Eleri Stone - Witch Bound

He choked on his swallow. “You think I’m a nerd?”

“Afraid so.” She ticked off her fingers. “You live in your parent’s house.”

“I bought my parent’s house,” he corrected. “The housing market’s not the greatest here, you know.”

She held up a second finger. “You have enough computer equipment in here that I bet you’ll have to upgrade the electrical system soon...if you haven’t already.”

“Last year, before I moved in. It’s why I haven’t had the extra money to decorate.”

“You enjoy reading and gardening.” She paused. “Do you have a cat?”

He winced. “She’s a stray. Scared to death of me, but she keeps coming back for the food.”

“I’d be surprised if you could coax a cat into living with a hound.”

“Smart creatures, cats. So what’s the verdict?”

She wiggled her fingers and dropped her hand. She hadn’t made a five count, but she thought she’d made her point anyway. “Nerd. Even if you don’t look like one.”

“And what does a nerd look like exactly?”

Not sweet and sexy and dangerous.

“Different from you,” she said after a too-long pause, feeling suddenly that it wasn’t the best idea for her to have come here alone.

Seemingly struck by the same thought, Fen took another drink and then changed the subject. “So how’s the wedding coming along?”

“It’s coming. There’s not much to do. Everything’s been arranged forever, down to the china.”

“Are you and Christian okay?”

She kicked off her shoes and turned on the couch to face him, resting her back against the armrest. “He’s not reneging on the contract.”

“I didn’t think he would.”

She stared at the bottle in her hands, picked at the label. “I heard him talking about me the day I arrived, during the welcome party.”

Fen didn’t comment. He was patient that way, not judgmental. She liked him—a little too much. But she wasn’t going to think about that now...or ever. She needed a friend. Someone who knew Christian and understood the situation but wasn’t too close to it.

“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I was in the restroom and with the vents...sound carries in there. He was talking to Aiden about me.”

Fen stared at his bottle, his thumb circling the wet rim. “It’s never a good idea to believe things that you overhear.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Why? It’s more honest than what people will tell you to your face.”

“Not always. There’s usually just a different set of agendas at play.”

“I didn’t take you for a cynic, Fen.”

“I don’t consider myself one, Rocky. What did he say?”

He knew. She could tell by the tone of his voice, unhappy but not particularly surprised. “That I was his duty. That he wouldn’t back out even if he wanted to.”

“And you assumed that meant he wanted to?”

“What else was I supposed to think?”

His hand touched her leg briefly before lifting away to rest on the back of the couch again. “You dumped that revelation on him about your problem to see if he’d walk?”

She flinched. She hadn’t looked at it quite that way. “I thought I’d give him an out, all of you. It’s better that you know it upfront.”

“Agreed.” His eyes were so dark drilling into her like that. “Look, Aiden’s been stressed out about the trouble we’re having with the portal. He put a lot of pressure on Christian to make sure this wedding thing goes smoothly. What you heard was probably Christian lashing back. Duty is important to Christian, but I’ve seen the way he looks at you too. You’re wrong if you think he’s only in this for the halo.”

Her cheeks heated. “Yeah, there’s that.”

“There’s that,” he echoed. His mouth pulled into a grimace. This was a mistake, talking to him about his friend. She was embarrassing him and putting him in a weird position. “Just...talk to him. He’s not stupid or uncaring. He’ll hear you out and if you ask him about it directly, he will tell you the truth. Christian won’t lie to your face.”

The doorbell rang and Fen practically leaped to answer it. Raquel smiled wryly. Poor guy. He might be willing to be her friend, but she couldn’t keep leaning on him so hard. It wasn’t fair to him, her or Christian either.

Rocky’s little sister, Audrey, showed up after the pizza arrived, which was a relief. Sort of. Fen wanted Rocky alone, liked talking to her even if it hurt, was flattered and fascinated that of all the clan, she seemed to trust him. A hound, one of the castes most people tended to avoid.

Many of the Æsir, particularly the ones who didn’t deal with the hunt, regarded hounds as less than human. And while some women saw that as a challenge in a tame-the-beast sort of way, Raquel wasn’t like that. She liked him. She wanted to be his friend. There was something incredibly simple and appealing about that. Or it would be simple, if he could only look at her the same way. As a friend. Because even if she wasn’t engaged to Christian, a friend was all Rocky could ever be.

Audrey was fun, though. She had the same sense of humor as Rocky along with the same kind of openness and honesty. She was pretty, like Rocky. And smart too.

He tried to will himself to be interested in Audrey. Not a serious interest, just something to distract himself from the misguided attraction he felt toward her sister. But the fact that he was trying to do that made him feel like an idiot, a sleazy, hopeless, desperate idiot. He liked Audrey in the same way he liked Grace or the twins. Having Audrey sit next to him on the floor eating pizza while he flipped open his sketchbook to the runes he’d sketched earlier only drove home how stupid he’d been to think there was nothing weird going on between him and Rocky. That he could invite her to his house and help her with her problem and not want more. His attraction wasn’t going away. He couldn’t keep ignoring it, but he didn’t know what the hell to do about it either.

Audrey craned her neck to get a look at the sketches.

“Do you mind?” he asked pointedly.

“Not really, no.” She set her chin on his shoulder. “Wow, Fen, you do good work. I didn’t think hounds had the patience for this kind of thing.”

Being a hound was a little like having ADD. All your senses were sharper, but the human brain could only handle so much. When he was in human form, it was hard to block everything out. Drawing had always helped him focus, like withdrawing to a quiet room inside his head. Gardening brought him to that same place.

He sometimes imagined it must have been easier to deal with being a hound when times were slower, just as he imagined the sexual ramifications were easier to navigate when society had been more traditional and even unhappy marriages lasted a lifetime. But possibly not.

“Some have the patience for it,” he said. “Some don’t. It depends on the hound.”

“Well, you clearly have an eye for detail.” Audrey tilted her head. “Those are the runes she gave you?”

“She” being Rocky, who’d left to find the bathroom and grab another beer five minutes ago. Because more of the drunk and chatty Raquel sitting cross-legged on his couch with that warm and sort of goofy smile on her face was exactly what he needed right now.

“These are the runes Rocky wants to try. Your witch provided the arrangement. I’m just making it pretty.”

Audrey gave a funny laugh and he turned his head. “What?”

“I’ve never heard anyone else call her Rocky. I only do it because it drives Mom nuts.”

“Sorry,” he murmured and went back to his work. “I didn’t realize I was stepping on your toes.”