To my relief, Reggie gives a little laugh. “I won’t apologize anymore, then.” She picks up her jeans and lifts one leg, sliding them on as I drive.
I very pointedly do not look over, even though my cock stiffens further in response. She doesn’t need me leering at her naked body when she’s vulnerable. I might be an impossible ass, but I’m not a monster.
“I hope you like waffles,” I say, heading for the nearest truck-stop diner. It’s just off the highway and it looks greasy as hell, but I know from my own experience that the coffee is good and the food is abundant. That, and no one comes to bother you when you show up at three in the morning with an armful of books. These are all good things as far as I’m concerned.
“I could eat a dozen waffles,” Reggie admits, and judging from the movements I see out of the corner of my eye, she’s sliding her shirt on with some maneuvering under my sweater.
Idly, I wonder if my bare-chested appearance is bothering her. I didn’t stop to think about that; I just gave her my sweater because she looked so fragile. “Are you hurt?” I ask, now that she’s hopefully feeling a little less disoriented. “Do we need to head straight home for a potion?”
“I’m okay,” Reggie says in a small voice. “Just . . . shaken. And now that you’ve mentioned waffles, I’m starving.”
I nod, relieved. “Food first, then.”
Silence falls between us, broken only by the rustle of fabric as Reggie finishes getting dressed. I pull up to the small diner and glance over at her. Her hair is messy and her eyes are still glassy, her pupils dilated. No one will ask questions at this place, though. She offers me a brave smile and holds out my neatly folded sweater.
With a grunt, I take it. “Wait there. Don’t get out of the car.”
I get out on my side and tug my sweater over my head. Her scent blooms through the fabric, light and sweet, and my half-mast cock stiffens a little more. I jerk the sweater down farther, hoping it hides the parts of me that are at attention, and move to the other side of the car. I open her door and offer her my hand. “You’re going to be a little wobbly for a while yet.”
“Thank you” is all Reggie says, and she puts her smaller hand in mine.
I help her out of the car, and as she stands, her breasts sway under her hoodie in a way that makes it obvious she’s not wearing a bra. My mouth goes dry at the sight of her undergarments in the seat she just vacated. Of course she didn’t put on a bra and panties. She’s still not thinking clearly. Her pupils are still dilated and dark, and I need to get her inside and get some food in her. I ignore my body’s response to her nearness and concentrate on the diner. “This place is quiet in the middle of the night.”
She leans against me, and I automatically put an arm around her waist. “Do you . . . frequent a lot of diners . . . in the middle of the night?”
“Sometimes,” I admit. “I don’t sleep well when a particular project is upon me. I have to think it through before I can move on. This place has good coffee and very greasy sausage.”
“That sounds like heaven,” Reggie admits.
I open the door for her, and the waitress who is usually here on overnights nods at me. If she’s surprised to see me with someone, she doesn’t say. My normal table at the back is empty, so I steer Reggie in that direction. The table is filthy, so while she sits in the booth, I get some napkins and wipe it down. A glance over at Reggie shows that she’s still wan, her skin pale and her eyes too big in her face. Her freckles stand out like splatters of paint, and she looks very, very young.
Far too young for me, and the thought is a grimly ironic one. It’s not like I could entertain thoughts of her as anything but my aunt’s familiar. Poaching familiars is bad taste. Poaching my aunt’s familiar just to fuck her would be egregious.
The waitress arrives and sets two empty cups down in front of us. She pours coffee into them without asking and glances over at Reggie, then at me. Her lips purse, and I can only imagine what she’s thinking. “What’ll it be, sweetheart?”
“My usual,” I say. I nod at Reggie. “She’s going to need a lot of food. Her blood sugar’s dropped.”
The waitress’s expression immediately goes from judging to sympathetic. “You want a menu, sweetie? Or do you want breakfast? Dinner? I can have the cook get right on it.”
“Breakfast,” Reggie manages with a small smile. “Thank you.”
She disappears, and I watch as Reggie takes the small square container holding a variety of sugar packets and begins to quietly organize them. She doesn’t touch her coffee, and I can tell from her expression that she’s rattled.
“If you don’t drink that coffee, I’m going to forcefully pour it down your throat,” I say in a low tone. “The sugar can be organized later.”
Reggie looks up at me, startled, and then one of those broad, sunny grins crosses her face. She laughs and picks up her cup, taking a sip. “Better, Your Majesty?”
“It’ll help you recover quicker,” I point out, but I’m secretly pleased that she wasn’t offended by my words. That she’s not afraid of me. That even after all she’s been through tonight, I’m somehow “safe” for her.
I like that idea more than I should.
Reggie takes another sip of black coffee and then cradles the cup in her hands. “So . . .”
“So . . . ?”
She looks up at me from under her lashes. “Magic is real?”
I do my best not to smirk. “I’ve been saying that for a while now, haven’t I?”
Her expression changes to a scowl. “I’m supposed to just believe everything you spout at me? What next? The tooth fairy? Santa Claus?”
“I don’t know either of them.”
She lets out a shaky laugh, and when she touches her face, I can see her hands are still trembling. “It’s just a lot, you know? All my life, I’ve been told one thing, and then you come along, all self-assured and confident that this make-believe stuff is real. Of course I don’t believe you.” Her gaze strays to the sugar packets, and I can see her mentally sorting them by color and brand, as if straightening things up is somehow soothing to her. “I just needed that concrete proof, and every time I asked for it, I never got it.”
“Most magic doesn’t work that way,” I tell her, taking a sip of my coffee to encourage her to do the same. “Most of it is subtle nudges, things that happen in the background.”
“Unless you’ve been turned into a cat.”
Ah. So that’s the spell that made her body shut down. I nod. “It’s why your system is having such a hard time. Most spells are just a drain on energy. That one is a strong temporary curse. Your thinking process is affected as you start to take on feline attributes. You lose a lot of your sense of fear, and your curiosity grows. You find yourself hunting things you wouldn’t normally have interest in. If you stay in that form too long, it can tamper with your sense of being long-term. I know one warlock that was stuck in that form for a week. He still gets cravings for rat from time to time.”
Reggie shudders, her eyes going wide. “I kept smelling something that was so delicious. I’m afraid to think of what it was.”
“Probably best not to think about it too hard.”
She licks her lips, glancing up at me. “So you . . . Have you ever . . . ?”
“Turned into a cat? Once or twice. I didn’t enjoy the experience. Have I ever turned someone into one? No. There’s already a shining example of why that’s a terrible idea right in my aunt’s house.”
Reggie straightens and goes utterly pale, her mouth gaping open. “You mean Maurice?”
I take another sip of my coffee. “You didn’t think he was a normal cat, did you?”
She clutches a hand to the neckline of her hoodie. “He . . . he sleeps in my bed at night,” she says in a strangled tone. “He cuddles, too. And I’m pretty sure he’s watched me shower.”