In all those years, all those breakfasts ordered, Dae had tried everything on the menu in all its iterations. His favorite by far was the French toast but he tended not to eat when he was invoked—it dulled the magic and his focus—so when the waitress came by, he ordered a cup of black coffee.
He was scanning his phone while waiting for Ashley when someone slid into the other side of the garden booth. The leather groaned beneath the added weight.
Dae could smell his brother before he looked up. Poe’s scent was woodsy and old and reminded Dae of the Black Forest in Germany where they had spent many a night sleeping beneath the stars, the air crisp in their lungs, the night silent and still.
Dae looked up. “Get yourself invoked, did you?”
Poe smiled.
All djinn had a specific scent to their magic, but it was stronger when invoked. It was a power thing that helped establish rank. An invoked djinn demanded more respect than one that wasn’t. Though the idea was to grant as many wishes as you could, to keep the power and the magic flowing, it really was a balancing act between power and life.
The more restrained djinn lasted about a millennium. The power-hungry ones just a few hundred years.
Though it was the power that demanded respect, it was age that was most revered.
Red was one of the oldest still alive. Only the Northman twins had him beat by a few hundred years. They’d been born Vikings in 795 A.D. Though neither Northman had admitted it, everyone suspected that they fed off each other’s deals in some kind of twisted twin way. While the amount of wishes a djinn had remaining was always a closely guarded secret, known only by the djinn themselves and the Conclave Wish Counter, rumor had it the Northman twins still had several hundred to go.
If Dae were to stand next to them, a human would have a hard time deciding which was younger.
Fucking Vikings.
“Eating alone?” Poe said.
“No.” Dae darkened his screen. “I’m working.”
“The bedraggled bunny from last night?”
Dae wanted to argue that Ashley was anything but bedraggled, but contesting it would make it seem like he cared, and he was suddenly in a sour mood. His brother did that to him. “What are you doing here?”
“Red was craving a monte cristo.”
Dae sat up straighter and looked around. “He’s out of the house?”
“He is.” Poe sipped from his tiny cup, clearly pleased with the fact that he’d known something Dae didn’t.
But Dae didn’t care. Red was out of bed.
“Where is he?” Dae asked.
“I suspect he’s in the hallway staring at Ma.”
Dae shifted his attention to the far left corner, where, on the way to the restrooms, the hallway was lined with framed portraits of the people who had been significant to the café’s history. One of those portraits was of his mother. Dae avoided it for the most part, though if he were being honest, it was his favorite of his mother. It’d been taken back when photography was still new, when the subject had to sit still so as to avoid the blur of the long shutter. There was this barely-there smirk on his mother’s lips like she was trying so hard not to laugh.
At the time, Dae had been in Europe, corrupting the nobility.
He should have been by his mother’s side.
If he had, maybe he could have talked her out of granting all her remaining wishes on the human she thought she loved.
“Ahh, there they are,” Poe said. “Looks like your little bunny has captured Red’s attention too.”
When Dae caught sight of them something in him shifted. Like a missing piece of his long, storied history had clicked into place, filling a hole he hadn’t realized he’d had.
Dae always kept his marks from his family and for good reason. Deals didn’t always end well. And sometimes humans got it in their heads that they were somehow owed something more than what they got.
Keeping his work separate from his real life kept things clean when the deal was done.
But now Ashley and Red were having a hushed conversation as they crossed the dining room like they were old friends.
Did Dae hate this? He wasn’t sure. He should hate it. He should take Ashley out of there and keep her well enough away from his family so that she didn’t learn any of his secrets.
But another part of Dae that he wasn’t entirely familiar with wanted Ashley to really see him and his family. Starting with Red.
When they finally made their way to the garden table, Poe stood up and took Ashley’s hand. “Here, my darling,” he said and gestured for her to slide into the booth on his side.
Dae lurched to his feet, his scent saturating the air. His magic swelled around him. Every part of him bristled.
With a quick flick of his hand, his magic lashed out and slammed into Poe. Poe lost his grip on Ashley and rocked back on the heel of his boot, his hand catching the back of the booth just in time to keep him upright.
Dae gritted his teeth. Though he said not a word, Poe caught the message.
Mine. She is mine.
Ashley blinked over at Poe as he got his bearings.
They did not usually use their magic on one another. Their power was for manifesting anyway and it was rarely used as an active weapon. But when it came to a djinn’s mark, anything was fair game.
Body still pulsing with power, Dae grabbed Ashley by the hand and tugged her toward him. “Have a seat,” he said. “I took the liberty of ordering you a cup of coffee, as well. I hope that’s all right.”
“Oh sure. Thanks.” She slid inward, causing her dress to ride up on her thighs.
Fuck.
Power pulsed through his body. His nerves lit like a wick.
Using his magic always made him a little ravenous and not always for food.
Dae locked his jaw when he caught a flash of the bare flesh of Ashley’s inner thigh. And then he imagined his fingers pressing hard against it, dragging her into him.
The magic in him sunk to his cock, making it throb.
Bloody hell.
He slid in beside her and their legs pressed together.
What he wanted to do was slide his hand up beneath her dress. He wanted to tease at the seam of her panties, graze his fingers against her. He wanted to rest his finger at her opening and do nothing, knowing that the absence of motion would cause her to squirm beneath him, to want it, to want him.
“Dae?” Poe said.
Dae tightened his hand into a fist. “Yes?”
“I was just telling Ashley that we were planning to have a get together at the house tonight and that she was welcome to come if she so chooses. You didn’t already have a date, did you?”
Ashley leaned forward, propping an elbow on the table. She curled her hand around her mouth while she pretended to look over the menu, pretending not to listen.
Fucking Poe.
There was no get together. Or at least there hadn’t been until this moment. So clearly Dae did not have a date for this make-believe event, which meant his brother was purposefully trying to make Ashley uncomfortable.
Poe really knew how to make Dae angry at the worst possible moment.
“Of course not,” Dae answered, feeling the throb of his arousal wane quickly and swiftly. “Ashley, would you like to join me tonight?”
“Oh. I don’t know.” She lifted the menu, her eyes running back and forth over it at a pace that said she was not reading it. “I mean...probably I’ll just stay in tonight. It’s a weeknight and I have work and—”
“Surely you can come out for a few hours?” Poe said. He put his arm over the back of the booth, angling his body toward Ashley.
“Well, I don’t know....”
Dae looked at Red for help. Red lifted a shoulder, a just barely-there sign that he was indifferent to the situation. Sometimes Red liked to watch things play out just for his own amusement. Not that he would show any amount of reaction. Red was cool like stone.
So Dae was on his own then. He leane
d into Ashley and lowered his voice conspiringly. “If you’d rather not throw yourself to the wolves, you are more than welcome to decline the invitation. In fact, I would recommend it.”
Her chin in her hand, she twisted to look at him, her fingers curled around her face. Her teeth raked at her bottom lip as she considered, her lashes catching the sunlight pouring in through the garden window, rimming her eyes in gold.
He could almost hear her shouting his name in pleasure.
He could almost see those same lips wrapped around his cock.
Perhaps her coming to his house tonight was a mistake.
Say no.
This was the very last thing he needed right now. He needed to focus on the deal. Play by the rules. If he was going to ask Ashley for her last wish, he could not complicate the situation by fucking her, too.
He needed to keep things professional and—
She bit her bottom lip again as she looked at him and his body nearly jolted as she let her lip go and it popped out, plump and wet.
“It has been a while since I’ve had a good excuse to go out,” she said.
Poe clapped. “Then it’s settled!”
Dae scowled at Poe, his chest tightening, magic flaming.
Last night he thought there was nothing special about Ashley. So why was he simultaneously happy and discontent about the idea of her being at the house?
He could say no to one bloody human.
Surely he had more control over his cock than that?
“What should I wear?” Ashley asked him, pulling him from his thoughts. “Will this get together be casual? Formal?”
He had a flash of her dress riding up again, the bareness of her thighs. He pictured her in lace panties and nothing else.
No he did not have that level of control. Not with Ashley, apparently.
Without thinking, he put his mouth at her ear and whispered, “Wear something sexy for me.”
She sucked in a breath.
The waitress appeared.
Red ordered his monte cristo. Poe flirted with the waitress in French.
But Dae didn’t pay attention to any of it. Not when Ashley looked over at him, cheeks red and mouth wet, and said, “Okay.”
He could smell the heady scent of her echoing arousal. He could hear the rapid drumming of her heart.
None of this was going the way he thought it would.
What had he gotten himself into?
Chapter 13
ASHLEY
When Ashley and Dae emerged from Café on the Rise over an hour later, Ashley was well fed and a bit dazed. The croissant had been flaky and fresh, the coffee rich and robust. But it was the company she’d kept that had made the brunch date completely unforgettable.
And she realized when she blinked up at the noon sunshine that she hadn’t thought about James at all. She hadn’t thought about him or their broken marriage or the fact that he’d lied to her for months while he screwed Isla.
The Blackwells really were magic if they were capable of making her forget about the one thing that was on her mind at every single minute of the day.
Ashley didn’t know much about the Blackwell family other than the random gossip she heard in the office and around town. Despite that, she felt like she already knew a thing or two about who they were. And it was clear that both Dae and Poe highly respected and loved their grandfather, almost as equally as they loathed one another.
As she stood on the sidewalk outside Café on the Rise with Dae standing before her, she tried to reason with herself as to what she’d witnessed inside earlier when Poe took her hand and Dae lashed out with a jolt of neon red magic. Had no one else noticed the magic? Or was she the only person in the city who didn’t know magic was real until yesterday?
Dae pulled a pair of sunglasses from his inner jacket pocket and slid them onto the bridge of his nose. He could have passed for a mafia boss or a highly sought-after male model.
How was she standing with him right here, right now, on a normal sidewalk, on a normal day? She didn’t want to leave him. But she also felt like she didn’t belong beside him. Like a mayfly trying to stand with a lion.
She swallowed her misgivings and said, “What time should I be there tonight?”
Dae slid his hands in his pants pockets. “Eight is always a safe time.”
“Eight p.m.?” She was usually in bed by ten!
“Yes. Is that all right?”
She nodded, maybe a bit too enthusiastically. “Oh yeah, of course! I was just thinking that seemed awfully early.”
The line of his brow rose, like he was not buying that lie, not for a second.
“Eight it is,” she said. “I’ll see you then.”
“Good bye, Ashley Laurent,” he said, smiling as he turned away.
Instinctively, she brought her hand to her lips, feeling the tight pull of her smile, the rawness of the happiness spreading across her face.
What was this feeling in the pit of her stomach?
If she didn’t know any better, she’d think they were butterflies. But butterflies were for love-sick teenagers, not grown women facing a divorce.
Thinking about the D-word, and about James, Ashley pulled her cell phone from her purse and lit the screen.
5 Text Messages from James
2 Missed Calls from James
“Holy shit,” she said.
She swiped through the texts.
I’m sorry, the first text from James said. Please come back to work before someone notices you’re gone and you get yourself fired.
Then, Ashley, please answer my phone call.
I know what you’re doing—you and Matthew are just trying to get back at us and I completely understand, but it’s not the way to go about this.
Ashley, why aren’t you answering your phone?
We need to talk.
She clutched the phone to her chest as a squeal escaped her throat.
The magic was working!
Dae was a friggin’ genius!
Now, what would James think if he found out she was going to Blackwell House tonight?
Should she tell him?
God, she really wanted to.
She kept walking as she thought.
On the one hand, he would definitely freak out if he heard she was going there. But then how would she explain the invite? She couldn’t really tell James that she’d sought out Dae Blackwell because she heard he could grant her three wishes and she’d gone over there to wish for James to come back to her.
Ashley, a new text came through. Please just let me know that you’re all right.
He still cared about her even if he wasn’t willing to admit it yet.
Ashley’s chest warmed with the realization. James was going to discover soon enough that she was his best friend and Isla was just a phase, a sexual attraction and nothing more. And Dae was going to help him along.
I’m fine, she texted back.
Maybe she should play a little bit of hard-to-get.
Stop texting me, she added.
When are you coming back to work? he asked.
I’m not, she said. I’ll see you tomorrow, James.
And then she silenced her phone again.
God, that felt good.
Now she had to get home and start searching through her closet for something to wear tonight. Did she even own something that Dae would think was sexy? What did he consider sexy? She’d thought she’d dressed sexy today, but maybe he just thought that was her usual? Maybe she needed to show a bit more skin?
And if she couldn’t find something in her closet, well then, she was going to Plan B—she’d call in her best friend Lola for help.
Because Ashley definitely did not want to disappoint Dae.
Chapter 14
DAE
When Dae arrived at Blackwell House, he found Mad and Thorin lounging in the conservatory off the back of the house. The glass-enclosed room had been built in the mid-1800’s to grow lemon trees in the colder months,
but the trees were long gone now and in their place was a mismatched collection of Italian leather furniture that Red won in a card game.
Though the trees were gone, the house’s staff still maintained a wide collection of plants that were potted or climbing or hanging from the rafters so that when a person stepped down the five steps into the conservatory it almost felt like entering some exotic locale.
Dae liked the air and the light in there and whenever he stepped beneath the arched wrought iron that made up the glass room’s frame, he was reminded of that one time he took the virginity of a less-than-innocent French girl in a conservatory at Hapwell Manor in northern Wales.
Though it’d been one of her wishes—her first—Dae had made her beg for it, pretending instead that he was sorely against it, that it would be extremely ungentlemanly for him to deflower her when she was due to marry a boorish baron in less than three months’ time.
Really, the truth of the matter was, when a wish was made, Dae was powerless to ignore it, though he could get creative with the delivery and interpretation of it.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a good number of wishes were about sex, in particular sex with Dae. He rarely had to swindle women into wishing for his pleasure. They just automatically wanted it.
Their last house manager, Margaret, liked to say that the Blackwell brothers were “preternaturally good looking and ridiculously desirable. God help any woman who crosses their path.”
Being desirable helped sell the deal. It was just part of the magic.
“There you are,” Mad said when he saw Dae come around the sofa. “Thorin and I were just saying we were surprised we hadn’t seen you yet. Did you spend the night with your bunny?”
Dae sat on the other end of the sofa. “Why are you all insisting on calling her a bunny?”
“Because she looked like she wanted to dart back into a hole last night when she showed up,” Thorin said.
“Exactly.” Mad gestured at their younger brother with the hand that held an open bottle of beer.
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