Just don’t kiss assholes. One job, Sophie. Only one.

“I don’t know how you can stand to sit there without your shirt on.” Her voice was too husky, and she was blaming that on having just gotten up. “I’m freezing.”

He glanced at her, a sharp, piercing look, then went back to sharpening his sword. “It’s not so bad in the sunlight. If you want to take the chill out of the kitchen, you can fire up the stove. There’s not much to eat for breakfast. You can have dry toast and black tea if you want.”

She gave the large, foreign stove a leery look. Paul, the solicitor, had called it an Aga, but it looked like a machine out of a 1950s sci-fi film. “Not much to eat? What happened to the box of stuff Maggie gave us last night?”

“A certain puck must have gotten into the supplies.” His voice was dry as he bent his head over his sword. “When I got up, I found all the eggs had been sucked out of their shells. He also ate the butter and cheese, and drank the milk. On the upside, the cottage is sparkling clean, which was a surprise since usually brownies are the ones that like to clean house.”

When she started to laugh, he gave her a speaking look.

She moved to fill the teakettle with water and set it on the stove. “I won’t hold it against him. He was painfully thin when I found him. If he can eat his fill enough times, he probably won’t need to clean out the kitchen.”

The monkey appeared at the top of the fridge and jumped to land on her shoulder. His little fingers began to work through her hair. She tilted her head to give him a leery glance. As long as he wasn’t pinching her, she supposed he wasn’t doing any harm. Looking through cupboards, she found an ancient, heavy toaster and plugged it in.

“Do you want toast?” she asked Nikolas. The prosaic, domestic question sounded odd to her ears. They barely knew each other, and they had argued for most of that time.

And kissed once. Her cheeks heated, and she was glad she had her back to him.

“Yes.” He paused. Maybe the exchange sounded odd to him too. “Thank you.”

While the water heated for tea, she popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, then turned to lean against the counter to watch Nikolas work, remembering the flashes she had seen of him in the fight. He had been quick, fierce, and powerful, and her first impression had been accurate—he knew his sword like it was an extension of his own body.

Sophie didn’t know much about swords, but even she could tell his was a beautiful, sleek work of art. Silver was worked into the flat of the blade in a Celtic-looking pattern. She squatted in front of it, and Nikolas paused with the whetstone as he watched her. His expression was unreadable. What did he see what he looked at her?

With light fingers, she touched the blade. “The silver. Does it help when you’re fighting a lycanthrope?”

“Yes,” he said. “When I cut them with this, they can’t heal at an accelerated rate. They bleed, and they die.”

“I should have studied swordwork.” She sighed.

“You have no business engaging a lycanthrope anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” he told her. “They’re faster, at least twice as heavy, and much stronger than you. You’re lucky you lived through last night.”

She glowered at him. If he hadn’t spoken in such a cool, analytical way, she would have bristled more than she had, but the truth was, he was right. The kettle whistled, and she rose to make the tea. “Maybe so, but I regret nothing. Arran and Maggie are still alive.”

He set aside the whetstone and sheathed the sword. “About that offer I made, to get you a gun and silver bullets. I should have asked. Can you shoot?”

“I don’t have much experience with rifles or shotguns, but I’m experienced with a handgun. I prefer carrying a Glock.”

As she finished putting together their Spartan breakfast, the monkey left her shoulder and climbed up to the top of the fridge. While he had been riding on her shoulder, he had done something to her hair. She wasn’t sure what, but it felt like he had worked several braids through the unruly mass, and at least it kept it off her face at the moment.

“How good?” Nikolas asked.

She handed him a mug of tea and a plate of toast. “Good. I hit what I’m aiming at.”

“That’s the weapon you need against a lycanthrope.” He bit into a piece of toast with strong, white teeth. “But if the authorities caught you with it, you’d be deported. You might possibly face jail time, unless…”

As he paused, she leaned forward. “Unless what?”

“Unless you become a member of the Dark Court, perhaps in a consulting capacity, much like the work you did in LA. If you’re affiliated officially to our demesne, you would have weapons privileges.” His eyelids lowered, shielding his expression. “I’m not necessarily offering the position to you. I’m just saying that would be one way to solve the problem if you were caught with the gun in your possession.”

She frowned. “Okay. The pro is, it would give me some legal protection, if I ever end up needing it.”

“The con is, you would become publicly associated with the Dark Court, and you would absolutely become a target for Isabeau and her Hounds. Right now you exist with some anonymity and ambiguity. There’s nothing tying you to us. There’s just a few accidental meetings. Robin and I could disappear, and your story could be that you helped a stray dog and gave it to its owner—me—and you don’t know anything else about either of us. You don’t know where we went or where we live.”