He shook his head, his sensuous lips set in a mulish line. “I’m sorry, darlin’. I can’t do that.”
“Okay. First. My name is Maggie. Not darlin’.” Addressing her by some random endearment wouldn’t soften her. Especially not when he used such a snide, patronizing tone. And so help him if he dared call her baby. She wouldn’t be responsible. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her own arms. “And second, why can’t you take the bracelet off?”
“Would you willingly put it back on when I told you to?”
“Not on your life,” she answered without thinking. As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to kick herself. She should have lied right through her damned teeth.
He dipped his head, as if she’d just proven some point for him. “I may need to remove you from a potentially dangerous situation. I won’t always have time to stop and discuss the options with you or get your permission first.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he quickly cut her off. “You’re just going to have to trust me on that. The subject is closed.”
She glared at him. “Then take off the one on your wrist.”
He seemed to weigh that option for a moment. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “No. I won’t do that either. First, I’m not going to take it off and just leave it lying around for you to pick up and run off with.” She gritted her teeth, for that was exactly what she’d been hoping would happen. “Second, there’s no saying it won’t work the same if it’s in my pocket rather than on my wrist anyway. And just in case it doesn’t, I won’t always have time to stop and put it on in the middle of fight. So both cuffs stay as they are.”
“Then you can’t shimmer anymore.”
He shook his head. “Not an option.”
Damn frustrating man/demon. “Do you know what it feels like, as a human, to shimmer?”
He hesitated. A guilty expression flickered across his handsome face. “I heard Carly tell Niklas once that it felt like a roller coaster drop.”
“Who’s Carly?”
“Niklas’s wife.”
She frowned, angling her head. “I thought you said Niklas was a demon. The Seer, isn’t he?”
“He is.”
“And yet…” She paused, her gaze dropping to the floor as she tried to reason it all out. She frowned as she looked back up at him. “He has a human wife?”
Gideon looked decidedly uncomfortable. “It’s complicated.”
“I’ll bet.” She eyed him, rolling all this information around in her head. She studied the bracelet on her wrist a moment, as a new idea began to form. They looked identical. Didn’t it stand to reason that they might then have the same power? Granted, she couldn’t shimmer him anywhere. But if she didn’t want to be shimmered, could she prevent him from shimmering? “Well, she’s right. It feels like falling off a cliff without any warning.”
“Some people like that sensation.”
“Yeah? Well, not me.”
Gideon scrubbed a long-fingered hand over his jaw and mouth.
“Does Niklas shimmer his wife very often?”
He frowned at her. “Yes. Quite often, in fact. And Xander shimmers Ky as well. Though she doesn’t ever complain about it,” he added pointedly.
“And who is Ky?”
A strange look passed over his face. He’d obviously opened up a can of worms he didn’t want to have to explain. “Kyanna. She’s Xander’s wife.”
“Another demon/human pairing?”
Gideon nodded, looking like he’d rather be sitting in a dentist’s chair about to have every last one of his teeth pulled.
“Let me guess,” she said, sarcasm dripping from every word. “It’s complicated.”
With a wry twist of his lips, Gideon shrugged.
“So they all have these bracelets then. Don’t they ever take theirs off? Maybe if you asked one of them, they might know how to get around the…”
Now he looked really uncomfortable.
She wasn’t about to let him off the hook this time. “What?”
“They don’t have bracelets…cuffs,” he corrected with a shake of his head. Oh, yeah. Definitely uncomfortable. “They don’t need them.”
“Why not?”
His face turned to stone. “This discussion is over.”
“Like hell it is.”
“Over,” he reiterated. “Now, unless you want me to shimmer you to my—your room, I suggest you get there on your own two feet.”
Touchy, touchy.
Then she realized what he’s said. My. As in my room. She’d thought she’d detected the faint scent of him—masculine spice and citrus and sandalwood—in the bedroom, on the pillow. But then the scent of him tantalized her here as well, and she’d just chalked it up to his house—his scent.
So, he’d given her his room.
Why?
Questions to mull over later. Right now she had a theory she wanted to test out.
“Shimmer me there.”
“I thought you said you didn’t like shimmering.” Now look who was drowning with suspicion.
“I don’t. But I want to know if it’s any easier if I’m expecting it.”
He looked irritated enough to chew nails. And not the kind on the tips of his fingers.