Mercenary Magic (21 page)

“Fifteen.”

He frowned. “You deserve something extra.”

“Maybe. But this is what I get. I knew what I was getting into when I signed on with them.”

“I want to give you something extra.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Firstly,” she said. “Because it’s against the conditions of my contract with Mayhem. And secondly, because I don’t want your money.”

“You need it.” He pointed at her feet. “Your shoes are falling apart. Your clothes are torn. And you should eat decently once in a while.”

“Since when is pizza not decent food?”

He brushed her pitiful joke aside. “If you won’t take the money, at least let me take you to dinner.”

In her head, Naomi’s voice screamed out,
Date! Date! Date!

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” Sera told him.

“It’s a spectacular idea.” He leaned in closer, his magic electrifying the air around them. It purred against her skin. “You’re attracted to me.”

She shook her head.

He grinned. “You are. I can see it in the way your body moves toward mine.”

She tried to step away, but his hand settled on her lower back, holding her in place. “I’m not moving toward you. You’re holding me prisoner.”

“Should I let go?”

No.
“Yes.”

As he dropped his hands, he leaned in to whisper into her ear, “I’m waiting.”

“For what?” she asked, her breath catching in her throat. His words were like honey against her skin.

“For you to prove me wrong and run off.” He kissed her neck once, so softly that she wondered if she’d only imagined it.

“I…”

“I don’t think you will.” He met her gaze. “Even now, you’re thinking about kissing me. You’re wondering if it’s as good as you remember. It is.”

“You’re delusional.”

“Am I? Did I only imagine the need pulsing through your magic as you kissed me back?”

“Kissed you back? Please. I was trying to push your tongue away.” Even as she said the words, she knew it was a weak lie.

“Oh?”

He stroked his hand down her face, his eyes burning into her. When she looked into those eyes, she knew how bone-shattering amazing it would be to be with him—if only she could tame him. But deep down, she knew he could never be tamed. And she liked it. That was the truth of it. She was drawn to the wild and deadly dragon. She wanted him to bathe her body in fire.

“You can still walk away,” he said. His lips brushed against hers.

“I really should,” she agreed, leaning into him as her mouth trailed his.

The moment he kissed her, their magic ignited. He was right. Kissing him was every bit as good as she remembered. Magic sizzled from his fingertips as his hands slid down her body, following her every curve. It had been so long—too long—since anyone had touched her like this. No, screw that.
No one
had ever touched her quite like this. She’d never been caressed by magic. She’d always stayed away from supernaturals. It had been too risky. Being with one of them meant risking exposure. It made her vulnerable.

And right now she just didn’t care. In fact, Kai could expose her like this all day long as far as she was concerned. His teeth nipped lightly at her neck.

The door to the office whooshed open. Sera scrambled off the desk—how had she gotten there?—and watched Kai’s secretary walk across the room. Kai’s shirt was tossed over the back of his chair, and half of Sera’s hair was falling out of her ponytail. The woman didn’t even blink. She set a stack of papers down on Kai’s desk, right beside where he was sitting. She reminded him about a press conference later that day, then clicked her runway heels back across the room and closed the door.

As soon as she was gone, Kai turned his brilliant blue eyes on Sera. They shone with a foreboding light, one that promised pain and pleasure. He wasn’t the least bit mortified that they’d been interrupted while making out on his desk. Realization, that heavy stone of no denial, sank in Sera’s stomach. His secretary hadn’t looked shocked because he did this sort of thing all the time.

But she didn’t do things like this. Not ever. All those reasons why she hadn’t been with a man in so long—they were valid here too. They were even more valid actually. Kai was on the Magic Council, the organization that had made being Dragon Born a death sentence. Sera couldn’t risk her life—the lives of her family—for a man who was just playing games with her because he got his thrills off of seducing women who’d turned him down. That wasn’t the recipe for a healthy relationship. She didn’t know anything about relationships, but even she knew that.

“Sera,” he said, taking a step toward her.

She backed away. “Yeah, so I’m going now.”

He swung around, blocking her way. “We need to talk about this.”

“No, we really don’t.”

“Or we could just pick up where we left off.”

She blocked his hand, pushing it away. “I’m not letting you near me again. Not ever.”

“Why not?” he asked. The look in his eyes was pure sin.

So she focused on the air over his shoulder instead. “You make me lose all sense of reality.”

She realized her mistake as soon as she said the words, and his satisfied smile only reaffirmed that.

“That’s a good thing,” he said.

“No, it’s not.” She stood as tall as she could and put on her best official-sounding voice as she quoted the lines from the guild’s procedure handbook, “Our business is concluded now. Mayhem thanks Drachenburg Industries for your prompt payment.”

“Very impressive, Sera,” he said. “Did you have to practice long to sound so stiff and pompous?”

She’d memorized the lines years ago. She’d just never used them before. Because he was right. They really were stiff and pompous. She preferred to wing it, but winging it with Kai had gotten her into nothing but trouble.

“Mr. Simmons values your business. If there is anything Mayhem can do to assist you in the future, please don’t hesitate to contact him directly,” she finished, passing him.

“Oh, our business is far from over,” he said, his words following her out the door. “I’ll be in touch all right.”

And he wasn’t referring to Mayhem.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Bearer of Magic News

A FEW DAYS later, Sera came home from work exhausted. She’d fought more than a few horrible monsters that day. It had been nasty and gory—and so completely normal. Routine even. Routine was good. It meant monsters and goo and all kinds of disgusting gunk. There was no drama, no crazy mage cults trying to take over the world, and absolutely positively no big-headed mage shifters who turned into dragons.

Most of all, routine meant a nice, quiet Friday pizza night at home, where the only villains present were confined to the television screen. Riley had promised to order two large pizzas with extra cheese. This was definitely an extra cheese sort of day. Chasing a flock of crotchety harpies across the city was exhausting work, especially when they could fly and Sera was stuck on foot. After that ordeal, she was hungry enough to finish one of those pizzas all by herself.

She could hear the television playing when she came through the front door. The hot, cheesy aroma of pizza wafted down the hall, a delicious beacon drawing her onward to the living room. Halfway there, hunger gave way to dread.

He was here. His magic hummed through the living room like a well-tuned orchestra in an acoustic hall, the vibrations buzzing and bouncing off her skin. The heavy, potent—and yet sweet—scent of dragon magic drowned out the pizza. She was almost as mad about that as his intrusion. Ruining pizza night was a criminal offense as far as Sera was concerned, and he’d managed to do it two weeks in a row.

Riley turned his head, looking at her over the back of the sofa. “Hey, Sera.”

Two open pizza boxes lay atop the coffee table, only a handful of slices left inside of each. An old horror movie cheesier than the pizza played on the television. Kai lifted a slice from the box, then threw back a wink at Sera.

“What the hell is he doing here?” she demanded.

“Joining us for pizza night,” said Riley.

“Like hell he is.”

“Now you’re just being rude. You already tried to kick him out the last time he visited. Kai might start to think you don’t like him.”

“No worries,” he told Riley. “I know she adores me.”

Sera’s jaw locked up. She started counting down from ten.
Ten, nine.
“Your ‘friend’—and I hesitate to even call him that—”

“With or without the implied quote marks,” said Kai.

Riley snorted.

Eight, seven, six.
“—has been lying to you from day one. He lied to you about what he is, who he is—”

Riley turned to Kai. “Wait, so you aren’t really a first tier mage who shifts into a dragon and heads the San Francisco branch of Drachenburg Industries?”

Sera gaped at them in disbelief.

“He told me everything.”

Five. Four.
“Oh, how grand of you.” She shot Kai her best saccharine smile. “At what point did you finally admit to my brother that you’ve only been pretending to be his friend?”
Three! Two! ONE!
“And that you have been lying and manipulating him all in some demented attempt to spy on me because you are—wait, what’s that? Oh, right. A freaking psychopath!”

“Are you a psychopath?” Riley asked Kai.

Kai shrugged. “Only some of the time.”

She growled at them.

“Careful, sweetheart.” Magic burned behind his eyes. “Some might take that as an invitation.”

“You’re hitting on me here? Really? In front of my own brother?”

He turned to Kai. “Do you mind?”

“No. In fact, please do. Take her out. Show her some fun. Someone has to. She’s so tense that you could bounce lightning off of her head.”

One of the pizza boxes burst into flames.

“I see what you mean.” Kai waved his hand, and the flames dissolved into steam. The box was slightly charred around the edges but otherwise undamaged. The air now stank of dragon magic and fire, though. Kai gave her a stern look. “What happened to controlling your magic?”

“You invaded my home.”

“I see. I make you lose all sense of reality. Isn’t that what you said?”

She glared at him and imagined his hair on fire.

“If she actually said that to you, she must really like you,” Riley told him. “Sera doesn’t get emotional over just anyone. Though there was that one guy…Zachary, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t get emotional over him. I planted magic bamboo on his front lawn.”

Magic bamboo was just like normal bamboo—except it grew a few thousand times faster.

“She did it in the middle of the night,” said Riley. “By morning, his lawn was so overgrown with the stuff that he couldn’t open his front door. He had to climb out of a second story window to escape.”

“Magic bamboo is a heavily controlled magical species. You need a special license to buy it. How did you get your hands on something like that?” Kai asked her.

Sera held up her hand before Riley could answer. “Don’t tell him. If he knew, he’d feel obligated to report it to his colleagues on the Magic Council.”

“I haven’t told them about your magic,” said Kai.

“Yet. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Sera replied.

“I don’t drop shoes,” he told her. “I throw them.”

“Of that I have no doubt. You probably set them on fire first too.”

“Naturally.” He smirked at her. “I like making things burn.”

The words smacked against her—her own words, ones she’d spoken while drunk on magic back in the burning tower. It was a reminder that she’d come too far. She’d allowed her magic out, and now she was having a hard time pushing it back down again. And no matter what she said, it wasn’t just because of Kai. He rubbed away at her control more than anyone else, but even when he wasn’t around, it was a constant struggle to keep her magic in check. It had taken on a life of its own, a wild and glorious and devastating life.

Maybe that’s why the Dragon Born had all been killed. Maybe they really did become monsters. But she couldn’t exactly go digging for answers because that would mean admitting what she was—and facing punishment.

“Tell me about this Zachary. Did you sleep with him?” Kai’s tone was almost clinical, as though he were asking her to describe a foot fungus.

“First of all, that’s none of your business,” she said. “And second of all, yuck!”

“Good.”

“He used to work for Mayhem too. One day, he decided it was his mission in life to annoy Sera. Out of the blue, of course.” Riley grabbed a pizza slice from the box. “Or so Sera claims.”

She watched a glob of hot cheese dangle precariously off the tip. “Are you going to eat that?” she asked Riley.

“Yeah, but there’s more. If you sit down with us, we’ll even share it with you.”

Sera looked pointedly at Kai.

“You’re not kicking him out. He’s my friend, and he saved your life.” Riley nodded. “That’s right. He told me everything about your grand adventure fighting a cult of insane mages.”

Sera hoped Kai hadn’t told him
everything
. Her brother really didn’t need to know that she and Kai had made out on top of his desk. Sera didn’t even need to know that. Or remember it. Or whatever.

“Actually,” Kai said, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Sera and I saved each other.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll just go to bed then.”

“Are you sure? We saved a whole pizza just for you,” Kai said.

She stopped mid-stride and pivoted around. “Show me.”

He held up a box from Wizard House Pizza, and her hunger returned with a vengeance. She felt her feet walking toward it. The promise of pizza had a special magic of its own, a magic aided by a long and exhausting day spent chasing harpies. Hunger battled it out with her resolution not to go anywhere near that man.

Hunger won.

Sera plopped down on the sofa between Riley and Kai, knowing she’d regret this. Just not as much as she’d regret it with an empty stomach. The dragon handed over the pizza box.