“Jaysus, lawd! Not if you scare me like that. You could have stopped my age-ed heart.” I winked at him to soften the words. Because we both knew he’d been a dick when I’d first come to Savannah, but it was hard to forget that kiss.

I mean, I didn’t see myself settling down, or making a go of it with him, but maybe a tangle in the sheets? Sure, I’d be game. The thing was, while he was very different than Himself, they were related and that freaked me out more than a little. Never mind our age difference. Corb was more than a handful of years younger than me, but that I could handle. I think.

“The”—he paused as if testing out the word in his mind—“thing that happened didn’t hurt you?”

I shook my head. “Nope. I think Eammon was right, they miscounted.”

He hadn’t let go of my arms. I looked up at him. “Are you okay? Do you all need to take the night off? I wouldn’t argue. A hot bath and a couple shots of that Jameson you’ve ‘hidden’ from me would not go amiss.”

His lips twitched. “We have to keep the trainees training. And that Jameson is tucked at the back of the cupboard where you shouldn’t be able to see it.”

I made as if to step back, but he followed me until I bumped up against the base of the angel’s tombstone. “I got a chair and snooped.” I paused. “Corb, you sure you’re okay?” I tipped my head to one side as if that would help me see him better. “You seem off.”

He swept me into a crushing hug before I knew what was happening. I hugged him back, sighing a little as I breathed in his cologne. Night, I think it was called. I could see why he had no problem with the ladies. I patted his well-muscled back, something you had to feel to fully appreciate. “I didn’t think something like that would bother you so much.”

He pulled back enough that he could press his head against mine. “Corb?”

“Just let me hang onto you for a minute.” He said it with more sweetness than our reluctant rooming agreement should warrant.

His fingers pressed hard against my back in a not-unpleasant way. Warm. Safe. “You have a good meow,” I said, because I’m an idiot sometimes and awkward is something I can pull off no matter what the occasion. He loosened his hold so he could look me in the eye.

My comment got a smile out of him, but he didn’t pull away. Nope, those eyes of his were locked on mine, and the tension was building because I couldn’t look away. I stared up at him, and we were just too damn close for this to be anything but serious sexual tension.

And I wasn’t sure if that was good or not.

He started to lean in—holy crap, he was going to kiss me again!—until someone cleared their throat.

Corb didn’t startle, but I jumped as if an electric cattle prod had been smacked against my plentiful cheeks. I turned to see Sarge standing there with a pretty good glare on his face. I grinned at him. “Phew, I thought it was going to be Eammon coming up to yell at me.”

Sarge’s face didn’t change. “She got an offer to take care of Crash’s new place that he bought. She already agreed to do it.”

My jaw dropped. That was not how I’d wanted to tell him, and if my reaction time had been any quicker, I’d have strangled Sarge. As much as I told myself Corb’s opinion of my plan didn’t matter, it kind of did, at least to me. Corb’s hands slid off my arms, and I felt the loss of his touch a worrying amount. Maybe it was the loss of adrenaline. Maybe it was the loss of the heat from his hands. I shrugged as if Sarge’s words were nothing. “You could go back to your life. I feel like I’m . . . interrupting things all the time.” I thought about all the lube in the bathroom and forced my feet to move. Forced my face to smile. “Look, you’re well stocked to have a great time as soon as I’m out of your way, and that’s great. Good.”

He frowned. “What are you talking about? You aren’t in my way.”

I shook my head as my hands found the edge of the tomb. I didn’t feel like reminding him that I’d seen his collection of Boy Butter, amongst other things. “I’ll get my stuff out tomorrow. It’s all good.”

And just like that, I was sliding, limping really, back down the stairwell. As I climbed down, a few snarled words caught my ears, but I kept going. I didn’t need to hear them fight—I’d done enough spying for one day. I just hoped it wasn’t because of me. I’d had about enough of Sarge’s ‘help,’ and I didn’t want Crash angry with me. I liked him too much. I froze on the bottom step when I realized my mental faux pas. Not Crash, Corb. I didn’t want Corb angry with me.

“Oh, you are in too deep, girl,” I whispered to myself.

The mentors continued our lessons as if nothing had happened, but my mind kept returning to Douche Canoe and his buddy. Or son.

“This way, to the graveyard for the rest of the spell chasing,” Louis said as I reached the bottom stair. He led the way back up and I groaned out loud.

“Damn stairs.” I waited for everyone else to go up ahead of me so they wouldn’t have to see me struggle. Maybe it was my knees, maybe it was my tired legs, but the stairs and I were not on speaking terms.

Topside for like the fourth time, I watched as Louis set out a variety of spells. “Go out, find them, tell me what they are, and then shut them down.”

The other trainees didn’t move. I cleared my throat. “How?”

“You have not been reading your training manual then?” Louis looked down his nose at me. I lifted both brows at him and fumbled around in my bag for the thin manual we’d been given.

“You mean this ten-page stack of paper that you stapled together by hand?” I flopped it in his face, dropped it, and pulled out my gran’s book. Suzy let out a gasp.

“Now that’s a freaking manual!”

“You cannot use that,” Louis snapped.

I didn’t even look up at him. “Watch me.” I skimmed the pages until I found the one on detecting spells. I knew I’d seen it in there somewhere.

“Most spells, with the exception of the most powerful, throw off a different and distinct taste. Generally speaking, the more pleasant it is, the worse the spell,” I read aloud. “For example, a spell that is made for keeping others away will taste similar to soured milk. There are a few exceptions, and you must learn to recognize those.” Gross. I really didn’t want to be putting random spells into my mouth. Lord only knew where they’d been.

Louis made a grab for Gran’s book, but I jerked it away from him. “No touching.” I turned my back on him and read the final bit about breaking the spells out loud for the other recruits. “Breaking the spells requires concentration and a push of your own energy through it.” Though maybe that was just for spell casters? This was, after all, Gran’s book. I’d never been particularly good with the spell-casting side of her training.

“I’ve got one!” Luke yelled from the far right side. He flexed his hand and shoved it through the air ahead of him. A shower of green sparkles went up into the air as he broke the spell. “Tasted like sour milk, totally!”

Suzy was next. She found a spell and busted through it like it was nothing.

And me?

I tried to find the spells that Louis put out for us to find in the graveyard. Got zapped three times, tripped twice, and got frozen in place more times than I wanted to admit. By the time the training for the night was done, I was exhausted in body and spirit. Everyone else had done well, though, and that brought me a measure of satisfaction. I wasn’t sure if I’d failed to find them because my intuition was off, or because I was too busy thinking about everything else that had happened.

And I still needed to check out the fairy ring for Karissa. Poop, this was going to be a long night.

Hopefully, Kinkly had some special way to magic me there, because I usually got a ride from Sarge or Corb, and both had already left for the night. I scrubbed a hand over my eyes, which were so tired they stung and tingled, and waited by the angel tomb as everyone left. Eammon was the last to go and he paused to look me over. “What do you be doing, girly?”

“Just taking in the night air.” I yawned wide, my jaw cracking.

Eammon’s eyes narrowed. “You’re always the first one gone. What’s up tonight?”

I leaned back against the angel tomb, the stone cool under my hands. “Stretching myself and my stamina, Eammon. Important, don’t you think?”

He pursed his lips. “So I see you’ve still got that book of your gran’s?”

This was not the direction I’d expected our conversation to go. “Yes.”

“I suggest you look up the inherent dangers of fairy rings.” He looked down at his nails as if considering the need for a trim. “I’d also look up making deals with fairies. You know, if you were looking for some added reading.” He slowly lifted his eyes, as green as a spring meadow, complete understanding in them. “I’d also say that of anyone here, I’d trust you to handle something like that.”

For the second time that night, my jaw dropped. “Speechless, I have no words. I am without words.” How the hell did he know? It was my turn to narrow my eyes.

Eammon didn’t quite smile, but it was close. “I think you need a more reliable mode of transportation, especially with all the travel you’ll be doing. Tom and Louis suggested you ask your friend Robert if he can help you out with that.”

With that, he turned on his heel and walked away, whistling a tune to himself. I just stood there a moment, waiting for him to be a distance away before I turned up to see Kinkly still waiting there on the angel’s shoulder.

“Did you tell him?”

She shook her head rapidly, sending her hair flying every which way. “No, not a word, I swear. But we have to go. And he’s right, it’s a distance.”

I worried at the inside of my mouth. “Robert, you around?” He’d passed out from the whiskey so it was possible that he was out for the night. A swaying figure stepped out from around a tombstone, long hair hanging low.