A Little Wicked (The Bewitching Hour Book #4)(17)

Which meant that not only did witches fear her, but now the cops were afraid of her too.

She tried to not be completely self-centered and focus on the fact that Angela had been attacked.

“We set you up in this room.” Dante led Angela to the room that Claire had been tidying up. “Claire and I are going to be right on the other side of this wall, so if anything followed you here, we’ll know.”

Angela shuddered and ran her hands over her arms. “Do you really think it could’ve followed me here?”

“No,” said Claire quickly, giving Derek a little chiding look for scaring her. “But we want to be better safe than sorry.”

Angela didn’t look comforted at all as she set her bag down on the bed. It was obviously a woman’s room. The walls were a soft gray and there were pink accents in the comforter and the silky curtains. Her eyes bounced around the room, neither approving nor disapproving. Claire wondered whether cops saw everything in the world different from normal people.

Though she supposed in no way, shape, or form could she be considered a normal person.

“Have you talked to Derek?” she asked suddenly.

“He texted us that you were coming,” said Claire slowly, wondering whether Angela hurt her head in the struggle.

Angela rolled her eyes, obviously not amused. “No, I mean on the phone. He seemed weird when I talked to him. And I’m very happy that you are helping me, but I kind of expected to be at his place tonight.” She glanced around the room once more. “Though I’m thinking this is a step up....”

Dante smiled at the compliment, but Claire was caught up by what Angela said. She had a point. Derek wasn’t the type to delegate possibly dangerous tasks. Not if he could avoid it or if he thought there was something more dangerous that they didn’t know about. “I’m sure everything is fine,” she lied.

“You’re probably right,” said Angela, obviously not believing a word. But neither woman knew anything for sure, so they said quick goodnights before Claire and Dante retreated to give the woman some time alone.

“What do you think?” asked Claire softly when she and Dante reached his bedroom.

Dante’s room was more masculine by far. It was all-black furniture and green accents. She figured the green could be a bit much for people, but she kind of liked it. It was very Dante. She had to fight off the sudden urge to run her fingers through his hair. Even though he was her boyfriend and she could kind of touch him whenever she wanted, she was still trying to come off as a relatively normal person. Not that it was really possible at this point....

“I think she’s freaked out,” he said.

“I believe that. I mean the ghost or whatever attacked her sounds terrifying. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

“Yeah. In half the horror movies released in the past twenty years. Electronics flipping on and off? Objects moving around? Sounds like someone is trying to scare her.”

“It sounds like they would’ve killed her if someone hadn’t heard the gunshots.”

Dante shrugged. “That could be what they get off on. I don’t know. But if they want to get to Parker here, they’ll have to get through the two of us. Considering my bad mood right now, that’s not going to be easy.”

Claire frowned. She hadn’t realized Dante was in a bad mood, but he almost always had a happy-go-lucky attitude. “What’s wrong?”

He tilted his head and looked at her. “Not sure if you remember, but we were supposed to be having a date before we got put on babysitting duty.”

Oh yeah... date.

Dante must’ve sensed the sudden tension creep into her muscles and he let out a groan. “You’re still freaked out.”

“I have good reason to be freaked out,” she reminded him. It wasn’t as if she were afraid of the perfectly normal concerns about birth control and STDs like a human in a new relationship. No, if she made a mistake while she was with Dante, she could kill him.

“Come on.” He held out a hand to her.

The worst part was that if he were peer pressuring her to have sex, she’d be totally on board. Her virginity was a label that she was more than willing to shake off. Really, she’d killed a man recently. Shouldn’t you have sex before you kill someone? Maybe she was never meant to be normal—human, witch, or otherwise.

She met his hand and let him lead her to the bed.

He settled back against the headboard as he turned on the television. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Comedy,” she said without hesitation. Something with no killing and no sex and no magic.

She settled into his arms and let him hold her. This wasn’t bad. And this wasn’t what scared her. No matter how good the movie was, she could keep herself under control like this. It was when he touched her that things tended to get... iffy.

And it was impossible to forget that Dante was there. Partly because Claire had been so careful lately to not touch anyone. Even though Sam, Dante, and even Claudia had been good about making sure no one else knew she was a soul sucker, she knew and didn’t want to accidentally hurt anyone.

So when Dante touched her, it wasn’t just that he was utterly sexy and totally into her. It was the only contact she had, and that kind of thing could be addictive. She allowed herself to relax into him, leaning her head to the side until she settled into the crook of his shoulder. He couldn’t possibly be comfortable in this position, but she felt so warm and protected here that she didn’t say anything.