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After a moment of stiff, passive resistance, she melted into his embrace and laid her head on his chest. Something inside him, the soft, aching part that hungered for her, sighed in contentment at holding her like this. The mating urge relaxed a little now that he was comforting his intended female like this.
Mine. The word rang in his head, reverberated in his bones. Mine to take care of, mine to please, mine to lo—
The sound of keys turning in the lock jolted them both. The door swung open, and Hazel pushed away from him as if he were on fire. Or something to be ashamed of.
An acid feeling spreading through him, he turned to the door. For a second, he thought it was Rose who’d come back after all, but then he noticed the different clothes, the way she moved—with another sort of fluidity, more predatory than Rose’s fae grace—and, of course, the most striking difference being her aura, this one demon instead of witch.
“Lily,” Hazel said from a few feet to his right, having put quite a bit of space between him and her. “It’s good to see you, honey.”
“Hey, Mom.” She nodded at him. “Tallak.” Frowning, she asked, “Basil here, too?”
Because that would be the only reason why Tallak would be over, wouldn’t it? He cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. “No, I guess I just missed him. Pity.”
“Right.” Lily’s nostrils flared ever so slightly as her eyes flicked between him and Hazel.
“How’s Alek?” Hazel asked, drawing Lily’s attention to her.
“Great, just has a lot of work to do.” She snorted. “You’d think with Arawn gone on his little trip, he’d have some more leeway, but no. His workload has doubled. That Deimos guy really runs a tight ship in Arawn’s absence.”
“He can be intense, yes.” Hazel nodded, then swayed on her feet, her face going pale.
Tallak was about to jump to her side, but Lily beat him to it, catching her mother by the shoulders and steadying her.
“Mom! What’s going on?”
“Blood loss,” Hazel gasped. “Part of the…investigation. Was a bit much today.”
“Shit, okay.” Lily ducked under Hazel’s shoulder and slung her arm around her waist. “Let’s get you settled down with some juice, and I’ll brew the potion for you.”
Hazel’s eyes met his briefly, her face unreadable, then she nodded at her daughter. “Thank you, sweetie.”
As Lily steered her toward the kitchen, Tallak hung back, feeling like a restless mess of instincts and emotions.
That should be me taking care of her. It was his duty, his privilege, to make sure his mate wanted for nothing, and he should be the one she turned to when she needed help.
He wanted to be there for her, and he didn’t want to fucking hide it.
Clenching his hands into fists, he took a shuddering breath, turned on his heel, and stalked out of the house. He had a shift at Nine Circles in a few hours. Might as well show up early and growl at some patrons while he brooded behind the bar.
CHAPTER 29
A few hours into his shift, Tallak was restocking the repaired shelves with new liquor as someone cleared their throat from the other side of the bar.
Turning around, he came face-to-face with his annoying buddy of a bluotezzer. Yet again.
“Tell me,” Rhun said with his chin on his elbow on the bar, “does Ava know you’re ruining her business?”
“The fuck you talking about?”
Rhun waved down the length of the empty bar with his free hand. “You’re doing a bang-up job of keeping all the patrons away with your scowly-scowl face. And here I thought we were past that, what with your courting Hazel and all.”
In response, Tallak sent him his best glower.
“Things not going well? You look like you’re one second away from murdering someone with your bare hands.” Rhun picked up the small bowl with peanuts and began arranging them in a mandala shape on the bar top, completely unbothered by Tallak’s apparent slip and slide into violence.
“How is that different from how I always look?”
“No, no.” Rhun pointed at him with a peanut. “While you are a generally grumpy motherfucker, your usual glower is more, like, all-encompassing in nature. A you’re-judging-the-world-and-finding-it-lacking sort of thing. But this”—he waved at Tallak’s face—“this is more focused, an intense, dark, and broody cloud swirling around you, like you’re internally suffering from some very important pain.”
