The Witch With No Name (The Hollows #13)(105)
Author: Kim Harrison

“No, but—”

“Shut up, Rachel,” he said, then kissed me some more. I couldn’t very well talk with his lips moving against mine like that, and I gave up, giving in to the moment until I had to breathe again.

“We probably should have found a better place than this,” I said, and he gave me several more kisses to shut me up.

“It’s my house.”

He was down to short sentences, which meant he was relaxed and feeling good. I smiled up at him, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Why in hell had it taken me so long to realize I loved him? “Okay, but you share it with two other men and two toddlers.”

Trent’s eyebrows rose, and he glanced over the top of the couch to the stairway. “You live with a vampire and a family of pixies.”

Content, I sighed. “And yet we keep finding ourselves in this position.” I watched his eyes lose their focus as my inner muscles released. Exhaling in relief, he shifted to lie beside me. There was just enough room on the couch, and I felt happy when he tried to cover us both with the free fold of his robe.

“I’ll have to remember that one,” he said, arm draped over me. “Get you to think about pixies and vampires to get you to let go of me.”

Embarrassed, I ran my fingers over him, following the line of his muscles. “I’m worried. They don’t have three miles of forest and a gatehouse between them and the crazy people.”

I sat up and he sighed, shifting to sit beside me. “I know,” he said shortly as he stood, gathering up my clothes before he pulled me up into his arms. “I’ll get you back into Cincy before the sun comes up. Promise.”

I gave up, the feeling of being loved pushing all else away as he carried me through his rooms to the warm bath he had drawn for me. And as he used his foot to open and close the doors, I found myself looking over his simple yet complex world, wondering how I fit in. Maybe I should give up on the thinking and just do it.

That had always served me well in the past.

Chapter 23

I couldn’t see the sun apart from the glow on Cincy’s towers, the blood red slowly shifting to a more familiar gold as it crept down the sides of the buildings as the sun rose. Mark’s was busy, the music muted and the conversations tense with fear. It would’ve been impossible for Trent and me to have found a seat when we’d arrived a mere five minutes ago, but Ivy had been here for hours, rightly worried that the streets would be closed off when the suncides began. We clustered at her table to watch the news on her charging laptop.

Trent fidgeted as we waited for both our drinks and David, the Were currently at Cormel’s emergency city meeting. They’d started about an hour before sunrise, continuing as the expected suncides became reality. Trent hadn’t been invited, but I’d convinced the shocked man that crashing the meeting was a bad idea. David could bring back the real dirt, and Cormel wouldn’t dare stuff the alpha Were in a hole to be forgotten—not as he would Trent. And whereas yesterday I might have gotten mopey about how Trent had been kicked out of his own meeting, now it only made me mad. I loved him, damn it. And everyone else, demons included, would have to get over it.

But the insecurity remained.

Grimacing, Ivy waved Jenks off as his dust blanked the screen, and I leaned forward to hear. Most of the people here were watching something similar on their various devices, and the unending circle of the same bad news of suncides and interviews was making me nauseated.

“. . . are asked to keep 911 calls to life-threatening emergencies,” the professional woman said as she stood outside Cincinnati’s main city building. “Suncides will receive faster responses using the number at the bottom of the screen.” She took a breath, eyes flicking past the camera to track the sound of a passing siren. “Impromptu meetings across the U.S. in major population centers continue to search for ways to cope and hopefully stem the unprecedented numbers of vampiric suncides linked to soul reunions.”

I winced as the woman was replaced by a shot of Edden, David, and Mrs. Sarong going into the very same building, their heads down to avoid the press. It was dark, clearly before sunrise, and I gave Trent’s hand a squeeze under the table.

“But it’s here in our own Cincinnati that all are watching, as former U.S. president Rynn Cormel meets with various members of the scientific and religious community who flew in earlier today from all points with the intent of developing an end solution to this tragedy.”

My hand slipped from Trent’s as he stood. “Excuse me,” he said, eyes down. “I think our drinks are up. Rachel, you sure you don’t want a muffin or something?”

I shook my head. It was too early to eat.

“Living vampires are demanding a removal of the free-roaming undead souls that some are beginning to refer to as surface demons in the wake of the destruction they cause. Experts are advising the living to check on their undead and protect them from unnecessary surface travel. If a loved one does find their soul, they’re advised not to leave them unattended.”

Jenks’s wings clattered, and I followed his gaze to Trent weaving his way to the pickup counter. The coffee wasn’t up. He just didn’t want to hear any more, depressed that his voice was being ignored and that he was forced to work from secondhand information.

Jenks silently flew after him, startling the man when he landed on his shoulder. Ivy sighed and closed her laptop. Eyes red-rimmed from fatigue, she leaned back into her chair and nursed her sweet coffee. “The news is circling now,” she said softly. “Nothing new.”

Circling like the thoughts of the undead, I mused, brow furrowed when I remembered that’s how mystics saw them—little lights in the dark that never changed. “You look tired,” I said, and her eyes flicked to me.

“Didn’t get much sleep. Did you stop at the church on your way in?”

My gaze dropped. “No, I’m afraid to.” I wanted to know if she still had her soul bottle. I hadn’t seen it, but it was small enough to easily fit in a pocket. “How’s Nina?”

“Good.” Her eyes looked up, and a tiny thrill of emotion spilled through me at the love in her eyes for Nina, the relief. “She’s good. She . . . helped me yesterday when I thought Cormel had you. Grounded me. She’s with my folks right now. I’m really worried about my mom.”

Helped? I thought, imagining Ivy freaking out, her frantic terror disguised as planning a foolhardy rescue. Nina had probably had to take charge to keep Ivy from doing something stupid, such as confronting Cormel in person. Oh, wait. That’s just what I’d done. But it had probably proved to Nina that her love for Ivy was stronger than her need for Felix, and I smiled because something good had come of it. Things would be better now.