Get us somewhere safe. The best place.
NOW!
Magic took over. I instantly felt the world shift and coalesce again.
I blinked furiously, trying to see in the dim lighting.
There was a crash and a shattering of glass. And Matthias Mardes stood staring at me over the edge of the barista counter at Uncommon Grounds coffee shop.
I cracked a smile. Good magic. You found coffee.
Then Jack walked into my line of sight, her short red hair gleaming in the light. Because of course, her apartment was in the same building as the shop. Right above Momoru Investigations.
“Well, well. Allis Evanenko. Looks like you’re breaking your teleportation curfew.”
A groan escaped me, and I leaned my forehead against Cendric’s chin.
Bad magic. Baaaaad magic.
From one ex-friend’s den to another’s.
Chapter 15
I pulled away from Cendric, and his wings disappeared with a rush of dark magic.
Disappointment filled me. They were really pretty. Still, I handed him the duster still clutched in my hands.
“So, Al. What are you doing here?”
“The universe hates me,” I retorted. But I refused to meet Jack’s gaze. All I could think about was the expression on her face as she admitted to giving me the drugged coffee and suspended me from working with Momoru Investigations, after I had finally found a stable place to work and a circle of friends I could trust. Cutting me off, forbidding me to enter the coffee shop. No texts. No calls.
Only a handful of platitudes about having to win, and something about ashes.
I tipped inside her head, just a little bit. Her loudest and clearest desire was to have me gone as quickly as possible. Her greatest fear also had to do with me.
She’s never going to accept me. She’s a shifter. After what I did to the bear, every shifter will always be against me, except for Gideon.
I couldn’t argue with my thoughts, no matter how insidious they seemed.
Perhaps I should disassemble her.
That thought I could argue with. Instead, I shoved it away. Again.
Matthias cleared his throat. It was a musical sound—then again, he was a siren, one of the only male sirens who had ever existed. Sirens were officially labeled Unspoken because they tended to use their innate empathy for pretty nasty things, like killing people for hire or for vengeance. Matthias, however, had forsaken the family trade of assassination in favor of running Uncommon Grounds and moonlighting as a singer.
Now, he studied me. I felt his empathy brushing over my mind and let him read a little, just because I felt like it. His dark eyes softened after a few seconds. “Can I help you, Allis?”
Jack glanced at him. “Matt, we can’t, not until we know—”
“Yes, we can. I can. And it’s my shop too. Principally.” He flashed her a look that was half understanding, half deadly firmness. Unusual to see on his typically mild-mannered, handsome face. He rubbed his nose. “If you’re concerned about the kits, you can leave and check on them. But in the meantime, I can get these friends coffee. Right?”
“Yes.” The vampire’s voice was ragged in my ear.
“This isn’t a good idea.” Jack growled. “Not yet.”
“They’re already in the shop, Jacklen. They’ve clearly been through a lot. I’m giving
them coffee. Neither of them means any harm.”
“Not yet they don’t. But they will.”
He shot her a wry look. “If you’re trying to tell me that your ability to detect threats is better than mine, you’ll have a long argument. And I’ll tune you out.”
Jack growled again, although something in her eyes flashed approval. Some kind of shifter body language.
And she said they weren’t dating.
I shot a look at Cendric, and he nodded slightly, lips twitching. He’d seen the exchange as well. How odd for us both to know the same people and to have never met each other. I glanced at a group of couches near the front of the room. Another memory emerged. “We met there.”
“You were using an entire couch for you books and your laptop,” Cendric said. “The other was taken, so I asked if you could make room. And you did. After saying it would cost fifty dollars because I wore a tailored suit.”
A chuckle escaped me. “You almost paid, as I recall.”
“You looked like you needed the money.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Has every single one of our meetings been you taking pity on me and trying to give me things?”
“Ironic, considering how you always respond with suspicion.” He returned my smile, but pain tightened his eyes.
Realization hit me. “You’re wounded!” I gave him a lookover. “Where? Can I help?”
He shook his head. “They will heal in time. Matthias puts human blood in my coffee on occasion. I don’t like to lean on it, but it does have more potent restorative benefits than plants.”
I checked his left arm, where the tattoo was. Blood crusted the edges of the bites. The rose and flames off the tattoo were intact. Whatever they meant. The shifters had said there was no mate bond. For some reason, that knowledge deflated me. “Well, I can at least get you some napkins.” I grabbed a sheaf off the edge of a counter. “Not sure what they’ll do.”
“…thank you.” And now Cendric was looking at me strangely. “You teleported us away from there.”
“Yup. Apparently life or death situations are the ticket.” I yawned. “What time is it?”
Matthias glanced at a clock on the wall. “3 am. I was trying out some new flavors. What’ll you have?”
“A double. Extra of whatever you feel like. All the flavors.”
“Coming right up.” Matthias tied an apron over his t-shirt and corduroys. He set about moving and heating things and whatever else a barista did to turn roasted beans into their own kind of magic. “Would you like something too, Cendric? Your usual?”
The vampire nodded with a half-smile. “Please, Matthias. Extra strong.”
“Ah, the real stuff. Not often for you.”
“I need to heal.”
There was something cold in the vampire’s eyes now. More calculating, with a polished exterior. Like a friendly shark who smelled blood in the water. I immediately dubbed it “full-on lawyer mode” and filed it away as one of my favorite looks of his.
Cendric tilted his head at me. “You at this shop frequently?”
I caught his drift immediately. “Oh yeah. I live in one of the apartments in this strip of buildings.”
“I come here regularly as well. Interesting.” His voice stayed smooth, but the steel undertone was stronger and sharper.
Jack sighed and flung herself into a chair, slouching into her black sweatpants and hoodie. The perfect place to hide the weapons I knew she regularly wore. “What are you getting at, Cendric?”
“I believe you and Matthias are in this establishment enough to recognize individuals meeting … and remeeting.”
I glanced at Matthias. He clutched the handle of the metal milk pitcher, his desire clear: to spill the information he knew. “I’m here, but often busy making drinks.”
“Yeah, I’m in and out.” Jack kicked her feet against the table and tilted back in her chair. “You know how the private detective life is.”
“Yes,” I said flatly. “A craphole full of lies.”
Cendric nodded. “Succinctly, yes. So, tell me—either Matthias or Jack—how long have you observed Allis and I meeting and forgetting each other? And how can you consider yourselves our friends when you did nothing to intervene?”
Jack snapped her chair forward, her blue eyes gleaming with tension. “We let you keep coming into our coffee shop, even though you were a threat every time you connected with each other.”
Matthias thunked the milk pitcher down. He sighed. “Ultimately, we couldn’t take the risk of revealing what the curse-mark was doing. But I never wanted continue the charade.”
“You think I did?” Jack asked.
“You certainly came to the decision quickly.”
She glared at him. “And you agreed!”
“Hey!” I waved my hand. Jack and Matthias’s arguments were rare, but when they happened, heaven help anyone nearby. “Why were we a threat together?”
Jack turned her glare to me. “Cendric is the blood binder who can break curses. You didn’t need that.”
“Says who?” I stepped forward, invading her personal space. Usually the foxshifter’s
glare was enough to send warning bells through my mind. But now, there were no warnings. Only fury at my so-called friend who had repeatedly betrayed me. “You would rather I live with weak magic, constantly believing that beneath the curse, I’m a monster?”
Matthias set the mugs down. “Your drinks are ready.”
“You are a monster,” Jack spat. “And you’re not the only one, Allis. I’m not going to apologize for protecting you from the consequences. So step back.”
“What are you going to do to me that I can’t teleport away from?”
Shadows consumed her eyes, flickers that seemed to move of their own volition. “You’d be surprised.”
Cendric grabbed my arm. “Allis, you need to be careful. Jack is—”
“Dangerous?” I gave a short laugh. “So am I. So are you, Cid. So is Matthias, for crying out loud! You and he are Unspoken!”
“They are. But I’m different.” Jack’s eyes narrowed, the shadows deepening into thick pools.
A sane person would have backed away. But I’ve only been within a stone’s throw of that on my best days, and this was not one of my best days.
“Different? Oh, I get different.” I stepped even closer. “Go ahead, Jack.”
She bared her teeth, her sharp fox fangs visible, along with her ears and probably her tails if I bothered to look.
“Allis!”
“That’s my name.”
The shadows in her eyes leaped at mine. I’m not sure if it was real or just some magical hallucination, but either way, I went from seeing a café at 3 am to seeing nothing, sensing nothing except a black, blank, deadly cold that swept through my mind and body. Trying to turn me off, like flipping a switch.
I felt nothing. Heard nothing. Terror and emptiness fought for the remainder of my soul as the shadows flitted through.
Flipping more switches.
Circulation, off.
Breathing, off.
Heartbeat—
Not happening.
My Jinn magic rose against the intrusion.
In this moment, I knew it as my own. Not sure what that said about me, but I didn’t give a damn. I wasn’t going down without a fight, even if I took everyone down with me.
I was Jinn.
I dropped the magical shield, letting my Jinn side consume me. For it was a part of me. It was me, a part that so many Fae had tried to lock away while they lied and stole and tricked people. As long as they weren’t Jinn, as long as they had allies to back them up, they could call their trickery goodness and anything I did suspicious.
No more.
Flames of impossible blue magic latched on to the shadows that were destroying me, dissolving each one and turning it into raw magical energy that fueled me and replaced everything the darkness had tried to steal.
My eyes snapped open. Flames flickered from my hands and arms. Improbable, smokeless flames that danced in the wind that was suddenly rushing through the coffee shop.
“Get away from me!” As soon as the words left my mouth, I raised a force of invisible magic and slammed it against her.
Jack let out a startled, barking sound as she careened into a wall, tables and chairs crashing around her. She shifted halfway into vixen form and skidded around the mess of furniture. A moment later she emerged, back in her true form, her narrow, scarred face pale and defiant, although her eyes showed a tinge of regret.
“Nice try,” I breathed
She shrugged. “I had to do what the moment demanded. Now the deed is done.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re now officially a monster. Welcome to the club.”
Confusion spun through me, marring the really nice feelings of anger and vengeance I’d been fostering. “What do you mean?” Then my brain caught up with what had just happened. “Jack, how the crap did you almost kill me with shadows?”
“You saw them as shadows? Interesting.” She crossed her arms. “I’m only one half kitsune.”
“Ah, another lie.”
“Not a lie. An assumption I allowed you to make to protect myself. You’re not the only one with a hard past to hide and people to protect.”
Her words jabbed me deep. Had I really ever understood what her situation was like, raising two kits alone? What else was she dealing with? “So you’re half shadow-demon thing?”
“Skoffin,” she bit out. “And that should have killed you. Because skoffins are trained to go into rages. To find honor and bloodthirsty joy in killing.”
I paused. “Oh. Do you?”
“Part of me does, but I keep it controlled, when I can. I try to use it to help others. But I know what it’s like to have a side that does things you don’t expect. And the last thing I wanted was for you to have to deal with that before you were ready.” Jack glanced sideways at Cendric. “If destiny wanted the curse-mark broken, there would be no stopping it. But I’ve lost too much to let you embrace something that would be dangerous to everyone.”
“So it’s fine for everyone else to be dangerous, but not me?” I scoffed. “It’s fine for everyone else to protect and understand themselves, but not me?”
She grimaced. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Do you know how much I hated myself? How much I still do?
She flinched. “Maybe—
“Save it.” I shrugged, suddenly bored and done with the entire conversation. I turned to
Matthias. “Keep the coffee. Keep all of this. Keep the position at Momoru Investigations. I’ll do my own thing, far away from people who never trusted me.”
I walked toward the door with Cendric by my side.
Matthias called after me, “Allis, wait! Now that the truth is out, we need to talk—”
I looked up at Cendric. “You feel like talking to them, Cid?”
“At the moment? Not particularly.”
Jack spoke up, “We’re not turning on you, damn it! It was an impossible situation.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I retorted. More justifications. Not even an apology. Part of me knew I should take the high road of humility and acceptance. But right now, I just wanted a shower and a change of clothes before the Fae cops or shifters or body-snatching vampires showed up and fought over who got to destroy me.
We left the shop, and I did what I really wanted to do: slammed the hell out of that door.
Chapter 16
Something was burning in my apartment. Again.
As soon as we walked through the door, I glanced toward the kitchen, visible through a large window cut in the wall. The space was filled with a small stove, two wide counters, a double sink, and a fridge. Crammed in the middle was a microwave with smoke pouring from it and curling around a lanky figure who was frantically pushing buttons and cursing.
Gideon was home.
I groaned and rubbed my forehead. “Gideon, really? Please don’t tell me that’s popcorn in the microwave again.”
“Allis?” He looked over his shoulder, eyes wide and face slack with relief. “You’re back! I heard about the shifter gang. They didn’t get to you!”
“They sure tried though.” I tried not to breathe too deeply as I walked around the couch and easy chair toward the kitchen.
He grabbed me in a quick hug and a deep sniff. The sniff was part of shifter closeness—checking up on a loved one, making sure they’re okay. I hugged him back, pressing my face into his t-shirt, treasuring his familiar bony form and savoring the sound of bubble
fountains in our space. All of it familiar and comforting.
A second later, he pulled away, a curious look on his lightly freckled face. “You smell different. More like burning than the popcorn—”
“Hah, I knew it was popcorn in there!”
“No changing the subject.” My brother pulled out my arms, staring at the tattoos that now covered my forearms. “What happened to you, Allis? And what are these?”
“Those are not my fault.”
“Oh yeah? What about this one?” He held out his right arm where tattoos identical to
mine rose off his skin, the same waves, flames, and equidistant cross. “It woke me up a little while ago. Nothing like mysterious magic showing up to make you lose sleep, so I decided to make some snacks.”
Concern swept through me. This was bigger than just me connecting with a vampire. Now my little brother was caught up in it.
I glanced at Cendric standing next to me. “Hey Cid, what’s this about? Also,
Cendric Antalek, this is Gideon Evanenko. And vice versa.”
Gideon shot him a skeptical look. “Who are you?”
Cendric only gave a quick, friendly smile and shook Gideon’s hand smoothly. “I’m representing Allis’s case as blood binder intermediary. We’re also bound on other levels, and it appears she included you in that.”
“In what way?” Gideon’s nose wrinkled. I saw a trace of otter in his expression. “Are you a raven? You smell like a weird raven.” He glanced at my other tattoo again. “Al, are you changing affiliations on me?”
My mouth dropped open. “We’re dealing with serious issues, and you’re concerned I’m supporting the wrong football team?”
“I’m just saying there are an awful lot of raven shifters in Baltimore. You need to check your affiliations.”
Cendric’s lips twitched. “If it makes you feel better, I’m mostly a vampire.”
“Actually, it does, as long as you aren’t the evil kind.”
“I endeavor not to be.”
“Okay, good. Now, what are these tatts about?”
If Wishes Were Curses Page 15