Once most of the pain had faded, he removed his hand.
“That’s the best I can do. You need a night to fully recover.”
I shifted, feeling mild pain and pulling muscles, but I was a lot better. He was right—I’d have full mobility by tomorrow.
“Thanks,” I said. “You’d be handy to have on my normal jobs.”
He grinned. “What you do is the opposite of my usual thing.”
“But think of how good you’d be at it. All that experience protecting valuables, you’d have no problem breaking in to get them.”
“I’ll think about it.” He grinned, but I knew he was full of it. “Where to next?”
“East,” I said. “To Norway. The scroll didn’t go far.”
“East it is.”
The wind cut off our words on the ride back, so we didn’t talk. Aidan confidently piloted the boat through the waves and pulled alongside the little dock. I hopped off, and he tossed me the rope. I tied the boat off to the cleat while he hid the key beneath the pilot’s seat.
By the time we were back in the car, it was fully dark.
“We’ll stay at my place tonight,” Aidan said as he cranked the ignition. “You need to sleep to heal. If the scroll were farther away, we’d take the plane and sleep on it, but Norway is only a two-hour flight.”
“What about the demons who were looking for it?”
“If that’s what they were after, they didn’t get the information they needed. And I don’t want you going until you’re healed.”
He was right. Going into tombs at less than one hundred percent was just asking for it. Without my magic, I needed to be physically one hundred percent to make it through the enchantments.
And I really wanted to wash the demon blood off me. I was starting to smell weird, and it was grossly sticky.
“Your place is near here?” Though I wanted to look at him—I wanted to do that way too often lately—I kept my gaze on the moonlit countryside. Hills rolled in the distance, dotted with sheep whose white wool glinted in the moonlight. I knew we were probably pretty close to where he lived. I didn’t have a great idea of the geography of Ireland, but I knew we were in the south, and when I’d raided the temple on his property yesterday, I’d been in the south.
“Yes.” He turned onto a narrow lane that climbed upward. The car bumped over potholes and rocks. “Just down this road. That’s another reason I chose to borrow Mack’s boat. Conveniently located.”
We pulled up to the house a moment later.
“I see you like the simple things,” I said as I gazed at the enormous structure. It was all sleek glass and stone, modern, yet it blended with the landscape beautifully.
“It’s all right,” Aidan said as he climbed out.
He opened my door before I’d even touched it, because I was too busy staring at the house. When I climbed out, my dragon sense tingled. Somewhere far underground, there were treasures. The ones that I’d left behind during my temple raid yesterday.
“Is your house on a cliff?”
“Yes.”
Made sense. I’d entered the temple through a gap in a cliff. That’s why it had been so easy for him to feel the magical disturbance when the demon had gone nuts on me. He’d been right on top of me.
I needed to be better about my recon, it seemed.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get some dinner.”
“Yes, please.” This guy knew the way to my heart. I followed him into the foyer. Lights turned on as soon as he walked in the front door, illuminating a simple but beautiful foyer. The ceiling soared overhead, and a modern glass chandelier shed gleaming light on the wood floor. Maybe if I didn’t put all my money into the holy trinity of boots, jackets, and weapons, I could live in a place a bit closer to this.
Nah. I liked my set-up.
“Pick any bedroom upstairs and get cleaned up. I’ll get dinner on.”
I waved a hand down my bloody front. Most of it wasn’t even mine. “What? You don’t like me like this?”
His gaze met mine, and there was more than humor in his eyes. Heat. “I’ll take you however I can get you.”
I swallowed hard. Oh, man. He was bringing out the big guns. Desire coiled within me. Though it was stupid, I wanted to take him up on it.
“I’m going to get that shower.” I turned and ran up the stairs.
His low laugh echoed from below. It pissed me off and turned me on at the same time.
Idiot.
But I didn’t know if I was talking about him or me.
CHAPTER SIX
When I finished with my shower—which took longer than expected because the freaking thing had eight shower heads, and I’d had to try every one—I called Nix on my comms charm.
“Well, Cass? What happened?” Her voice came through clearly.
“I didn’t get the scroll. But I have a bead on its location. We’ll get it tomorrow.”
“Good.” The relief was clear in her voice. “Because Dr. Garriso didn’t know much. He said the scroll has been lost for at least three hundred years. When it was first stolen, the Order of the Magica and the Shifter Council sent out a search party. But they never found it. No one has heard about it since. It just disappeared.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah. I spoke to Del. She’s almost done in Nicaragua. When I asked her about the Scroll of Truth, she didn’t know anything either.”