Dangerous Diabolical: Book 1 (Iridescent) ✔️

8.2

I couldn't help but wonder when our eyes met each other whether he shared the same thought. He clutched the door a little tighter, a forced smile pushed into his cheeks that didn't meet his brows, and he quickly looked away.

"I am glad you have awoken Celandine." Was he? "I've had some extra towels delivered so you can use the shower, Gray, someone's going to bring new sheets up in five."

Well, if I couldn't head home, I'd settle for a shower at least. Shakily I followed Leo before the vamp could protest, feeling ready to hibernate for a year. A smidgeon of magic power had returned to my stores, but I still couldn't detect where it was replenishing from.

"Can I open a window?" Was the first thing I asked stepping foot in his room. The air was so thick, it was like waiting for a meal that was then delivered to the next table.

"Why?" He pulled a face at me. "The air-con is on."

I'd noticed, moving away from him to avoid further clogging up my lungs. He locked the door behind us, chain and all, as I fired out a massive sneeze.

"Bless you, tea?" He asked, moving to pick up a tiny kettle from a small table in the corner.

"No." The rest of the room was as sparse as Grahame's. A double bed, door to a shower room. Sporadically flowered curtains hung from a single glazed window and a small table was placed with two overlarge chairs.

He sighed. "Coffee?"

I stood in the middle of the room, not wanting to touch anything, "No."

He flicked the kettle on, turning over a mug from a stack. "Okay well, take this." He leant over to give me a piece of folded red paper. "What do you want to eat? It's on me." I stared at it, flicked it over, then passed it back.

"Steak?" I asked.

"We only have a leaflet for Chinese."

"What's wrong with Chinese Steak?"

"The Chinese doesn't do a steak!" He ran his hand through his hair, exasperated.

"Oh. Anything meaty then is fine." That seemed to only rile him up further. The kettle began to boil.

"What, like Chow Mein, Kung Pao?"

I didn't know those animals. Were they names? Was Leo offering me people? I gave him a critical eye.

One way to find out. "Sure."

He let out a breath, seemingly deflating with the compromise as the water finished boiling with a click.

"I'll order, the clean towels are in the bathroom." He poured the kettle. "Listen, I get you'd rather not be here, you don't seem to like the council, and I know you didn't want to pull me out of Fae. But right now we've got bigger problems, that gem, for starters, and the sorcerer is still out there."

The things unsaid hovered silently between us.

I itched my nose. "Where is here exactly?" It looked like a hotel, it smelt like a hotel and was full of people like a hotel. Yet not a single person had batted an eyelid as we'd entered smeared in dirt and blood.

He stirred the cup a little bit too fast.

Please say a hotel.

"This is the Midlands branch of the SPCC."

So I heard him talking, but nothing he was saying was making sense.

My voice was dangerously low. "Did you just say we were in a branch of the supernatural policies and control council headquarters?" The literal centre of a bunch of people that I'd wanted to avoid? The walls suddenly felt a lot smaller. Glancing towards the locked door, I noticed he gripped the spoon tighter. I should've left Leofstan in Fae and hightailed it. The striped wallpaper was closing in by the second.