The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,6

pay for groceries when I wish to, and I’ll expect you to allow me to do so.” He took a hearty bite of his burrito, chewed, swallowed, and added, “I am a part of this family. I will contribute, like it or no, and I will do so in ways that do not involve your bedroom.”

A harsh cawing sound rang out from the end of the table. I whipped around, nearly dropping my burrito. Tybalt flinched, unable to quite control the momentary flash of panic in his eyes. Then we both froze, staring.

Jazz was laughing.

May raced into the room, face pale and eyes wide, clearly ready to jump into battle against whatever was hurting her girlfriend. Then she froze as well, pressing one hand to her mouth. Jazz kept laughing, leaning back in her seat and tucking her hands behind her head, seemingly helpless against her own amusement.

“Honey?” asked May. “Are you all right?”

Jazz shook her head, still laughing.

I found my voice, tucked away in a corner where I hadn’t been able to reach it before. “I think she’s going to be okay,” I said. “I think . . . I think maybe we’re all going to be okay.”

May laughed once, and if there was a hint of a sob tucked inside the sound, none of us was going to point it out. She rushed to Jazz’s side, putting her arms around the other woman, and they held each other while they laughed, and for the first time since Amandine had shown up at my door, I started to feel like maybe things were getting back to normal. We were safe. We were home. We were together, and we were going to be okay.

Tybalt smiled at me across the table as he picked up his burrito. I smiled back, and everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be. Finally, finally, everything was right.

TWO

THE HOUSE WAS QUIET by ten o’clock. The boys were in Quentin’s room with the door closed. I should probably have been concerned about them getting into trouble, but I was honestly too relieved to know where they were to care. May’s chocolate chip cookies had been baked and devoured, and May herself had gone upstairs, dragging Jazz by the wrist. They, too, had closed their bedroom door, and I felt like I’d be even less welcome in that particular room.

The remains of dinner had been cleaned up and either put in the refrigerator or thrown away; there weren’t even any dishes to deal with. Tybalt and I took advantage of the rare lull to curl up on the couch and put on a BBC production of The Tempest. Not that we were paying any attention to it. There’s nothing like Shakespeare to blunt the sounds of impending hanky-panky, or current heavy petting.

Tybalt had one hand under my shirt, cupping the curve of my right breast, while he tangled his other hand in my hair, tying knots that would take me hours with a hairbrush to untangle. I wasn’t complaining. I was too busy trying to mold myself against him, making it easier for him to reach any part of my body that caught his fancy. Living in a house with three other full-time residents and an endlessly shifting cast of visitors has taught me to take my pleasures where I can find them, and at the moment, I was very focused on finding them.

It didn’t hurt that Tybalt is possibly the most beautiful man I’ve ever been lucky enough to set my eyes on. Some of the Daoine Sidhe could beat him for pure prettiness—prettiness is sort of what the Daoine Sidhe do—but personal tastes have something to say when it comes to attraction, and Tybalt is so perfectly suited to my tastes that he might as well have been tailor-made to keep me happy.

He’s lean, like the predator he is. Before we started sleeping together, I’d mostly seen him tense, defending his territory, his people, or me. I’d never realized he was capable of the complete, seemingly boneless relaxation of a housecat who feels genuinely safe. A truly relaxed Tybalt is a creature of pure, hedonistic softness, with the occasional flash of very welcome hardness.

Without a disguise to make him seem human, his fae origins are written plainly in the bones of his face, in the green, striated color of his eyes, and in the black stripes that paint a tabby pattern through his brown hair. His ears are pointed, his incisors are a