in on his friends. He’d felt an intense need to reach out to them after his ordeal with Mab. Her threat to hurt his friends struck too close to home, and he needed to reassure himself that they were okay.
He wasn’t sure if he would be able to find the ones not at home in his current state as he didn’t know their actual location. He concentrated on how he felt about them, and his connection to them through the Wild Magic made them stand out in the distance like arc lights beaming their brilliance up into the sky. Surrounding their beams was a sea of candles, which had to be Humans based on their numbers. He was a little confused that Humans showed up at all, but he pushed that aside with his joy at finding his friends.
Now, he was discovering that physically moving shit was exhausting, and lifting Tish to reposition her on the bed may have been a little over the top.Property © NôvelDrama.Org.
Before he lost the ability to communicate at all tonight, he needed to tell someone about Mab. As he’d discovered with Dayshia, speaking was not an option.
Mahati wasn’t lighting up the horizon as she was a wielder of the old magic. Henry knew where to go to find her.
Home.
He found himself standing outside his door. Instead of going in, he moved to Mahati’s place and slipped through her door. He found her burning the midnight oil, working on her laptop.
He looked closer, and she was typing something into a document. He reached past her and pressed the enter key. It wasn’t too difficult, so he felt confident he’d found a way to leave her a message.
She stopped typing to see her paragraph had broken. Cursing softly, she moved the cursor back to the break and fixed the text.
Her kitchen sink tap suddenly began running, and she squeaked in surprise. Cautiously, she got up and went to shut it off.
While her keyboard was open, Henry moved the cursor down and started a new paragraph. He typed quickly, in point form, as he felt his strength waning. He paused as he was beginning to hear sounds from the hospital room. There was a voice speaking words he couldn’t comprehend. A Fae spell and the drugs were waning! He focused on the keyboard and pushed the last few keys before he felt himself pulled back to his body.
Slowly blinking his eyes open, he saw the doctor watching him.
“There you are. You’ve been a naughty boy, flitting about while your body is secured here. We’re going to have to put up some additional barriers around you to keep you in place.”
His brow furrowed as how could she have known?
As if reading his mind, she chuckled, but the humor never reached her cold eyes. “The dagger. I did my research, and the last sighting of it was millennia ago when our former queen used it to clear her way to the throne. No one else has seen it since, yet you brought it to me. This means you went to see her. The bloodstains on your gown tell me she used it on you, yet you’re alive, and you had the dagger when I brought you back. Is she finally dead?”
He tried to glare at her, but whatever she’d done to him was making everything so hard to do. “Too soon,” he sighed.
Her eyebrows went up. “Had I waited a few more moments, it would have been done?”
He nodded slightly.
“Ah, that’s on me then.”
He needed to tell her Mab was preparing to kill the Fae, but he’d reached the end of his strength. He didn’t sleep, but he wasn’t awake. The spell she’d used on him tied him to the threshold, and he knew that she could keep him there indefinitely. He’d just have to counteract it. It was strong, but it wasn’t Wild Magic.
If he could break free from the lethargy first.
Minkah stared at the destruction in the cafeteria with wide eyes. The orderlies were doing their best to separate the salvageable bits, but it was clear they wouldn’t be having breakfast here. Even the coffee maker was a smashed mess.
“What happened here?” she asked as Rand wandered in with a sour look on his face.
“Who’s the only new inmate in this prison?” the dwarf growled.
She immediately scowled at him as he seemed to target Henry for everything that bothered him, and she was seriously tired of it. “You’ve got him locked in a cell. Didn’t you say he’d be unconscious for the rest of his days?” she snapped.
He glared at her. “Listen, nothing about that Satyr is normal or predictable. The rules don’t seem to apply to him, and crazy shit has been happening since the day he first appeared. We should have terminated him the moment we learned of his existence. Back when there was only one of those fucking animals!”
Minkah froze. Satyr? Henry was a member of an extinct race? That seemed significant. Why wasn’t that included in the file?
Of more immediate concern, Animals? What the FUCK?
Rand’s speciesism had surfaced, and it was an ugly thing. Her muscles began to vibrate. He froze as well as he suddenly recalled the tall woman beside him was a Bastet.
“Perhaps you should go back to the city without me. Now,” Minkah said slowly, and Rand nodded, walking away cautiously.
She struggled to get her nerves to calm. Running after the bigot to gut him with her knives might feel good, but it wasn’t a good idea.
She’d have to find the center’s administrator to arrange for another car for her to drive back to the city. Speak to the woman who’d completely dismissed her the night before.
Shit.
-=-
“Billy! The boss wants to see you!” Ted bellowed over the echoing whine of the crane moving into place to move the huge ladle. He saw the man wave to him and head towards the exit.
The heat was barely tolerable even from this far out, but at least he wasn’t basting in his own juices in one of those silver suits. Ted was a floor manager now, and his days of working that close to the liquid metal were over. He climbed the stairs to the observation booth, where he could see the entire operations area.
He had a good crew, and they were going to exceed their monthly numbers. This brought a smile to his face. Maggie was going to be happy with that bonus check he was going to get.
He kept his eyes on the massive ladle as the crane carefully lifted the heavy container and moved it to its pouring position. Slowly the ladle tipped, and the molten metal began to pour.
Ted loved this part. Watching the creation of new steel.
“Did you hear the report of last night’s light show?”
Ted glanced to his left and saw Mike Bentley, his crew chief, walk into the booth. He shook his head as both men turned their heads back to the pouring.