by May Dawson
“Come on,” she says, holding her hand out to me. “Let’s go meet those boys of yours.”
I raise an eyebrow at her.
“Don’t deny it,” she says.
I slap my hand into hers and the two of us walk out of the room. Part of me can just imagine the scene as it would look from the outside, panning up: the two friends, playfully holding hands, stepping out into the hallway. They’re laughing and chattering as they make their way down the hall, as other students walk around them too, everyone in a good mood, enjoying a Friday night.
For once, I think everything’s going to be all right.
“Hey!” Jon stands at the end of the hall. His voice is loud enough that even he looks abashed when the students in the hall turn to look at him.
So much for everything’s going to be all right.
Josie punches his shoulder. She rolls her eyes as she heads toward me, and he follows a beat behind.
“The big lug came to say he’s sorry,” she tells me.
“Not much point in saying it now.” His jaw works back and forth once. His hands are jammed in his pockets. He hesitates, his lips pressed together.
Well, this is awkward. I glance back at Josie, wondering if she forced him to come up here.
She sighs. “I guess he was right and we should’ve tried to catch you at the pub. We just didn’t want to ruin your night…”
“It’s fine.” I don’t expect anyone to apologize to me. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable, and I glance down the hall, which is emptying now. Part of me still expects Jon to lunge at me and attack again. When I see Airren’s door swing open down the hall, the ball of tension in my chest eases a little.
Abruptly, Jon says, “I wanted to thank you for finding out who really killed Luca.”
“Oh,” I say. “He seemed like a really good guy.”
“He was.” Josie rests a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “We’re going to miss him. But we’re sorry that our missing him turned into blaming you…”
I shrug, trying to lighten the moment. “It goes with the territory when you’re the Dark Lord’s daughter.”
Josie shakes her head. “Well, you aren’t just that. You’re part of Rawl House—and from now on, I promise, we won’t forget it. We’ve got your back, Tera.”
Her frank gaze makes me just as uncomfortable as I was when Stelly told me she liked me. I nod, because what do I say?
Stelly doesn’t have anything to say either. She suddenly lunges and hugs Josie, who laughs as her arms close around my friend. The two of them stumble back, and Jon puts his hands on Josie’s shoulders, steadying her under the force of Stelly’s surprise affection.
Of course, she’s just hugged Josie for me. I don’t have to figure out how to answer. A wave of relief crashes over me as Airren joins us. There’s a faint smile on his lips and a distinct line between those cool blue eyes of his, as if he can’t quite make out what he’s walked in on.
“I’m going to get Cax and Croft,” Stelly says happily, dragging Josie and Jon off with her toward the stairs.
“We’ll be right behind you,” Airren promises. He touches my elbow, breaking my stride as I head behind them. “Are you sure you’re up for the pub tonight?”
“Given that I don’t know what it’s like at the pub…” I shrug. “But I’m hearty. I’ll survive.”
“Lots of friends waiting for you at the pub,” Airren says. At first I think he’s being facetious, but his face is serious, and then he goes on. “People are curious about you. The girl who threw herself from the fifth floor and lived. The girl with the dragon.”
I reach inside the open top of my purse reflexively at that, running my fingers over the warm hard shell of the egg. I might have a dragon’s egg, but I’m no wizard. “They’re going to be disappointed.”
“I don’t think they will,” he says.
When I look up into his handsome face, his smile widens slightly. Maybe he’s not disappointed. That’s a nice thought.
“I still can’t…” I raise my finger in front of me, pretending I’m lifting an invisible spoon.
“It’s going to be fine,” he promises me. He throws an arm over my shoulders, tugging me in close. Even through his crisp button-down shirt, his body’s warmth and the hard definition of his muscles brush against me.
He turns his lips into my hair and murmurs, “There’s no such thing as a woman who has no magic. And you’re a very special woman at that. Whether you can cast a spell or not right now, Tera Donovan, I don’t have any doubt in the world that you’ve got all the magic you need.”
Continue Tera’s adventures now in TWO KINDS OF DAMNED as she fights for her magic, her world, and her men…
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An Excerpt from Two Kinds of Damned
Airren
Mycroft glances past me into my room. “Where’s the girl?”
Even by Mycroft’s standards, he’s brusque.
I push the door wider for him and take a step back, inviting him in. “The girl? Tera?”
There’s a whistling sound in the bathroom as hot water fills the pipes, followed by the distinct loud metallic rattle—as if a pipe was about to burst out of the wall—that always precedes the spray. Then the sound of water beating steadily against the tile fills the room. Mycroft’s broad shoulders ease.
So, Mycroft, the fearless warrior and great wizard, is scared of petite Tera Donovan. Fascinating. I hide my smile, turning my back to him and heading for the files on my desk.
“When’s she moving back to her room? It should be safe enough now.” Mycroft’s voice is a rough grumble like he noticed my amusement.
“I don’t think it is.” When I turn back, my face schooled, he nods without comment.
His expression is as stony as usual, but I learned during our years serving together to read the small tightenings of his mouth and eyes, or the way he makes himself guardedly blank instead of just habitually stoic.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Radner wants to see us all. Briefing at oh-eight-hundred.”
“Why?” I know damn well it’s most likely phase two of our mission, but the thought sweeps restless anxiety through me. I perch on the edge of my desk, reaching out for my wand to busy my hands.
“She’s not in the habit of explaining herself to me.”
Something in his tone sounds like an attack on Radner. I know she makes herself hard to like. But I can’t hear someone criticize her without my ears ringing faintly. That faint buzz is an echo of the day I came to know her, one of the few memories of the war that wakes me up at night.
I’d been deaf after the bomb blast in Terek, except for that high steady ringing, a maddening sound that blocked out everything else. Radner knelt next to me, shoving her weight into the beam that pinned my shoulder. I hadn’t been able to hear myself screaming, but my throat was raw. Once she freed me, she sank her fingers into my bloody shoulder and healed me. Radner pulled me up—she said now she saw something in the stupid young gun I was at the time—and I’d run with her into the shattered remnants of an orphanage, where we sorted through the rubble until we found the still, gray faces of children. Some of them we’d even been able to bring back to life.
I run my fingers through my hair to push it back from my forehead. “She doesn’t have to explain herself to you.”
“Oh, I’m aware.” Mycroft certainly tried for an explanation, judging from that acerbic tone of his.
There's something else bothering him—something beside the difficulty of being both a young officer and a genius with the relentlessly long chain of command above him—but I already know it won’t help if I ask again. I knew better than to ask a first time.
I move to the bathroom door and push it open, glancing through the curls of steam to check that Tera really is
in the shower and not eavesdropping. I wouldn’t hold it against her. We’re keeping secrets. Tera is too smart for that, and I don’t like our odds those secrets will hold long. But the consequences are dire if she figures out our lies. At best, she’ll find herself banished Earthside once again. Since she could be useful to the True, I fear the Crown would have a worse fate for her.
Along with the hot, humid air in the shower, I breathe in the creamy strawberry scent of her shampoo. My nostrils flare. I’ve taken to showering after her, because her soap-and-shampoo scent is so intense right after she showers. I like how her hair carries that sweet scent in its glossy caramel strands.
But the important thing is, she isn’t listening.
I cross the room to Mycroft and say softly, “Radner will want us to move to stage two.”
“Stage two should be bringing Tera on board,” Mycroft says. “We’re playing with fire right now. When she finds out…”
“She’ll get over it.” My tone is a hell of a lot more certain than I feel. “We don’t know her that well yet. We still have to assess her loyalty.”
“She jumped out of a building when I said go.” Mycroft’s jaw tightens. “I think we can gauge her loyalty.”
“She didn’t have a choice.” I don’t like remembering that night.
I’d slammed myself into that door to break it down while Tera was trapped in the tech lab with a human bomb. Mycroft and I coordinated by bubble, strategizing to get her out safely. When we knew I couldn’t breech the room in time, I’d sent my wand smashing through the window, to clear the way ahead of Tera’s desperate jump. The emotion of the night had only hit me when I saw her in Mycroft’s arms, her slender legs draped over his arm. Her eyes had been wide as a doe’s. But she’d been fearless when we needed her to be.
I have my own instincts when it comes to Tera. She doesn’t belong to the True.
I didn’t think she belongs to the Crown, either, though. And that’s a problem.
“She’ll understand,” I say again.
Mycroft throws me a pitying look. “I don’t think you know as much as you think about women.”
“I have three sisters.”
“Who don’t talk to you.”
“We talk,” I say. “It’s just hard. They’re all the way in Vasilik—”
Mycroft grunts. He doesn’t actually give a damn about my sisters. Or my excuses.
The shower cuts off. I glance toward the door and then at Mycroft, who has moved to the sideboard under the window. He hovers his palm over my silver metal coffee pot. Mycroft has a lot of uses, and one of them is making the perfect cup of coffee. I don’t think I’m the one he cares about caffeinating, though.
Tera has gone from sleeping in his and Cax’s room to sleeping in mine over the last two weeks. It happened naturally enough—I like having her here—but something about it bothers me, even though she hasn’t said anything about it.
I can’t ask him what the hell he did to Tera now, but we’re going to talk about it later. If his grouchy personality pushes Tera away from us, it could push Tera into danger. Mycroft’s eyes are fixed stonily on the coffee pot. It makes me want to reach out and smack him.
The order to bring her home came from the top, and those same folks could find her more trouble than she’s worth. What my intuition tells me doesn’t matter much if someone decides to throw her back through a portal, or worse. We can’t expect to have any allies if that happens. Most people will have little sympathy to spare for a Donovan.
She’s our mission. And sometimes, it seems like maybe she’s our girl. We can’t let that happen to her.
When she sticks her head out the door, with a wide grin across her face, my heart rises. Her hair is dark brown when it’s wet, twisted into one thick ribbon to one side, and droplets trickle down her exposed skin. One slender hand holds the towel in place with a twisted knot, so only a sliver of the curve of her breast is exposed, but it’s enough to make my imagination slide into overdrive. I’m suddenly uncomfortably hard, and I wander back toward the window for no good reason. I’m pretty sure everyone in the room knows how little I care about the scenery.
“I thought I heard you,” she says cheerfully to Mycroft.
Mycroft grunts in response.
I used to think he was a great spy, but today I’m not so sure. Maybe Tera doesn’t bring out our professionalism. I’m currently trying to hide the mass straining uncomfortably against the front of my trousers, so I certainly don’t feel all that professional.
I’ve never wanted to kiss my mission before. Although I had to seduce a target once to complete a mission, I felt nothing for that woman, no matter how charming I pretended to be. This is new territory.
“Radner wants to see us,” I say to the chipped white radiator in the corner.
“Great. And today started off so well.”
“Want coffee?” Mycroft’s already pouring a cup. The scent of fresh coffee rises in the air.
He carries it over to her. I glance back over my shoulder as she anchors the towel firmly with one hand—damn—and reaches out her slender arm to handle the hot white cup gingerly, by the rim. When she takes a sip, she winces. “I like it better when Stelly brings me coffee. She brings me sugary lattes. You give me nothing but bitterness.”
Stelly also brings her compliments—Stelly is nothing if not effusive—and Mycroft has nothing to offer but grunts. I have a funny feeling that may be what she’s really getting at.
“Black coffee is good for you.” Mycroft pours a second cup and takes a long sip, his hand still lingering on the top of the coffee pot, as if he’s willing to fight me over the dispensation of caffeine in my own room.
“A little sugar never hurt anyone,” she says.
Subtle. I’m embarrassed for both of them.
“Sugar is poison,” Mycroft says.
She rolls her eyes, then crosses to the laundry basket nestled next to my dresser. Her clothes are clean and folded. I’m not quite ready to clean out a drawer for her, but every time she goes down the hall to get something from her own room, I worry she won’t come back. “Well, you could use some sweetening, Mycroft.”
She drops the pretense, and then, with her back to both of us, she drops the towel.
Mycroft chokes on his coffee, sputtering helplessly for a second.
Tera is nothing if not unpredictable. A bead of water still trickles down her spine—too many knobs are visible, and I resolve to make sure she eats more—toward her narrow waist. Her hips and ass are surprisingly full for such a tiny thing, though, and I long to trace my palm over those curves. She shoves that ass against my hips every night when she sleeps, her head nestled on my shoulder, her hair tickling my jaw.
She’s matter-of-fact as she leans over, pulling her jeans on, as if she isn’t tormenting us both on purpose.
“What goes on in your head?” Mycroft’s voice is a low grumble. He finally looks away, with visible effort.
“What goes on in yours?” She turns, shrugging a lacy white bra on. Her breasts are small, with perfect raspberry nipples, and then she clasps the bra, drawing her breasts up and together, creating the faintest dimple of cleavage between them.
If Mycroft is anything like me, the only thing going on in his head right now is: Mine. She’s mine.
Mycroft sets his coffee mug on the desk with a clink. “Are you ready to go see Radner?”
“No,” she admits. Then she gives him a once-over, her eyes sweeping slowly over his body, before she looks to me. A mischievous smile arches over her lips. “But neither are you.”
I shake my head. “You really are evil.”
Her lips quirk to one side, but she doesn’t comment. A second later, someone shoulders open the door and comes in. I step forward, ready for a fight, before I recognize Cax’s rawboned body and flop of blond hair.
Tera gives me a questioning look. I nod, pretending that didn’t just happen, pretending she didn’t notice.
Together, the four of us head ac
ross campus to Radner’s office. It’s still early, and diffused morning sun lights the fog spreading across campus with a glow. Above the wisps of white fog, trees spread their leafy green branches across the hazy sky, and the spires of buildings rise beyond them. It’s cool this morning—fall is coming on fast—and Cax casually slips off his jacket as we walk, draping it over Tera’s shoulders. She turns her face up to him, smiling. My own short wool coat feels heavy now, a bit too warm. I should have offered her my coat first.
I’m normally pretty smooth. Seduction is a part of my job. But with this girl, this time I actually feel something, I can’t quite seem to turn on the charm. Maybe I shouldn’t dog Mycroft.
Maybe it really is different when you’re falling for someone.
If Radner realizes that, we’re toast. She’ll pull us off Tera’s mission or worse. I put my hand on Tera’s lower back to usher her up the stairs, and she takes a step in toward me, so we’re close together as we head into the Arts building.
Radner’s office is down a long hallway, and the dark wood floors are polished by years of other students’ feet Two hundred years ago, some great-great-grandfather of mine walked down this hall too. I wonder if his life felt as complicated.
Forget all that for now. I lean my shoulder in Radner’s doorway and give a quick knock. The hall is empty, quiet; she’ll know it’s us. Even with her office sound-proofed, she’d rather we had privacy.
“Come on in,” she calls.
Mycroft opens the door and Tera starts to go through—even Croft opens the door for a lady—but he shoves past her. I catch the edge of the door to hold it open. For a second, hurt flashes across her face, and she stares at his broad back with wide, luminous blue eyes. Then it’s gone; she fixes a smile on her face, straightening her shoulders, and breezes in with her shiny golden-brown hair bouncing against Cax’s jacket.
She could be one of us. I hope one day she will be.
“Good morning,” Radner says. We echo back her greeting; there are only two straight-back chairs in front of her desk, and so the four of us cluster around them without sitting. She doesn’t invite us to make ourselves comfortable.
