The sword is now in the scabbard on Virago’s back—the scabbard that I didn’t notice until now—and Virago is talking very quietly with Shelley.
My dog, my dog who’s never paid rapt attention to anything other than food in her entire life, is sitting at attention at Virago’s feet, her front paws even together, her long snout angled up toward Virago and her bright brown eyes wide as she stares up at the woman, eating up every single word that Virago tells her.
“…and you are a very good beast to the mistress Holly,” says Virago softly, her low voice like a big cat’s purr.
She nods, the wolf tail moving over her shoulder with her long black hair fluidly.
“What a very, very good beast.”
Shelley’s white-gold tail has not stopped wagging.
“Wow…she never even looks at
me
like that,” I manage, putting my hands in my jeans pockets as I step down to the staircase landing.
Virago rises and turns, her head inclined toward me with a nod.
“I have always loved hounds,” she tells me with a soft, indulgent smile as she shrugs toward Shelley.
“And they tolerate me, for the most part.”
She rolls her shoulders back, stands at attention, but not before I notice something that makes me practically speechless.
As she stands at attention, her bright blue gaze roves over me.
Literally.
Her eyes actually travel—slowly—down my face, over my chest and stomach and hips and legs, and then slowly back up.
Did she…just check me out?
My knees feel weak as her gaze flicks back up to my eyes.
Her mouth is turning up slightly at the corners now, but that doesn’t mean anything, does it?
Did she
just check me out
?
Virago clears her throat, nods toward me.
“Now, m’lady Holly—”
“Remember…it’s just Holly…”
I manage to tell her, and then I realize that my cheeks are probably bright red, and I don’t want her to see that my cheeks are bright red.
So I wander past her into the kitchen.
Okay, I’m too old for this schoolgirl crush thing that seems to be happening, right?
I mean, I’m thirty-two, and I’m acting like I’m seventeen and some gorgeous girl just looked me over when, in fact, I’m thirty-two, in a relationship, and a woman who claims she’s a knight from another world just looked me over.
I bite at my lip as pure delight rushes through me.
Okay, yes.
All of those things are true.
But I really and totally think she did, in fact, check me out.
“So,” I say loudly, clearing my throat and trying to act (and failing to act) casual.
“I think we need some breakfast before we can begin…whatever it is that we’re beginning.”
“Finding the beast, and the portal, and a witch,” she says effortlessly, striding with ease over to my kitchen counter and leaning down on it, her broad shoulders curving toward me beneath the metal slopes of her armor.
I wonder if she knows how easy and effortless she makes everything look, even turning
leaning on a counter
into something dripping with raw sensuality and gorgeousness.
I avert my eyes and open my fridge door, grateful for the fact that it blocks my still red face from her.
“Great,” I mutter, peering inside at the almost completely empty shelves.
I’d forgotten that I was supposed to go grocery shopping this weekend.
“Okay.
So I have soy milk.
And…and ketchup.
I’m kind of low on everything because I wasn’t supposed to even be here this weekend…”
I trail off, shut the fridge door as I bite my lip.
I wasn’t supposed to be
here
, because I was supposed to be spending the weekend at Nicole’s.
You know.
Before the complete disaster that was last night.
“Anyway, I’m sorry I don’t have much.
I wasn’t prepared to have a…guest,” I tell her, rubbing at my bare arms absent-mindedly.
“So we need to go get some food.
Some breakfast.”
I take up my mug from the night before, with its half-finished tea, and bring it to the sink.
“Does that sound all right to you?”
“Yes, if we can then start the quest immediately after,” says Virago quietly, inclining her head.
“It is very…kind of you to be assisting me in this, my greatest trial.
I hope you know that I am indebted to you because of this…” she trails off, pushes off from the counter, comes forward around it, moving slowly, like a big cat would move, I think, slowly, in a sensual prowl.
As she steps toward me, everything seems to slow, and time lengthens.
My heart is pounding loudly against my chest, again, like it’s knocking on a door.
“Holly…” she whispers, stepping closer slowly until she’s only an inch or so away from me.
She inclines her head toward me, a graceful curve of neck and shoulder.
This close, the scent of her fills me, that rich, dark scent of leather merging with sandalwood, the bright tint of metal from her armor mixing with the scent of her skin.
My chest is rising and falling quickly with my breath.
I try to get a hold of myself, but I fail to, swallowing.
She’s close enough to kiss as her ice-blue eyes search mine.
The warmth of her body, even though she’s still a few inches away, is still electric against me, and every hair on the back of my arms is standing to attention.
Everything about her draws me to her.
The curve of her mouth, the intensity of her gaze, the scent and sound and sensation of her closeness.
She speaks so formally, but passionately, and she’s wearing armor and a sword.
She is, literally, my perfect woman.
A knight in shining armor.
“Um,” I whisper, blinking as I try to clear my head from all of the thoughts that I’m powerless against—the chief one is the one I’m absolutely not supposed to be thinking about and involves me leaning forward and capturing Virago’s mouth with a kiss.
I lean back, away from her, dodging the bullet.
“I’m, um, really hungry.
Are you?” I manage.
Her left brow raises, but then she smiles at that, her mouth quirking sideways, and she nods, chuckles, steps back.
She was close enough that if I’d stepped forward, we would have merged together, my arms wrapping around her waist, and then…
“Yes,” she murmurs, her intense gaze still pinning me in place.
She searches my eyes, and then turns away, her chin down as she takes a deep breath, rolls her shoulders back again.
“My apologies.
I am quite hungry.”
“Okay.
Great.
Let’s go get some food!”
My voice is shaking, and my hands are too when I take my favorite black cardigan from the coat hook by the door.
“Um…”
I glance her and her armor up and down, grabbing my purse and the keys from the dish.
I smile brightly and clear my throat.
“We’ll go through the drive through.”
“…And a large soy caramel frappe with an extra shot,” I tell the bright yellow microphone box loudly, turning to my companion.
Virago is seated beside me, armor uncomfortably strapped to the back of the seat because the seatbelt is too big to go across her breast plate.
Virago raises her eyebrows at me as I smile at her.
“Virago,” I ask, trying to figure out what, exactly, on the menu of Starbucks she might actually enjoy.
“Do you like…bread?”
“Surely,” she replies, leaning forward to fiddle with the knob on the radio again.
She’s been playing with it this entire drive because it fascinates her so much.
I guess, if I were from another world, music coming out of a dashboard would be pretty impressive, too.
Now she presses the forward button again, and classic rock music blares out of the speakers because she turned the volume up so loudly.
I quickly turn the dial down as the barista chuckles through the speakers.
“…And you want a side order of Bon Jovi with that?” crackles out.
“Sorry about that!”
I tell him, but I’m laughing, too.
Virago shrugs and smiles handsomely.
“And two croissants?” I tell the barista.
“You got it!
That’ll be thirteen eleven, you can pull up!”
I roll up the window and inch forward in the line of caffeine-deprived drivers.
It’s a Saturday morning, and the line in the Starbucks drive through was so long, I almost contemplated pulling into a parking space and just going in myself.
But if I couldn’t leave Shelley in a parked car on a warm day, I sure as hell wasn’t leaving a ridiculously gorgeous knight alone.
Even with the window cracked open.
I cast another sideways glance at Virago, and she smiles at me again, leaning back in the seat and tugging at the taut seatbelt.
“So, what sort of witchcraft is that?” asks Virago, mystified, as we ease up to the bumper of the car ahead of us, and I fish through my purse for my wallet.
“Um.
It’s called a ‘drive through.’
You order at that microphone back there, and then you pull up, and they give you the food and drinks you ordered, and you pay for it at a window,” I tell her distractedly.
“I am thinking,” says Virago, head to the side, “that it would be a great addition to the tea houses in Arktos City.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve tied my horse to the hitching post out front, and—you must realize she is a lead mare caught and tamed from the northern herds, and she is quite ill tempered and not fond of waiting—and I come out, and she is gone.
And
then
I must find her in the whole of the city, and I am quite held back, being full of tea,” says Virago with a small chuckle, her hands spread, the metal spirals on the edges of her wrist gauntlets sparkling in the morning sunshine.
“You can imagine that this is not my favorite occupation—trying to find my mare in the city.
So this is quite innovative,” she finishes as the car ahead of us pulls out, and we pull forward.
I’m grinning, because I’m imagining Virago prowling through the streets of some fantastical city, whistling for her mare.
We’re finally next.
“Hey, Henry!” I greet my favorite barista and hand over my debit card.
“You’re not usually with such a foxy lady!” he says, leaning down in the window, feathered blonde hair falling into his eyes as he peers at my passenger.
He’s wearing a cheesy grin and eyeliner.
“You must introduce me!
Why didn’t you come in?
Why is she dressed like a knight?”
“Oh, well, you know the Knights of Valor Festival is in town!” I admonish him, but I sound a little fake and desperate, even to my own ears.
He raises an eyebrow, runs my card through, and starts to hand out little bags and drinks.
He winks at me when I start to pull away.
The kind of wink that indicates “good job, nice catch.”
I grimace a little at him, but then I’m pulling away.
“Okay,” I tell her as we edge out onto the street into the line of traffic, and I start guzzling my frappe like there’s no tomorrow.
“We’re going to get you some clothes.
Help you blend in a little more.”
I glance sidelong at her.
Clothes might not really help the “blending in more” thing.
She radiates a sort of power and intensity that most people these days just don’t carry around with them.
“Holly,” says Virago, patiently holding all of the little bags of breakfast in her lap.
“Clothes are not nearly so important as finding the beast, the portal and a witch.
There are people in peril out there, and—”
“Don’t worry—I looked it up on my phone,” I begin, and when she stares at me blankly, I bite my lip, reconsider what I’m saying.
“I…I looked to see if your beast has been causing trouble on something that would be…able to tell me if he was causing trouble or not.”
I think of my news app and realize there’s no better way to explain it to her.
“Anyway, there was nothing about it anywhere, not on the news, not
anywhere
.
And I would assume a nice big beast causing havoc would be kind of newsworthy.
So I don’t know.
Maybe he found the portal on his own, went back to your world?
Or something?”
I try not to think it, but there it is:
Maybe he didn’t exist in the first place?
“No…” Virago muses, chin in hand as she thinks, gazing out the window.
“But he may have gone into hiding to try and heal.
I
did
manage to stab him through a crack in his chest scales, and the wound was quite close to his heart, but I didn’t think I’d gotten him so badly…”
She thinks for a longer moment as I take another sip of my frappe, letting the sweetness roll into my mouth.
“I did cut off a bit of his tongue,” she says then musingly.
“Maybe he didn’t quite like that.
Good to know that he might have something of a weakness,” she adds, gazing sidelong at me.
“Maybe,” I tell her, but I’m so unsure.
There are those tracks in my backyard.
They’re
definitely
there, but are they
definitely
real?
But how could I have imagined what I saw last night?
I know that I have a great imagination, but really—the image of the massive beast, hidden mostly by the rain and the night, but bits of his scales glinting, teeth flashing in the darkness…that would probably haunt my nightmares for my entire life.
Virago visibly relaxes next to me, leaning her head back on the headrest.
“This gives me great comfort,” she says then quietly with a low sigh.
“I had been considering what he might be doing to innocents…”
She shudders in her seat, shakes her head.
“I am glad that, like me, he is rallying.
We can meet each other in dignified combat, then, face one another as equals upon the battlefield…”
She trails off, lifts her chin, her blue eyes taking on an edge of steel to them.
“This time, things will go differently.”
I work diligently on keeping my eyes on the road, because when she talks like that, a little thrill runs through me, and I try to repress a shiver.
Instead, I lift up my frappe cup again and take a quick, chilly swallow of the sugary beverage.
Virago’s brows raise and her full lips curl into a grin.
“You…quite like that.”
“Mm?”
I swallow another mouthful.
“Oh, this.”
I smile a little, glad of the distraction.
I tip the cup toward my face, inhale the fragrant aroma and…end up with a bit of whipped cream on the end of my nose.
I wipe it off with the back of hand self consciously.
“It’s only my favorite thing in the entire universe.
I mean, not really.
I rather like Shelley and my books, too.
But when things are overwhelming and I have a soy caramel frappe, the world suddenly starts to make a whole lot more sense.
Do you want a sip?”
I offer her the plastic to-go cup.
Virago stares down at it, her brow furrowing.
“I do not know what manner of drink this is…” Virago tells me, picking up the cup and sniffing at the domed lid.
“What’s this white stuff on top of it?”
“Oh, whipped cream.
That’s the best part.”
I glance sidelong at her, too, and then I’m snorting down an unexpected chuckle.
She’s trying to upend the cup to drink out of the top hole of the domed lid, ignoring the straw.
“No, you drink through this…” I tell her, pointing to the straw.
“Try sucking up on it.
Put your lips around it…”
I trail off, clear my throat.
Describing how to use a straw?
It sounds kind of like a come on when you think about it.
I realize that I’m turning a very warm shade of red as Virago lowers her head to the straw, putting her full lips around the plastic and, as I instructed, sucking up on it.
God, I
really
need to pay attention to the road, because for a heartbeat, all I can stare at—my heart thundering inside of me—is this gorgeous woman, drinking out of a straw seemingly for the first time.
Virago has a very strange look on her face as she sets the cup back down into its holder.
“That was very cold,” she says, licking her lips and smiling.
“But also quite delicious.
I can understand why you like it so much.
It is very different from tea.”
“That’s because it has espresso in it, not tea,” I tell her with a small smile.
I put on my blinker, turn down the next street.
“Espresso?”
“It…um.
Espresso…”
I trail off, then shrug.
“Well, it helps you do things faster.”
Virago raises one brow, her head to the side as she considers the cup.
Then she picks it up, takes another sip from the straw, holding the cup aloft like she’s toasting me.
“All right, then, Holly,
I shall put this to the test!”
She sets the cup back down and rolls her shoulders back against the seat of my car, leaning back to regard me with a brow raised, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
I try not to stare at her too much.
She practically purrs:
“I am always looking for ways to be faster and better.”
“This might help you with that,” I’m chuckling as I put my eyes back on the road, try to sound normal and not squeaky.
I have to ignore the fact that this incredibly gorgeous woman is practically lounging in my car if I don’t want to get into an accident, which is becoming increasingly more possible the more I stare at my passenger.
I clear my throat.
“I still remember when my brother gave me my first cup of coffee…”
I trail off after a moment, as I consider an odd thought.
“Hey.
Actually.
My brother, Aidan…”
I frown.
“I mean, this is kind of a weird idea.
He’s going to think I’m nuts,” I mutter as an afterthought.
But, actually, maybe not.
It
is
my brother I’m talking about, after all—he’s kind of the king of weird ideas.
“What is it, Holly?” asks Virago, then, her voice deep and soft and encouraging.
“Well,” I answer, taking one of the bags from her lap and opening it up.
Because I’m still staring at the road, I manage to brush my fingers against the warm skin of her leg through the hole in her leather pants.
That skin is so soft, it’s surreal, but beneath it is a ripple of hard muscle.
“Sorry,” I whisper, retracting my hand, but she doesn’t seem to notice, or, at least, I think she hasn’t noticed until I chance a sideways glance, and see that she’s trying to suppress a smile as she stares out the window.
I feel my cheeks redden, and the scent of warm croissant fills the car as I open the bag.
“Okay,” I tell her, handing her one of the warm pastries.
She takes it, her fingers brushing against my palm as she lifts the croissant up to her nose and inhales the mouth-watering aroma, mystified.
“First,” I brandish the second croissant, “we eat.
Then, we’ll get you some clothes.
You really need to not be a walking advertisement for the Knights of Valor Festival.
At least it’s in town, so people won’t think you’re from a television show or…or something…”
Yes, what
would
people think she was?
I trail off, take another sip of the frappe.
“And then, I think I’m going to take you to see my brother.”
“Oh?” asks Virago, and then she takes a bite of croissant, chewing thoughtfully.
“If anything,” I say with a brow raised, “he can help you clear your chakras.
And who doesn’t like cleared charkas?
You like?” I ask her, indicating the already three-quarters consumed croissant in her hand.
“It is perfect,” she tells me, taking another bite.
But she’s not looking at the croissant when she says it.
Instead, she’s staring intently at me, her bright blue eyes tracing over my face.
My hands grip the wheel a little tighter, and I train my eyes back on the road, flush rising in my cheeks.
She totally didn’t just come on to me, right?
Right?
…Right?
The croissant is gone, and Virago licks her fingers slowly and sensually, brushing the remaining crumbs off her leather-clad lap.
“Good plan,” she tells me then, leaning back in the car.
“We’re almost to the mall,” I tell her, wracking my brains as I try to figure out if she did, in fact, come on to me, then decide I’d really better stop thinking about this.
It can only lead to heartache.
I pull into the parking lot, start the search for a parking spot, which makes me focus on something that doesn’t involve the smoldering individual seated to my right.