She raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like most men’s perfect fantasy.”
“I don’t want that.” Oberon slid his hand into her hair. “I want you. I want the light of intelligence in your eyes, your quick wit and the way you challenge me even though I am king.”
Before she could answer, he leaned down and stole a kiss. This time she let him, her hands curling in the front of his t-shirt. He growled and deepened the kiss, the embrace turning torrid in a heartbeat. The world ceased to exist, and she was just starting to think about finding the nearest horizontal—or vertical—surface when Garlick put a claw in the back of her calf.
“Before you two attempt to get arrested for public witch-on-fae lewdness, you might be interested to know that Dave’s about to make a run for it.”
That broke the spell, and she pulled from the hunky fairy’s kiss in time to see that her familiar was right. Dave was headed for the front doors, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. Instinct told her that if he left, they’d never see him again.
“We can’t let him get away,” she hissed, breaking from Oberon’s embrace and rushing to the edge of the balcony. Throwing out a hand, she muttered a quick spell.
“Maiden’s sight and mother’s might,
Stop this Shifter from taking flight,
Bring him around and about again,
So we might ask who, what, why and when!”
Oberon whooped and raced down the stairs ahead of her. By the time she reached the lobby, he had the Shifter by the scruff of the neck. From the yips and snarls emanating from the smaller man, she was forced to reassess her suspicions about his canine side. Making noises like that, he had to be something small and yappy like some kind of ankle-biter. She suppressed a shudder. She was so not a dog person.
“Going somewhere, Dave?” she asked pointedly, her eyebrow raised. The fact that he’d tried to run was telling. Really telling.
He knew it as well, sweating like a kleptomaniac in a mall filled with security officers. His gaze darted between the three of them. Well, it darted between Daffi, Garlick and the bit of Oberon’s massive bicep that he could see.
“Just out for lunch… early lunch,” he added when Daffi looked up at the clock. “Man’s gotta eat, you know.”
“Oh, indeed,” she agreed and then looked at Oberon. He tightened his arm and Dave squeaked.
“What are you running from?” she demanded, rising on her tiptoes to shove her face in his and glare at him. “Or does my fiancé here have to take you outside and have a chat with you?”
“No! No!” he said quickly and then sagged in Oberon’s hold. “Okay, okay… I’ll tell you!”
Oberon looked at her and she nodded. When he let the Shifter go, she pulled them to the back of the gift shop area, behind a display rack of books entitled Love Potions throughout the Ages by Harrietta Locksglove.
“Okay,” she said, turning to face Dave. “Talk. What didn’t you want Sergeant Abberline knowing?”
He blinked. “Who says I have anything I don’t want the watch knowing? I didn’t say anything about not wanting the watch to know about it.”
She bit back her sigh. Dave seriously proved the dumb blond stereotype at times. She’d found him looking for the “any” key on the ticket booth PC the other day.
“It’s not what you said, Dave,” she clued him in. “But what you did. The sergeant interviewed you and within five minutes you’re making a break for it. Which means you told him some porkies. Didn’t you, Dave? And you’re worried about him coming back… Or,” her voice turned stern. “You don’t want me to know something and you decided to run before I could talk to you. But it couldn’t be that. Could it, Dave? Because we’re friends and you’re a good boy. Aren’t you, Dave?”
He whined as she deliberately hit his species’ trigger and refused to look her in the eye.
“Out with it, now!” she ordered, her voice hard.
Dave mumbled something, his face obscured by his hair.
Daffi leaned closer, frowning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch that?”
It had been something about Sybil. She was sure of it.
“We were seeing each other. Okay?” Dave snapped, looking at her through the shaggy fall of his hair. “Or rather,” he hissed in frustration, his expression pained. “I was her dirty little secret. I loved her and she wouldn’t even acknowledge our relationship.”
There was real rage and pain in his voice.
“Why was that?” she asked, not letting up on the pressure. There was more here.
“Because I’m a Jack-Shit, okay?”
“So we have a dog Shifter—who would have thought there’d be a Jack Russell cross Shit Tzu Shifter out there?—in a secret relationship with the victim, a killer with white hair—which is not a common color for a witch—and a missing afternoon tea,” Daffi mused later that night when they’d returned to the Mad Pumpkin after a long day of interviews.
Oberon had been let loose on the takeout menus again and the coffee table in the middle of the sitting area was covered in an assortment of boxes. All were mostly empty now. Daffi was snacking on what remained of the prawn crackers, a food stuff she was sure had never had so much as a passing encounter with an actual prawn, as she studied her “crime board.”
One wall of the suite was covered in clues and pictures all connected with colored string to a picture of Sybil in the center. It was an old one, from some school or other. Sybil was dressed in a formal academic gown with a sash covered in multiple badges and a mortarboard hat on her head. She wore the tight smile of someone for whom displeasure was a genetic trait rather than a fleeting emotion.
“Missing afternoon tea?” Garlick asked with a groan. All that was visible of the familiar was four paws sticking up in the air on the other side of the coffee
