He also refrained from saying anything to her. Most days she could get a “good morning” out of him or something that resembled a conversation but now he was barely acknowledging her presence. Rather than be hurt by it, MaLeila decided to treat him the same way. He might not be affected by it, but it made her feel better about herself.
Meanwhile, as Devdan continued to give her the cold shoulder, MaLeila spent more time with Marcel. On yet another date that ended up outside her house, MaLeila once again moved her hands over Marcel’s to place them back to a more respectable place on her body. More respectable because some people wouldn’t believe letting him hold her hips to keep her pressed against him was respectable, but it was the best MaLeila could do when she was trying to do the task while simultaneously kissing Marcel at the same time.
Finally she managed to pull herself away and after taking a deep breath, she said, “We’ve been out here a long time. I’m shocked no one’s called to report us for being indecent.”
Marcel rolled his eyes, “People over here act so prudish. We weren’t doing anything.”
“Still…”
Marcel suddenly smiled and leaned down to put his forehead against hers, “You know we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone calling on us for being indecent if you’d let me come in every now and then.”
MaLeila made a sound that was between a laugh and a scoff and then said, “Unfortunately, I don’t live by myself.”
“My place works too,” Marcel said beginning again to run kisses down her cheek and toward her neck.
MaLeila certainly would have liked to, but she couldn’t afford to be careless. Tsubame hadn’t resurfaced in a month, so under the radar that MaLeila would have started to doubt she was a threat if not for the nagging feeling that the woman was dangerous. But until she reappeared, Marcel had no reason to stay but to date her and since he stayed because of her it was almost easy for MaLeila to forget that Marcel worked for the council. But she always remembered, particularly when he asked her to let him take her to his apartment.
“No,” MaLeila finally answered.
He kissed her on the lips and said, “One of these days you’re going to figure out I’m not with you to spy for the council.”
“And then what? You’ll whisk me to your place to have your way with me.”
Marcel laughed and kissed her on the lips again before saying in a husky tone, “Exactly.”
MaLeila felt her face warm and an uncomfortable heat begin to pool in her pelvic area. Marcel chuckled in her ear, causing more heat to rise to MaLeila’s face as she realized he was teasing her, taking advantage of the fact that, in his own words, she was so feisty and powerful yet so innocent in the ways of romance.
“Alright. That’s enough,” MaLeila said pursing her lips together and pulling out Marcel’s grasp and away from his reach while trying to keep from smiling at him.
“One of these days,” Marcel assured as he made his way back to his car.
MaLeila simply shook her head in response and went back into the house, only to stop in the doorway upon seeing her older brother sitting on the couch.
“Hey sis,” he said casually.
MaLeila huffed and closed the door behind her before making her way to him. Her brother—all of six feet, in between lean and buff, with skin a couple of shades lighter than hers, a bald head, and a thin mustache—stood up and met her halfway.
“You jerk. What have I told you about coming home and not telling me about it?”
“And what do I always tell you,” he said as he embraced her. “Life’s no fun without surprises. The good kind anyway.”
That might have been true before it became a habit for powerful sorcerers and sorceress to spring impromptu surprise attacks on her. Afterwards, she warned him to let her know the specific dates he would be coming home from his deployments, especially after she almost attacked him on one of his returns a few years ago. Normally, she didn’t attack people without magic even when they surprised her because she could sense their lack of magical talent in their dull auras. But it turned out her brother had a limited sense of magic that allowed him to see ghosts. It had been so weak before that MaLeila hadn’t been able to sense it until he came back from a second tour in the Middle East.
Her brother’s response to that explanation had been that getting his head knocked off was a risk worth taking to continue surprising her.
“One of these days, Merrick,” MaLeila warned him to which Merrick rolled his eyes and led them to the couch.
“So when did you get back?” MaLeila asked once they were sitting down.
“Flew into the country this morning. Then bussed back here into the city and called a cab to get home. By the time I got to the house, you were already on your date,” Merrick said pointedly. “You never told me you were seeing someone.”
MaLeila shrugged. “It’s only been a couple of weeks. Nothing so serious that it was worth mentioning. But we can talk about my life later. How was your tour?”
“You’re not slipping out of this one, Leila,” Merrick insisted with his arms crossed. “It looked pretty serious to me or do you make a habit of making out with strangers in front of the house and I wasn’t aware of it.”
MaLeila sighed. “Fine. We haven’t been together long. A little over a month and a half or so and I didn’t want you to get worked up while on tour.”
“So is it serious? Does he know about…?”
“My magic? He’s a representative from the magic council sent to investigate a report I sent in about an unknown sorceress. So yes. He knows.”
Merrick, who had already been frowning at the news that MaLeila had a boyfriend, furrowed his eyebrows further in thought. Then he said, “Wait a minute. Don’t you hate the magic council and anyone associated with them? Don’t they give you hell?”
“If by giving me hell you mean turning a blind eye to my existence and letting crazy magic users attack me, yes.”
“And you’re dating one of those old bastards.”
MaLeila rolled her eyes. “Marcel isn’t even that old.”
“Which brings me back to how old he is?”
MaLeila decided she may as well get it over with. “Twenty-nine. So he’s not old.”
“Too old for you,” Merrick said laughing.
“I’m eighteen.”
“He’s twenty-nine.”
“She’s a sorceress,” Devdan said from behind them as he entered the room.
Merrick looked turned to look back MaLeila’s guardian with a passive expression and then said, “You’re still here.”
Devdan didn’t reply as he grabbed a coke out the refrigerator and came to sit on the couch across from Merrick and MaLeila. MaLeila sensed the atmosphere thicken, the charge in the air rise, and both men’s auras flare as Merrick continued to look at Devdan. Her brother had never been particularly fond of the man, not at all comfortable with an adult man being so close to his younger sister, especially one as peculiar and (in Merrick’s opinion) psychopathic as Devdan. His belief was only reinforced once Nina, in an effort to get Merrick to see that Devdan wasn’t so bad, let slip that Devdan tried to kill MaLeila when they first met. The two’s relationship only went downhill from there. For the most part, Devdan treated Merrick like he treated everyone else, hardly acknowledging his existence except on the few occasions where Merrick got caught up in attacks on MaLeila and he had to protect him. But on occasions like the one MaLeila currently found herself in, she got the feeling Devdan got a kick out of bothering her brother.
Seeing that Devdan wasn’t going to bother to reply to his question, Merrick said, “What’s her being a sorceress got to do with this?”
MaLeila looked at Devdan. He didn’t turn his head, but she did notice him glance at her out his peripheral vision. Then he turned his complete attention back to Merrick.
“It means that in the magical world, dating someone that far apart in age from you is normal and not taboo like it is in the non-magic one,” Devdan
replied.
Though the statement was factual, MaLeila wished Devdan hadn’t been so blunt about it and explained it to Merrick a little more. But then again, when had she ever known Devdan to be gentle about anything?
“So it’s normal for teenagers to date a grown man in the magical world.”
“Considering that the age of majority is sixteen in it? Yes,” Devdan replied. “Besides, she’s eighteen. So she’s legal in both worlds now.”
“She’s still in high school.”
“She’s a sorceress. It really doesn’t matter. She’s part of a world that has rules very different from yours.”
“A world our mother didn’t even want her to be a part of,” Merrick reminded.
Devdan looked at Merrick as though considering his words. For all MaLeila knew, maybe Devdan was since he had been so fond of her mother. Merrick was right when he said their mother hadn’t wanted MaLeila to be a part of the magical world. She used its racism and classism as her reasoning, but MaLeila always argued that she didn’t have to go be involved in the daily life and politics of the magical world to experience that. MaLeila later figured out that her mother simply didn’t want to lose MaLeila to the magical world.
“And what do you want her to do?” Devdan asked. “Graduate school, go to college, become a doctor or maybe a teacher? An engineer? Get married, have 2.5 children with a white picket fence? The American dream?”
“I want her to have a normal life.”
Devdan huffed. “Normal is relative Merrick. It changes all the time. And magic is your sister’s normal, even if she tries to act like it’s not. She would grow up, marry a regular Joe, have kids, and they would grow old and die, long before her skin even began to wrinkle, if it ever wrinkles.”
“So what are you trying to say?” Merrick asked in irritation.
“I’m saying don’t argue about and make a fuss about things you have no clue about. Do you think Bastet and I would let her date Marcel if he were a danger to her?”
“He’s part of the Magic Council.”
“And that’s questionable,” Devdan admitted. “But MaLeila’s handled it this far. Besides, you haven’t even been around to know if you should be worried or not.”
MaLeila held in a mixed sigh of exasperation and resignation. Devdan always seemed to bounce back and forth between being her greatest critic and her most staunch supporter and defender.
Either way, Merrick always did find it difficult to defeat Devdan’s sound arguments and this time was no different. Reluctantly, Merrick let up on MaLeila about Marcel. Done with the conversation, Devdan left the room, leaving Merrick and MaLeila to catch up on what had been going on in the last eight months he had been gone, where MaLeila filled him in on the incident with Tsubame. Eventually the topic did return to Marcel when Merrick calmly asked if he could at least meet the guy. MaLeila ran the idea by Marcel the next day and without much apprehension or concern about learning that MaLeila had an older brother, Marcel agreed.
“We can have dinner at my place,” he suggested over the phone.
“Your place?” MaLeila repeated.
“Sure. That way you can make sure I don’t have a room for any secretly depraved appetites,” Marcel jokes. “Bring your brother and Bastet and Devdan. Nina too if you want someone in our corner to even the odds.”
MaLeila told Merrick and Bastet immediately, and then told Nina about it the next time she talked to the girl which was at school the next morning. Getting Devdan to come would be tricky. Not only was he not talking to her, but he hated things like family dinners and gatherings, places where he had to make the effort to be social whether he wanted to be or not. The only thing remotely social they could get him to come to was if her mother asked him and the only time she ever asked him was during Thanksgiving.
After pondering it for the better part of the week, MaLeila finally decided there would be no safe way to approach Devdan about going, so she may as well just ask. Besides, MaLeila figured it was time to break the ice between them.
He wasn’t in his room, nor was he anywhere in the house, but MaLeila sensed him nearby which meant there was only one place he could be.
She went out the back door, turned to face the house and walked backward into the backyard, head tilted upward until she was far enough back to see Devdan sitting on the roof.
“Do you know how weird it is for the neighbors to see you sitting on the roof in the middle of the night? They might think you’re a thief or something,” MaLeila said to him.
Devdan made a sound that might have been a scoff or a snicker. MaLeila wasn’t sure which. Instead he said without looking at her, “Stand over there in the shadow of the tree.”
MaLeila did so and a few seconds later, she was standing on top of the roof in one of the shadows created on it by its angles.
“Thanks,” MaLeila said as she walked to where to Devdan was sitting with one leg outstretched and the other bent with his arm resting on it. Carefully, she sat next to him.
For a while they were silent and MaLeila knew that if she didn’t say anything, they would both sit in silence together all night and nothing would be solved. Eventually Devdan would certainly get over himself and stop giving her the cold shoulder, but sometimes it was better to get things out in the open. There was enough resentment festering between them for other reasons MaLeila wasn’t quite sure about as it was.
“Sorry for bringing up Claude. I shouldn’t have thrown that up in your face knowing how uncomfortable it makes you.”
A while back, if MaLeila had mentioned that talking about Claude made him uncomfortable Devdan would have snapped that it didn’t make him uncomfortable and that it was just none of her business. Now, he didn’t deny it, but he would never acknowledge she was right either. Not that MaLeila needed him to. It was obvious.
“I just wanted you to…” MaLeila trailed off. This was how they ended up not talking to each other in the first place.
“You just wanted me to what?”
MaLeila regarded Devdan out the corner of her eye. He was still, too still even for him as he looked down at his lap, staring at nothing in particular. She sighed.
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s just forget about it. Whether you trust me or not, I trust you. And that makes you my friend. And I’ve missed you these last couple of weeks.”
Devdan did laugh a little that time, his lips curved into a small smile. It was the closest thing to him saying, “I missed you too,” as MaLeila was going to get.
“Anyway. All that aside, since Merrick is so eager to make sure Marcel won’t take advantage of me or isn’t trying to get next to me for the council’s sake, Marcel suggested we have dinner at his place and he’d like it if you came.”
“Why would I care what Marcel would like me to do?” Devdan asked bluntly.
MaLeila sighed. She didn’t even feel like wasting her breath trying to convince Devdan to go. It wasn’t worth them not talking again.
“Whatever,” she said in an even tone. “I thought you’d say no. You hate things like this.”
“I’ll go if you want me to go though.”
MaLeila turned to look at him. He was still sitting with one leg propped up and an arm thrown over his knee, head looking downward.
“You would?”
Devdan shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me all week.”
“You knew about it.”
“I heard you on the phone.”
“And you couldn’t have just told me that?”
“I was waiting for you to ask me. I figured if you wanted me to come, you would and if you didn’t you wouldn’t,” Devdan said simply.
MaLeila groaned. This man…
“You’re so fucking difficult,” she muttered.
“Do you want me to go or not?”
“I…” MaLeila trailed off upon seeing that his coal-grey eyes were upon her. MaLeila felt her face heat up as she tried to avert her gaze and then looked back. Devdan rarely, if ever, looked
directly at her or anyone, but when he did MaLeila felt like he could somehow see right through her, read her thoughts, and figure out her every desire, particularly the ones about him. The fear that he could made her finally look away from him even though she could still feel his eyes on her. She was pretty sure his magic didn’t give him that power, but just in case it had and she didn’t know it, she rather not risk running him off again.
“Yeah,” MaLeila finally breathed. “I’d like that.”
7
“Word of advice,” Bastet whispered to MaLeila right before they went to the dining table. “A man who can cook is a keeper.”
MaLeila gave Bastet a wry look as they made their way to the glass dining table in Marcel’s pristine apartment, filled with lots of white, silver, gray and black furnishing and décor.
“Are you talking about Marcel or Devdan?”
“Both,” Bastet confirmed, “but while Marcel is nice, you know I’m biased toward Devdan, right?”
MaLeila huffed as she sat in her seat next to Marcel and across from Devdan at the spread the two had prepared. When they arrived at Marcel’s apartment earlier that evening, they found him in the kitchen preparing dinner to which MaLeila pointedly reminded that she asked if he needed them to bring anything to which he replied that he told her he didn’t need them to bring anything but themselves. When he said that, MaLeila had assumed he was ordering dinner in for them, not cooking it. At that point, he did say that he could use a little help in the kitchen and asked who the best cook was.
At best, Merrick could boil water and both MaLeila and Nina could do little more than make macaroni and cheese. Bastet blatantly said that she cooked all the time and for once, she wasn’t cooking a damned thing but that since Devdan never cooked, he could do it. Both MaLeila and Merrick laughed while Nina tilted her head and asked, “Devdan can cook?”
Devdan eventually wordlessly agreed to help Marcel in the kitchen with minimal grumbling to MaLeila’s surprise. Then again, Devdan had too much pride to sit and allow people to laugh at him. For an hour, Devdan and Marcel moved seamlessly through the kitchen as they cooked together. Marcel engaged in conversation with them from the kitchen to where they were in the living area, while Devdan worked in silence though he was certainly observing everything around him.
The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Awakening Page 6
