Tooth and Nail (13 page)

He folded two napkins and slid them under our silverware. I liked how he did that, as if the moment I put this food down on the table, we weren’t going to crunch our napkins in one hand and shovel rice into our mouths with forks in our other hand.

Avery had changed into jeans and an ancient American University sweatshirt, and his feet were bare. I always thought he had nice toes. Who was I kidding? He had nice everything. My heart melted a little.

“And you?” he asked, pouring Diet Coke into two tall glasses. “Busy day?”

I didn’t want to lie. I didn’t want to lie.

“Well, yes, now that you ask. My new mentor Svein, a mostly unpleasant fae who I may or may not be physically attracted to, needed to teach me how to control my wing burst and retraction by controlling my anger and fear. Then I had to borrow a hoodie from a nice guy in The Root Center of Collection Headquarters and run to the Gap to buy a shirt to wear home since I destroyed mine during my transformation. Then I had to stash a five-inch-thick training manual under the stairs in the hallway of our building, and shove my new bells-and-whistles super-smart holographic Fae Phone into a zippered pocket of my cargo pants so you won’t find them.”

That wasn’t what I said. What I said was this: “I stayed late at the gym.”

It was only the first lie, but knowing how many more were lined up behind it, I felt sick again.

Maybe—maybe I
could
just tell him? I glanced over my shoulder at him. Still standing, he took a few gulps of his soda, then winked at me. He did love me. I was sure of that.

But this whole thing, my new life mission, was too freaky for anyone. His campaign was the most important thing in the world to him—and it was important to me too, really, to not deprive Congress and the American people of his intelligence, ideas and vision. He was poised on the brink of becoming someone in a position to make a real and lasting mark on history, and he’d worked a long time to get there. His father had been in the same position but, through no fault of his own, had become entangled in a scandal that the public might have been able to forgive but just couldn’t quite forget.

Avery saw with his own eyes how one wrong move could kill the most promising campaign. So I was pretty damn sure he wouldn’t want to be publicly involved with a woman claiming to be a tooth faerie.
Fae
. His ambition wouldn’t survive that.

Would our relationship survive? My father left his fae wife and his half-fae daughter. Sure, he stuck it out for a few years, but he clearly hadn’t been up to the task of spending his life with us. He’d bolted.

What made Avery any different?

After all, he was human.

I was an adult engaged in a mature relationship. I knew relationships sometimes had to end, and I’d been on both sides of that scenario. It hurt, but that was life, and love.

But if Avery ever left me, I could
not
let it be for the same reason why my father left me.

What had Reese said? Most fae don’t do the collection thing for long. I could put in my time, catch a bad guy for them, transform my fae side back into dormancy, and be normal again in no time.

“Dinner’s up,” I said, and carried two serving dishes to the table. Avery wasted no time digging into the chicken satay, piling it on his plate.

“Hey, you could leave some for the rest of us,” I said.

“Or you could quit dawdling and take some.”

Or
, I thought,
I can get you to give me yours
. Svein told me the glamour was the easiest fae talent—just pick a target, and intend the glamour in their direction. It was possible to exude the glamour in a way that would enrapture an entire room of people, which is clearly what Frederica had done to get my attention at Smiley’s, but that required considerable practice. Doing it on one person, Svein had said, came naturally.

I worked up a little mojo, and the skin on my face tingled. I stared at Avery, willing him to look up, but his plate of food was commanding his full attention—which was my fault, wasn’t it, for being late and causing his stomach to cry out in distress.

I cleared my throat with authority—twice—and he finally looked up.

“Can I,” I asked quietly, “have one of your chicken skewers?”

He blinked once. “Take them all,” he said, and put his three on my plate. “Do you need anything else?”

“No,” I said. “Not at the moment.”

“Gemma,” he said, dropping his fork and dragging his chair until it hit mine, “I want you.”

I raised a brow.

He crushed me to him, kissing me, pushing his hands through my hair. He broke off the kiss, and held my face in his hands. “Right now,” he said.

“Don’t you want to finish eating?”

He pushed our dishes aside and lifted me onto the table. He pushed his body between my legs and kissed my neck. “No,” he said. “Please.”

He tugged at the button of my cargo pants, and I lifted my behind to let him slide them down my legs.

I considered the morality of seducing my man with magical powers. But when Avery’s fingers slid inside my panties and across my skin, I decided morality was overrated.

>=<

That was on Friday night. Sunday afternoon, Avery and I were still in bed.

Well, “still” was overstating it a bit. We did leave the bed to shower and eat, but every time we left to satisfy a basic need, we returned to satisfy our favorite need.

As for the morality conundrum, I had cast it aside. I only used the glamour on Avery at dinner that first night. Everything that came after was a byproduct of the realization that it had been a very long time since we had spent a few days together in bed. Okay, okay, I did use the glamour
one
more time, when he looked as if he was getting sleepy, and believe me, I heard no complaints.

Avery had cleared his calendar for the weekend, and he was more relaxed than I’d seen him since he’d announced to me that he was running for Congress, so I didn’t feel one bit guilty for prompting his spontaneous time off.

He dozed, surrounded with various Sunday sections of
The Washington Post
and
The New York Times
, so I slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom, intending a nice, long shower.

I scrutinized my face in the mirror. It was true. I really didn’t look any different. Judging from the number of times Avery had very recently run his hands and tongue over every inch of my back, it was clear that my wings were folded up in there nice and tight and completely invisible to anyone.

Right now, what I looked like with wings was my secret. Mine and Svein’s.

I scowled. Stupid Svein had popped up unbidden in my mind a few times this weekend—maybe just once or twice at totally inappropriate times—but also because he’d instructed me to call yesterday morning and I kind of hadn’t. Because I was kind of busy.

But we could start training tomorrow, as far as I was concerned. We all needed a weekend off. Sure, I was off all the time because I was jobless, but Svein didn’t know that. I was pretty sure he didn’t know that. Anyway, I was doing all right on my own with controlling these wings. Hard to feel afraid or angry when you were doing the wild thing for forty-eight hours. Waiting until Monday morning to call seemed reasonable.

Svein had also told me to read the manual immediately. Since I wasn’t inclined to drag that massive binder into bed with Avery and start highlighting, that too would have to wait until tomorrow.

I stared at myself in the mirror. If I aimed my glamour at my reflection, would I fall in love with myself? Certainly worth a try. I intended—and though I wasn’t overwhelmed by a sudden urge to kiss the glass, I did notice the glow coming through my skin. It was subtle. I was sparkling from within. Thin but distinct rings of silver circled my brown irises, brightening my eyes. Very cool.

Busy examining my face, I was startled to hear chimes coming from the kitchen. I followed the sound, padding down the hallway. The chimes rang scales, up and down, and I discovered it was coming from my cargo pants, abandoned on the tile floor the other evening. But my cell was turned off, and I realized it was my new cell phone, which I’d dubbed my Fae Phone.

I flipped it open and hit
OK
to read the new message.

It was an address. Just a street address. No explanation.

Was this some kind of code? Was I being summoned for training?

Or …

I remembered Svein talking to the agent at The Root, and asking him to send him an address to his Fae Phone for tooth collection that evening. So clearly, this was an address for collection.

For me.

With no training.

I scrolled through the phone’s preprogrammed numbers and found one for The Root switchboard. When it began to ring on the other end, I quietly slipped out onto the porch and pulled the door mostly closed. The late-morning air was warmer than I’d expected; April in Virginia was unpredictable.

“Root, Jason speaking.”

“Jason,” I said. “Um, hi. This is Gemma Cross. I haven’t met you yet, but …”

“Right, Gemma. I’ve heard all about you.”

Of course.

“I just sent you an assignment for tonight,” he said. “Do you need any clarification?”

“Well, it’s just that I haven’t gotten around to talking to Svein, and …”

“I just talked to Svein this morning,” Jason told me. “He said you were all set, and we could put you on shift tonight.”

I closed my eyes and jammed my back teeth together. I would not get angry. Angry meant big wings. I would accept. I would accept and not fight.

I accepted—barely—that Svein, in retaliation for not hearing from me, had put me on assignment with no training, setting me up to look like an idiot in front of Root agents.

“Gemma?” Jason asked. “Is there something you need?”

Svein wanted to play games, fine. I would tell Avery I was going to the gym, and instead I’d find a coffee shop, settle in with the training binder—there was bound to be some sort of Quick Start guide in there—and cram. Then tonight, sometime after midnight, I’d head on out, cross the river, and grab a tooth.

What I would
not
do was call Svein and ask for help. He didn’t deserve the satisfaction. Let him see how well I could handle this on my own.

I accepted my destiny. For tonight.

And I accepted that tomorrow, Svein and I would have words. Mostly my words.

“No,” I told Jason. “I’m good.”

I disconnected and pressed a few buttons again, returning to the screen with the address. I squinted at it. Virginia Avenue. Wait, I knew where that was …

Oh, for crying out loud.

I closed my eyes and bumped my forehead against the wall once, twice. I cursed Svein for his twisted sense of humor in doing this to me, and I cursed myself for insisting on following through.

Breathe. Accept the reality.

Here was the reality: In order to retrieve a newly exfoliated tooth, I was going to have to do a little breaking and entering.

Into Watergate.

CHAPTER 9

F
oggy Bottom was an interesting and silly name for the D.C. neighborhood, but I wished it was more literal. A thick, watery, dense fog dropping over the city would have been the perfect night cover for me.

Instead, I found myself in the courtyard on a clear, starlit night, straddling my bicycle, staring up at one of the buildings in the Watergate complex. I was positive that the secretary of state was watching me from a bedroom window while sipping a nightcap.

I had read as much of the manual as I could today in my very limited time alone. I’d convinced Avery that he might want to catch up on work, what with spending the last two days and nights in bed, and he had retreated into his home office for a short while. I’d slipped into the bathroom, locked the door and read what I could for about an hour. I was never a fast reader, so what I read probably amounted to only about twenty percent of the information, and what I committed to memory was far less than that. I had tried to absorb a small portion of each chapter to get a workable mental outline of the job ahead of me, but when I set out on my bike to cross the Potomac, I knew I was flying blind.

No faerie pun intended.
Fae
pun.

There was one sentence I did remember, because it was hard to forget.
For your first collection, you’ll probably be a bit nervous.
No, really? A bit nervous? Standing in shadows outside Watergate East with a jacket pocket full of makeshift lockpicking implements, I was way beyond nervous and almost into terrified.

Almost. Because uncontrolled fear would pull out my wings in two seconds flat. And if a stranger lurking around private property didn’t arouse any suspicion, a stranger lurking around shirtless with a giant pair of glittery wings would no doubt give a casual passerby a coronary.

As for lurking, I decided now it wasn’t the best approach. Yes, it was 1:30 in the morning and yes, I didn’t live here, but any random resident out with his dog didn’t know that. As far as they knew, I had every right to be here. I could just walk into the building as if I were visiting someone. Which I was. Just without their knowledge.

Getting into the apartment itself would be another story, but that was why I programmed Reese’s number into my Fae Phone. I knew I’d need an SOS, and it was
not
going to be Svein. He wanted to play games? Well, I was going to win this one.

My gaze wandered up the side of the building. Balconies jutted out with the trademark railings that looked like, I realized with a sigh, teeth.

Come on, you wuss
, I chastised myself.
Just get in there, do your thing, and get out again
. Fae had been doing this forever without a problem. As far as I knew, anyway.

Luckily for me, Avery was a sound sleeper, but I didn’t want to be gone long. I didn’t want to be here long. I didn’t want to be here at all.

I’d managed to sneak a phone call in to my mother today, whispering to her in the bathroom that I’d accepted my destiny. She was upset—upset that I hadn’t finished our talk before I made my decision, but I told her I knew was I was getting into and I’d be fine. I left out the part about an imminent threat to the fae, and let her believe collecting was my only priority for the moment. The easy part.