Occam’s human nose bumped mine. “I don’t play games like your churchmen. I want you and only you, always and ever,” he said, our noses touching. He tilted his head and pressed his lips to mine, a kiss that quickly became more as the hand on my chin curled behind my head and he pulled me in. Tongues met and twisted together and things in my middle went all tight and hot and—he pulled away. He was breathing fast. So was I. He managed a deep shuddering breath and rested his forehead against mine. “Dayum, woman.”
I laughed, a strange sound filled with longing. “I wasn’t jealous. Not really,” I said, lying, but wishing it was the truth.
“Maybe not consciously. But you grew up with certain expectancies about relationships. Those childhood expectations influence who you are now. Just like my childhood can and does affect who I am now. Our childhoods can screw with our minds like nothing else. So know this, with the part of you that’s all thinking and logic. I don’t need nothing from another woman,” he said. “I jist need you. For the rest of my life. Now.” His yellow-glowing eyes met mine. “I have a need to hear you say it again. And often. Do you love me?”
“Yes,” I said. “I love you to the full moon and back.”
He leaned in and kissed me one last time, hard and quick. He pulled away, opened the car door, got out, and pushed the door shut. The night pressed against the car windows like small, clawed paws or like serial killers in scary movies, not that I was scared.
Carefully, I tried on the words, “I’m good and ready for us to be together forever.” A peculiar heat washed through me, longing and wanting.
But Occam was gone, covering the ground in a cat-assisted lope to reappear near the house, silhouetted by the lighted windows.
Softly, I whispered, trying out the words for the very first time in the silence and isolation of the car. “Will you marry me, Occam?” The words felt strange on my lips, full of hope and fragile trust, a trust I had abused by jealousy over Etain. I had to stop letting my past, my upbringing, get in the way of Occam and me. “I’m so stupid,” I sighed to the vampire tree. Fortunately it didn’t answer.
I locked the car and went back to work.
* * *
* * *
T. Laine negotiated with the witches to pull the portable null room to Knoxville as soon as possible and offer it to the doctors and patients. It would be excellent PR, mitigating some of the negative social media reactions to Stella Mae dying from what an unnamed source had reported to be witch magic.
Unlike the standardized protocols for treating mundane disorders, medical treatments for magical ailments tended to be looser, more of an art than a science, and to involve arcane treatments in addition to traditional methods. Though Jo had made an offer to UTMC for patients to use the null room at HQ, no one had come yet except the two cops, possibly because it would be difficult (and a liability) to transport patients. Having the null trailer at UTMC would make it much easier for the doctors to utilize the treatment. Not all patients would be willing, distrusting anything that hinted of witches. The churchfolk weren’t the only people who thought all witches should be burned at the stake.
Spotting me, standing half-hidden in the dark, holding my tablet under one arm and wearing what I’m sure was a forlorn and woebegone countenance, T. Laine called me over. “Whatever it is that has you moping, put it away,” she said. “Now that the bodies and the carpets are in the null room, Astrid has sounded the all clear. I need a full and comprehensive evaluation and photographs of the rest of the house. I want photos of anything that grabs your attention even if you don’t know why it grabbed you. If you spot family, who went inside as soon as Astrid said it was safe, feel free to initiate basic Q and A. Go on. You got this.” She patted me on the arm and went back to whatever she had been doing.
“I’m not moping,” I said. Though that might be a little lie. I looked around for Occam and didn’t see him. Feeling more like a churchwoman than I had in a long time, I squared my shoulders against old