by K. F. Breene
“So you are a mage, then?” Emery asked Reagan. His gaze had turned analytical, even shrewd. He would soon learn that there would always be one very troubling unknown in this neighborhood. Her name was Reagan, and she delighted in being mysterious.
“Nope. An asshole, remember?” She tucked her dagger into its holster on her thigh.
Emery’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t push.
“You still didn’t tell us what you were doing.” Callie waited for me to open the door and step aside before she filed into the house, Dizzy falling in behind her.
Reagan stopped next to me, her back to Emery, who still hadn’t moved up the stairs. “I’ll keep them busy yelling at me. You know, if you want to bump uglies with Mr. Hot Pants. But if he plans on staying, we’re going to need to make some changes. I trust you. I don’t know him, which means I don’t trust him. No offense. Stranger danger, you see what I’m saying?”
While I was still trying to sort through all of that, wondering which part to respond to first, she strode through the door.
Emery looked out over the street, then up at me from under his eyelashes. I could tell he was uncomfortable, which made me nervous for how this conversation would go.
“You can come in.” I gestured at the door. “I just need some blood. Or…if you’re worried about knives, I can bring you through by touching you.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I hadn’t planned on intruding. I don’t want to mess up what you have going here. I just—” He slipped his hands into his pockets again, and my stomach knotted. “I still get forewarnings when you’re in danger. From what I can gather, I saw them when you were in Darius’s house.”
“Oh.” The breath exited my mouth in a rush. “Yeah. That was a dinner gone wrong.”
“And again earlier tonight. It looked like you were running on grass?”
“Ah. Um…” I glanced through the opened door, wondering if I should go warn Reagan that the Bankses were armed with knowledge.
A shape materialized from the entrance to the cemetery across the street, Smokey drifting through the shadows. If I hadn’t known he was for sure human, I’d definitely wonder.
Emery turned nearly immediately, eyeing the creepy guy as he loitered near the wall. Magic streamed up from over a dozen places near us.
“No, no!” I hurried down the steps and put my hand on Emery’s arm. A surge of electricity zapped into my hand from the contact, traveling up my arm and then through my body before exiting through my feet. My teeth clamped shut and my toes curled as my blood felt like it was flash-boiling. The breath exited Emery’s mouth in a gush.
A moment later, shaking in the aftermath, I yanked my hand away. “Sorry. Don’t worry about Smokey. That’s Smokey, by the way. Don’t worry about him—”
“This guy dangerous?” Mikey sauntered up the sidewalk, eyeing Emery. His gaze hit me next. “And you know what I mean, right? I can see this fool is dangerous. I’d want my sidearm when dealing with him. That I can handle. Is he dangerous?”
“He means magical,” I whispered to Emery.
“I don’t mean shit.” Mikey crossed into the street, going all the way around the cars in order to reach his house on the other side. According to Reagan, he wouldn’t hesitate to bump chests with wicked-looking thugs, but Mikey clearly wanted absolutely nothing to do with magic. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, he is dangerous, but not to you,” I said, my hand hovering over Emery’s forearm now.
“All right. Just as long as we know what’s up.” Mikey climbed his stairs.
“Look.” My hand lowered a fraction, nearly touching Emery but not quite. I was honestly worried about that electricity again. I’d forgotten how much it hurt. When it hurt. Unlike when it didn’t. Which was…
My mind was buzzing, but for a different reason than when I forgot spells.
I cleared my throat, and Emery’s gaze came to rest on mine.
“Would you mind…” I thumbed the direction of the door. “Do you want to go in? This neighborhood is colorful. It’s best if we get off the street.”
That uncomfortable expression crossed his face again. “Listen, Penny, like I said, I don’t want to intrude. I just came to check in. To make sure you were okay. I’m fine to leave. You can go on with your life, conscience clear.”
I frowned at him, having absolutely no clue what he was saying. Just knowing he was trying to weasel away again.
Normal people probably would’ve let him do it, too. Those self-respecting girls who weren’t prone to embarrassing themselves. But if I’d learned one thing in the past twenty-four years, it was that I was anything but normal.
“Look, fine, I get it. What happened between us didn’t mean as much to you. It was, like, a blip on the radar. A few days.” I shrugged aggressively, because if you were going to make an ass of yourself, you should do it Reagan-style. “Whatever. But the least you can do is come into the damn house and act like a sensible human being. I promise I won’t cry over your shoes or anything. And when you leave this time, it will be with my foot up your ass. Because I know how to defend myself now, and I have no problem turning that defense into an attack if you’re going to try slinking away in the night again, especially after being super awesome and leaving sweet notes. I don’t even care.”
I grimaced, because I was pretty sure I’d missed the mark in there somewhere, but at least he knew where I stood. And where he did if he tried to skulk away, sweet notes or no.
A smile flickered across his lips and a sparkle came to his eyes. “Training with Reagan has been good for you. It’s given your natural fire a chance to shine.” His face dropped again. “I meant what I said, Penny. If you want me to leave so you can get on with your life, I’m good with that. If it wasn’t for—”
I punched him in the stomach.
I didn’t even mean to! I really didn’t. But a surge of emotion came over me, and before I knew it, I was expressing it in anger, fear, and a little desperation.
Emery wheezed and took a step back, bending at the waist.
Smokey started across the street. “Is he bothering you, Penny? Should I get Reagan for you?”
“He’s not bothering me, actually,” I said with my hands on my hips, ready for Emery to protest. I’d punch him again. “He won’t just get in the house like a normal human being. And I know that is rich coming from me, but seriously, what the hell? Is he back to see me, or is he back to dick me around? Is he even happy to see me, or—”
Smokey had already stopped, put up his hands in a universal I-don’t-want-to-know gesture, and started backing away slowly. I was still watching him when Emery straightened up, grabbed the back of my neck, and pulled me in.
I met him eagerly, wrapping my hands around his neck and connecting with his soft lips, intense and insistent. I fell into the feeling of him. His touch. The familiarity of his arms. The comfort of his strength and power against my palms.
Everything about him said, Home.
Smokey was gone when we resurfaced.
Emery’s body was still flush with mine, his lips only an inch away. “I only want what’s best for you, Penny,” he said, his hand braced against the side of my face and his thumb stroking my lips. “I know that isn’t me. I know that I should leave you alone. That I should give you time to find someone worthy. But I can’t. I can’t stay away from you. I think about you constantly. I pull up memories of your smile. Your laugh. Your eyes…especially when they burn for me, like they’re doing now. And I’m not strong enough to ignore your pull. So any time you want, I urge you to push me out of your life and shut the door. To do what’s best for you. But until then, I’m at your mercy.”
30
“So now will you come in the house?” I asked, after stealing another kiss.
His lips curled under mine. “Okay.”
“Well, don’t let me twist your arm or anything.” I stopped by the ward and turned. “Do you have something sharp?”
“Just tak
e me through for now. That way, you can change your mind.”
“Do you want a knuckle sandwich?”
His smile boosted his handsomeness to absurd proportions. “No, thank you.” He took my hand and the air buzzed around us. “Lead me through, Turdswallop.”
“For once, I agree with the vampire on this one,” we heard as he closed the door behind him. It was Callie. “Do you know what a sad day it is when I’m forced to side with a vampire?”
“A very sad day,” Reagan said. “One for the record books.”
“Hurry,” I mouthed, pulling Emery behind me. My tiptoeing wasn’t as smooth as I would’ve liked—pulling Emery anywhere was not an easy task, and my feet thudded through the hallway.
I caught a quick glimpse of Dizzy looking up at me from the kitchen table. Thankfully, I couldn’t see Callie, but I hurried faster so as not to press our luck.
“What was that?” Callie asked after Emery went by. “Was that them? Penny, come in here this instant. You’ve gone off the rail, girl.”
I ducked into my room, pulled Emery after me, shut the door, and locked it. “That won’t keep Reagan out, but she seems to be on my side on this one, so we’re probably good.” I released his hand and crossed to the sliding glass door. After opening it, I motioned him on.
“Is this the only way into the backyard?”
I paused on the back porch, waiting for him. “Crap. No. But again, Reagan is on my side…for now…so I think we’re good. Oh, wait!” I dodged around him, heading back into my room, and collected the spell books I’d been studying. Back outside, I motioned for him to take a seat in one of the two folding chairs.
“These have seen better days,” Emery said, pinching the top of the chair and wiggling it.
“It looks rough, but it’ll hold. Here.” I handed him the most advanced book. “That one has the ward in it. It’s the— Yeah, the bookmarked one.”
I settled back, watching him read through the spell. Little streams of magic rose and twirled around him before settling back down—Emery was subconsciously grabbing what he would need to create the weave before releasing it. He closed the book and looked at me, his eyes shadowed by the overhang.
“You’ve progressed at an unbelievable rate,” he finally said.
“I could always read spells pretty well. Including the zombie one, unfortunately.”
“This”—he tapped the book—“is not the ward that surrounds this house. It is a pale representation of the weave I see. I can’t even call it a ward, because it’s so much more than that. If the Guild had knowledge of spells like this and how to make them, we’d be screwed.”
I shrugged, trying to hide my delight at his praise. “Reagan helped.”
He shifted, leaning forward a little on his chair. “You said that, but you both keep insisting she isn’t a mage. I don’t understand how she could help with a ward.”
“I can’t really talk about her magic. It’s a secret for some reason, and while I don’t know much beyond that, she wants to keep it that way.”
Silence lingered for a moment, and then he nodded. “Okay. As long as you are comfortable with her and this setup…”
“She’s my best bet. Callie, Dizzy, and Darius all agree.”
“That was before you left your stronghold and got yourself into trouble.”
I held up a finger. “To be fair, that wasn’t my fault. That was my temperamental third eye. I mean…” I made a wishy-washy motion with my hand. “Getting me there was my temperamental third eye’s fault. I felt weird about her leaving alone, so something told me I had to help. Once I was there, running away from Reagan was my bad, sure. But in the—”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait.” He laughed, shaking his head. “This isn’t funny—”
“Literally nothing I just said was funny.”
“—because the Guild could’ve made a grab for you tonight—”
“Reagan would’ve stepped in, I’m pretty sure. She’s super fast. She bonded to Darius, did you know that?”
“But…what? Oh, yes, I heard that earlier. It is…surprising information. Darius isn’t the type of vampire to bond, even with a prized asset. There must be more to it. Which I will try to figure out on my own.” He paused, like he was waiting for my approval.
“When you find out, tell me,” I said.
He chuckled again. He never seemed to know when I was being serious. Which, actually, was all the time. I just had the curse of being unintentionally funny, I guess.
“Fair enough. But let’s start from the very beginning, shall we? Tell me everything.”
“You mean from the part with the witches, or from the banshee?”
His eyes widened and he stiffened. “She let you go after a banshee? Never mind. We’ll get there. I meant, start at the beginning. The morning you woke up after I left Seattle.”
A rush of warmth ran through me. I hadn’t been a woman scorned after all. The idiot had honestly been trying to do what he thought was best for me. Clearly he shouldn’t be trusted to make such decisions in the future, because he was really, really bad at it, but the fact that his heart was in the right place eased the tightness in my shoulders.
I led him through the last six months, stopping occasionally to give more information, stopping other times for his misplaced guffaws, and speeding through the bit about Callie and Dizzy’s training.
Surprisingly, he didn’t ask many questions about the old vampire, Ja. He was on the same page as everyone else—it was a vampire problem. We should steer clear and let Darius figure it out.
“So you felt connected with the witches?” he asked after I talked about my jaunt into the cemetery.
“Yes. Sharing magic with them. It helped me find balance when I was working with Reagan.”
“Reagan knows a lot about spells and mages, then, huh?”
I opened my mouth to answer before I caught on. I narrowed my eyes at him and he gave me a guilty smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “That was sneaky. Anyway, so you think mages can form circles, like witches?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Maybe at a certain point the power would get too strong, but a few of them should be able to work together.”
“If they all trusted each other.” He tapped the spell book in his lap. “And that’s why you went with Reagan to banish the banshee?”
“Okay, well, no one mentioned the whole banishing part.” I told him all that had happened as the night stretched toward the morning.
“You…captured…a banshee,” he said, like he was pulling each word out of a trunk and examining it. That was the way he generally processed my oddest magical experiences. “Umhm.”
“Yeah. In, like, a magical cage.”
“You captured…a banshee—a banshee…in a magical cage. Mhm.”
“Reagan didn’t think it was all that odd.”
“Reagan…didn’t think—”
I laughed and kicked his chair. “Would you stop? This isn’t odd, trust me.”
“Using an untrained, unpredictable natural as bait, then watching a banshee chase her around the lawn, isn’t odd? I guess you’re going to tell me that it isn’t anything special that you trapped one of the most fearsome creatures on the death circuit in a type of spell I’ve never heard of? Oh. Well, now I know.”
“Clearly this is why Reagan and I work as a team. Because I don’t know any better, and she’s cracked.”
“I think that is exactly why it works, yes. Can she share magic with you?”
“No, she—” I flung my finger out at him. “Cheater!”
He gave me a delighted laugh and stood. “Come on, Turdswallop. It’s late and we have a long few days ahead of us.”
“Why is that?” I let him pull me, then pushed my way into his arms.
“Because you’ve found a new training buddy. And I’m not nearly so naive.”
At the time, I thought he was talking about me. I had no idea he planned on setting traps for Reagan in the hope
s of solving her riddle.
31
The next afternoon, after tossing and turning instead of sleeping, thinking about those large, luminous eyes soaked with feeling for him, Emery stepped out of Reagan’s beat-up Honda in front of a warehouse outside of the city. Last night it had been universally agreed upon that he would help train Penny, and partially agreed upon that he’d need to go home with the Bankses. Strangely, it was Dizzy who’d raised the most fuss about Emery and Penny sleeping separately.
Only a fool would think it was for propriety’s sake. The Bankses were clearly in the know about Reagan’s secret…and Penny was not. She’d been using Reagan’s power, and she didn’t even understand it.
Emery hated enigmas. They were liable to get people killed. He especially didn’t like them in connection to a special girl who held his vitals in her soft, dainty hands.
“I miss the Lamborghini,” Reagan said as she got out of the car. “This bucket of tin is slow…”
“It’ll probably last longer, though,” Emery said, walking around the car to help Penny out.
“And back in the poor days, that would’ve mattered.” Reagan opened her trunk and grabbed out a sleek-looking sword, a dagger, a leg brace, and a fanny pack.
“Nineteen-ninety called, they want their fanny pack back,” Emery said, grinning at Reagan.
She gave him a blank stare. “Just for that, I’m not going to pull any punches.”
“Oh dear, the girl isn’t going to pull any punches.” He rubbed Penny’s back, hoping she knew he was just kidding. Reagan seemed the sort who liked taunting. It would fire her up and, hopefully, help her forget whatever secret she was hiding.
To his surprise, Penny said, “You don’t want to rile her up. She’s crazier that way.”
“Don’t ruin the surprise.” Reagan smiled and gestured them toward the warehouse. “Shall we?”
“I put a ward up on the Bankses’ house this morning,” Emery said as he scanned the flatland around the warehouse. The sun was slipping toward the horizon, but the vampires wouldn’t be up and moving around for another couple of hours. It was a prime time for enemy mages to gather around. At the moment, his senses didn’t detect anything out of place, but that didn’t mean they weren’t on the way. They’d surely know about this place by now. “It isn’t as good as the one Penny and you did, but it’ll keep even the best mages at bay for a day or more.”
