Cold Burn of Magic (21 page)

“Just one.” His voice took on a low, husky note. “I could list all the others, if you want.”

My gaze locked with his and my soulsight kicked in, showing me all of his emotions. And I felt them, too—more intensely than I ever had before. His heart still ached with that soul-crushing guilt, and it always would. But that hot spark I'd seen inside him that first day at the Razzle Dazzle had finally ignited into a roaring fire, burning as hot and bright as my own emotions were right now.

Devon hesitated, then leaned in, just a little. My breath caught in my throat.

He inched forward a little more. I wet my lips.

He came even closer, so close that his warm breath brushed my cheek and his scent flooded my nose, that sharp, fresh tang of pine. Clean and crisp, just like he was, inside and out. I sighed. Suddenly, my hands itched to touch him, to trace my fingers over the sharp planes of his face, and then slide them lower, over all of his warm, delicious muscles . . .

“Lila,” he whispered.

I shivered, loving the sound of my name on his lips—lips that were heartbreakingly close to mine—

“There you are!” a voice called out.

I jerked back, the spell shattered, reality slapping me in the face again. I'd almost kissed Devon Sinclair. The guy I had blamed for my mom's murder for so many years. The guy who had turned my life upside-down by walking into the Razzle Dazzle. The guy who was the reason I'd almost been killed tonight.

But Devon had looked at me with those forest-green eyes, and I'd forgotten about everything except wrapping my arms around his neck, touching my lips to his, and pressing my body against his until we blazed, burned, and melted together into the heat, darkness, and dangerous swirl of emotions. Part of me still wanted that—part of me
ached
for it.

Footsteps slapped across the roof, and Felix appeared.

“You know that you're in my chair, right, Lila?” he asked in a teasing voice.

“I wasn't aware it had your name stitched on it,” I sniped back, trying to play it cool and pretend everything was fine and that my heart wasn't alternately pounding and breaking for too many reasons to count.

“I'm sure I can ask one of the pixies to help me with that,” he said.

I got to my feet. “Well, I wouldn't want to make any extra work for them. Seeing as how they're probably busy with my breakfast bacon right now.”

Felix waved at me. “Sit back down. I was kidding. I can bring an extra chair up here some other time—”

“That's okay. I was leaving.”

I didn't look at Devon, although I could feel him staring at me, his gaze scorching across my face.

“Are you tired of Mr. Dark and Brooding already?” Felix teased again.

“Yeah.” I let out a weak laugh. “That's it.”

Felix looked at me and Devon, then frowned. “If I'm interrupting something . . .”

“Nope,” I said, cutting him off. “I'm going. I need a snack, anyway. Fighting for my life against bad guys always makes me hungry. I'll see you guys at breakfast.”

“Well, okay,” Felix said. “If you're sure . . .”

I started backing across the roof. “I'm sure. Later.”

I turned away, hurried through the open door, and ran down the stairs into the mansion before Felix, or especially Devon, could call out and ask me to stay.

F
elix and Devon didn't follow me, and I made it back to my room without running into anyone else. Good thing, too, since I was about to drop from exhaustion. Seeing Mo, packing up my stuff, the attack, talking with Devon, almost doing . . . whatever we'd been about to do.

My emotions were the things I guarded most closely, covering them up with sticky fingers and smart-ass comments, but tonight, I felt like my feelings were out in the open for everyone to see, shining as big and bright as one of the pawned diamonds on display at the Razzle Dazzle.

Bracing myself, I opened the door to my bedroom. I expected to find a scowl-faced Oscar slouched on his porch, drinking his umpteenth honeybeer of the day and ready to tear into me again for daring to be nice to him and Tiny.

Oscar was actually outside his trailer, but he was pacing back and forth on the lawn, something that he had to be sober to do, given the straight line he was walking. And he was muttering to himself.

“Idiot,” he grumbled. “That's what you are, Oscar. A complete and total
idiot
. She called you a redneck cowboy, as if there's something wrong with that. I
am
a redneck cowboy and
proud
of it. And yet here I am, all worried about her like the soft, stupid, bleeding-heart
fool
that I am—”

The pixie stopped at the sounds of me opening, then closing the door. He twitched his wings, took flight, and zipped over to me. He hovered in the air in front of me, his violet eyes scanning me from head to toe.

“What?” I asked. “Do I still have blood all over my face or something?”

I'd meant it as a joke, but his eyes bulged at my words. He zoomed back over to his trailer, flew inside, and slammed the door shut behind him.

I stared at the trailer but the shades were drawn, and Oscar didn't make so much as a peep inside. No music blared, either.

“What was that all about?” I asked Tiny.

The tortoise kept on chewing on a lettuce leaf. No answers there. Not that I had expected any.

“Well, good night to you, too, Oscar,” I muttered.

Still shaking my head at the pixie's weirdness, I headed toward the bathroom.

 

By the time I finished in the shower and threw on some pajamas, I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. I'd stayed under the spray of warm water for close to half an hour, but I'd still be stiff and sore in the morning. Angelo and Felix had only used the stitch-sting to heal the gash in my leg. It wouldn't take care of my more mundane bumps and bruises. But Devon, Felix, and I had all lived through the fight, and that was more than enough for me.

I staggered into the bedroom and was about to fall face-first onto the mattress, when a distinctive aroma tickled my nose. I stopped and sniffed. Was that . . . bacon?

My stomach rumbled.
Definitely
bacon.

I looked around and realized that a large tray of food was sitting on the coffee table in front of the TV, so I headed in that direction. Two large, scrumptious-looking BLTs were arranged on a platter, along with heaping scoops of pasta and potato salads. Another platter held fresh fruit, cheeses, breads, and cold cuts. And still a third platter boasted an assortment of cookies, brownies, and truffles, along with bite-size pieces of fudge. A glass filled with ice stood off to one side of the table, along with a stack of napkins, silverware, and several cold sodas.

“I thought you might want something to eat,” a low voice called out.

I turned to find Oscar sitting on his front porch, swilling down a root beer, for a change.

“Since you weren't here for dinner,” he added.

My stomach rumbled again. I was never one to turn down food. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He shrugged and went back to his root beer.

The sight of all that food energized me, and I sat down on the sofa, grabbed the napkins and silverware, and dug in. Oscar had been nice enough to bring the food here, so I figured I could be nice enough to eat it. Okay, okay, so it wasn't much of a sacrifice on my part. But I really didn't want to find itching powder in my bed or garbage stuffed into my sneakers like he'd threatened. Pixies might not be the largest or strongest creatures around, but they were some of the most devious. In their own way, the little monsters could be even more dangerous than the big ones. Like he'd said, Oscar could make my life miserable if he wanted to.

I sank my teeth into the BLT and sighed at how good it was. A perfect combination of smoky bacon, crispy lettuce, ripe tomatoes, and creamy mayonnaise, all on warm, toasted, sourdough bread. I polished off the first sandwich and started on the second.

Oscar watched me stuff my face for ten minutes before he broke the silence. “So is it true? Did you save Devon and Felix from an ambush? And take out a couple of Volkov guards?”

I stopped chewing long enough to answer him. “Yep.”

He almost seemed impressed, before his face scrunched back into its usual scowl. “Well, I wouldn't make a habit of taking on guards from other Families,” he snapped. “Next time, you may not be so lucky.”

“No,” I agreed. “I may not be so lucky next time. Maybe next time, there won't be anyone there to help me. Maybe next time, I'll get in the middle of a fight I can't win.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you mocking me?”

“No,” I replied. “That's what happened to my mom. Sort of. She got involved in something that wasn't her problem, and she got killed as a result.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Suddenly, I didn't feel like eating anything else, so I put the rest of the BLT down and pushed away my plate. Oscar drained his root beer. Then he twitched his wings, flew across the room, and landed on the table next to the food platters.

“Why did you agree to stay and work for the Sinclairs ?” he asked. “If you're as good a thief as you claim, you could have left any time you wanted to. Claudia wouldn't have come after you, no matter what she said. Not after you saved Devon's life in the pawnshop.”

I shrugged. “It seemed like it would be better than living day-to-day and job-to-job like I had been. Cloudburst Falls is a dangerous place. I might as well get paid for facing down those dangers every day.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “Like the silverware you stole from downstairs? I found it in the vanity table when I was putting away some of your clothes.”

I picked up one of the forks off my plate. “I thought this looked familiar.”

Oscar snorted, as though he were trying to hold back a laugh.

The pixie cocked his head to the side and stared at me. Uncomfortable with his scrutiny, I grabbed a couple of strawberries, then stood, walked over, and dropped them into Tiny's corral. The tortoise cracked an eye open. Once he saw the berries, he heaved himself to his feet and slowly plodded in that direction.

Oscar fluttered over and landed on one of the fence posts that ringed the corral. We watched Tiny start munching on his berries.

“Why do you stay?” I asked. “Being part of a Family is dangerous, even for a pixie. So why not find another job down in the city with some rich mortal businessman and his wife and kids? With some folks that you know will most likely live to ripe old ages? Because people around here are still in danger. At least until someone figures out who's behind the attacks.”

I didn't say anything about Devon, with his compulsion magic, being the target of the attacks, even though Oscar already knew about his Talent. I bet most of the other pixies did, too. They'd watched Devon grow up. Some of them would have seen him use his Talent at some point, especially when he was first figuring out how his magic worked. And other people in the Family had to know as well, even beyond the ones Claudia mentioned. I hadn't said any more words than necessary to the kids at the rube public high school, but they'd still known not to mess with me. A Talent, something that was so much a part of you, would be even more difficult to hide, especially from the folks who lived under the same roof as you.

“I've thought about that,” Oscar said, answering my question. “I've worked for the Sinclair Family for more than a hundred years. You wouldn't believe how many people have come and gone during that time.”

What he really meant was
died,
but I didn't interrupt him. Now was not the time for a snarky comment.

“It's always hard when a Family member dies,” he continued. “Even if it's from old age. But things have been tense ever since Lawrence was murdered on New Year's Eve. Everyone thinks that the Itos were behind the attack, but I'd put my money on the Draconis. We've always had more problems with them than any other Family.”

He spat out the name as if it were some sort of vile thing. I thought about telling him that I felt the exact same way about the Draconis, but I kept quiet. If I interrupted Oscar, he might storm back into his trailer. I had enough problems already. I wanted to solve at least one of them. Or, at the very least, make peace between myself and the pixie.

“So why do I stay?” Oscar sighed. “I don't really know. I guess I'm just a dang
fool
.”

He scuffed the heels of his cowboy boots against the fence post, then stared off into space. Tiny continued to munch on his strawberries.

“It must be hard. Getting to know people, and then seeing them die, one after another.”

He let out a hoarse, bitter laugh. “You have no idea. It would be bad enough to go through it once or twice, but over and over again, for decades on end? It's
torture
. And every time—every single
time
—I tell myself that I'm not going to get involved. That I'm not going to care about the next person who walks through that door. But I end up doing it anyway, and then they always get killed.”

He scowled, but tears shimmered in his violet eyes. It had been bad enough seeing the aftermath of my mom's murder, but Oscar had lost dozens of friends, if not more.

“Well, you don't have to care about me. Not one little bit. And you don't have to worry about me getting killed, either. If there is one thing I'm good at, it's surviving.”

Oscar snorted, as though he didn't believe me, but the briefest, faintest of smiles flickered across his tiny face. Suddenly, I wanted to make him smile—really smile—the same way I had Devon.

“Just do me one favor.”

He eyed me with suspicion. “What?”

“Don't put itching powder in my bed,” I drawled. “At least not tonight. I'm too tired to sleep on the couch.”

He barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. Oscar's lips pinched together, and he gave me another suspicious look. I winked at him, scratched Tiny's head, and got into bed.

My body was already starting to tighten up from the fight, and I let out a low groan as I reached for the sheets, trying to pull them up.

“Let me,” Oscar said, grabbing the sheets.

He lifted them up and over my body before tucking them in under my chin, just the way I liked them. He stood there on the bed, shifting back and forth on his feet, his wings twitching, not quite looking at me.

“Good night,” Oscar said.

“Good night.”

The pixie twitched his wings a final time, fluttered over to his house on the table, and went inside for the night. But for once, he didn't slam the door shut behind him. He gently closed it instead.

I smiled and snuggled down a little farther under the sheets.