would learn to like the mark, so he could have it all. Then he thought of the night before and remembered the terror he had felt as he watched her being swept over the side of the roof. If he’d been capable of having a heart attack, he would have had one.
“I think I’m going to take Mrs. Basso to the movies today,” Eve pronounced before munching on a piece of crunchy bacon, “while you’re talking to Gadara. The theater is away from water and far from the tengu building. I need a price on my head before anyone else can take a crack at me, right? So it should be nice and uneventful.”
He swallowed hard. The thought of her going out alone scared the shit out of him. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I know.” She set her elbows on the counter and rested her chin on her hands. “If you think it’s really unsafe, I won’t leave. I’m not an idiot. But if you’re just worried, please let me go. I would really like to spend a couple of hours watching other people live average lives. I need the fantasy, if only for a little while.”
Alec looked out the window. It was a crystal-clear day. No rain, no mist. If she went straight to the movies and came right back, she should be fine. “Don’t use the john.”
“Okay. Now let’s talk about why I can’t go to the bathroom. That Nix is stalking me. I can’t figure out what his deal is. I swear I didn’t do anything to him. He flicked his snake’s tongue at me and I freaked. I said something offhand by complete mistake and it wounded him. He had to see that I was clueless and no threat to him. Why is he acting like I ran over his dog?”
“I don’t know.” Alec tapped the tines of his fork against his plate. “This is completely outside the norm. I’m going to talk to Raguel about it and see what he says. We can’t sit here waiting for the Nix to strike again. We have to find and vanquish him.”
“Sounds good to me.” Eve pushed back from the island. She pulled the towel off her head and draped it over the back of her stool. “I’m going to run next door and see if Mrs. Basso is up for a movie. She wanted to see the new Hugh Jackman flick, and there’s a matinee in an hour.”
Alec nodded and continued to eat his now tasteless food, his thoughts occupied by the Nix. He listened to the multiple locks disengage, then the door opening. Perhaps talking to Raguel alone was the best way to go. Separating himself from Eve might help to alter the image of them as an indivisible team. Their paths would eventually diverge; they had to for her sake. Then he would need to continue on his present course alone. That would be difficult if it was perceived that he was useful only in regards to his association with her.
Of course, part of him wondered how useful he could possibly be without her.
As Eve exited to the hallway, she left her front door open. Her gaze returned to Alec against her will, her stride faltering just past the threshold. The sight of him in her kitchen—completely at ease and half dressed in only T-shirt and boxers—was as bizarre as being attacked by the tengu. The incongruity of his presence in her life after a ten-year absence brought home a possibility she hadn’t considered before—perhaps his return and the marking weren’t the detours in her life. Perhaps the last ten years were.
It was a crazy thought, but how else could she explain why she wasn’t a shell-shocked wreck at this point? Or why this new skin she wore felt so much more comfortable than the one she’d been born with?
And her sexual advances toward Alec . . . she could say that was an expected aftereffect of a near-death experience or blame her super libido. But she’d be lying to herself, and as screwed up as the rest of her life was, she needed her head on straight more than ever.
Eve stopped before Mrs. Basso’s door and knocked. As she waited, she tightened the belt on her robe. She looked up and down the hallway, admiring the sunshine coming in through the window on the other side of her door. She spread her arms out and stretched, briefly wondering if she should have dressed before stepping