by Lexi Ostrow
Deidre growled uncharacteristically at the mention of the asshole’s name. “And a mass-murdering, egotistical warlock suddenly made it home?” Anger simmered just under the surface of her skin. If Deidre were a shifter, her beast would rear its head with the mere mention of Vexx.
“Not in the slightest. Or else, wouldn’t I have cozied the place up?” Jonathon stood and rubbed his fingertips over his eyebrows. “He showed me how dangerous this city was. He made me realize putting down roots was not in the cards. So, I’ve been silently waiting a transfer out. And now this.”
“Now, you’re stuck here about to drown the city.” She rose to stare directly into his fierce gaze. “I still don’t understand the point. I say I can’t remember something, and you launch into some diatribe about why you hate New Orleans … what’s the connection?”
“The connection is simple. Emotions make you weak, but we all have them. I love helping people, but it stands to reason this city is beyond help. The Supernaturals came out too hard too fast. The tensions in this city roar like molten lava rushing inside a volcano. Every single time we defeat one psychotic prick, another steps in to take his place. Each time we’ve won. Remembering this man or not, we’ll win this time, too. It’s what we do. We win, and we move on. For me, it means I leave. For you, you can get back to playing little miss detective for the NOPD.”
“Excuse me?” She’d been entranced as he’d spoken, nearly mystified at his acute sense of the world despite his lack of years on it. For a brief moment, Deidre understood the reason he hid behind a wall and wanted to break him free from it. Then he’d insulted her, and suddenly she was back with the man she barely knew.
“You’re playing around where you don’t belong, and it got you put in a situation you don’t belong in.”
“I don’t think you ought to use that tone with a woman who can outmatch your power.” Green magic blazed in her hands. She’d never hurt Jonathon, but it was time he learned his place.
“Attacking an officer is against the law.”
Just like that, her anger fizzled and popped as laughter tumbled past her lips. The sound echoed through the empty living room. Deidre knew laughter had no place now, but still, she gave herself over to the amusement trickling through her for a moment longer.
“I’m not sure what I just witnessed … I know women are fickle, but what the hell was that, Dee?”
She stifled the rest of her laughter, nibbling her lower lip to regain her composure before she spoke again. “You gave me the exact same answer as Sam did when I threatened to zap him for not including me on something simply because I wasn’t actually on the police force.”
Deidre expected a small smirk to slip over Jonathon’s lips. One didn’t.
“I’m not certain I see the amusement in that, but I owe you an apology.” His arms crossed over his chest, emphasizing the muscle his small frame held. “I’m on edge because I want to end this before I have a hand in killing thousands of people, and if I'm honest, you’re not the person I’d want to be tied to during this.”
“Because I’m damaged?”
He didn’t nod, but he didn’t need to. “Because you’re emotional. Lita and Sam nearly killed hundreds of people because they were emotionally invested in each other. You’re emotional, period. It’s not a slight. It’s a beautiful, wonderful thing to have a soul like yours. I see it in the way your aura glimmers around you. You’re empathic and kind, but you’re not who I need on this case. I need someone cold and logical. Someone ready to rush head-long into the danger not because they’re an adrenaline junkie, but because they have the ability to get in and out.”
Deidre needed to be offended, but she found it impossible. Jonathon was the single most logical person she’d ever met. He did things by the book and only by the book. He didn’t drink more than he knew would get him drunk if he didn’t have a transport potion home. He didn’t get involved in arguments he couldn’t win the few times they’d spent time together. No, he was calm and level-headed, and she didn’t doubt it was the only reason why he succeeded at what he did.
“I can understand that.” She spoke calmly because he was correct. In a situation where one needed to think like a criminal, not only wasn’t Deidre qualified, she didn’t want to be.
“I apologize for offending you.”
“It’s fine. We’re adults. We’re pissed, and I don’t know about you, but I’m scared.”
He blinked, and then a smile did appear on his lips. Unlike his usual expression, the smile softened the hard lines of his face and even made Jonathon’s normally hawk-like eyes to widen and appear gentler.
“I’m terrified. Not for myself, but for the city. For you.”
“I can handle myself.”
“It’s not about that.” He moved out of the living room entirely, standing in front of the large bay window near the empty dining table and looked out. “You just lost your entire world and learned how to get back on your feet weeks ago.” Jonathon’s forehead rested against the glass. “I don’t know if I could forgive myself if we can’t stop this because I don’t think you will recover.”
Deidre didn’t know what to say. Lita would insist she’d be fine, Ivy would likely shoot off a bolt of fire at Jonathon to remind him of her power. Deidre wasn’t either of her friends. If she caused the deaths of thousands and the hex didn’t kill her too, she didn’t doubt she’d lose herself.
“I can’t have you putting that responsibility on your shoulders.” Deidre rose, her legs shaking a little as she crossed over to stand behind him. Her hand reached out and gently landed on his shoulder, forcing him to turn and look at her. “I might be the worst person for this, but I’m here. You aren’t alone. I’m not going to curl into a little ball and close my eyes, waiting for this to stop. I don’t want to destroy my city. I want to destroy whoever did this to us.”
“How are you able to accept this? After everything Vexx did?”
Deidre blew out a slow breath through her nose, noticing the way it left her momentarily dizzy. “Vexx took the most important person in my life away from me. He didn’t take my life. He left me broken and bruised, but he left me. I won’t allow another person to take anything else from me. I’m done being an accidental victim.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever get to meet the woman who managed to survive hanging out with the likes of Lita and Ivy.” He shifted and extended his hand. “Jonathon Trevors, a pleasure to meet you.”
Deidre smirked but shook his hand. As expected, his grip was firm. Powerful.
“Nice to meet you. I’m sure when this is done, we’ll be better friends than you and Sam.”
Jonathon chuckled. “The man called me Trevors for two years until I asked him to stop. I don’t think we’re that close.” His smile faded a bit. “Not to be a poor host, but I can smell me, and I don’t like the way I smell.”
Deidre bit her lip, but a snort slipped out. “Please, go. You showed me the second room, and as much as I want to stop this before anything happens, something tells me I need a nap, and a shot of goddess only knows what from Jay.”
Jonathon tugged the navy-blue shirt over his head.
Deidre wasn’t one to go around ogling men, even before she’d been married, but the man before her was worth staring at. Despite his narrower stature, every inch of Jonathon was corded with muscle. His abs damn near begged to be touched, and his biceps bulged without the baggy shirt over them. She let her gaze linger for just a moment before looking away.
She’d always found Jonathon attractive – in a young sort of way – but he was more suited to Ivy’s type than hers. She loved a man in uniform serving their country, but she didn’t care for rules and regulations. Jonathon Trevors ran his life around them.
What are you even thinking about? She chastised herself as Jonathon slipped past and closed the bedroom door behind him. Goddess, there really must be something to that silly logic that trauma links people together.
Trauma or not, when this was over,
Deidre didn’t doubt her attraction to the warlock would have grown exponentially if she didn’t admit the attraction to herself and move on.
Shake it off, Dee. The last thing a young, focused, cop would be interested in is sleeping with someone to avoid the drama they’re stuck in.
Nine
Deidre didn’t know if laying in the bed until she heard Jonathon outside was the move to make, or if she should stay in the room, pretending to be asleep, until he knocked on the door to check on her.
“You’re acting like a child,” she whispered, chiding herself as she rolled to stare into the floor-length mirror on the right side of the room.
Her reflection wasn’t kind. Her dark black curls stuck up in an array of directions. Despite a few hours of sleep, red lines weaved patterns inside the whites of her eyes that would have many questioning if she did drugs. Purplish circles lined under her eyes, further adding to her dishelved look.
Though it didn’t show in the mirror, when she ran her tongue over her top teeth, she confirmed bits of yesterday’s meals remained caked on because she’d forgotten a toothbrush during the quick run to her house.
Don’t think about it. Deidre snapped her mouth shut, immediately unable to think of anything but the day-old food particles wreaking havoc on her teeth. Teeth that were over five hundred years old. Witches didn’t decay any differently than humans, but if a filling only lasts about ten years, then one tooth could need three hundred fillings before a witch died.
Not appealing.
“Deidre?” Jonathon’s deep baritone came through the door. “You awake?”
“Only if you have a toothbrush for me!”
His chuckle was unexpected. “I have, why didn’t you say something last night?”
Because last night I would have surely said or done something stupid.
“I was a bit in my head last night.” Swinging her legs over the bed, she plodded across the hardwood planks and tugged open the door. “I’m sure a man like you never forgets something as simple as brushing his teeth during trauma.”
Though he didn’t hold up a toothbrush like some white knight, he did have a nondescript green cup filled with what smelled like chicory.
“My teeth can wait.” She grabbed for the ceramic mug and inhaled. The sweet hazelnut aroma wafted to her nose, and a smile played across her lips. “I should have known you’d drink your coffee dark.”
“I know the impression I give off is that there’s a stick up my ass, but I promise you, there isn’t.”
Tipping the mug, Deidre let the warm liquid run over her tongue and delighted in the taste. Though it smelled sweet, the coffee was delightfully bitter. She swallowed and took a second sip before addressing Jonathon.
“You’re tightly wound for such a young man.”
“I’ve seen things that age a person. Victor Vexx was not my first damaging criminal.” His lips pursed together. “That doesn’t matter right now. I just wanted you to know you don’t have to act a certain way around me. Not now. Not ever. This situation is my top priority.”
Deidre couldn’t tell if she’d insulted him, but she knew by the gaze in his eyes he’d moved on to business. “About that … how are you going to handle that with work?”
“I spoke to Patrick first thing this morning. I let him know there’s something brewing in New Orleans and that while I couldn’t speak on it, having the Council pull a favor and get me off other work would be in the cities best interest. While I’m not a fan of shifting my sleeping schedule right now, you’re awake, our criminal is also likely awake, so I’m awake.”
“I imagine Patrick wasn’t too keen on being in the dark?”
His lips lifted in a smirk. “Not in the least. He even forbade me from speaking to anyone else about it if I wouldn’t share it with him.” Jonathon shrugged. “All that matters is he agreed to get me off duty for the next month.”
“Do you think that’s long enough?” She shifted to lean against the door frame.
“I think that hurricane season ends in late October and it’s late July. If this person wants this to seem like mother nature in a tizzy, this time-release hex will start any day now.”
She swallowed. Not to take in a sip of coffee, but to push down the uneasy tension that rolled through her at Jonathon’s suggestion. Deidre didn’t have a control issue, but the idea of not being in charge of her body – of her magic – made her more than a little nervous. Which means Jonathon must be ready to jump off a cliff.
“So, what’s the plan? You weren’t wrong. Aside from casting the spells I’m told to cast, I don’t know what I’m doing in the NOPD. I don’t have a mind for mysteries. Shit, I don’t even like crosswords on kid’s menus.”
Jonathon stepped out of the way and walked toward the table. Again, Deidre couldn’t help but notice the firm muscles that ran the length of his body in the loose workout shorts and top. One day, if he ever ventured away from his desk, he’d find the woman of his dreams. Jonathon Trevors was old school, despite being young. The heart of a knight and the soul of a gentleman lived inside him. He was chivalrous, but not demeaning, and women all over the world liked that sort of thing.
“My only idea besides this one is to plead with the Council to invoke the time travel spell.”
“Ivy will stand against it. So will Elijah. Especially if we can’t offer details into why we need it.”
“Yes. I imagine Patrick will as well since he’s made mention of being trapped in the damage more than once. I fail to see how time travel is as bad as what we could do.” His fingers wrapped around the edge of the circular table, going white at the knuckles as he clamped down. “So, for now, we do this. We find the person, and if we can’t handle it on our own, we cast the damn time travel spell on our own.”
“I don’t know how.”
“We’ll learn how. An invisibility potion here, a lock break there, we’ll get the spell, and we’ll save the city if we can’t stop what’s about to come.”
Breaking the rules didn’t sound like the man she’d come to know, but she’d follow him to hell and back if it meant not drowning hundreds of thousands of people. Breaking rules suited her. She did it plenty before Gerard’s murder. Maybe the universe was simply offering her a challenge to find her old self.
Fuck off universe. That’s what I have to say to that.
“I have an idea. Something I was too frazzled to think of yesterday in lieu of essentially murdering two good members of the NOPD.” His voice fell on the final words. Jonathon gestured to the blank white pages and unassuming boring pen sitting next to it. “We can’t speak – but what if there’s another way to communicate?”
Hope sprang to life as elation moved through her body and practically pushed her toward the kitchen table. Hexes were complex to begin with, and the one riddled with djinn blood and tossed on them might be the most difficult ever brewed.
“There must be a weak link somewhere in the cast.”
“Precisely my thoughts.” He picked up the pen. “If you won’t object, I do want to be the one to try this. I know you’re better at healing, and my pain tolerance is likely higher having been shot and cast at for the last six years on a damn near daily basis.”
“No objections here. One second though.” She pivoted and crossed back to the room to grab the stainless-steel wand of the bedside table. “I’d prefer to focus my magic if something goes wrong.”
He merely nodded as the tip of the ballpoint pen touched the blank page. “Here we go.”
Tension rocked through her, and Deidre dropped her hand on top of Jonathon’s, stopping him. “You don’t talk when you write, do you?”
He raised a dark brow. “I do not.”
Deidre blew out a breath. “Okay, good.” She moved her hand but didn’t take a step away from the table.
Leaning over his shoulder, she watched as he wrote the words on the page in the neatest print she’d ever seen from a living person and not a machine.
There’s an attack on Ne
w Orleans. We don’t know who or when, but we’re being forced to summon a hur-
“Fuck!” Jonathon leaped back from the page as the top left corner nearest to the ink burst into flames.
“Neró!” The spray of water erupted from the tip of the wand, soaking the page in seconds, but not extinguishing the flame. “What the hell?”
“Hold on.” Jonathon cradled his left hand, and Deidre glanced down to see the skin moving from a smooth, but angry, red to a large blister.
“You’re hurt.”
“Dee, stop. Look.”
She glanced back down at the page. The flame was gone as if it puffed out of existence the minute it ran out of ink to burn. Black bits of paper clumped together on the table, but the blank portion of the page remained unharmed.
“My goddess,” she breathed in terror. “Who cast this?” A shiver of goosebumps broke out along her arms. She’d not seen power like this outside of Ivy’s mother and maybe her best friend on occasion.
“I don’t know, Dee.”
“Let me heal your hand. That blister isn’t getting any smaller.” She took hold of his hand and ignored the spark that jolted through her. It was from the fire, no doubt. Angling the wand at the blister that nearly covered his thumb and seemed to expand over the top of his hand, she whispered the command. “Therapévo.” A faint green tickle moved over the skin, flattening the blister until it vanished. When the light let up, the skin was still red, but unharmed. Sometimes the basic healing spell was enough when the injury was small enough.
“Thanks. Having you here saved from me a ridiculous call for help.” Jonathon rubbed his right hand over his left. “I hate blisters.”
“Cell phone.” She blurted, grabbing his off the table. “Still want to be the gentleman?”
He nodded. “You’re not going to text me … are you?”
Deidre shook her head. “Not exactly.” She slid it across the table to him. “Unlock, please.”
She couldn’t see the number combination he tapped in, but that was fine.