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"Well, you're so angry about me having a teeny tiny cut on my finger from my enchanted dagger, I thought I’d ask. I like chicken soup when I’m sick.”

"It's going to bleed for a while because of whatever fucking infernal enchantment's on your goddamned dagger, I am not angry about it!” He snarls.

I bat my eyelashes. "Right, so if I got sick, would you bring me chicken soup and medicine and take care of me?"

"I am bound to take care of you," he says, his voice low and murderous. "Of course I'll bring you fucking chicken soup and buttered toast and whatever the hell it is that you need if you get sick, but how many times do I have to tell you you're not gonna get sick like that? You're not a human. You have magic in your veins."

"But you'd bring me chicken soup?" I ask him, narrowing my eyes at him.

"What is this obsession with chicken soup?"

"I've never had anyone who would take care of me," I tell him carefully.

Theo glances between us and hastily beats a retreat back into the store. "I think I heard the bell chime!" he yells.

"Fucking coward," Lachlan intones, then paces in front of me.

I'm still holding both daggers, although now one of my hands is slightly damaged.

"Listen, lass. You've got to listen to me. I want to keep you in one piece. I want to keep you alive when everything else in this world is going to want to kill you. Can you promise me you're not going to make things harder on me?"

"I'm just trying to understand," I say in a small voice.

"Your ex hurt you bad, didn't he?" His voice is quiet, and he stops looming over me, staring down. His eyes are soft, but there's an anger in them—a bottomless anger.

"He never took care of me. Not once." I don't like saying it out loud. I don't like that I'm thinking about him again, talking about him again.

"Gonna fucking kill him," Lachlan says on a snarl. "Come on, we've got too much to do. You've got your damn ritual daggers. We've got your up-close protection because I have a feeling that those daggers are going to be thirsting for more blood now that they've had a taste of yours."

"Oh, that's gross," I say.

"You have no fucking idea," Lachlan says. "That's why you don't grab things when you don't know what they are in a fucking magic store!"

I wave both daggers at him.

"Jesus Christ," he says, closing his eyes and tipping his chin back. "Remind me to give you lessons on how to hold those things as soon as I can. Those daggers may take care of you, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna have people laugh at you and me for not knowing how to hold them. Fuck's sake," he says, slamming the door open so it ricochets off the outside wall, as I stifle a laugh and follow him out.

Twelve

LACHLAN

All I can think about is the taste of her. The smell of her is already in my blood. She smells like home, like Scottish heather—honeyed, floral, like moss and the deep forest places that I used to romp free in.

I want to pull her close to my body, to press my nose against her scalp and inhale. And it's all I can do to not let her hand go as we leave Theo's store. The daggers safely stowed at her thighs in leather—they only serve to make her look more fuckable. Always liked a warrior woman. Underneath, Vivienne—my Vivienne. I have no doubt in my mind she's one, even if she doesn't know how to hold the blade. Sunlight bounces off her brown hair, her eyes twinkling as she takes in all the sights of the Wishing Wood.

"I promised I'd take you to a bookstore," I tell her out loud.

She practically squeals with delight, making a high-pitched sound that stops just short of a girlish noise, but beams up at me delightedly in a way that has my heart catching.

It's bad enough that I know I can't have her. It's worse that I like her—her fire, her spirit, her fucking intoxicating smell, the feel of her skin against my tongue.

I swallow hard and press my smile down.

"Don't act like it's anything special," I tell her gruffly. "You're my employer and I promised you, that's all."

"Oh. Oh, yeah, of course. Normal bodyguard things, right? Taking your employer to the bookstore and making sure that their enchanted leathers fit," she says, gesturing to the bags I am carrying—the bags that are full of her custom armor that she'll wear to the more dangerous rituals under her clothes. "And of course, they always lick their charges again to help them heal, right?"

"Don't make it sound dirty," I tell her.