Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(42)

“Actual y, I was planning to tel you to grab some PJs and spend the night in the main portion of the house.”

Oh, he couldn’t be serious. I glanced back as I pushed open the door to my loft. He looked deadly serious.

“I’l be fine.” I didn’t need a babysitter. He was overreacting. He had to be.

I checked on Falin. The three healing charms had puttered out already, and I tapped into the magic stored in my ring and channeled power into them, giving them a slight recharge. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Then I checked the wound. It had stopped bleeding, which was good, but I couldn’t have said for sure whether it actual y looked any better.

When I turned, I found Caleb stil shadowing me, and stil looking just as determined about my not staying in my own loft.

“I want you downstairs, behind a locked door and my wards. You and PC can stay in the guest room,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You owe me a debt, and I’m cal ing it in.”

He’d helped me move Falin upstairs, and while I didn’t think he’d been any great help to the man other than that, I could feel the debt between us, and feel the fact that I had to do what he’d asked. I sighed. It wasn’t like staying in the guest room was a bad option—it certainly was more appealing than the floor, which was what I’d been planning, but I would have liked to be closer at hand if Falin needed but I would have liked to be closer at hand if Falin needed anything during the night. Now I didn’t have the option.

I grabbed a pair of shorts and a sleeveless top and then headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed. When I emerged, Caleb was stil waiting for me, PC dozing in his arms.

I made one more stop by the bed to tuck Falin in as much as possible with him lying on top of the unmade comforter.

If you ignored al the blood, he looked almost peaceful, as if he were just sleeping. “You real y think he’s that dangerous?”

“Al, I don’t think. I know. And he has the blood on his hands to prove it.”





Chapter 12


I woke with a jolt and slammed into the mattress a moment later as if I’d jumped in my sleep. My eyes snapped open and I blinked at the chaotic swirl of colors fil ing the darkness.

Something was wrong.

I snapped my shields closed and sat up, brushing aside the comforter as I moved. A comforter with a stiff, lacy trim.

My comforter doesn’t have lace trim.

But I wasn’t in my room or my bed—I was in Caleb’s guest room. The glowing red numbers on the clock beside the bed told me it was 3:49 a.m. Is that it? Is it just the unfamiliar room?

No. There was something else wrong.

I blinked, trying to figure out what felt off. The air hummed with the familiar resonance of the Glen—the neighborhoods surrounding the Magic Quarter, where most of Nekros’s witches and fae lived—and the grave essence reaching from the nearest graveyard felt the same as it always did.

Then I realized the issue was as much what I wasn’t feeling as what I was. I felt the magic in the Glen, and not the sheltering buzz of Caleb’s wards.

Why are the wards down?

I didn’t know, but I was going to find out.

Sliding out of bed, I padded as silently as possible across the room, but I wasn’t familiar with the layout and the moonlight streaming through the closed blinds wasn’t nearly enough to il uminate anything. I stubbed my toe against a box—Caleb used the room for storage—and cursed under box—Caleb used the room for storage—and cursed under my breath. PC’s tags clinked softly as he lifted his head, trying to decide where I was going.

“Stay,” I whispered in the general direction of the bed, but I heard his paws land on the hardwood a moment later.

I reached out, feeling along the wal until my fingers traced over the light switch. Then I blinked in the sudden glow of fluorescent lighting.

I hadn’t brought my boots downstairs, but I’d dropped my dagger in my purse and that was on the nightstand. I dug out the dagger and unsheathed it. I hoped I wouldn’t need it, but the wards going down in the middle of the night was seriously suspicious. Besides, if I didn’t take the dagger, I’d feel like that ditzy blonde in every horror movie who goes out unarmed to check on strange noises. Nothing ends wel for those girls.

I crept across the room, cringing as the floorboards creaked under my bare feet. Of course, I’d turned on the light, so it wasn’t like I was being super stealthy. The oblivious dog trailing me didn’t help either.

Opening the door a crack, I peeked into the hal beyond.

My vision being what it was, I couldn’t see anything but the pil ar of light escaping the guest room. I opened the door wider, and a shadow crossed the doorway.

I threw a hand over my mouth to strangle the sound that tried to escape my lips and jumped back, away from the door.

“Al, you okay?”

Caleb.

I pul ed the door open wider. Like me, Caleb must have woken when the wards fel , because the light pouring from my room revealed light green skin and dark, pupil-less eyes. Caleb never walked around without his glamour intact. In one hand he held a mal et, and in the other a vial containing a spel that pricked at my senses, so it probably did something real y nasty if released.

“What happened?” I asked as I joined him in the hal .

“What happened?” I asked as I joined him in the hal .