by Anya Bast
Oh, yeah.
She closed her mouth and managed to stop drooling before he opened his eyes and looked at her. “I never thought you were afraid of trying new things. Are you sure you don’t want one?”
She bit her lip for a moment. “Hand one over, but if I puke on your five-hundred dollar shoes, I was coerced, so don’t sue me.”
He laughed low as he prepared one for her. That laugh was a silky, dangerous thing and it made her shiver. She barely noticed when he handed her the half shell and came to stand beside her.
“How should I eat it?”
“Let it lie on your tongue for a moment, just a moment, then allow it to slide down your throat.”
She studied it for a moment, and then decided staring at it was a bad idea. Pretty, it was not. “Down the hatch.” She tipped her head back and slurped it between her lips.
It filled her mouth, cool, champagne-laced and mildly fishy, before she allowed it to ease down her throat. Like him, she found her head falling back on a mmmmm of surprised culinary delight.
She opened her eyes to find him studying her intently. “Good?”
Isabelle pursed her lips and chose her words. “Unique. Interesting. Complex. Definitely unforgettable.”
His eyes went heavy-lidded and he reached out to wipe a bit of juice from the corner of her mouth. “Sounds like someone I know.”
Before she’d even known she’d done it, she’d taken his hand and licked his finger. His eyes went darker immediately, the pupils growing larger, and his luscious lips parting. They stood there for a moment in the semidarkness of the kitchen and held each other’s gazes.
The chicken on the stove popped and sizzled.
She blinked, breaking herself away from the intimate moment. “Dinner’s burning.”
He made a low, frustrated sound and backed away.
Thankful for the chance to catch her breath and snap herself out the second spell he’d put her under that evening, she rested her chin on her palm and watched him prepare two plates. He poured them both champagne from the open bottle and sat beside her to eat.
Her stomach rumbling, she picked up her fork and took a bite. Spices and tender chicken caressed her taste buds. “God, that’s good,” she said around a mouthful. “You have excellent chefs here.”
He swallowed his bite and studied her as she dug in with relish. “To a woman who lives on Twinkies and Coke, I’m sure it does taste good.”
“I don’t live on Twinkies and Coke!”
His lips twisted. “That’s true, sometimes you throw a bag of Doritos in there, or a peanut butter sandwich. Is that for protein?”
She shrugged, knowing full well her diet was less than exemplary. “I’m used to eating on the road. I never learned to cook for myself.”
“Maybe while you’re here, I could help you learn.”
She gave him a lingering glance, from the tips of his Ferragamo shoes to the cuff of his Armani shirt. Nothing about Thomas Monahan was prêt-à-porter. “You cook?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Most earth witches do. Something about cooking up spells translates to cooking up meals.” He took a bite of chicken.
She picked up an asparagus stalk and studied him as she licked the tip. His chewing abruptly stopped and his gaze locked on her mouth. Isabelle suppressed a smile and puckered her lips as she slid the stalk within slowly and took a bite. Once she’d swallowed, she asked, “What would we make together?”
“Whatever you wanted. Vegetable stir-fry or miso chicken for example. Anything you can think of.”
“Miso chicken? What the hell is that? How about something practical, like tuna fish casserole. That’s the stuff I really need to learn how to make.”
“How about meatloaf, then?”
A memory swelled. She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering. “I haven’t had meatloaf in forever. Angela and I lived with a woman named Maggie Price for a while who would cook and bake for us. She used to make the best meatloaf. On rainy days when we couldn’t go outside to play, we’d stay in and bake chocolate chip cookies. Staying with her was one of the few times”—she glanced at Thomas, realizing how much she’d disclosed and how easily she’d disclosed it—“I felt…safe.” She ducked her head and nibbled another asparagus stalk.
Thomas took a bite, carefully chewed, and swallowed before he asked, “You didn’t feel safe when you were a child?”
She tossed the half-eaten asparagus stalk to the plate and sighed. “Stop pretending you don’t know. I’m certain you looked up my Coven records after I tried to off Stefan. You know what our mother is like, how she shuffled me and Angela around to her friends and lovers all through our childhood.”
“Yes, I know all that. I did check out your records, but they didn’t reveal how you feel about it.”
“It was kind of rough sometimes, but I don’t go there. It’s in the past, can’t change the past. It’s useless to look backward.”
“Sometimes the past echoes into the present. That means sometimes you have to deal with those events in the present, so they don’t echo as much.”
She picked up her fork and toyed with the chicken, not feeling very hungry anymore. “No echoes over here.” Much. “How about you, Mr. Pop Psychology? How was your childhood?”
Thoughtfully, he chewed and swallowed. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I had siblings, a caring mother, an attentive father. You can’t ask for much more than that.”
She had a flash of jealousy she quickly squashed. It would have been nice to have even one of those things, a caring mother or an attentive father, but she was happy Thomas had had both.
“I had my sister.”
Thomas didn’t say anything for several moments. “We’ll get the demon, Isabelle. We have to.”
“I know.” She spoke with the certainty of the obsessed.
TWELVE
ON THE WAY BACK TO HER ROOM LATER, SHE COULDN’T get the scent and feel of Thomas out of her memory. After they’d finished eating and cleaned up, he’d pulled her against him and kissed her. She’d meant to leave the kitchen before that happened simply because of the power coursing between them in the entryway earlier. Resisting Thomas was nearly impossible.
And then, there, in the kitchen, he’d pulled her up against him, settled his mouth over hers and kissed her so long and hard she’d practically forgotten her own name.
Her body still tingled from it. Her lips were still swollen and marked by his.
Then, he’d said, “Good night, Isabelle,” with a little regret on his face…and had left her.
She’d slumped in relief back against the counter to catch her breath before she’d headed up to her room. If he’d taken her by the hand and led her upstairs, into his bed, she wouldn’t have raised a word in protest. Thomas made her weak. He was like kryptonite to her.
Isabelle stopped in the hallway a short distance from her room and breathed quickly in the semidarkness, just on the edge of a panic attack. As the familiar anxiety ratcheted her heart rate up, she turned and fled for the exit. She needed air, open spaces.
Her feet pounded on the stairs as she descended and went out the front door of the Coven. Once down the front steps, she leaned over and braced her hands on her knees, trying desperately to regulate her breathing.
For a moment she’d felt trapped, claustrophobic. Physically, she hadn’t been in a tight place. However, for a minute, in her mind, she’d been in the closest space she could imagine.
That’s the danger Thomas presented.
Dragging the moist early morning air into her lungs, she straightened and stared down the twisting, tree-lined road that led away from the Coven.
Coming here had been a mistake. Maybe thinking she could settle anywhere, even her sister’s apartment, had been a mistake. It just wasn’t in her blood the way it had been in her sister’s. Maybe Angela had been a changeling.
Even now she felt the pull of the busy airports and their crush
of anonymous, self-concerned strangers, the embrace of foreign cities where no one knew her name, where fresh starts occurred every day.
No ties. No entanglements. No messy relationships for her to fuck up. Just nonjudgmental, impersonal hotel rooms and rented villas.
The thought comforted her and her breathing returned to normal as she stood in the darkness, staring down the road.
THOMAS STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOYER, EXAMINING the wicked copper blade of the sword he held. They’d ordered them forged as soon as Isabelle had discovered the demon’s weakness, enough for all the witches in the Coven. The metal was soft, not practical for a weapon meant to be used in serious combat.
The first thing they’d thought of had been bullets, which would have been far more useful, but copper bullets were proving difficult to have made. Micah was looking in to having various weapons made using copper, bullets included, but swords and knives had been the easiest to procure right away. Pretty, but not practical. Unfortunately, it was all they had.
Movement on the stairs drew his eye. Isabelle descended, barefoot, her hair long and loose. She wore a pair of worn blue jeans and an old burgundy T-shirt with the faded letters of some college across her breasts. The T-shirt was tight and the way she walked — all rolling hips and long-legged grace — made his mouth go dry.
She looked up, hesitated on a stair, then continued to descend. “Off to slay a dragon, milord?”
“Maybe a demon.”
“Ah.” She walked to him and he handed her the sword. She wrapped her fingers around the grip and examined it from tang to the tip. “Nice.”
“Know something about swords?”
She shrugged and handed it back to him. “Not a thing, other than the pointy end goes into people. Clever, though, thinking about this as a weapon to use against the demon. Only one thing, how the hell are we supposed to walk around on the streets with these unnoticed?”
“I figure they can be sheathed to our backs and hidden under our coats. We intentionally had them made short for that. It’s still spring, not that warm yet, so the jackets won’t seem odd. I ordered some regular knives, too, but I think most will prefer these.”
She nodded. “Gives you a little distance.”
“Exactly.”
“Would be better to have some copper bullets or something. That would give us even more distance.”
As she spoke, Theo and Ingrid entered the foyer from the direction of the conservatory, both talking to each other.
“We’re working on that,” added Thomas. “Isabelle, I’d like you to meet Ingrid. She’s Jack’s counterpart and shares a lot of responsibility here at the Coven.”
Ingrid was a short, thin, blonde. She always wore a suit, had her hair in a bun and glasses perched on her narrow nose. Ingrid was a fire witch with a temper to match, despite her innocuous appearance. She stuck out her hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Isabelle. I’m happy to meet you.”
Isabelle shook her hand. “Same thing here. It’s an honor.”
Theo, a severe-looking man with longish black hair, a goatee and dark olive skin, stood very close to Ingrid. Thomas got an intuitive hit they were sleeping together. Good. Theo needed a little sex to bleed off his natural intensity.
Tattoos peeked from under the tight blue shirt Theo wore. What few people knew was that the tattoos complemented a large amount of scarring on his body, inked to show off what Theo considered his battle scars. When Theo had been a teenager, the Duskoff had captured him, lured to him by the massive amounts of earth magick he could wield. The warlocks had tried to crush his will for their own uses and had tortured him mercilessly, breaking bones and scarring his body. He’d been with the Duskoff a hellish two months before the Coven had broken him out.
Thomas, just barely in college at the time, had been with those who’d gone in after him. He could remember finding Theo, bloody and beaten, but still defiant and pissed off. Ever since, Theo had channeled his energies toward hunting down warlocks and rogue witches.
“And this is Theodosius, otherwise known as Theo—”
Isabelle grabbed his hand in both of hers with enthusiasm. “The artist. You did Thomas’s tattoo.”
Theo nodded. “I do work for many of the earth witches in the Coven.”
“Ever do any for water witches?”
A flicker of unwelcome jealousy ran through Thomas at the thought of Theo putting his hands on intimate parts of Isabelle’s body…any part at all, actually. He frowned at their clasped hands. Gods. He shook it off. He felt possessive of Isabelle, but he had no right.
“Come see me sometime and we can talk about it,” answered Theo with a smile a little warmer than Thomas liked.
“Jack told me the swords came in,” said Ingrid. “We came by to take a look.” Thomas handed her the weapon and she looked it over. “Nice.”
“Metal’s too soft to use for a sword,” Theo put in, catching the blade and examining it.
“I know, but it’s all we’ve got,” answered Thomas. “This is our only known weapon in fighting the demon.”
“And training?” asked Isabelle. “I don’t know about you but I skipped fencing class in college. In fact, I skipped college.”
“You and I start as soon as you’re ready.” He glanced at Theo and Ingrid. “Theo, I know you’re familiar with swords. I thought you could take over training some of the others.”
Theo nodded. “Micah’s got the rest of the weapons?”
“Yes. He’s got training swords, too. I think Jack and Adam are with him now.”
Ingrid handed the sword back to him. They said their goodbyes and went in search of swords to practice with.
After they’d gone, Isabelle looked directly at him, something she hadn’t done yet that morning, and he saw shadows in her eyes — trouble. “Do you know something about sword fighting?”
“More than the average person.”
She grinned at him. “So you want to be the one to train me, huh? Don’t trust me to Theo?”
“Never.”
She shrugged. “Let me get a cup of coffee and let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later they went to the ballroom of the Coven, a place big enough for them to move. Mirrors lined one wall and an area of hardwood flooring lay like an island in the middle of the plush red carpeting. Thomas and Isabelle stood on the hardwood, each holding a sword and facing each other. They had traded the viciously sharp swords for blunted training blades.
“We’re not going to train like fencers,” said Thomas, “since the demon’s not going to have a sword and, if he did, he wouldn’t be playing by any kind of rules anyway. I just want everyone to get a good feel for the weapon, learn to move with it in the most effective way.”
“Makes sense.”
“So the first thing to remember is to breathe.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Breathe? I’m doing that already. I intend to keep doing it for many more years.”
“I mean breathe in a regulated, focused way.”
“Be one with the sword?”
“Exactly. Breathe like you’re meditating, deep and regular. It will keep you calm and give you enough oxygen to fight.”
She tried it, turning around a circle with the sword in hand and breathing deeply as she moved. Closing her eyes, she rotated on the balls of her bare feet with the natural grace of a dancer or a warrior. Just by looking at her Thomas could tell that he didn’t need to discuss the second basic with her — balance.
Isabelle finally came to a stop and opened her eyes. “That was a lot more relaxing than fighting the demon will be.”
“Undoubtedly. All right, now we spar in order to familiarize ourselves with the other basic concepts, as well as to get a feel for the weapon.”
She swung the blade experimentally. “And the other basic concepts are?”
“Tactics and timing.”
She jumped and pointed the blunted training sword in his general direction. “En guard! But take your shirt off first, champ. Because,
you know”—she shot him a salacious grin that made him chuckle—“you’ll get warm dressed like that. Yeah, that’s it. I’m worried about your comfort.”
They sparred into the late afternoon. Isabelle was good with the weapon and he found himself on the defensive many times in the face of her surprising aggression.
The way she looked — her face and neck shining with perspiration, pupils wide and dark, lips pursed in absolute concentration — made it seem like the workout was therapy for her. Her movements were quick and self-possessed, too. What Isabelle lacked in terms of upper body strength, she made up for in speed and flexibility.
In the end, they were evenly matched, despite the fact that he was stronger physically.
Isabelle turned and brought her training blade down against his in a wide arc. He threw down his weapon, intercepted her and pulled her back against him. Thomas needed to touch her, just for a moment.
She thumped against his chest and went still, breathing heavy. Then she tossed her training sword to the floor and turned in his arms, rising onto her tiptoes to devour his mouth in a deep kiss.
He took a step back at the passion pouring through her, but she stepped with him, winding her arms around him and nipping at his lower lip. She tasted like hot magick and urgency, and acted like she might die if he didn’t return her ardor.
Not breaking contact with her mouth, Thomas scooped her into his arms, knelt, and laid her on the floor. Isabelle wrapped her legs around his waist. He balanced over her, covering her body and slanting his mouth over hers to take control of the wild kiss.
Thomas’s body tingled with the awareness of her, as if every molecule had been tuned to the frequency of Isabelle.
That’s how he knew, despite the hardness of his body and his intense desire to strip her clothes off and take her right on the floor, despite the passion with which she tangled both tongue and lips with his…something was wrong.