A Sliver of Shadow Read Free Page B

now. Hopefully your rest wasn’t disturbed much.”
    “Mmm … you’re assuming I like to be awakened by a horn half up my ass.”
    “Probably depends on the horn.” A smirk crossed his face before he slipped through the kitchen and down the hallway to the baby’s room. I watched him go, rubbing my eyes again. He didn’t have Brystion’s blatant sexuality, but there was an ethereal beauty to him that sometimes stunned me.
    A pang of sadness twisted in my chest and I told it to shut the hell up, ambling to my bedroom to try to catch a few more hours of shut-eye. Today was Katy’s eighteenth birthday, after all, and I had things to do—party plans to set in motion and her werewolf boyfriend to keep under control. My duties didn’t get put on hold simply because I had a messy personal life.
    Phineas was unabashedly drooling on my pillow, his equine mouth half open. “Lovely.” I grimaced, snatching up a spare from the closet. I hunched beneath the blankets, wrapping them partway about my head as though I might shut out the memories.
    The unicorn snuggled closer, making kissy sounds.
    I shoved him beneath the blanket. “You’re an ass. See if I make you any breakfast.”
    “Be still my wounded heart,” he retorted. “However shall I manage without a plate of burned bacon?” There was a snuffling sound and a sigh, and then a miniature chainsaw revving next to my ear.
    Out of a perverse sense of revenge I nudged him with my shoulder. “I’ve got to try to find a ghost whisperer today, if I can. Remind me when you wake me up again.”
    There was a sudden silence. On instinct, I jerked my backside away from him, peering out of my nest to catch his teeth clicking shut on the space where my ass had just been. The unicorn gave me a sour look. “Almost got you,” he mumbled, flopping onto his back with his legs spread obscenely. “Ask Charlie. She’s always talking to dead people.”
    I frowned. I hadn’t spoken to Charlie in quite a while. At least not about anything that didn’t end up being awkwardly … awkward. “Charlie as in ‘the girlfriend of the angel who cheated on her with my boss and whose baby I’m taking care of’?”
    “Yeah.” His mouth pursed. “Hmm … I guess I couldsee where that might be a problem. Good thing I don’t have to talk to her.”
    “Nice.” I slouched down and rearranged the blankets, rolling to the other side to keep my posterior out of range. “Whose side are you on anyway?”
    “Thought you’d have figured that out by now.” He yawned, one eye cocking open to wink at me. “Mine.”

Two
    W ell she’s never in the way. Always something nice to say …”
    Benjamin promptly scrunched up his face and wailed, his hot infant breath hitting me full on in a wash of sour milk and something vaguely reminiscent of wet feathers. “Well, you certainly don’t have anything nice to say,” I said as I shifted him in my arms. “My mamma used to play this one for me all the time when I was a kid. Shut me right up.”
    His dark eyes blinked at me, appearing to give weight to my words. For about two seconds. As if to make his point, this time the wail was encored by a dribble of spit-up.
    My teeth ground together, but I left the smile plastered on my face. “Hardly worth the effort,” I scolded, rummaging through the mountain of clothes in the corner mentally labeled as clean. Baring my teeth at my iPod, I hit the shuffle button, trusting to its inner enchantment to come up with something that wouldn’t resemble the Backyardigans. Rob Zombie, maybe.
    “When the moon is in the second house … and Jupiter aligns with Mars …”
    Benjamin brightened immediately and I breathed a quietsigh of relief. If “Age of Aquarius” kept his head from spinning, I’d gladly leave it on repeat for the rest of the day.
    Carefully rolling him onto the center of my bed to wiggle his legs like a helpless turtle, I tossed my now-stinking shirt into the dirty pile and threw on a