“How much longer until you’re finished with this order?” Doc asked.
“At this rate, a few more days.”
He nodded. “Then what?”
“Then I sleep for a week.”
“Alone?” I teased.
“Violet Lynn, you need to stop playing Cupid.”
Thinking back on the conversation, I grinned. I couldn’t stop. I liked Reid too much to give up. Besides, if I could figure out how to catch the damned lidérc and fulfill this stupid deal with Dominick, the path would be clear for Reid to make his big move. Then maybe Aunt Zoe would finally relent and …
The bells over Calamity Jane’s front door jingled, snapping me out of my match-making plans.
I looked around. The sight of Rex crossing the threshold made my jaw drop. “What are you doing here?” I blurted out, not even trying to be cordial.
He closed the door and leaned against it. His eyes seemed darker than usual, but maybe that was the black coat and scarf he was wearing. “That is no way to greet your lover.”
My lover? When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I pointed at the door he was leaning against. “I’m not in the mood to deal with you today, Rex, so slink back to whatever slime pit you call home-sweet-home these days.”
He reached behind him and locked the deadbolt.
Well, shit. This night might end with another broken nose. I sure hoped Cooper would be willing to hear my side of the story before he tossed me in jail for assault. I moved to my desk, pocketing my phone, and grabbed my trusty stapler. Damn, I wished I’d brought my mace with me to work today.
“What are you doing, Rex?” His allergies, along with the hives and red drippy eyes, appeared to have cleared.
He took a couple of steps toward me, his smile oily. “You were my favorite concubine, Violet.” There was definitely something different about his eyes. They were too dark for being in a room with this much light. “Your hair captured my heart that first day I saw you sitting in the Quad at college. It glowed like spun gold in the sunlight.”
What was he talking about? He didn’t have a heart.
I clapped the stapler in my hand, letting him know how I felt about his skin-crawling attempts to woo me this evening. “We met in the class you were teaching, Rex, not in the Quad. You’re getting your history mixed up.”
“That is not true. I saw you weeks before class started. You were sitting on a bench with your friends. It was a warm autumn day and you were wearing a blue sundress covered in daisies that made your skin look positively creamy.”
I remembered that sundress, but not him.
He came closer. “I wanted to drip strawberry juice over your flesh and lick it clean.”
My gut tightened. The cramp had little to do with his sickening attempts at seducing me.
Cooper’s words from yesterday replayed in my thoughts: His eyes seemed darker. Dilated maybe. Makes me wonder if he’s on something.
There was definitely something off about Rex, and not only his eyes. It was in the way he moved, too. His usual confident stride had been replaced by a swaying sort of stroll that made it look like his joints were looser in their sockets.
Now that I thought about yesterday, it was after Rex had come and gone that the lidérc had led me on a merry race through the Hellhole and into its trap under the courthouse.
He took another step closer, and a wave of nausea rolled over me.
Shizzlesticks. Rex had brought me some devilish company once again. Dominick had been right. This smoky son of a bitch wasn’t wasting any time hunting me down.
The sharp smell of whiteboard markers made me sniff several more times. Why was I smelling that? I heard a squeak coming from the other side of the room.
Rex looked in that direction, his body stiffening.
I followed his gaze. Two words were scrawled across one of the whiteboards where there was no writing before: NOT ALONE!
Movement near the end of the hallway drew my eye. I turned and my breath caught.
Jane, my old boss, stood staring at me.
Partially transparent, she was wearing one of her favorite striped sweaters, a red scarf, and black pants. While I gaped at her, soaking up the sight of her, she pointed at the words she’d written, and then her finger aimed at Rex.
“Yeah, I just figured that out myself, Jane,” I told her. I glanced up at the camera with its steady red light. “You seeing this, Cornelius?” My fingers were crossed that he was indeed watching and already calling the posse to get their asses here with my mirror.
“You are not needed this time,” Rex the lidérc told Jane. “Run along now.”
She wiggled her finger for me to follow and then faded away completely.
Where’d she go? How was I supposed to follow her if I couldn’t see her?
“Jane?” I called, keeping my eyes on Rex, who was angling toward me. “I can’t follow you there.”
Rex shifted closer, his arms held wide as if waiting for me to run into his embrace. Tiny sparks of fire drifted from the tips of his fingers. His black eyes drew my gaze. Something mesmerizing glittered in their depths, tugging at me to step closer, look deeper. “Come to me, Violet. I can make this quick.”
He was blocking the path out the front door, leaving me only one other way out. I stepped back from my desk, keeping it as a barrier between us. “Stay right where you are, asshole.” I held up the stapler, trying my best to look threatening. Christ, I needed my mace.
His laughter was richer, more velvety than Rex’s usual tone. Something about the lidérc reminded me of Dominick—maybe it was the same slick charm they both used to lure their victims.
“You are an unworthy adversary without
