Page 29 of Deadly Reckoning (Broken Ashes #7)

It brought me home, and I don’t mean this place in particular, but rather to these men. They have quickly become my home, and I am more than okay with that.

I just hope that I don’t fuck it up.

“Oh, something smells good,” Van grins as we approach the back door and picks up speed so we can get there quicker, making me chuckle.

∞∞∞

“Where’s Ransom?” I ask at breakfast the next morning.

Doc looks around at the table and frowns, “I don’t know. He doesn’t usually miss breakfast.”

“I don’t think he went to bed last night,” Coen says. “He was still in his workroom when I got up to get a drink at three this morning.”

I frown and stand up, picking up a spare plate and loading it up with the food that I know he likes.

“I’ll go and find him and see if I can convince him to take a break for a moment.”

“You won’t have to convince him,” River smiles. “It’s you, you’ll just need to ask, and he’ll stop.”

“She probably won’t even have to ask,” Griff says with a knowing smile.

I shake my head, unable to hide my smile as I grab a coffee and then head to Ransom’s workroom.

Calling it a workroom makes it sound a hell of a lot smaller than it actually is.

It’s probably not much smaller than Raiden’s library, but it’s circular in shape, which is apparently better for spells, although I didn’t get a chance to ask why.

It’s also got an incredibly tall, domed ceiling, with shelves of various curiosities all throughout the room, as well as books, ingredients, and all sorts of other wonderful curiosities that reach the ceiling itself.

There are even huge and complicated science thingys with Bunsen burners, vials, and doohickeys that I have no idea what they are called or what they are for.

Apparently, potion and spell making is a lot more complicated than I thought it was, and isn’t all magic. There’s some science utilized in there as well, which shouldn’t have surprised me, since I know that Doc uses a mixture of science and magic in his work as well.

When I get to the door, I realize that I have a problem, my hands are full, and I can’t knock.

“Ransom?” I call out, hoping that he’s not so absorbed in his work that he can’t hear me, or has headphones on. I like to work with headphones on, so maybe he does as well. After a moment of silence, I try again, “Ransom?”

When that still doesn’t work, I contemplate sending a thread of my fire through the keyhole to get his attention, but thankfully, at the last minute, it occurs to me that there is probably a lot of volatile and highly flammable stuff in there, and sending fire in there probably isn’t the best idea.

I resort to the only thing I can think of. I kick the door.

Finally, I hear movement behind the door, and a rumpled-looking Ransom pulls it open with a confused frown. His eyes widen as he sees me.

“Neith?” he asks, and then opens the door wider and invites me inside. “Is everything okay?”

I raise my eyebrow as I pass him his coffee and nudge him over to the couch he’s got in here, placing the plate of food on the coffee table in front of him and pointing at it.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t argue at all, and after draining his coffee, he practically falls on his food like a starving man.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” I ask once he’s slowed down.

He winces and looks at me guiltily, “No. It’s the wards.”

“You can’t make them?” I ask.

He shakes his head, “No, I can make them. The standard ones that everyone uses I could make in my sleep, but standard isn’t good enough.

I need wards that are as strong as the ones that are on the house here, on us, flexible, mobile, and undetectable.

It’s proving difficult, and I struggle to shut my brain off if there’s a problem that I can’t fix. ” He frowns, “Weird, huh?”

I shake my head, “Not really. Have you met me? I’m a big tangle of weird, but what you just described isn’t weird, not to me.”

He smiles, his hand coming up to grasp my chin gently as he leans forward and kisses me, “Thank you.”

I grin, “You’re welcome.” Standing up, I say, “Come on, maybe talking about what you’re struggling with will help?

I mean, I probably won’t understand a word of what you’re saying, but just explaining to someone else might be enough to jog something in your brain and help you figure out what the problem is and how to fix it? ”

Ransom smiles, “You’d do you that for me?”

I frown, it’s really not a big deal at all. “Of course I would, why wouldn’t I?”

“When most people realize how far down the rabbit hole I go when I do my work, they tend to quickly lose interest, and they definitely don’t offer to help me out,” he explains, his voice flat.

The tone of his voice is enough to tell me that he has been hurt a lot in the past by the things that people have said to him in this scenario.

“That’s their loss. I’d like to help you any way that I can, and considering that I know fuck all about making spells and potions and all of that, the only way that I can help is by listening. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

His eyes heat, and his fingers spark with magic, as he slowly stands and stalks toward me. He pulls me into his arms and kisses me deeply, leaving me breathless and wanting more.

“You sure? It gets pretty boring?” he asks when he pulls back, watching me closely.

It takes me a moment to catch up on what he’s talking about, but eventually it clicks.

I clear my throat and nod, “Yep. Come on, explain it to me and why it’s not working.”

He still looks unsure, so I kiss him again and then move over to the science things.

“What does this do?” I ask, pointing to a vial that’s being held in a complicated-looking clamp.