“Um, this is Jamie. Thank you for being okay with this.”
“If you thought a dog—even a horse-size dog—was going to scare me off, you picked the wrong guy.”
We shared another smile, mine full of gratitude for his understanding, his still tight in the corners from Jamie’s full-frontal assault.
A disgruntled server turned on the heat lamps for us, dropped menus on the table, and hustled back into the warm interior of the restaurant. I settled into the seat farthest from the heater, being best dressed for the weather, and Alex pulled on his coat and joined me. It took a moment to adjust Val across my lap and situate myself in the chair so the knife hilt didn’t dig into my spine. I only clanged the soul breaker against the metal table twice.
“The winter air really agrees with you,” Alex said, openly studying me. “You’ve got a rosy-cheeked glow about you.”
I smiled and ducked my head, shy in the face of his blatant admiration. “I could say the same about—”
Jamie jumped into the third chair, knocking into the table and sending it screeching across the concrete patio.
“Whoa!” Alex said, catching the table.
I shot a hand out to steady Jamie as he circled atop the wobbling mesh chair, all four feet squeezed on top of each other. No matter how he twisted, he couldn’t fit his butt and his paws onto the small seat.
“Jamie, you can’t sit up there. You don’t fit,” I said, rolling my lips in to hide my smile.
He jumped down, shoulders hunched in a pout.
“Should you tie his leash to your chair?” Alex asked, not bothering to hide his laughter.
“No, he should be fine. He can lie here next to me.” I directed the last at Jamie.
The pooka flopped on my foot. I discreetly planted my other foot on the end of the leash just in case. Blinking to Primordium, I checked Jamie. Lux lucis coated his back where we touched, and I breathed a silent sigh. He was behaving.
When I glanced up, I shamelessly evaluated Alex’s soul. For a norm, he had a beautiful, clean energy with splotches of gray and no atrum. Talk about hot.
“I’m really glad you called me,” Alex said, toying with the edge of his menu. “I think there’s a rule somewhere that you’re supposed to wait a number of days after the first date before getting in touch, but I’ve never understood why.”
I called it not looking desperate, which I’d completely botched.
“Why wait?” I asked, trying for nonchalant. “I had a great time on Friday.”
“Tell me, are you always this honest, or only when it flatters my ego?”
“Definitely only when it’s flattering,” I teased back, but my stomach constricted. If he had any idea how much I lied to him, and how much more I omitted, he’d run from the restaurant and never look back.
The server returned to take our order, jetting out of the restaurant and hunching beneath the heaters. Alex ordered one of the many Italian-themed noodle bowls. I selected a salad for its lux lucis, my soul’s energy still sluggish after its excessive use last night, and I tacked on a curry dish to reward my taste buds. For Jamie, I ordered a meat-filled mac-and-cheese bowl and a spaghetti bowl, both in to-go containers.
“Are you sure you want to feed him that? I mean, won’t his owner be upset?”
Alex’s tone held an unfamiliar note and disapproval pinched his face. Right. I’d just ordered people food for a dog in front of a vet. That probably put me square in the horrible human category in Alex’s eyes, but if I canceled the order, Jamie would make a scene.
“That’s how he, uh, how his owner says he eats,” I hedged.
“Well, if he gets sick, you know where to bring him.”
Jamie blew through his lips, making them flap, and rolled his eyes. I pretended my seat needed adjusting. This was fast becoming a train wreck.
“Any big plans for the holidays?” I asked.
“The usual glamorous event: I’m throwing an office party that’s really a fund-raiser in disguise. Very low key. The Placer SPCA brings by some kittens and puppies, and I do my best to get everyone tipsy and in a donating mood.”
Jamie stood, ears perked, staring toward the pond. A bevy of imps rushed around the corner, a vervet perched like a grotesque jockey atop the largest. Shaped like an emaciated monkey, with piranha teeth, a scorpion tail, and scaly flesh, the vervet possessed enough intelligence to look beyond the pooka and take in the scene. Its ink-black eyes latched on to my pristine soul and a wicked grin split its face nearly in half. When the imps crashed into Jamie, the vervet sprang over the pooka, all four clawed feet and scorpion tail extended, and pounced on my chest. Razor teeth chomped on my soul.
I clutched the armrests and congratulated myself. Two weeks ago, I would have made a spectacle of myself jumping out of the vervet’s path. A week ago, I wouldn’t have been able to control my flinch. It took all my concentration and my expression froze on my face, but I managed to sit rock steady under the assault. Shoving lux lucis into the vervet, I watched it explode in a spray of atrum glitter; then I dropped my hand beside Jamie and built the lux lucis in my fist until it glowed like a small sun. The imps frolicking on the pooka bailed, diving mouth-first onto my body and dying just as fast.
“. . . always dresses like Rudolph, which inevitably scares some of the dogs and makes the others want to attack her,” Alex was saying. “Anyway, I’d invite you, but I don’t think we’re at the ‘help me pimp my business’ stage yet.”
I blinked at him, trying to remember what he was talking about. Something about a party, right? When in doubt, flirt.
“I forget, does that stage come before or after meeting the parents?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s interchangeable.”
The last imp died in a puff of glitter. Jamie spun to face me, barking pointed words I didn’t need to understand to interpret.
“Argue all you want,” I told him. “We agreed that was the rule.”
Jamie glowered. I glared. Then I realized I’d talked to him like he was human while Alex looked on in bewilderment.
“Ah, I’m trying a new method with him,” I explained to Alex. “We’re still working out the kinks. Like how when you’re with me, Jamie, you have to behave.”
Jamie’s furry eyebrow knobs rose, and he glanced toward the pond. Alarm bells went off in my head. With me had been a poor choice of words. I lunged for the leash two seconds before Jamie took off. He hit the end of the slack with the strength of a small pony, and the rope belt bit into my palm. My chair slid with a painful shriek across the stones, caught an edge, and tipped. I scrambled to my feet as the choke of the collar brought Jamie up short.
“Wow! Good reflexes,” Alex said with genuine awe. He stood and collected my chair, carrying it back to the table.
I remained rooted in place. The pooka’s soul swelled from his body, all atrum and potent fury, eating its way up the leash toward me.
“You agreed to this,” I whispered, my heart beating loud in my eardrums. The atrum crept closer, so dense I could hardly see Jamie’s body through it. I relaxed the tension on the leash, fighting to keep my breathing even and not let my fear show. If Jamie decided to go supernova right now, I wouldn’t be able to stop him, and I wouldn’t be able to protect Alex.
Jamie pivoted to face me. From this angle, he needed to take only a few steps back to slide out of the collar.
“The moment lunch is over, the collar comes off,” I said, speaking too softly for Alex to hear. “All you have to do is sit beside me and eat. That’s it. Then we go and we never, ever do this again.”
Layers of atrum swirled inside his soul, black on denser black, all traces of lux lucis missing. Then his soul imploded, shrinking back into the confines of his body, and he stomped back to the table. I trailed after him on wobbly knees, fingers shaking with relief to see equal pulses of lux lucis inside his agitated soul.
When I sat, Jamie tried to squeeze into the small space between me and Alex.
“You won’t f
it there, buddy. Try the other side.” Alex gently redirected Jamie with a push to his neck. His hands came away black with atrum.
“Jamie!”
Jamie gave me a flat look and circled my chair to flop down beside me. My eyes bulged, so many unutterable reprimands clogging my throat that I couldn’t breathe. He had intentionally tainted my date! He’d known I’d see it. He’d known I’d do something about it. But he’d done it anyway.
Any sympathy I’d harbored for Jamie burned away beneath my fury.
I reached for Alex’s hands, laying mine on top of his. His heat seared my icy fingers, and he turned his hands to cup mine. It should have been a nice moment, but the atrum ruined everything.
“I’m so sorry about this. I thought Jamie would be better behaved. He used to be such a good dog.” I kept my tone light when I wanted to growl, but the twitch of Jamie’s tail said my words had hit home. Rolling lux lucis in my palms, I fed it into Alex, wiping away the pooka’s taint.
Alex’s eyes widened the moment my lux lucis swept through his soul, his pupils dilating, his gaze dropping to my lips. Shock made my hands stiffen in his, and I withdrew from his touch. I hadn’t expected him to feel what I was doing. I definitely hadn’t intended it to elicit arousal.
“Don’t worry about it. He’s not that bad,” Alex said.
A chill hit my toes and faded. I recognized the sensation, and it had nothing to do with the cold weather and the limited reach of the heat vents and everything to do with my sensitivity to atrum.
I peered through the mesh tabletop. Jamie leaked atrum in a small, growing puddle, all of it oozing toward Alex. My molars fused together in frustration. Yesterday at lunch with Niko, Jamie hadn’t tried anything like this. If he had, it would have been a simple matter to clean it up, and not just because Niko would have helped. But with Alex, he pulled this petty stunt, knowing I’d have to pretend like nothing was happening or ruin my date and possibly my entire budding relationship.
Smiling tight at Alex, I focused on rolling lux lucis through my foot. When I had a good spin, I released it from my toes. The energy splashed against the tip of my boot and infused the leather. The more I pushed, the brighter the boot glowed, a tide of white inching up the calf-high shaft.
Peachy. I’d forgotten one of the basic laws of Primordium: Previously living material held lux lucis. The boots weren’t porous like my wool gloves. All my efforts to shoot lux lucis from my feet to counter Jamie’s atrum would be moot until I’d suffused the boot completely.
Scooting my chair back, I leaned down and planted a palm on the ground. Lux lucis rolled through my hand and speared off my fingertips, flashing across the atrum growing between Jamie and Alex, negating it.
“Stop it, Jamie,” I hissed.
The pooka watched the servers bustle inside the restaurant and pretended to be deaf.
“Everything okay?” Alex asked.
I straightened and rubbed my palm on my pants. “I think he’s all settled now.”
More atrum leaked from Jamie, flowing across the patio toward Alex. If he’d wanted, the pooka could have flooded the whole restaurant in darkness with a single tsunami from his soul. This creep of atrum was pure taunt, reminding me he could wreak havoc at a moment’s notice, with the added passive-aggressive, petty benefit of sucking the fun out of this date.
My hands balled into fists on my lap. Twenty minutes. He couldn’t give me a twenty-minute breather to savor some normal time with Alex. Of course not. That’d be too considerate.
I’d cowardly hoped to avoid the confrontation brewing between me and Jamie until the sjel tyver were history and preferably after Pamela had left our region. But after this stunt, I was through putting off our fight. The moment the pooka and I were alone, we were having it out.
I propelled a gallon of lux lucis into my boot, loading the leather with energy until it shimmered brighter than the rest of my soul. Finally lux lucis leaked out onto the patio through the sole, and I shifted in my seat, stretching my leg to rest it in the puddle of atrum. My energy ate sluggishly through Jamie’s, leaving a bright white splotch on the paving stones.
My fingers shook when I shoved my hair behind an ear. Between the lux lucis expended in the boot and killing the imps and vervet, I really needed to recharge, but the nearby emaciated bushes wouldn’t suffice. One touch, and they’d die back to their roots, and wouldn’t that freak out Alex?
“Madison?”
I blinked at Alex, realizing I’d missed his question the first time.
“Sorry. What was that?” How flattering was I? I couldn’t even pay attention.
“I asked what your Christmas plans are.”
Besides paddling the bottom of one irksome pooka? “The usual: Go over to my parents’. They live in Lincoln, so it’s a quick drive.”
“No big trips?”
“I wish. I’m too tied down this year, financially and with obligations.” I glared at Obligation Number One beneath the table and shifted my foot to counter another creep of atrum.
The server burst from the restaurant with our food, tossed everything onto the table, and rushed back inside with a halfhearted, “Need anything else?”
I opened the takeout containers and dropped them next to me, forcing Jamie to move farther away from Alex to eat. Then I dove into my salad, willing the meager lux lucis in the lettuce to refuel all my expended energy. I had to salvage this date. No way would I allow one disobedient pooka to ruin everything with Alex.
I turned on my smile and, ignoring the dizziness framing my vision, asked, “What about you? After the pimping party, are you going anywhere?”
“To San Diego to spend time with my mom and sister. My nephew still believes in Santa, so that makes Christmas a lot more fun. Way better than hanging out at my dad’s drinking beer like we do every other weekend.”
“A sunny Christmas sounds heavenly right about now.” I polished off the salad and stabbed the vegetables in the curry dish, chewing like a gerbil and trying my best not to look like a speed-eating contestant.
My phone warbled “Hail to the Chief” from my purse. I froze for half a second, then dove both hands into my bag. If Brad needed me, I’d have the perfect excuse to get Jamie away from Alex and get myself to a hearty source of lux lucis.
“I’m so sorry. I need to take this. It’s my boss.” I scooted my seat back, prepared to stand and walk a polite distance away. One look at Jamie stopped me. I couldn’t leave the pooka unattended next to Alex. I’d have to be rude and stay. Meeting Alex’s eyes, I said, “I’m sorry,” one more time before accepting the call.
“We’ve got a frost moth issue at Maidu Park,” Brad said. “Where are you?”
“Near Sierra College and Douglas.” No need to inform him about my date.
“Good. Swing by the park before you come in.”
“Right now?”
“Do you have something more important to do?”
I met Alex’s eyes as Jamie licked up the last of his mac and cheese. My heavy sigh gusted across the receiver.
“No. I’ll be there.”
I hung up.
“Is everything okay? You look pale,” Alex said.
Lux lucis loss will do that to an enforcer.
“Everything is fine. Well, not really. I’m annoyed and wish I could stay, but I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Is there a sudden rush on bumper stickers?” Alex asked, going for teasing and falling flat.
“Some clients arrived early, but that won’t stop them from being irritated if they have to wait.” The lied flowed from my mouth so smoothly I almost believed it.
I stood, clutching the table when my vision darkened to a pinpoint before clearing. A few doses of lux lucis and I’d be as good as new. The trick would be making it to the nearest tree without face-planting.
Alex stood. “Do you need a to-go . . . ?” His question trailed off as he took in my empty dishes. His singular bowl was still half full. How embarrassing.
Jam
ie chased down one final meatball, then rose to all four feet and headed for the patio exit. I tightened my hand on the leash, giving it a soft tug to stop him. The black-and-white energy of his soul rioted within the confines of his body, but only within the confines of his body.
“It was really good to see you,” I said to Alex. “I’m so sorry I have to rush off like this.”
“I’ll give you a call. Maybe we can set up something this weekend. That way your boss won’t interrupt.”
“I’d like that.” I’d like to live in a world where my boss couldn’t interrupt a date. I shoved the thought aside, not enjoying its flavor of self-pity.
Alex took my hand and pulled me to him. His fingers were furnace warm as they wrapped my cold digits in a gentle embrace.
“I’d be kicking myself all week if I didn’t—” He leaned in, head tilted, and brushed a kiss across my lips.
My irritation took a giant step back, making way for a rush of happy hormones. The heat of his lips zinged southward, and I melted against him, opening my mouth and deepening the kiss.
Energy spilled across my tongue.
I gasped and stepped back. I’d just fed off Alex. First I’d zapped him with lux lucis, now this?
Alex wobbled and caught himself on the table, his eyes unfocused. When he zeroed in on me again, heat darkened his eyes, dilating his pupils. If I had to guess, I’d say he’d misinterpreted the dizzy drain of his energy as the light-headedness of arousal.
“Are you sure you have to go?” he asked.
“Yeah.” It came out appropriately breathless, if not for the reason Alex thought. Oh God, I’d just fed off Alex!
I disentangled my fingers from his and walked away, trying to mimic a normal stride, my body tingling under his gaze. Jamie paced at my side, a good two feet between us. The moment I strode around the corner, I detoured to a small tree and siphoned a wallop of lux lucis from it—not as much as I needed to recharge, but less than would cause permanent damage to the sapling. More than enough to clear my thoughts. I’d consider the ramifications of feeding off Alex later. Right now, I had more pressing matters.
A Fistful of Frost Page 20