“Open the window, Piper.” Ant’s voice hits a dangerously low octave.
Crap, crap, crap. I hurry to the window, unlatch it, and shove it open as far as it will go.
“Ant. This isn’t what it looks like,” I say hurriedly.
“You aren’t being harassed by your ex-boyfriend? A man who’s currently suing you and shouldn’t be in your house?”
“Oh!” I laugh nervously and glance behind me. Colin is staring at the window with pure ire. “I guess it’s exactly what it looks like.”
“Are you alright, my flame?” Ant doesn’t take his eyes off of Colin. “I know I shouldn’t have been, but I was watching from across the street.”
I shake my head. I couldn’t be more grateful for his voyeuristic tendencies right now. “I’m fine. I’m just packing some stuff so I can leave and come to your place. I gotta grab Mercutio,” I say tentatively, like I think he might say no.
“Yes, my love, go and pack. You will come back to our nest,” Ant says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You shouldn’t be here.” Ant glares at Colin.
“You’re the one who shouldn’t be here!” Colin is yelling now. I wince, thinking back to all the times I let him yell at me like that.Why did I put up with him? Why did I let him treat me like that? “This is him? This is the freak you are with now?”
“Leave or I will contact the authorities,” Ant threatens.
Colin laughs. It isn’t a fun sound. He storms toward me. “Do you think they’ll believe a monster over a human?”
I glance between the two men, human and Mothman, my heart racing. “You can’t talk to him like that,” I insist.
“I knew it. I always knew it. You always liked those weird cartoons and all those little fantasy movies a little too much.Beauty and the Beast,Robin Hoodwhere he was a fox, Tim Curry inLegend. It’s all falling into place now.”
“What are you talking about?”??2 I roll my eyes.
“You’re a monster fucker.”
I start to laugh. I step past Colin, but he grabs my arm to stop me.
“Don’t touch me!” I yell, shoving his shoulder with one hand as I jerk my other arm out of his grip.
Drunk Colin stumbles two steps backward toward the open window, catching himself on the sill.
“If I am a monster. Perhaps I should start acting like one,” Ant growls.
A dark hand reaches into my bedroom, wraps around Colin’s shirt, and then he’s is gone. Jerked through the open window.
1 But we’ve all had a landlord break that rule, haven’t we?
2 I know exactly what he’s talking about, but I’m not going to admit it.
33
PONTIUS
I cannot kill him. I will not kill him. Piper would not like it if I killed him.
Beneath me Colin screams. His wrists are wrapped in my dark claws while his legs dangle, helpless and hilarious, in the empty air above Piper’s building.
“Let me go! Let me go!” Colin yells. He has been screaming so loudly that I decide to take us a little higher, so we won’t bother any of her neighbors.
“If I drop you from this height, you will die.” I’m not sure if Colin can hear me, but when his mouth snaps closed, I assume he understood enough. “Piper wouldn’t want me to kill anyone.”
I’m fairly certain she wouldn’t, at least. It’s not the only thing that stops me from dropping him, but it’s the main thing. I squint into the distance. The sun is starting to creep over the horizon, the brightness will sting my eyes in about an hour. I’m not sure what to do with Colin now.
It was stupid to grab him. I couldn’t let him stand there, berating and frightening my mate. Even remembering it now has my blood boiling. I should’ve had a plan when I pulled himthrough her bedroom window. Now, I’m left holding him with no clue what to do.
