“I don’t follow you.” His face darkened with caution. “Besides, what are you, a . . . a . . . absinthe-ologist or something?
“I’ve always been fascinated with it. There’s a whole ritual people follow in drinking absinthe. You pour the drink, then a bit of water. Take one of these silver spoons,” she lifted one off the counter, “and light a sugar cube on it. The heat caramelizes the sugar, which drips in the drink, turning it into a cloudy froth.”
Kheelan didn’t move. “You sure seem to know a lot about it for someone who says she’s never tried it.”
Skye flushed. Hey, he could think what he wanted. Skye swiftly opened the bottle in her arms and reached for a crystal glass. The licorice smell erupted, tart and bracing. Her body responded with a shaking desire to down The Green Fairy.
Now.
Just as suddenly, the bottle was snatched away.
“Coming in here was a bad idea,” Kheelan muttered, screwing the lid back on the bottle and returning it to the crate. He took her hand. “Let’s go.”
“But –” she sputtered, desperate to think of a reason to stay. “We haven’t looked at everything in here.” She swept a hand over the room. “There’s plants and bottles of herbs, and –”
“Another time.” Kheelan’s hold on her arm was relentless as he dragged her to the door. She cast one last longing gaze at the absinthe set up before the door slammed shut. An unaccustomed anger flooded her body. He had no right telling her what to do. She was the one who worked here, the one who led him to this place to start with. The one with the keys.
Skye’s muscles melted with relief. The keys. She could come back anytime she wanted. She didn’t need Kheelan.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you smiling?”
“No reason.” Skye shrugged and walked past him, heading for the stairs. “We’ve seen enough for one night. I’m ready to go home.” She yawned for good measure, but Kheelan halted beside her, a knowing look in his eyes.
“No problem.” He held up her keys and rattled them. “But just to be safe, I think I’ll keep this one key with me until we figure out why you have a sudden craving for a dangerous drink you’ve never tasted before.” He slipped out the key they’d used for the locked room and put it in his pocket.
Skye stomped up the stairs ahead of him, irritated. What was the matter with her? Something wasn’t right. Once upstairs, out of the basement, she aimed her flashlight into the store’s darkness. Without thinking, she went immediately to the glowing crystals and placed her hands on the glass counter. The healing vibrations of the crystals soothed her spirits more intensely than ever. She took deep breaths, drinking in the comfortable, familiar store smell of herbs and incense as the anger and strange cravings faded.
The storeroom terrified her, yet drew her in at the same time. Drink absinthe? Ridiculous. Kheelan must think she was a basket case. She was too embarrassed to face him, even as she felt his presence closing in from behind.
“Don’t be mad, okay?” His breath on the back of her neck was hot, exciting. All thoughts of absinthe were wiped out with an altogether different desire as she caressed the strong hands wrapped around her waist, stroked the broad fingers splayed against her abdomen. Instead of the bitter wormwood draught, she craved the taste of his tongue and the hot stimulus of his skin touching hers. She wanted to be drunk on nothing but him.
The flashlight dropped with a dull thump as it landed on the carpet at their feet. From the fallen light and display lighting, Skye made out the contrast of her pale hands against Kheelan’s darker flesh. The binding tattoo above his wrist twisted and slithered like thin black snakes. Skye gently ran her fingers over the inked feather and Celtic knot and felt squiggles of movement beneath his skin, like baby spiders crawling below the flesh.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, startled.
“It’s uncomfortable,” he admitted. “But I’m used to it.”
Skye lifted his hand to her lips and kissed the throbbing skin where he was branded, more filled with tenderness than passion now.
I’ve only known him a week. But everything was different. She’d been exposed to great marvels with the pixie visions, but also evidence of the fairies’ cruelty. Even though Kheelan had opened up a completely new hidden world, the biggest change was within herself. She realized Tanner was a childhood crush. He represented normalcy and fun times and entrée into a life of friends and acceptability.
But Kheelan was different. He didn’t care if she was a witch, talented or not. Didn’t mind if she stood out as different. Kheelan wanted her, needed her. She read it in his haunting brown eyes. It was in his possessive, hungry touch. She sensed desperation and longing for human love and acceptance. Just like her.
He didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell, but Skye committed to more than helping him with his Fae mission.
She was in this for Kheelan, for his heart.
Because her own heart was bound to his as surely as the blood moon, witches’ moon, reigned the Samhain night.