lost to the floor. Sometimes I got cold; Rhys seldom did. He, like Frost, had once been a deity of colder things than a Southern California night.
He laid his weapons on the kitchen counter and turned on the light over the oven, making a small glow in the dark, quiet house. He turned on the coffeemaker, which was ready to go for the morning.
I chided him. "You just wanted coffee."
He smiled at me. "I always want coffee, but I think this may be a long talk, and I worked today, too."
"It's industrial espionage using magic, right?" I asked.
"Yes, but the Goddess didn't wake us up to talk about a case."
I slipped the robe on and tied it. It was black with red and green flowers on it here and there. I seldom wore all black if I could help it. It was too much my aunt Andais's signature color. My hair had gotten long enough that I had to sweep it out of the robe to settle the collar.
I enjoyed watching Rhys move around the kitchen nude. I admired the tight line of his ass as he stood on tiptoe to reach mugs from the cabinet.
"The problem with a seven-foot-tall man being the main one who lives here is that he puts things you use every day too damn high."
"He doesn't think about it," I said, and slid onto the bar stool near the front of the outside counter.
He got the mugs down, and turned with a grin. "Were you watching my ass?"
"Yes, and the rest of you. I'm enjoying watching you move around the kitchen in nothing but your smile."
That made him grin again as he put the mugs by the coffeemaker, which was now making the happy noises that said coffee was on its way.
He came to me, face going solemn. He gave me the full attention of that one blue-ringed eye. He raised his hand again, and touched the blood and grit on my face.
"I take it Brennan was injured."
"A small cut on his palm, and it was that hand that he gripped the nail with."
"He's still wearing it around his neck," Rhys said.
I nodded.
"You know the rumors about the soldiers who fought beside us?"
"No," I said.
"They're healing people, Merry. They're laying on hands."
I stared at him. "I thought that was just for that night, just with faerie's magic bleeding all over everything."
"Apparently not," he said. He studied my face, as if looking for something specific.
"What?" I asked, nervous under his so-serious scrutiny.
"You never left the bed, Merry. I swear to that, but Brennan touched you physically. Enough to leave dirt from his location and his blood, and that scares me."
He turned and started searching the drawers of the cabinets for something. He came up with ziplock bags and a spoon.
I must have given him a suspicious look, because he chuckled and explained. "I'm going to take a sample of the dirt and blood. I want to know what a modern lab will make of it."
"To get the Grey Detective Agency to pay for it you'll have to explain."
"Jeremy is a good boss, a good fey, and a good man. He'll let me put it through as part of a case."
I couldn't argue with anything he said about Jeremy. He'd been one of my few friends when I first came to Los Angeles.
Rhys opened one of the bags and leaned toward my cheek with the spoon. "This isn't exactly chain of evidence. If it was a real case the zip lock bag might let the other side argue that it was contaminated by anything and everything."
"I wasn't thinking when I touched it, so my skin is in there, and you're right about the method of collection, but this isn't a real case, Merry." He very carefully scraped some dirt into one of the open bags. He was so gentle I felt only a slight pressure.
When he had enough dirt he closed the bag. He got a new spoon and a new bag, and scraped some of the dirt, but I was betting that he had more blood in this one. He took more time with this one, and it actually scraped my skin a little. It didn't hurt, but it might have if he'd kept doing it long enough.
"What do you hope to gain by testing these?"
"I don't know, but we'll know more than we do right this minute." He started opening drawers until he found a Sharpie in the drawer closest to the phone. He wrote