Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (17 page)

“What does the rest of my life look like to you, Gran? I meet a nice boy …” — Gran’s eyes flicked to Desmond — “Oh, no. Not a nice boy. A powerful one, maybe, who likes pretty things in his kitchen. I have pretty babies, who if they’re very, very lucky, grow up to be powerful enough for their Great Gran.”

“Are you done?” Gran said.

“Not yet,” I answered. I raised my hands to hover palms-up over my crossed knees. The magic of the wards came to my call, dancing over my fingers and along my arms. “You’ve never asked, Gran. You never asked what I figured out about my magic while you were supposedly off surfing. You just demanded that I close the portal, cleaned up Sienna’s so-called mess, and tried to ignore that anything had ever happened.”
 

“I raised Sienna from the time she was thirteen.”

“But any love you had for her, you erased from your heart as you eradicated her blood magic in the basement.”

“As it should be —”

“What if it had been me?”

“It would never have been you, Jade.” Gran softened her tone, but I wasn’t ready to back down yet.

“You don’t even know what my other half is … what if I’m some sort of demon?”

“You aren’t,” Gran snapped at my stupidity.

“But I could be.”

“Scarlett,” Gran said, turning to look at my mother as if she was going to step between us. My mother was anything but stupid, however.

No, Scarlett had never been as naive as I was, even when having sex with a being of unknown power during a fertility rite at age sixteen. I’d always thought of my mother as frivolous and inconsiderate. Now I understood that every step she took was deliberate. A witch bred from a long line of witches who turned out to manifest powers of charisma and charm rather than … than whatever power Gran expected her to have. And then there was good little girl me, who never expected to be anything — because it was never expected of her.

“I’ll go to Portland,” I said, completely letting the subject of power and magic drop as I watched the wards’ magic pool in my palms. Desmond huffed out some sort of laugh behind me. Gee, so glad I amused him.

Gran watched me with hooded eyes as I allowed the magic to snap back into place. I’d been gearing up for some sort of power-display tantrum but stopped myself. The tantrum had been expected, I saw, and now Gran was perhaps a little unsure of what was going on in my head.

“I’ll go with you,” Scarlett said. Gran flicked her gaze to her daughter. “Since you need to stay here, Pearl.”

Gran pursed her lips but didn’t speak. Kett leaned back on the couch and crossed his legs — a gesture full of satisfaction that I was surprised to see on the vampire.

I had so much to say, so much to ask, but I really didn’t like the answers I was stumbling upon. “I’ll need to bake in the morning,” I said instead. “Bryn already takes the Sunday shift, and we’re closed Monday. So we have two days.”

“We might need more,” Kett said.

“Blackwell has an agenda,” Desmond added. “Why else set Portland as the meeting place? We’ll figure it out before Monday.” So everyone was on board now. The troops were rallying — but to what end, I had no idea.

Gran rose and I followed. I walked her to the door, down the stairs, and out into the alley. She’d parked her car right next to the dumpster. Towable, if I ever felt like being a real asshole. But then, she held the lease on the bakery and my apartment, which was something I’d never had to worry about before.

Gran had clicked the car locks with her remote key before I found what I wanted to say.

“Nothing will ever be the same now. For you, that’s not because of Sienna’s death, but because I can open the portal.”

Gran looked as if she was going to chastise me for speaking of such things out in the open. But then she simply said, “I gave you everything you ever wanted, Jade. Including Sienna.”

“Yes. In bite-sized, chewable pieces. An easily digestible life. Never knowing who I could really be.”

“I will not apologize for loving you.”

“I scared you. In the basement,” I said, finally voicing what I’d seen in Gran’s face that night. When Sienna tried to kill us and ended up dying herself.

Gran squared her shoulders. “No, Jade. You surprised me. Enjoy the trip to Portland.”

I nodded. Gran climbed in the car and pulled away.

Well, that was what loose ends and unspoken pain felt like. Another new and oh-so-delightful experience. A wedge between me and the child I once was, as if I was both and neither at the same time. Moving forward and stepping back.

∞

I blinked up at the stars overhead and thought about Mory. Had I inadvertently, out of guilt, thrust her forward without giving her time to mature in her grief? Had I blundered ahead, blind but ever the perky go-getter? Thinking I was making my own choices but just doing so out of spite, not deliberation?

“Are you going to stargaze all night, dowser?” Desmond’s deliberate drawl confirmed he was behind me. Though, I’d crossed through the thinner wards of the bakery when I stepped into the alley, I had actually felt a trickle of magic move when Desmond leaned in the alley doorway.

I turned to look at him, all muscle and meat. His hair would be naturally shaggy if it wasn’t cut so short. He didn’t have a charming bone in his body.

“What are you thinking?” he asked. I was surprised he cared.

“I was thinking it would be nice to skip the heart-to-heart.”

“Talking only leads to fighting with us anyway.”

“Yes.”

He waited for me to step back into the kitchen. I waited for the impulse to do so, very glad that his magic was dampened by the wards so I couldn’t claim I’d been overwhelmed and intoxicated by it.

“You don’t want me in Portland,” I said.

He chuckled. “So you choose the talking option even knowing where it leads.”

He moved out into the alley. I didn’t step away, though I had to lift my chin as he neared.

He looked up at the moon. It was a half sliver, low in the sky. The dim light softened his features, but with the sharp taste of his magic now so near, I wasn’t fooled. I wondered if the moon called to him, as I thought it might for Kandy. He was a cat, though, not a wolf.

“I haven’t eaten dinner,” he said.

“Is that an invitation?”

“Yes.” No chocolate and flowers in his directness. But then, I could buy my own chocolate, and I thought cut flowers were a waste of money.

“I’ll cook. I’m not dressed to dine out.”

“We’ll order in.” Some sort of caution edged his reply. He didn’t want me cooking for him, but accepted the baking? I’d always been more of a baker than a cook, but I could put a meal together.

He looked at me, then. With the moon behind him now, his features were cast into deep shadows. “I liked you better in the forest,” he said. He flashed a white-toothed grin.

“The feeling is mutual.” I turned back to the bakery.

He laughed and followed me. I was tired of talking, but I also had to restrain myself from having my way with him on the stainless steel workstation as we passed by it on the way to the apartment stairs. That restraint didn’t stop me from imagining the sequence of events in great detail, though.

“A pizza,” I said. I folded the apartment wards around Desmond as we walked up the stairs without really thinking about it.

“Three,” Desmond answered. “Five, if Kandy is joining us.”

Right. My mother, the vampire, and my werewolf bodyguard were all upstairs.

I turned around in the middle of the stairs and opened my mouth to say something cute and flirtatious. I couldn’t really see Desmond in the dark of the stairwell. I hadn’t even thought to turn on the light.

He pulled me to him, his tongue in my mouth before I even invited it. I wrapped my arms and then legs around him, as I had in the forest. I was barely able to twist my fingers in the hair on either side of his head. I’d never kissed anyone I could cling to like that. My weight was nothing to him.

His mouth locked on mine, he swiveled on the stairs and descended so quickly that we created a breeze. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who’d fantasized about the stainless steel tables in the bakery kitchen.

Desmond settled me on the edge of one of the workstations, and I arched my back and neck up for his attention. He obligingly nuzzled my neck, nipping my collarbone at the edge of my T-shirt while I tugged on his shirt and yanked it up and over his head.

I ran my hands across his now-bare shoulders, over his taut skin, and curled my fingers in the pool of hair in the middle of his chest. In the forest, the hair there had been the same color as the fur of his mountain lion form, not that I could see it in the darkness of the kitchen.

“Are you dampening your magic?” I asked, taking the opportunity to nibble on his neck. The dampening was a skill both he and the vampire possessed. Gran would be jealous.

“Hmm,” he answered as he tugged my hips closer. My ass was practically hanging off the table, but I wasn’t even remotely in danger of falling. I assumed that was a ‘yes,’ but before I could tell him to stop it — I liked the way his magic felt underneath my skin — our mouths were locked again and I forgot the thought.

He ran the heel of his hand up my spine and I arched back into it. The strength in that one hand should have been frightening, but it wasn’t.

I leaned away from him to lie back on the table as he turned his mouth to my neck and shoulder again.

My eyes had adjusted to the low light offered by the digital clocks on the ovens, and I caught a flash of white teeth as he grinned again. I liked this smile. It was completely unsuited to Desmond’s usual brusqueness, his all-business and no-play demeanor.

He splayed his hand across my lower ribcage, then shifted his thumb up and over the mound of my breast to tease a nipple through my clothing. I moaned softly and tried to pull him closer with my legs.

He pressed his other hand to my hip to hold me down, inadvertently covering my knife, which was invisible to him. He grunted, slightly surprised, but just shifted his fingers higher to curl around my waist.

He tugged my T-shirt up and leaned down to kiss my belly. I moaned again.

He laughed, his breath hot on my sensitive skin. Self-satisfied prick. He was completely confident that he could have me — that I would probably beg for it — right there and then.

Well, I guess he was right. And the confidence made him more, not less, sexy.

He continued to softly kiss my belly and abs, running the tips of his fingers along the top edge of my jeans.

“I will not beg,” I said as I tried to not squirm. Or perhaps writhing was the better description.

He laughed and looked up at me. “Begging doesn’t suit you, Jade. You taste good. Do you taste this good everywhere?”

I freaking melted into a pool of hot, sticky desire. I knew he barely contained a monster beneath his skin. I had seen said monster in the flesh just yesterday. And still, here I was, all wet, pliant, and ready to writhe for him. I didn’t have a witty comeback, so I simply sat up, pulled my T-shirt off, and locked lips with him again.

“I see the bond is misfiring again.”

A cool voice cut right through the literal heat Desmond and I were generating, skin to skin.

His hand stilled at the clasp of my bra as I — just barely — managed to not start shrieking obscenities at the intrusion.

“Fuck off, vampire,” Desmond growled, but he didn’t turn around. Thankfully, he never gave a shit about being polite.

Kett’s voice had come from the stairwell. I figure he had a pretty good view of McGrowly’s back and my legs from that vantage point. Not that I was naked, but I didn’t go around just flashing my bra — though it was terribly pretty, a light-blue demi-cup with white flowers up the straps.

“Yes, of course. I understand the attempt to settle the bond. If this doesn’t work, my offer still stands.”

“What?” I mumbled. My lips were actually swollen from kissing, a first for me.

“This is not about the bond,” Desmond snarled. “And what fucking offer?”

That last part was directed at me. I admittedly was still fuzzy from desire. Desmond was putting things together quicker than I was.

“I would never have offered, shapeshifter. Had I known you were going to make a claim.”

“I’m not a freaking piece of land,” I said. Then I started looking around for my T-shirt.
 

“What did the vampire offer you?” Desmond asked. “To break the bond? Again?” By his growl, it was obvious he didn’t like to ask twice. Hell, he didn’t like to ask at all. He preferred having everyone jump at the snap of his fingers.

“Is that why you were dampening your magic? You want to have sex to settle the bond?”

“You initiated. Both times.”

Yep, I had. I could also uninitiate, even without my T-shirt.

I untangled my legs and pushed Desmond away. He stepped back, though voluntarily. I wasn’t sure I could dent him even if I tried. Maybe with the SUV.

I snagged my shirt off the floor but didn’t bother wrestling it over my head. I was going for dignified, not mortified.

“Dowser,” Desmond said.

So I was back to being dowser, was I?

“Get your own pizza,” I said over my shoulder as I reached the stairs to my apartment. “And don’t wreck my kitchen.”

“We aren’t going to fight over you.”

“You already are,” I answered. “Too bad it’s for all the wrong reasons. Otherwise, it would be the sort of thing that could turn a pretty girl’s pretty little head.”

I climbed the stairs, deliberately laying my feet to each riser and not stomping like I wanted to. My jeans chafed my inner thighs and groin. That pissed me off further. I was going to need a cold shower and maybe some quality time with the showerhead … except I wouldn’t be able to masturbate with Scarlett and Kandy in the apartment.

So, cold shower it was then.

At least I had the upper hand with both the vampire and the shifter. Neither one was getting back through my apartment wards without my invitation again.

When compared to the sizzling make-out session, it was a dull victory.

∞

So Scarlett cooked. I packed and grabbed three hours of sleep, which was all I seemed to need these days.