“Calm down. No harm, no foul.”
“It-it-it wasn’t a thank you.”
He nodded, but she didn’t know if he really believed her. “Then I suppose I owe you one. Haven’t been kissed like that in some time.”
Heat flooded her face so quickly there was no way to quell it. Derek brushed the backs of his fingers over his cheek. “I like your sweetness.”
Callie hadn’t been a sweet person in a long time, but trying to form the words necessary to argue was futile at this point. “Should we get out of here?” Oh, Lord, she hadn’t meant it like that.
He let the implication slide. “Tempting, but I still need to talk to Bianca. She’ll know what Tess is up to.”
The change of subject gave Callie’s insides a chance to galvanize. “Where is she?”
“Haven’t seen her yet, but she’ll be here.”
His confidence elicited goose bumps on Callie’s skin. She didn’t rub them away. No need to invite attention to bared flesh. Not when her body was still reliving the pure power of kissing Derek.
“So, you want to tell me about—”
No. God no. It didn’t matter which way he finished the question—your connection to the mob, why that dick was acting like you’re a whore, how often you go for hot-and-heavy kisses at the bar—she did not want to answer it. “What’s Bianca look like?”
He furrowed his brow and stared down at her. The embers of the heated gaze from before were there, smoldering, but now he was measuring her again. Whether it was for the best, he let her off the hook. “Little shorter than you, black hair down to her ass, red lips.”
The lust warming her neck sank like a rancid meatball to the pit of her stomach. “Sounds like you know her well.” Probably intimately.
His amused huff didn’t do much for Callie. “She’s worked at Tess’s massage joint since before Tess owned it.” He frowned, and then mumbled, “Or before we knew she ran it.”
Could the alternative healing community be so big as to keep such secrets? Callie could ask Jackie. Her cousin, one of Aunt Lily’s kids, was in the business. If roping another family member into the depths of her problems wasn’t a terrible idea, she could also ask her about Tess. Instead she asked Derek, “What do we know about her? Tess, I mean.”
“Not enough.”
She liked his simple answers, but only when he gave them to other people. Had her sexual faux pas put her back into the stranger category? She should want to be there. Distance was smart, whereas Derek was trouble.
Fuck it. She liked courting trouble. “That’s not all that helpful.”
He cracked a smile, and rapped his knuckles against her beer. “She’s never rented souls before. She just snatches parts of ones still in people’s bodies. Or she did last time she was working Gem City. Best we could tell she did it for her own high and just used the souls herself instead of pawning them.”
Callie couldn’t even start to process that. It must have shown because Derek added, “You need a few more of those to be able to handle more knowledge.”
“Maybe I’m a lightweight.” She took a hearty swig.
His laugh was a deep rumble that calmed her like a double of whiskey. As if he’d heard them talking about drinks, the bartender sat two fresh bottles behind them on the bar. Callie reached for her wallet, but Derek’s light touch on her wrist stilled the motion.
“I got it,” she said, as if she had more than a lonely twenty in her wallet. She needed to quit knocking the beers back, because she’d need groceries before pay day, and owing Derek only made her look more like the kind of woman she didn’t want to be. Plus, this was work. What if the Charmer tacked her bar bill onto her indentured servitude? She liked the Derek part of the gig, but the rest scared the shit out of her. The sooner she was done with the Soul Charmer, the better.
“No. Bartender’s thanking us for getting that dickhead out of here.”
She nodded toward their server. He didn’t stop pouring, but inclined his head in kind. “Okay then.”
“But, doll, you’re already in a bad sitch, so you’re going to let me buy.”
“I don’t like owing people.”
He pulled back like she’d slapped him. “I’m not my boss. This ain’t a negotiation. You’re a hot girl out with me. I buy. No questions.”
She bit her lip.
“What?”
The instinct to clear the deck reared. Did he think they were on even ground? Did she? She swallowed the urge. “Thank you.” Funny how hard those two words were when you really meant them.
Lounging at the bar and watching the belly dancers begin to pull random patrons from their seats lulled Callie back into her earlier reverie. Mostly. There weren’t souls to retrieve tonight. Only her obligation to the Charmer required her to be out with Derek. Though, the confusing kiss was totally non-obligatory. She vowed to make herself useful tonight, though, in the name of shaking off her nerves. Now she, like Derek, eyed the crowd for a resource. She took in the shaking hips—some far superior to others—keeping an eye out for a signature red lip and dark hair. Men used black to describe every shade of very dark hair. The woman could have a rich brown or a so-black-it’s-blue hue. In the southwest both were plentiful, so the makeup was going to be her cue.
Watching swaying hips was not the way to cool one’s libido. Derek had leaned back on the edge of the bar with his right arm crossing over her back. She rested against it, telling herself it was a reminder that she temporarily worked for men who frightened Ford’s goons. That wasn’t the whole truth, though. The pressure of his arm offered the heady rush of possibilities.
Falling for a guy, especially in this situation, was dumb. She’d erected walls for a reason. Sex without entanglements was fun, and didn’t damage your heart. Dabbling with a man like Derek was idiotic. Complications abounded. Her brother was being held captive by the kind of men who owned slaughterhouses and chop shops. Yet Derek scared those men. He was in league with a man who could literally steal your soul. She was a lapsed Catholic, but that was some straight-up devil shit. Why didn’t her body care Derek was nothing but a bad idea?
“You good?” he asked, pushing off from the bar.
Callie, startled, scanned the room. What had she missed? “Um, yeah.”
She quirked a brow at his noncommittal grunt. “Need to hit the head.”
Leaving her alone went super awesome last time. “Okay.”
“They all—” he stopped himself, and started over. “No one will mess with you.”
The implications of his words would twist her insides, so she smiled and nodded. Faking it was her forte. Moments like this, she understood Josh’s choices. Well, the drugs part. Not the whole stealing from family, lying, and screwing dudes who carried backup weapons. The booby prize for growing up too fast was overthinking everything. Josh looked for angles, ways to cut corners. Callie was the worrier. How long could the box of Cheerios last? When it was gone, what could happen if they stole extra food at school? Threats of expulsion, juvie, and disownment had weighed on her, but never enough to stop her. She hadn’t been the stealthiest of thieves at thirteen, but no one had cared. Now she planned ahead, lest her world came crashing down.
Derek stalked his way to the hallway on the other side of the bar, wearing his edgy mood beneath his leather jacket. But then maybe he didn’t want to hide it. Who would choose to mess with a stressed out man his size? He did have a reputation to maintain. Callie was on the verge of falling into a mental spiral, contemplating how he’d earned those wary glances he’d been receiving most of the night, when she spotted Bianca.
The curvy brunette wove through the room, lightly touching a person here, making small talk there. Peals of laughter lingered in her stead. She was petite, but even from several feet away Callie could sense the energy she exuded. And just like that, Bianca turned and headed straight for her.
Derek wasn’t there to lead the questioning, and Callie didn’t carry the same malevolent aura he did. She would be ju
st another stranger to Bianca. Would they miss their opportunity? Should she try this solo?
Bianca waved to the bartender as she approached, and then inclined her head toward Callie as she spoke. “One of what she’s having.”
“Pretty sure you could have just said beer,” Callie said after a moment. “The selection’s limited.” Small talk hurt her brain, and she clearly wasn’t good at it.
“He knows me, and it’s not my usual.” Of course it wasn’t. Her signature drink was something bright pink and adorned with a wedge of fresh fruit.
Callie took another draw on her beer. So much for not knocking them back. Her hands were warm against the brown glass, which is what usually happened when a bottle was mere swigs from empty. But this wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t the beer in her belly. This wasn’t simply nervous energy and pent-up arousal. Her fingers went full-on inferno, and she sat the beer on the bar as nonchalantly as she possibly could, right as the label began to singe. Holy shit. It was nothing like what she’d experienced around someone with a borrowed soul inside them before.
Bianca took a single step backward. “You all right?”
The fire in her hands dimmed. Was she? Why was her reaction so different than before? Goosebumps prickled along her arms and legs, as though all the heat from elsewhere in her body had relocated to her hands and pooled in her palms. “Yeah,” she said, curling her hands into fists. She could focus with them clenched. Mostly.
“Right on. I don’t remember seeing you here before, and I’ve got a thing for faces.” She winked.
“First timer.” Squeeze, release, repeat. She rode the edge of panic, but maintained control.
“Oh, it’s a blast.”
This had to be soul magic at play. This was ten times as intense as in the Charmer’s shop. The heat was overwhelming, but she tried to cling to the Soul Charmer’s promise that she couldn’t be injured. If she had taken to believing him, the heat must have short-circuited her brain. Callie’s thoughts ran over one another, too much input, too much sensation, and too many chances to fuck up. She had a job to do. A job she had to keep in order to get Josh back. She focused on the other woman and not the twin blazes forming inside her hands. What could she learn from this woman? “I was looking at the shop next door. The massage place. Have you been there?”
Bianca started to narrow her eyes, but stopped herself before too much of her skepticism showed. “I work there, actually.”
Callie sucked in a breath, hard and fast. Could she get a soul for cheaper here? Maybe Tess or Bianca could help her. Was there a way out from under the Charmer, where she could help her brother more quickly? Ignoring the bundle of flames simmering within her palms—the sensation was alarming, but not painful—she forced herself to be pleasant. “Small world. So what’s this ‘chakra massage’ thing I read about on the flyer?”
Bianca deflected. Her back-alley deal tone would have been more appropriate at The Fall than at a belly-dancing bar. “I just do your old-fashioned massage and aromatherapy. It’s great for allergies.”
“Oh, okay.” She didn’t need to have her sinuses tweaked. She needed a bonus soul, a whole lot less violent threats in her life, and … holy hell, her hands were stiff. She was able to open them, which was a modicum improvement from when they were frozen, but her skin was akin to a kindled log with blackened pieces curling at the edges and golden embers smoldering beneath. Oh, shit. Immolation was un-fucking-acceptable. Seeing her hands singe and blacken with heat was definitely new. What the hell was happening? The pain wasn’t there, but her hands felt impossibly full of dangerous energy, like they were so ablaze they’d inflict serious damage. If it were real, she’d be screaming right? Was she hallucinating? Was this another of the Charmer’s tricks? He’d said she wouldn’t be injured, but he was also probably a fucking liar.
“You’ve got some magic in you, don’t you?” Bianca’s tone might have sounded sultry to those within earshot, but Callie knew otherwise. The fire burning in her hands exploded as the woman edged closer.
Making poor decisions because of her fear was the old Callie. A few years ago, the fear of knowing what Bianca wanted from her would have been too much; she would have melted down. But that was the Old Callie.
“I’m not the only one,” she ground out, almost gritting her teeth. Anger and pain fused, pushing Callie into Alpha Cat mode. This fire wouldn’t take her. Her hands weren’t really scorched. They couldn’t be. Others in the restaurant had clearly noticed something was going on, but no one was charging toward them with a fire extinguisher. They had simply given the two women a wide berth. Even the bartender was nowhere to be seen. Which was good, because Callie didn’t need another drink. She needed some goddamn useful information. The sooner she had leverage, the sooner she could be done with the goddamn soul-detector fingers.
“Why did you come here?” Bianca asked.
“I heard Tess had something to do with why I keep running into people who set off my magic. Thought she might be able to give me some insight,” Callie imbued the words with confidence, but stifled a shudder at taking ownership of the magic the Charmer had forced into her.
Bianca sneered. “Tess didn’t make your hands like that. She’s not going to touch you.”
Callie reached her limit—of the pain, of the bullshit, of Bianca making her hands go firestorm. She clamped a hand against Bianca’s shoulder like they were old friends and she’d told a hilarious joke. Bianca’s yelp earned a few glances, but no one moved. Her dreams of quick fixes to her soul magic woes were dashed. Callie pressed her hand more firmly against Bianca and the heat leapt from her hands, an acrid scent of melting rayon filling the space between them as Bianca’s dress began to smoke under the heat. “Care to tell me why everyone who fails to return a soul to its rightful owner—” she couldn’t bring herself to say the Charmer’s name “—has your boss’s name on their lips?”
Bianca’s nostrils flared as Callie’s hand funneled more and more heat into her shoulder. “She’s doing this city a service. We will be purified,” she said through gritted teeth.
Suddenly, Derek yanked Callie’s hand away from Bianca. She hadn’t even heard him return. Great. This magic was screwing with her mind now, too. She shook her hands as if she could fling the magic away like droplets of water. It didn’t work. Derek examined her hands, which were blackened, but thankfully free of melted fabric. He nodded once, some finite decision made, and put his back to her.
“Back up,” he said to Bianca.
“You know her?” she spat at him, even as she complied. Callie’s brain had fried upon seeing her seared skin, and it was still rebooting. She did her damnedest to ignore her hands and tried to focus on their conversation.
Each step she took in the opposite direction eased the pain in Callie’s hands. Her skin slowly faded back to normal, the embers snuffed.
“Yeah, I do, and if you retaliate against her, there will be consequences.” Perhaps turning that broad back of his to her had been a way to protect her. Again. He had to be getting sick of saving Callie at this point.
Derek wasn’t all threats, though. He had the bartender dig out a first aid kit and told him to tend to Bianca’s burn. A fount of information about Tess, the source of his current work stress, was there for the taking, but he ignored the lure.
Callie’s ire was ebbing, which let fresh waves of panic and regret crash against her mind. Still better than looking at her hands. Derek didn’t avoid them, though. He lifted her hands near his face, inspecting them so closely it bordered on palm reading. She couldn’t see them past his bulky fingers. Her skin no longer tingled, and the fires had been snuffed. She’d seen them charred, though. Finally, he relinquished them with a heavy huff. All signs of burnt flesh were gone from her palms.
“Let’s go.” He pitched his voice low.
“H-h-how?” She held her unblemished hands in front of her face, rotating them for full inspection. Had it been a trick? Magic tricks were with cards or coins, not turnin
g women’s hands into campfire logs.
“You’re okay. It can’t hurt you, remember?”
So the Soul Charmer hadn’t lied to her. It still didn’t make sense. “I saw it, though. Felt it. Her—her shoulder … ”
“She’ll heal. I’ll explain, but not here. We need to go.”
Callie’s hushed tone was less about privacy and more about shaky vocal cords. “Don’t you need to talk to her?”
His sharp shake of his head was a no and a suggestion to shut up in a single move. Derek wrapped his arm around Callie and escorted her out.
It was for the best; Callie would have made a shitty belly dancer.
—— CHAPTER TEN ——
The earlier fire in Callie’s belly had disappeared along with the flames in her hands. Bravery came much easier when the consequences of your actions could be ignored. That’s what adrenaline was for, to blind us from peering toward the future. The churning worry in her gut shifted its focus from what kissing Derek meant for her future to how big the Bianca blowout would be. Violence wasn’t in her handbag. Yet she was the one who’d escalated the interaction with Bianca. She hadn’t intended to burn the other woman. Intent required forethought.
She’d melted fabric to another person. Callie’s stomach pitched and she swallowed the result of her guilt. Derek parked the bike, and she climbed off quickly. Sucking down quick breaths of clean air had to clear her head, right?
“You’re not going to puke, are you?” That Derek, he was all class.
She scowled at him as she shoved her helmet into his hand.
“I’m surprised you didn’t take me home,” she muttered. She was even more thankful he hadn’t taken her to the Charmer. Instead, he’d brought her to the outskirts of Gem City. They’d climbed in elevation, and the thinner air was actually calming her. The empty road and huge spaces between buildings around them would make it a great place to lose someone. Permanently. Her heartbeat started to sprint as her thoughts turned morbid.
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