As I walked up the path to the house, I stumbled, then groaned in irritation. I had tripped a lot over the last week, which made me wonder if all my demon-related injuries had affected my gross motor skills.
I slipped in the side door to the house, checking out the Native American symbols scrawled in charcoal around the perimeter of the door. Collin hadn’t been by for several days to put his mark on the door, so the marks needed to be redone. I decided I’d redo them in the morning in the hopes that my own power would be enough to protect us.
A soft light glowed in the office, and I found David hunched over a book, a legal pad and a coffee mug next to him. When I pushed open the French doors, he looked up, pulled his reading glasses off, and gave me a soft smile. “How was work?”
Every time I saw him after we’d been apart for more than a few hours, the sight of him stole my breath away. Dr. David Preston was a gorgeous man. He was tall and broad shouldered, with sexy dark hair that begged my fingers to touch it. His warm hazel eyes looked at me with a combination of love and lust. It was no wonder he had a mile-long waiting list of attractive college girls dying to get into his intro to history courses back at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
I sighed. “Exhausting. Frustrating.”
“Is your new boss still being a wanker?” he asked in his sexy British accent. David was a UK-born history professor who specialized in Native American studies. Talk about an anomaly. But he was my anomaly, and the thought warmed my insides.
My mouth lifted into an amused grin. “That’s putting it lightly. Though my crash course in British slang had led me to believe a wanker was a man.”
He shrugged, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “I don’t discriminate.”
After I’d sought out David’s help over a month ago to get information about the Croatan spirit world, he’d taken a leave from UNC, extending his research sabbatical at the colony site so he could study Manteo’s hut. While helping me, he’d pursued a romantic relationship. I’d tried to keep our partnership professional, but he had been impossible to resist. I still wondered at the wisdom of being involved with him with so much danger lurking around. Making him my boyfriend painted a bull’s-eye on his back. Still, I knew his physical safety wasn’t the only thing at risk.
For one thing, Collin Dailey was the other Curse Keeper, my true partner, not that he believed in helping me much. But mostly, I worried that I’d never give David everything he deserved. Dr. David Preston was a kind, thoughtful, incredibly intelligent man who had devoted his time and attention to helping me discover everything I needed to perform my duties as a Curse Keeper. Granted, he wanted to help me protect humanity, but his devotion ran much, much deeper.
He’d already confessed that he loved me. I hadn’t reciprocated yet. Maybe it was because there was too much going on to fall in love with someone, although I suspected it had more to do with the fact that I’d bound my soul to Collin’s during the short week we’d been together while trying to reseal the gate. Of course, Collin had been set on keeping the gate open the whole time and had only fooled me into thinking we were closing it. In any case, we’d had a brief, highly intense, sexually charged fling and had inadvertently bound our souls together. If Collin had his way, I’d probably be in his bed at this very moment, and if things had gone differently, I would have been eager to comply.
Only Collin had betrayed me by opening the gate and releasing countless supernatural beings, a good portion of whom, on their way streaming out of Popogusso, had vowed to make me pay for my ancestor’s crime. My father had died as a sacrifice, and I was on the supernaturals’ most wanted list. While Collin had offered me his own twisted form of apology, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to forgive him, let alone forget. Especially since he’d pledged himself to Okeus, the malevolent Croatan god.
No, I’d decided a month ago that David Preston was an honorable man, of whom my father would have approved. I loved him in my own way, and we had a very healthy sex life. It wasn’t the highly intense connection I had experienced with Collin, but it was deeper and, more importantly, it was full of trust. I could trust David implicitly with everything. I couldn’t trust Collin with anything.
David set his glasses on the desk and scooted his chair back, motioning me around the desk. I obliged and he grabbed my hand, pulling me onto his lap so that my legs were hanging over the arm of the chair. He placed a soft kiss on my bottom lip. “You look exhausted, love. How about we go to bed?”
I sighed with a combination of exhaustion and contentment. “That sounds wonderful, but I’m almost too tired to climb up the stairs.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to carry you,” he said in a husky voice, lifting his hand to the back of my head and pulling my hair free from my ponytail.
“Then maybe I shouldn’t have had that piece of cake on my break. You’ll never hoist me up the stairs now,” I teased. Then I heaved a sigh. I hated that I always had to steer our conversation back to serious topics, but David had a right to know what was going on. “Something happened on the way home.”
He stiffened slightly. “And what was that?”
“I met a demon in the middle of the road.” I shook my head and grimaced. “That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.”
His eyes widened and he ran his hands up my arms, checking me for any injuries. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. There was no confrontation. Not really.” I couldn’t blame him for worrying. Some of my recent encounters had left me physically injured. David too. He still had a slight limp from our battle with the two rabid spirits Collin and I had ultimately destroyed.