Free Dead Drop by Carolyn Jewel Page B

through the blood.
    Her skin prickled with some bizarre rolling reaction from head to toe. The world narrowed to just them. “What are you doing?”
    “I will protect you with my life, Wallace Jackson.” Slowly, he licked her blood off his finger. The back of her head went cold and then hot because Palla had just made her a promise bound by her blood. Their gazes locked, and she felt the power there, and it scared the hell out of her. He released her arm like the contact was poison to him. He sat back. “Problem solved.”
    “What the hell,” she whispered.
    His eyes flickered with more colors. “In or out of Nikodemus’s territory, now I can’t let you die.”
    “I didn’t mean it. Jesus.” The horror and finality of what he’d just done came home. “No. You can’t do that.”
    “Stop me, how about.”
    “You’re insane if you think I meant any of that. You didn’t have to do that.”
    “You have no say in who I swear to protect.” He curled his fingers into a circle. “Zero.”
    “You can’t go around making oaths like that.”
    “Too late.”
    “I don’t want you to die for me. No.”
    “Get off it, Wallace.” He started the car again. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “Fuck you back. Twice as fucking hard.”

nine

    Palla parked in the driveway she pointed to and tried to settle himself. He hadn’t been blood-sworn since before running afoul of Christophe dit Menart. Five hundred plus years later, and he still didn’t like being sworn to a human. His oath to Wallace, so new it felt raw, rasped along his nerves when he took stock of the house and its surroundings.
    Her house wasn’t secure. Not one single ward was set to warn off potential attackers. To his left, a chain-link fence surrounded a yard that was dirt and weeds. There was a window-box, though, with a blooming plant in it. White and pink whatever it was. He didn’t like it. There was no way she’d be safe here, past, present, or future.
    “This is your house?”
    “No. I live two streets over. I just want the drug dealers here to shoot you.” She pushed open the car door and got out before he had time to turn off the engine. He did that quick and jumped out.
    “Are you insane?” He cast a wide psychic net. If there were any magekind or free kin here, he wanted to know. He didn’t get anything that made him freak out. A couple of dabblers was all. That didn’t make her safe, though. She needed some level of magic in place to protect her house and there was nothing here. Nothing.
    Wallace stared at him over the top of the car. “If you ask me if it’s safe to park here, you can just please go away.”
    He patted the roof. “I’m sure your drug dealer neighbors will take good care of it.”
    “They’re not drug dealers.”
    He made sure his expression didn’t change. “Aren’t you all drug dealers here?”
    “Go away.”
    “You’re the one who brought up drug dealers, not me.”
    “How long has your irony detector been broken?”
    “Half a century at least.” Fine with him if he ended up waiting outside. He could set some wards and get the place at least minimally secure. Maybe he should have Kynan come by, too. Kynan could make sure the house was as safe as possible. “I’m happy to wait here and protect my car while you pack your things.”
    “Pack my things.” She frowned. “What for?”
    That gave him a jolt, that she hadn’t figured out that she wasn’t going to be staying here. With humans, words changed with context, with expressions, with inflection. He hoped he hadn’t mistaken her words and bound himself to her for nothing. “Did you mean what you said, or was that all hot air, and I have to find out if Nikodemus can break my bond to you?”
    “I meant what I said.” A light went on in the house next door and she sighed. “Come inside so we can get clear without everyone listening to my business.”
    He followed her in. For a house that wasn’t very