Devil's Lover

Chapter 5

She was pretty sure that Reid was actually made up of a bunch of bird bones all strung together into the rough semblance of a person. When he stepped out of his pants and almost sprawled ungracefully onto the bed, she decided that that bird was probably an ostrich. A really skinny, permanently drunk ostrich with absolutely no sense of balance.

She sighed and slipped out of her shirt, dropping it on the floor in a pool of fabric next to her pants. He reached down to scoop his clothes up, folding them neatly and laying them on the dresser before turning to face her.

“Do you actually eat anything other than coffee and candy?” she asked, sitting on the bed and putting her hands on either side of his hips to draw him forward. He was still wearing his socks, one green and one blue with polka dots. She didn’t mind. She still had her underwear and bra on, delighting in the slow reveal.

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. She traced her hands over his hips, along the delicate skin stretched over those bird-bones, running them up his sides to rest on his ribs. Then she dropped them, because he’d sucked in a shivering breath at her light touch, and his underwear had shifted very slightly as his stomach concaved to reveal the last thing she’d expected.

“Oh man,” she said, hooking a thumb through the elastic waistband and drawing it down low enough to reveal the barest hint of dark curls and the dark filigree of runes tattooed into his left hip and down his thigh. “Morgan is never going to believe that you have ink, you realize this, right? Hell, I don’t think even think I believe it. Is this fake?” She scrubbed a thumb over his skin, smiling as he twitched at her touch. He was like a skittish horse she was trying to gain the trust of.

“No,” he said quietly, his voice serious enough that she drew back and peered up to see his face. “I… I’ve always had it.”

“Always?” She tried to pull him closer but he resisted slightly, settling his bony hands onto her shoulders and twisting clumsily in her grip. “Pretty sure you aren’t born with tattoos, Spence. Especially not runes, even ones that are purely decorative. What does it say?”

“Not born, no. But…”

Oh. She examined it closer, the way the spell-ink had shifted and stretched over the years along with a growing body. Despite the horrifying image of an infant Casper under the needle that was haunting her, it was beautiful. “How young were you?”

“Young enough that I wasn’t given a choice. It’s permanent. No spell will remove it, no glamour will cover it. I’ve tried.”

She didn’t have to be a profiler to see the discomfit talking about it gave him. “It’s okay,” she soothed, pulling him down into her arms, and this time he came willingly. “It’s fine, Spence.” He kneeled between her legs, breathing quickly against her chest as he leaned against her, doing nothing but pressing his lips to her collarbone. She curled her arms around him, feeling the odd push-give sensation of the glamour he wore tugging at the hands she settled on his back. She traced her fingers over his spine, slowly, counting the vertebrae she could reach with her fingertips, losing count of how long they sat like that, eyes closed, just waiting for time to begin again. He broke the spell, reaching out and tracing a finger down her thigh and finding the pock-mark of an old scar on her knee. Cool fingers left a trail of goosebumps behind them, even over the thickened skin of the scar.

“Fell off my bike,” she said with a smile. She hoped he wouldn’t shift that regard to the scars on her chest, on her stomach. He eyed them and said nothing. She breathed again with relief.

He shrugged one of her arms off his shoulder, taking her hand and holding it to his own stomach. A slight ridge marred the skin there. “Appendix,” he admitted with a crooked grin, some of the life that had vanished at the sight of the tattoo reappearing. “Can you… can I see your work?”

Her heart almost lodged itself in her throat at the awed tone to his voice, as though he was asking something he couldn’t imagine ever being given permission to view. She nodded, watching as his eyes widened with delight and curiosity, tugging him by the hand onto the bed. She lay flat, him propped up on his arm next to her. Three quick patterns on her palm, and she brought the runes on her body to life in a sweeping motion. He hummed and scanned her body hungrily, the varying skills and patterns a testament to the craft she’d spent her life working on learning. She could remove the childish first attempts or the broken runes that had no purpose but reminders of her mistakes, but she liked the stories they told.

By the look on his face, he did too.

Long fingers danced on her wrist, tracing the familiar mark. “Sergio,” he read quietly. “‘No one learns except by friendship.’ Have you ever thought about why they mark the mage and not the familiar?”

“Because the mage is considered the lesser of the pairing,” she answered him, the old beliefs woven through their traditions. “Magic and knowledge combine to create the corruption of power. Their familiar grounds them, reminds them of their weaknesses and their duties. The tattoo is a reminder of that.”

“It’s a promise,” Reid said, bringing her wrist to his mouth and brushing his lips against it softly. He lowered it, laying his fingers against the runes he recognised and naming them. The dip of her neck: “Warning of toxins.” He paused at her shoulder, the runes that had burned when he kissed her earlier: “A warning of compulsion. And protection against.” As he named them, he ran his lips over them, stretching out beside her in a lazy sprawl. Just below her bellybutton, dipping into the line of her underwear. She couldn’t decipher the expression on his face: “Protection against pregnancy. This one isn’t yours.”

“Some of them aren’t. I’m a defensive rune-mage, not a healer. Most of the bodily ones aren’t.”

His fingers traced the one around her bicep. “Warning of demons… Celine!?”

He’d seen it. His fingers paused. She actually felt his heart skip against her arm. Tha-thump. She would have smiled, except the shocked expression on his face was making it hard to think. “I got sick of it reacting every time you came near me,” she explained quietly, as he ran the pad of his index finger over the essence of his name woven through it. “So, I fixed it.” He didn’t answer, just stared at it avidly. Then he shifted, laying flush against her and pressing his mouth to her arm, just above the rune. He mumbled something against the skin, something she couldn’t catch. “What?” she asked, frowning.

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “Just it’s… perfect. It’s perfect.”

She wasn’t sure how long they lay like that but, eventually, his hands began roaming her skin, exploring her. She shivered under his touch. It wasn’t s****l, more curious than anything, and he was still soft against her hip. It was still, somehow, the most intimate experience of her life.

There was a slow kind of burn with this kind of stroking. It built carefully, layered in his hands and his lips and his voice and, while she wouldn’t call it arousal, it was certainly impossible to ignore. It made her breath catch and her stomach jolt pleasantly, and she found herself curving into his touch like a cat being petted. It slowly built in her belly and her groin and eventually ignited into a slow heat that she knew he was aware of by the shift in his breathing. That was when it changed, sped up, and he moved to her mouth to claim it with his own. Leisurely, careful kisses that lingered just long enough for her to feel like she was drowning in them, gasping for air.

He slid a hand around her back, and she arched so he could snap open the fastening on her bra and slide it off her. He did it one-handed in a single smooth motion, and she almost rolled her eyes at the ease. You’ve practised that, boyo, she thought fleetingly. w***e. The thought was affectionate.

The way he examined her bared breasts was as reverent as the way he’d examined her runes or her legs, and she felt laid opened, exposed somehow, but not in a way she minded. He found her mouth again, deepening the kisses, and now he was hard against her hip as she rubbed against him, needing skin against skin, responding with a soft moan of his own.

“Beautiful,” he said quietly, pressing his cheek against her face for a moment, his eyelashes catching her skin in a soft flicker of air. It was the slowest she’d ever been undressed, undone, and she was as helpless as a day-old kitten under him.

“You still have your socks on,” she pointed out, her voice far shakier than she was happy with, and he smirked.

“You still have these on,” he countered, sliding his hand between her legs to cup her groin and running his thumb against the slickness that had seeped through her underwear, and that wasn’t slow at all. She rocked into that hand, a sharp gasp cut off midway as he took the chance to tug her underwear to the side, not even off, and dip his long fingers into her. “Look at you.” His eyes widened as though surprised. “Christ, Celine, you’re…” He paused and flushed red and it was ridiculous, all things considered.

“Don’t you go shy on me,” she hissed, feeling his fingers teasing, exploring and, finally, inyesjustlikethat. Her toes clenched against the blanket, feeling him curl those clever fingers and move them just right, pressing the heel of his palm right where she could rock against it to find the friction she was craving. “Fuuck, Casper. You don’t get to go shy when you’re doing this.”

He watched her with eyes as black as sin, and she wondered for a second if he was memorising her, her runes and her imperfections and her ink, adding him to that perfect recall he was capable of. She wondered if he’d hold this moment forever, treasure it. She wished she could. She knew once it was over it would be a flawed memory for her, time twisting it and her own brain working against her to blur the details.

“I’m what?” she managed to grit out eventually through clenched teeth, and she didn’t break eye contact with him as she said it. A challenge. If he wanted to f**k her, he’d better get used to that.

He didn’t look away either, the words falling out of his mouth as though he was unused to them, almost frightened of them. Still blushing, whispering like it was a secret: “You’re wet.”

Even when she could feel how f*****g aroused he was against her leg and knew how scared he was by his voice, he had such a way of speaking, of enunciating every word, that she wriggled in his grip anyway. Goddamnit, his fear of the words shouldn’t be so damn attractive, but she could feel herself clench, pulling tight around his fingers; he could feel it too because he whined deep in his throat twitching against her leg, a firm heat even through the thin fabric.

“Okay, okay, enough. We… you… need to do something. Anything.” She was almost begging. “Wait, wait…” She thought of the pregnancy rune, one problem down, but he was still a man with everything that came with it, and she didn’t really know anything about him.

“I’m clean,” he mumbled, flushing again. “I can, um… guarantee it. But if it would make you more comfortable…” He glanced around her room like the foil packet he was searching for was going to throw itself at him.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I trust you.” Because she realized suddenly that she absolutely did, and Celine didn’t trust often. She wasn’t sure if the realization was terrifying or exhilarating. She had a sudden very vivid memory of the hotel, the illusory feel of him moving inside her, and had to hold her breath and stay very still for a moment while the memory sent electric shockwaves straight to where his fingers were still working, breaking her apart and not letting her have any respite. “Casper, oh god, please.”

“What? Use your words, Em.” He was teasing, trying for a mock-fierce tone, but his voice was breathless and his eyes had turned desperate. He wanted this just as much as she did.

“f**k your words,” she snapped, and pulled away from him, for a second worried she’d been too harsh, but he laughed shakily and it sounded like she felt. Strung tight and edged with everything they weren’t saying. She shucked her underwear while still laying awkwardly against him, feeling him do the same, their movements suddenly rough and fumbling. He kept the socks on; no one could look attractive with just socks, except he, somehow, did.

She grabbed him, dragged him close into a bruising kiss, and his hand landed on her side, sticky with her need for him and hot with his own body heat. She could feel him trapped between them, a hard length against her belly. “Drop the glamour,” she said suddenly, recklessly, feeling him shudder and soften slightly in his shock, thrown off kilter. “Please. Casper, please. I want to see you when you f**k me—the real you.”

And, like that, he was hard again, his mouth parted and eyes dark with desire and terror. She could see his brain misfiring, struggling to come up with a reason why not, or possibly a reason why.

He gave in. He rocked against her once, twice, and she actually felt the glamour leave his skin.

Wings that weren’t tightly furled but arched away from his spine, delicate and almost a perfect cross between a bat’s and a bird’s. They didn’t look strong enough to carry him, strong enough to carry any human, even as the light caught them and turned them almost translucent.

Bird bones, she thought again, but then he looked at her and she was f*****g lost.

Without the glamour, he wasn’t human, not at all, not really, and it wasn’t the wings or the delicate suggestion of pointed canines, or the way his eyes dragged at her and promised her oblivion. It was everything combined, and she unravelled.

“Oh f**k,” she gasped and her shoulder burned. “Casper, Casper, Casper.” She didn’t know if he knew he was compelling her—didn’t think he did either—but she was a heartbeat away from it not mattering because she wantedneeded him in a way she wasn’t entirely sure was only the compulsion of those eyes, feeling herself pushing against him, shifting, the hard press of him at the entrance to her. Wantwantwant.

“s**t,” he moaned, turning his head and those eyes away and the burning need receded slightly. “Sorry, sorry.”

She shook her head, clearing her mind from the trailing, silky touch of his loss of control. “It’s okay, I blocked most of it,” she soothed him quickly. A lie, almost. If he hadn’t pulled back she’d be on him already. Not entirely the inadvertent spell’s fault. “But I swear, if you don’t get your c**k inside me right the f**k now, I’ll spell you until you can’t think of anything other than my name.”

A flurry of movement and he pressed at her, pausing, eyes firmly faced away. She reached out and tilted his gaze back to her in that split moment. Met those eyes again. Her shoulder hummed and then settled into a slow warmth that coiled through her. Manageable this time, now she knew it was coming. He rocked into her slowly and, then, as they adjusted, quicker. She froze at the feeling because it was nothing like they’d imagined and yet everything more. His rhythm was off, he slipped slightly and slid out on his first thrust, but she didn’t care because when he pushed back in she rolled her hips up to take him fully and f**k she was undone.

Her spine tingled and fizzed with sensation dancing across her skin, travelling rapidly to a fixed point in her centre where she could feel him moving in her, hands everywhere and gripping, nails scratching. This wasn’t going to last, not with the slow, almost painful, build-up, and she could tell from the stuttering way his hips kept pausing that he wasn’t going to last either. She reached up to his head, ran her hand over his cheek and jaw and threaded fingers through his wild hair.

Her thumb brushed over the suggestion of a ridge under the side of his fringe, almost a horn, and she raised an eyebrow at him. He tried to look sheepish, but the effect was sorely ruined by the wrecked expression on his face as he hurtled inexorably to the end. His mouth was moving faintly, and she strained to hear what he was saying, smirking when she realized he was counting, calculating; rambling numbers with a rattled voice in a desperate bid to hold himself together.

She refused to go first. She didn’t have to reach for his mind, it was right there and open to her, and she slipped in and coiled around his thoughts, barely even pausing to separate her emotions from her voice. Let him feel them. He’d already bared himself to her on this night.

“Come for me, Casper,” she whispered into his mind, and his mouth gaped open in shock. Then, he retaliated, right as she felt the warm pulse of him inside her, gathering his thoughts and feelings up in a messy ball of himness and lobbing them back at her.

And she was drowning in them, the knowledge of what she felt like to him and her skin under his fingers; her eyes that were all he could focus on and the careful calculations of the time between her heartbeats, how many heartbeats she had left in their lifetime, focusing on her body in every possible way.

And, under it all, under the hot desire that drowned him and the pulsing need of his own orgasm, was the most terrifying feeling of all.

He opened his eyes and looked at her and although he masked it well, she could feel the dizzying exhilaration of love and desperate, crushing affection that had brought him to his knees. She by Hotch’s office watching him with a cool regard the first time they’d met and his curiosity; on the fire escape and being too scared to move in case he woke her in his arms; the gut-wrenching horror of seeing her on the ground, seeing herself on the ground, Sergio’s screams, and blood around her, on her, nonono not her, please not Celine.

And running around his head, a rat trapped in a maze, a single word: cambion.

“Oh, f**k,” she gasped against the knowledge of that dangerous love, and shattered around him.

Sex didn’t change things between them. He was still irrepressibly awkward, she was still coolly reserved. Sometimes she thought it was odd that Reid’s singular admittance that he was falling in love with her was the only moment either of them had brought their hearts into what they were doing. That, and the moment in bed when he’d opened his heart to her scrutiny. They talked about neither. They also didn’t tell anyone. Celine wasn’t so sure of her place on the team that she was willing to risk Hotch’s wrath at compromising their professionalism, and she wasn’t so sure of her place in their hearts that she’d risk JJ or Morgan knowing about her compromising Casper’s bed. Well, her own bed. She never went to him. He never asked her to.

And they didn’t speak again about the rune on his hip or the quiet word he’d thought to her that night. Sometimes she hovered her hands over her keyboard with the cursor blinking in the search bar and considered typing it in. All the answers she needed, seven letters and a mouse click away.

She never did.

Some nights he’d come to her with movies and take-away boxes that filled her apartment with delicious scents that almost covered his own. Sometimes they’d watch the movies and fall asleep on the living room floor, tangled in blankets and unspoken questions. Some nights her phone would buzz and it would be him and the only thing on there would be a simple, ‘Hungry?’ and she’d know he wasn’t talking about food.

Life settled into an easy ritual of work and him, and trying to coax her increasingly angry familiar out of his room and into the apartment that she guiltily admitted smelled more like demon than it did mage at that point, especially to a cat. But she promised herself she’d make it up to him. And he’d adjust to Reid, eventually. Given time.

After a month of this, she woke up one morning, rolled over, and realization hit her like a semi-trailer. She was pretty sure she was falling in love with him.

And after Doyle, she could never tell him that.

She waited until he was asleep before slipping out of the bed and padding naked around the apartment restlessly. It was cool enough that the air nipped at her arms and the hushed silence surrounding her felt suffocating.  She wasn’t sure what was bothering her, only that something was.

She paced back into the room and peered through the door at the long, even lines of his bare back and torso, and it occurred to her that, even though she’d seen everything of him before, he still kept himself hidden from her. The delicately powerful wings he’d shyly shown her that night stayed firmly glamoured, the slight points to his ears covered by the wild waves of his hair. She closed her eyes and let her forehead rest against the wood of the doorframe, listening to the soft huff of his breathing against the sheets.

Something tickled at her conscious again and she frowned, moving quietly back up the hallway and glancing into the darkened rooms as she passed. There was something she was missing. Everything seemed normal, nothing was shifted around or out of place; there was a layer of dust from the neglect her belongings suffered when she was on call more often than she wasn’t. She couldn’t work out what was clawing at her mind like a cat at a door, begging for attention.

A curtain flickered, shifted. She stopped and stared at it, at the breeze that whispered through the open window.

She never left windows open.

“What are you doing?” His voice was husky with sleep, watching her from the bedroom door with creases on his skin from where he’d mashed his face into the pillow. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you open a window?” Her palm blazed, filling the room with uneven light as she examined the open space.

“Yeah, before. I closed it though, I’m sure.” He blinked and rubbed at his eye with the back of one hand. “At least, I think I did.”

A smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “Mr. Eidetic-Memory himself, can’t remember if you closed a window.”

“I have perfect recall of the written word, not every moment of every day.” For all the teasing tone to his voice, his eyes were narrowed.

She strode over and pushed the window shut, laying her hand flat against it. The security runes flickered, sparking green. “No one’s been through,” she said with a shrug. “You must have forgotten to close it. It’s no biggie.”

“Security runes can be circumvented,” he murmured, and ghosted away. She could hear doors opening quietly, the sound of his feet on the carpet. Checking every room. She moved as well, the old ritual taking her back to days when life had been a little deadlier. Checking the runes on the walls for the green shimmer under her palm that meant they were untouched. Checking the doors. Checking the other windows. Checking her weapons: service weapon in the gun-safe; non-service weapon by the front door, loaded and hidden by a glamour; a curse by the bookshelf that only she could trigger; a heavy-hilted knife sharp enough to cut air in her bedside cupboard, shielded by the thickest runes she knew. She lifted that out, hefted it in one palm. It was old. And deadly. She’d used it to great effect before.

Their work made them paranoid.

There was a sudden throbbing growl and a yelp. Reid appeared in the doorway, looking sheepish and shaking his hand. Three red stripes across the top stood out vividly against his pale skin. Opening his mouth, he paused with his eyes on the knife. He knew it immediately. “Why do you have that?” He took an uncertain step back, every part of him rebelling against allowing it near him. “How do you have that? I didn’t think there were any left.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and she quickly slid it back into the drawer, closing it firmly. “Old family heirloom. And there’s not… not since demon hunting fell out of favour.” She smiled as she said it, letting him know it wasn’t there because of him. He’d relaxed as soon as the iron-bound knife had disappeared behind the shielding runes.

“Lucky for some of us,” he muttered, covering the scratches on his hand with his mouth. She pulled a disgusted face at him. “Um. Found Sergio’s room.”

Laughing, she moved across to look at the ‘war wounds’. “He’s not in there. He hasn’t come home for a few nights now, he’s off wandering. That spell is set to trigger if anyone touches the doorknob.” She ran her hand over the rapidly vanishing scratches. They weren’t real, just the idea of scratches. They’d disappear quickly enough.

Reid caught her hand and turned it over, running his thumb gently over her familiar mark. “Don’t you miss him when he’s gone like this?”

“Not really. He always comes back, and I know he’s fine. He’s probably off making lots of baby Sergios. I’d rather not know.”

Reid kept his gaze steady, studying her. She avoided that look by pulling him close, skin to skin, and just holding him. The night shifted around them, casting long shadows on her walls. “I’m sorry he’s avoiding you,” Reid murmured eventually as she traced her fingers over the outline of his ribs. “It’s my fault. This is his home, and I make him feel unwelcome.”

“It’s my home too, and I want you here. Come back to bed.” She wriggled her hips against his, reminding him of their state of undress. “If you need me to prove that.”

I’ll get Sergio to sniff around, she thought briefly. He’ll know if the spells were compromised.

And then she didn’t think of much more at all, except him.

“Someone is setting me up.” Derek was furious. Celine could practically see his hackles rising, even through the glass of the mirror into the interrogation room.

“He didn’t do this,” Celine muttered under her breath, digging her hands into her pockets so no one could see them shaking. Composure, composure. Keep your composure, Ryder.

“Your profile says he did,” said Detective Gordinski, his voice cold. Celine hated him in that split second. She didn’t let that show on her face. “Are you saying your profile is wrong? ‘Cos, I got told your man is the best. You don’t know what Derek Morgan is capable of.”

“Profiles are much more useful for the exclusion of suspects rather than the inclusion,” Reid piped in, hovering near the door with his fingers dancing anxiously on the side of his hip. “Really, using that profile you could twist it to fit any one of us in this room if you were so inclined. Morgan isn’t capable of this kind of violence, it doesn’t fit his personality at all.”

Gordinski turned his head slowly and narrowed his eyes. Celine didn’t like the look on his face and, by the sharp glance Gideon aimed at him, neither did he. “And the character reference of a demon is supposed to convince me of that, is it?” he snapped. “The fact that he counts a darkling like you as his friend is a strike against him in my books.”

Reid’s expression didn’t even flicker. Celine wondered how many times he’d had that accusation throw at him before. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts,” he quoted quietly.

“Well, to me it seems like I have all the facts, and you have one guilty sonofabitch with a lot to hide. When you stop trying to pretend it’s not happening, you know where I’ll be. Doing my job. Maybe you should join me.” Gordinski strode out, the backs of his ears glowing red.

“Don’t worry, we know he’s innocent,” Gideon said firmly in the lull that followed Gordinski’s departure. “And we’ll prove it once Morgan starts cooperating.”

A bang startled them, Morgan slamming his hand on the table between him and Hotch. Hotch didn’t even flinch, even as Celine and Reid both jumped.

“Come on, Hotch! Someone was in my house recently, and I bet I know who it was. Harris, Rodney Harris! He’s a gangbanger, elf-kind. He’s been messing with me since we were kids.”

“Why would Harris travel all the way to DC to break into your home and take nothing, Morgan?”

“I don’t know! I got home, the place reeked of an intruder, and Clooney was locked in the basement. Someone knew me well enough to get in and take nothing. Why would they do that if not to set me up?”

Reid twitched. “Wait, did he say someone was in his house? Celine, did you...?”

“I never asked Sergio,” she said, her mouth going dry. “I never checked. I just assumed it was… There was a window open in my apartment a few nights ago. I thought he… I thought I closed it. I’m never that careless.”

JJ made a soft noise from the corner of the room where she’d been quietly going through the box of ‘evidence’ against Morgan that Gordinski had compiled. She spoke, her eyes never leaving Celine. “There was someone in my yard the other night. I didn’t see, I wasn’t there, but they triggered my security spells. I didn’t think much of it.”

They looked at Gideon who shook his head slowly. “It seems unlikely they’re not related. If someone has been attempting—or in Ryder’s case, gaining—access to our homes, it’s far too much of a coincidence that Morgan is arrested barely a week later. Reid, is your home secure?”

Reid’s eyes flickered, almost darting to Celine before flashing back to Gideon. She sighed inwardly. If Gideon hadn’t heard her slip up, he would have certainly seen Reid’s. “I think so. I, um, haven’t noticed anything odd. But if it is the same intruder, that might not be surprising. JJ, your security spellwork stopped him?”

“Eventually. He got through the yard—I think he stole a wind chime.” Her face twisted, oddly emotive. “It… it was my sister’s. Butterflies. She knew I liked them.”

Celine hadn’t even known that JJ had a sister.

Reid turned to her now. “And, so far as we know, your spells didn’t even pick him up. So we know that he’s weaker than JJ’s spellwork but far stronger than yours. Mine is just above hers, Gideon’s is higher than all of us.”

Wow, helpful. “Reid, are you serious? That’s a big difference. She’s elvish. Her magic makes eight of me. You could fit half of DC into that gap.”

He nodded, hair flopping into his eyes with his enthusiasm. “Yeah, but…” He stopped and paled. “Wait, Hotch—Jack and Haley! We need to tell him.” He darted out the door, JJ following close behind, the box abandoned.

Gideon was staring at her. “Ryder.” She faced him reluctantly, almost tasting the disapproval. “He lied just then.”

That wasn’t what she’d expected. “Excuse me, sir? I don’t… understand?”

He moved towards her, close enough that the hair on the back of her neck stood on end with the tension of his proximity. He wasn’t a comfortable man to get near, all prickles and piercing eyes, and she wanted to back away. “Reid. Just then. He lied, and you didn’t even pick up on that. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And just like that, the tension eased as he stepped away smoothly towards the door. “I just want you to be aware, Reid’s magic in terms of raw power far surpasses my own. You should consider why he would keep that hidden from you, and maybe reconsider the path you’re treading. For both your sakes.” Then, he was gone and she could breathe again, vaguely aware of the rumble of voices behind her in the other room.

Somehow, despite the feeling that that wasn’t going to be the full extent of their disciplinary action, it was an odd release to have someone else know.

Derek ran. Celine had never heard Gideon swear before, but he did then. Then, he turned to Reid and her heart stopped, because Reid looked resigned.

“If we don’t find him before Gordinski does, this is going to end badly,” Gideon said quietly, quietly enough that Celine could practically hear Reid swallowing nervously. Hotch was still, watching them both. “If he’s shifted, he’s likely on four legs. We won’t catch him in time, Reid. You can. You have to talk him down from whatever he’s going to do.”

“Ok.” Reid’s voice was a whisper. His next words were silent, but Celine heard them. “Guess this has been four years coming.”

“Spence…” she sent back, but he’d already dropped the glamour.

JJ’s sharp gasp next to her cemented Celine’s suspicion that Reid had never actually let any of them see him un-glamoured before. Hotch’s expression stayed calm, but his eyes widened ever so slightly, almost a shout of surprise for him. Wings spread, the air thickened with the smell of ozone, and Reid vanished in a flurry of wing-claps. Celine blinked frantically to clear her eyes from the bizarre sensation of having seen the air twisting around him as he’d taken off, seeing JJ doing the same.

“Can he find him?” JJ asked, following Hotch as they moved quickly to the exit. Hotch would be able to lead them straight to him, following the trace in his palm, but Reid had the best chance of beating the cops that also ran on four legs. Celine really didn’t fancy seeing if a pack of Garou, convinced that Morgan was a child-killer, would simply detain him rather than taking things into their own jaws.

“He’d better,” Hotch replied grimly.

Celine slid into the backseat of the SUV with JJ next to her. “Did you know he had wings?” JJ asked her, her blue eyes suspicious. “You didn’t look surprised. I mean, he kept them hidden for four years. That’s… an impressive effort to hide something that none of us would judge him for.”

“I knew,” Celine replied, because she knew she couldn’t get away with lying. JJ’s face flickered through a quick range of emotions; shock, hurt, betrayal and, finally, shuttered blankness. She looked away. Gideon’s eyes watched her in the rear-view mirror, and Celine saw the secrets she and Reid had been living behind begin to crash down around them.

Back home and he came straight to her, slipping in through the kitchen window like a ghost. She turned to frown at him, drying her hands with a tea towel and still seething with frustration over misplacing the book she’d been reading, the one he’d bought her. Their first gift. “You know, I have a front door. It opens and everything.”

“I’m sick of secrets,” he blurted out, straightening and… oh, she thought, watching as his wings flexed and closed loosely against his back. “Hiding us, hiding these. Morgan almost went to prison because of hiding his past. Why do we hide everything from each other when it doesn’t actually help anyone in the long run?”

She cut him off, tossing the tea towel over her shoulder and moving over to him. Putting her hands on his chest, she could feel his heart hammering and the heat from the physical exertion of flying rising from him. “Hey, hey, calm down. What happened to Morgan… that’s the kind of thing that hurts to relive, Spence. You know that. We all have stuff like that, every last one of us. I don’t want to know yours if you’re not ready to tell it.” She slid her hand onto his hip, untucking his ruffled shirt and splaying her fingers over the delicate lines of the rune on the skin there. She could almost feel his pulse through the tips of her fingers, the slightest hint of rough hair under them. He blinked, looking down at her hand.

“Half,” he said finally. She froze.

“What?”

“The rune. It means half. Or half-breed, if you want to be crass. That’s what I am. I’m half of what I could be. Human mother. Demonic father. I’m neither. And both.”

Her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on his hip. “Cambion,” she breathed. “That’s the word you said. That’s what you are.”

He leaned into her and rested his mouth near her ear. The murmured words were difficult for her to translate, especially with the speed at which he spoke them. Fast and smooth; as easily as though they didn’t cost him everything: “Enfans des Demons. Delancre et Bodin pensent que les demons incubes peuvent s'unir aux demones succubes, et qu'il nait de leur commerce des enfans hideux qu'on nomme cambions.”

It took her a beat longer than it should have, but the words eventually clicked into place. He was silent, waiting for her judgement. Waiting for her to shun him.

“No one could look at you and call you hideous,” she whispered, pulling his mouth down to hers and kissing him like her heart was breaking. “I don’t care. I’ve never cared. This changes nothing.” Maybe her heart was breaking, but not because she saw them ending.

It was breaking because she saw in him the child he had been and still was, and what she now knew they had labelled him as without sparing a thought for who he was beyond that label.

“Child of Demons. Delancre and Bodin think that incubus demons could unite with succubus demons, and that born of their exchange were hideous children which are called cambions.”

“This changes nothing,” she repeated, because it needed to be said again just in case he’d decided to be stubborn about it.

He went home that night, leaving her alone to contemplate the fact that she was pretty sure she was dating an incubus.

“This is going to go over well with Elizabeth,” said a voice suddenly, Sergio appearing on top of the fridge. “Oh hi, Mother. Here’s my s*x demon boyfriend. Don’t worry, Sergio approves.”

“Goddamnit, you stupid cat,” she said, jumping out of her seat to drag him down into her arms. He grumbled as she grabbed him, his fur damp and salty smelling. She hugged him anyway, allowing herself a moment of sentiment since tonight seemed to be the night for it. “I thought you’d forgotten where you lived, it’s been weeks… wait, what?”

“Did I stutter?” he grumbled, trying to wiggle around in her arms so he could lick his fur flat. “I said, ‘Oh hi, Mother. Here’s—’”

“You approve of Reid?” She held up out by his arms, ignoring his growl of protest as he dangled ungracefully in the air. “You hate Reid. You think he’s just waiting until I’m asleep to murder the both of us.”

“That was before I knew he was an incubus. I mean, I figured he must have some sort of appeal if you’re being so stubborn about him, but if nothing else, at least he’d be a sensational lay.”

“Sergio.” She shook him slightly to emphasize her point.

“Good god, witch. Don’t you read? I hated him because you constantly seem to invite danger into your bed. Doyle and now him, I was under the impression you were merely continuing your quest for self-destruction. Clearly that is not the case. Incubi powers aren’t just based around s*x, you know.” He seemed distracted, nostrils flaring and mouth open, tasting the air around them. “They’re bound by their hearts. So long as he cares for you, he can no more hurt you than he could overpower Gideon.”

“Gideon says Reid’s stronger than him.” She couldn’t touch on the rest of his statement without it feeling like her chest was constricting. Bound by their hearts wasn’t exactly the most overwhelming vote of confidence ever.

“Stronger perhaps, but raw power very rarely translates to talent. Something is wrong. Someone has been here.”

He dropped to the ground, ghosting easily through her arms and stalking around the kitchen with his tail lashing.

“We had a break-in last week. JJ and Morgan had visits as well. Gideon upped the spellwork on all our homes earlier today when we got back from Chicago, no one is getting in now, Serge. We’re waiting on the forensic magi to see if JJ’s security spellwork picked up any trace of them.”

“Sooner than a week ago. Someone has been here today, perhaps before. Is anything missing?”

She shook her head, her questions about Reid fizzling away and leaving her with a humming hyper-vigilance that set her nerves alight. She went for her gun as Sergio bounded through the apartment, runes on the walls flickering to follow him as he called to them.

“Celine. I know this scent—you need to call Hotch.”

“And tell him what?”

“Foyet has been in our home.”

Hotch was white-lipped and furious. “I don’t want anyone going anywhere alone,” he said, staring them all down one by one as they all nodded assent. “If you are outside this building, you are in pairs or more. You’ll also all have protection details.”

That didn’t go over so well.

“Hotch, man, I don’t want people sitting outside my home when we don’t even know if he’s coming back!”

“They won’t be able to follow me in the air, and I’m much, much safer travelling by flight. Foyet can’t fly—and, statistically, it’s far safer than travelling by car.”

“I live in the Bureau, sir! I’m the last person he’s going to get to—I’m probably safer than all of you. Ohmygosh, I don’t like that. I don’t like any of this. Why can’t you all just stay with me?”

Celine snorted, and the chorus of voices stopped as everyone looked at her. “What, and sleep in the walls, Garcia? I spend enough time here, I don’t need to add BAU sleepovers to that list.” Garcia flushed, her form fizzling at the edges and blurring like a badly tuned black and white TV.

Hotch was staring her down now, probably thrown by her lack of aversion to his new rules. “Ryder, do you have a problem with having protection on you?”

She shrugged. She really didn’t. “You know who my mother is. I grew up with a protection detail. It’ll practically be nostalgic.” Unspoken was her knowledge that if she had protection on her, they would also inadvertently be protecting Reid. And he would have a far harder time escaping her eye line than he would anyone else. With his penchant for getting in trouble, she was contemplating gluing him to her hip. Sergio dug his claws into her lap, snoozing deeply. Or pretending to. She never could really tell with him.

“We can’t do this forever, Hotch,” Morgan complained, his expression dark, “and Foyet’s proven that he can wait us out. He’s messing with us, and this is proving that it’s working.”

“You know what else will prove that he’s ‘getting to us’, Morgan?” snapped Hotch with uncharacteristic harshness, “If he sees the chance to take one of you out when you’re alone without someone backing you up. That’s what he really wants. My word is final. If you have a problem with it, speak to me privately. Thank you.” The click of the conference room door shutting softly behind him might as well have been a slam for the way they all flinched.

“He’s losing it,” Morgan declared, hunching into the chair. “This is f*****g insane. We don’t need protection—he’s not after us! It’s just bullshit scare tactics.”

Reid rapped at the table with his knuckles absently. “No, he’s after Hotch. They’re putting his family into witness protection, you know. They found Foyet’s scent in Jack’s room and at his preschool. That’s a taunt; it’s him warning Hotch that his family isn’t safe. You think Foyet doesn’t know that by hurting one of us, he hurts Hotch even more than if he just goes straight for him?”

“But why would he take stuff from our homes if he’s after Hotch?” JJ asked Morgan, tracing the tip of her finger on the wooden tabletop. A trail of frost followed her fingertip, melting quickly and leaving a damp patch on the wood. She didn’t seem to notice. “A butterfly wind-chime from my back porch, clothes belonging to Hotch and his family…”

“Gideon said he was missing a photo album from his cabin,” Reid added. “It’s less protected than his home. Nothing is missing from my apartment. So far as Sergio and I could tell, he hasn’t even been there.”

“A book from my house,” Celine said, thinking of her missing novel. “I thought I misplaced it, but I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Nothing from me either,” Garcia said. She seemed quieter, withdrawn now. Her edges flickered erratically, a sure sign the tech nymph was upset. “But like I said, he’s hardly going to be able to get to me here.”

“A collar,” Morgan said suddenly, his voice subdued. “He must have been watching me. He took mine and not Clooney’s. They were both on the same hook.” He caught Garcia’s glance and winked at her. “I know that look, Babygirl. Get your brilliant mind out of the gutter. I know you’re picturing me in it and that’s not what it’s for.”

Garcia flapped her hands at her face, solidifying slightly as she laughed. “Picturing you only in it; woof indeed.” The teasing was so commonplace that Celine felt her jangling nerves settle for the first time in hours. From the smiles that spread around the room from agent to agent, the feeling was infectious.

She took a risk and reached out with her mind for Reid. “We can survive this. We caught him once, we can do it again.”

His reply was instant, and it was laced with barely suppressed anxiousness that brought her own fear back in force. “Perhaps. But at what cost?”

She looked down at the sleeping cat in her lap. There was always a cost.

It turned out the cost was more prohibitive than even she could have ever imagined it would be.

A week passed. And then another. They began to breathe again. Hotch went home to an empty house every night, while Celine got so used to the sight of Reid’s papers and books on her kitchen table that she couldn’t remember what it had looked like previously. They had a case and it went fine. Then another. And one more. If Foyet was watching, he was doing a damn good job remaining unseen.

Then, they had one last one.

Hotch glanced at the data they’d gathered. “Reid, JJ, you two head out to Hankel’s farm and question him. Find out exactly what he saw that night. Keep in touch.”

She didn’t say goodbye as Casper walked out the door because she was focused on the case, and somehow even with Foyet hovering over them, she’d fallen into the trap of believing there was always more time.

There wasn’t.