She licked her lips. “I think it was Teddy’s death stuff. It was really difficult not to kill everyone.”
“Right. That’s how he feels all the time. It gets really exhausting. He’s not that bad without the dragon. Not that he isn’t a terribly wicked mage, but he’s interested in things other than killing. He’s much more interesting this way.”
“You want me to take Teddy’s… What would you call it? His dragon? His death addiction? Not to be mercenary, but what’s in it for me?”
A shiver of pleasure went through me. Penny Lane being mercenary? Was anything more delicious? “Whatever you want.”
She smiled slightly and leaned back, crossing her arms while her gaze wandered to my mouth before she ripped it back up to my eyes. “Whatever I want?”
“From him, naturally.”
“I don’t want anything from him.”
I liked the sound of that so much. I slid my fingers over her hand and up her arm. “I’m willing to provide whatever you need. Teddy can give me compensation.”
She lifted her chin. “What do you think I want from you?”
I slid my fingers over her skin and noticed the goose bumps, the shivers, the way her heart beat faster and faster. “The contract is open to interpretation. You could make use of me in any number of ways.”
She inhaled, shuddering as my hand slid up her throat to her jaw, her lips. “You would like me to keep your friends sane, and your price is open to interpretation?” She stepped closer to me until her body brushed mine before she froze, breathing shallowly. She might hyperventilate if she kept that up.
She closed her eyes, wavered close to me until her lips almost brushed mine then stepped back, wrenching her arm away from me. She shook her head.
“I’ll think about it. You have a lot of assets. I seem to need an army from time to time. I’m sure an arrangement could be made.”
I pulled her into my arms and kissed her, drowning in her taste, her skin, her hair. Oh, her hair, acres of tangled curls that bound my fingers and my heart. She held back for a split second before her arms were around me, holding me tighter and tighter until I couldn’t breathe. It would be a good end. Death by closet.
I don’t know how long it lasted, not long enough, but finally she pulled away and slapped me. I blinked at her while numbness then pain shot through my face. Then she back fisted me from the opposite direction so both cheeks stung. I blinked green out of my eyes while the gold sparked in hers.
“I’m engaged to Zach. I don’t care how flexible the contract is; I’m not going to run around kissing you. If you wanted to kiss me, you should have married me. I’m not getting married to Zach for pretend. It’s real.”
My hands curled into claws while the delicious aching in my face faded too quickly. “My apologies.” I sighed dramatically. “It’s so much more enticing to kiss an engaged girl than a single one. How about I promise not to kiss you if you take my friend’s dragon madness?”
Her eyes shone suddenly with unshed tears. “I told you I’d think about it. You aren’t going to kiss me again. It hurts too much.”
I winked at her. “I like the pain. If you don’t now, you would eventually. How is Señor Mort adjusting?”
She shook her head. “He’s fine. Thank you for your help in the swamp.”
“My pleasure. What does a real marriage to Zachary Stoneburrow look like to you?”
She closed her eyes tight and a tear rolled down her cheek, paused on her jaw then dripped to her white blouse, spreading in a darker circle. “There will be a dungeon full of tech. We’ll work together every day. Every night he’ll tuck me into bed.”
I licked my lips while a roar grew inside my chest. I’d tucked her in bed in her attic while her body curved against mine. Did she remember that? “How delightful. It sounds a touch dull, but my tastes are more eclectic.”
Her eyes opened and the gold was so tempting, glowing behind her unshed tears. “It will be perfect. I love him, you know. Not like you, but still, I care about him.”
I nodded soberly. “Of course you do. You care about everyone. It’s kind of idiotic, but also adorable. Do you want a ride to the hospital on Tuesday?”
She blinked at me. “What?”
“You missed last week. I’ve been going a different day, but since we’re going to not kiss in closets, we should have other things to do together, friend type things that lack any of the romance a closet with a mop bucket has. I’ll be in the parking lot at the usual time if you feel like showing up.”
I left the closet, left her, because if I looked at her with a mop handle behind her just waiting to fall over on her head for one more second, I would be kissing her again. More than kissing. Whether she beat me black and blue, I would kiss her. It would be well worth the price.
I went to find Zach.
He was in linguistics, having a three-way conversation with multiple languages. He was very good, precise, and clever. And he was going to tuck Penny into bed every night.
I slapped him. With claws. His head whipped to the side while his blood sprayed the neatly dressed girl beside him. Marilynn. He barely recovered before I back-fisted him, sending his head in the opposite direction, no blood that time, but his cheekbone cracked and shattered.
“What’s going on?” the teacher demanded, moving towards us cautiously. We were two mages and a witch shouldn’t ever step between mages.
Zach smiled at me, teeth pink from blood. “I think that this is a contractual issue.” He touched my cheek, first one then the other. “Do you need to discuss things now or can you wait until my class is finished?”
I growled and grabbed his throat. I dragged him Throughside, into a dark alley that reeked of rotting onions and potatoes not to mention the smoke from a tannery nearby.
He smiled at me even as his face turned blue. “Why did she slap you?”
I growled at him before I released him and stepped back, rolling my shoulders, crouching down. I needed his blood. Lots of it.
“If you’re going to rip me apart, which you are, I should at least know why.”
I bared my teeth at him. “Real marriage. She wants a real marriage with you.”
He shrugged. “Of course. If it wasn’t legal it wouldn’t work.”
“Real. If you tuck her into bed at night, I’ll rip you apart by day.”
His eyes widened along with his grin. “Do you think she meant it or just said that to drive you insane? Either way, I love how that witch thinks.”
I tackled him onto the fetid cobblestones, sliding into a stone wall that would have cracked a human’s skull. The world went green and red until we’d fought enough that the anger oozed away leaving me with nothing but nausea and a lot of nasty cuts, stabs, burns and other signs of Zach’s affection.
I rolled away from him, breathing hard while I stared at the sky, or the clouds between myself and the sky.
Zach wheezed as he pushed himself up. I’d done a wonderful job making him ugly. But he still won. He got Penny and I got… Well I actually still got quite a lot. I got to be sane, because she’d keep the dragon from taking over, I got to save my friends, including Zach who had been a shadow before Penny Lane hacked her way into his life. If I could control myself, I’d have her friendship as well. She was an aberration. I didn’t have to hate and fear her like an ordinary witch. It was possible for us to be friends. In time my desire for her would fade. Her adoration for me would shift to Zach or remain locked in her heart. She was right, though. I couldn’t share her with Zach, and she couldn’t be married to him while I tried to steal her away every moment of every day.
I ran a hand over my bloody face. He’d done as much damage to me as I’d done to him. I must have been holding back. That was nice of me. We stayed there like that for a long time, not talking, just enjoying the special ambiance of that back alley.
“You’re marrying Pitch. I never really thought of her as a marrying kind.”
Zach laughed. “It’s beyond my fondes
t dream. When I found out that Penny was Pitch, I was so angry, I thought I’d self-destruct with it.”
“Angry? I know that you love Pitch, but Penny’s a very delectable package all on her own.”
“Angry because I could have had her, all of her, but I had to give her to you instead.”
I nodded. “How did you do it?”
He shrugged and ran his hand over his misshapen nose, pushing it back into place. “She broke my glamour, remember? She was screaming about how I ruined everything and how I could have had it all, but I’d messed it up. That always bothered me, but I didn’t really understand until the tourney and her empathy shredded her up. Pitch. Penny. The perfect package of light and dark, filled with a center of bizarre brilliance. I always fantasized about seeing her naked, but not like that.”
I held back the snarl. Zach would tuck her into bed at night. He would hold her and taste her and make her scream. His name would be on her tongue. His skin beneath her nails.
I exhaled and flashed a smile at him. “You could turn over all the healing to Ian. He’s very good and nudity never affected him whether bone deep or otherwise.”
He glared at me. “I don’t like what she’s doing with Ian, but the contract allows alliances with other mages.”
“It allows all sorts of things. Too bad she’s such a traditional witch.” I rolled my eyes.
“So traditional. What does tucking her into bed imply?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. I didn’t delve deeper into the psyche of that creature, not after she made it clear that whether the contract allowed it or not, she would not ever be in my bed.”
He scowled at me. “What did you try to do with her?”
“Kiss her in a mop closet. Somehow she resisted. It’s kind of depressing.”
He gripped my shoulder and squeezed until his fingerprints were in my skin. “You’re going to live longer than me. She’s three-quarters so she will too. You can feed her bits of her Darksider friend if you need to prolong her life.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t encourage me to fixate on your death. It would be too easy to arrange.”
He laughed, a bright clear sound completely alien to Darkside. “I’d have to betray her for you to be able to harm me. That’s the clearest part of the contract. It’s a terrible contract. She really should have had Jasper’s help.”
“Jasper’s still AWOL. It’s all right. Pretty tight.”
“But such a mess and completely inelegant. For all her mage energy, she’s no contract mage.”
I laughed. “Are you complaining? Thanks for letting me have her last night.”
He shrugged. “Killing a dragon in Dayside wouldn’t be particularly subtle. That’s your kind of match, besides, Penny thinks your dragon is cute.”
I nodded and frowned at him. “What about Lester?”
He scowled and looked deadly angry. “What about him? As far as I know they haven’t officially arranged an alliance yet. I have to sign off on it, you too, probably.”
“He was there last night. Mitch knew him. Why do you hate Lester?”
Zach raised his eyebrows. “She only likes the wicked mages. She likes him.”
I rubbed my chest. The raw cuts itched and ached. Maybe I should let them heal. “She likes the strange mages, and the ones that try to kill themselves on Christmas trees.”
“And you.”
I pushed myself up the wall. “No, she loves me. Because I sang badly for her.”
She would forget her love soon enough. She didn’t have magic, obsession, madness, her love would fade as fast as any human’s.
Chapter 22
Witch
It didn’t seem possible that I’d actually said no to Drake. I couldn’t believe it. In such a state of delirium, there was only one thing to do. Did I mention that cooking is not my forte? When you put too much energy into food it gets weird. Like a lot of cooking fires.
Zach stood behind me with the fire extinguisher while I attempted my fourth batch of petite fours. The whole commons was covered in pans of my less disastrous creations that were still not really edible. Of course I had lollipops, acres of lollipops sticking in all the bowls we had.
I screamed when my efforts went up in flame and Zach sprayed the whole thing with his fire retardant foam.
“Bonbons and ho-ho’s, this sucks.” I kicked the oven and since I wasn’t wearing shoes or kicking with the intention to kill someone, it only hurt my toes. I hopped around shouting out pastries and candies while Zach tried not to laugh.
“Why don’t you make some hurters?”
I shook my head and started washing my mixing bowls for the fifth attempt.
“Penny, can I try while you hold the fire extinguisher?”
I ignored him and focused on the water running in the sink. Finally I shut it off and turned around to take the extinguisher from his hands. “Fine.”
He grinned at me, blue eyes bright while he took over, organizing all the equipment and ingredients, checking timers and temperatures before he began mixing, his hands working steadily, evenly, the white scar on his wrist flexing methodically as he whipped the flour and eggs together.
“Did it hurt?”
He glanced up at me. “What? No, I think you were singed more than I was on the really bad one.”
I shook my head and brushed my fingers over his scar for a moment before I pulled away, feeling weird and twisty in my stomach. Guilt. I shouldn’t touch someone else when I belonged to Drake. I gritted my teeth and grabbed his wrist, digging in my nails.
“Did it hurt when Pitch cut you? Did you need stitches?”
He grinned widely. “Drake wanted to fix it up, but I wasn’t sure it would scar if he did.”
I slumped against the counter. “You wanted a scar?”
He made a face. “You sound so surprised. I’ve been in love with Pitch for a very long time. The only real pain was when I realized that she wasn’t ever coming to get me. She bound me to her but didn’t want me. She really pissed Drake off. He was a Pitch fan before that. Loved her fighting style. He’d spend hours taking her moves apart with me. It’s almost impossible to see what she’s doing it’s so beautiful and fast. She’s perfect.”
I rolled my eyes and swallowed. “You can say that after you know the truth about her, about me?”
He covered my hand with his. “In the swamp battle, Pitch fought with Drake on his dragon. Your hair was black and everything. How does that work?”
I shrugged and tried to let go of his wrist, but his fingers dug into me. “I don’t know.”
“I’d like to study her.”
I glared at him. “How long were you healing me afterwards? It wasn’t as bad as after the tourney, but still…”
“Why are tourneys worse for you?”
I rubbed my forehead. I still had a headache. “Aren’t we cooking?”
“When are you going to kiss me again?”
I stared at him, looked down at his mouth and shivered. I shouldn’t have kissed Drake, drowned in him. Maybe I should kiss Zach, like for every kiss I gave Drake I should give Zach five. I wanted to keep the memory of Drake on my lips. Forever.
I lunged at his face and he instinctively dodged back.
He gave me a weird look. “Was that you kissing me? I think you need to work on it.” He patted my hand and turned to grease a pan.
I shifted my grip on the fire extinguisher I had no idea how to use, at least if I wasn’t smashing it into the back of his head. For some reason, that seemed like a fabulous idea. “You asked.”
He glanced at me, eyes blue and bright. “I did. Do you mind if I kiss you next time?”
My stomach clenched and I couldn’t breathe or swallow for a whole minute. He waited patiently for my answer.
Finally, I shrugged. “What difference does it make?”
Zach laughed, but it was too sharp and dangerous to be happy. “I think I want to try a kiss with better ambiance. Like a sunset or something. After a nice d
ate.”
“What kind of date?”
He shrugged. My hands were shaking when he squeezed one of them. “I think playing pool would be normal enough to be weird for you.”
“Bar fights?”
He shook his head, eyes narrowing. “No, that’s fun, not romantic.”
“Oh. Are you sure?”
He laughed and ruffled my hair then his hand got caught in its murky depths for a minute. “Positive. We’ll go tonight then I’ll kiss you while we watch the sun set.”
I frowned at him. “I think that romance is supposed to be a little more spontaneous, don’t you? Also more passionate. Like Marionetta would seduce someone over the period of a few episodes with glimpses of shoulder beneath her black lace robe or seductive hair flipping and scorching hot looks. Then in some shadowy corner, she’d grab whatever guy and they’d go at it until someone caught them. Usually his wife.”
He laughed. “Go at it, huh? I think your idea of romance is slightly skewed.”
“Where do you get yours?”
He shrugged. “Viney gave me a lecture.” He blushed slightly.
“What kind of lecture?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “The kind that lasted way too long. You don’t want to know. Maybe you do. Viney’s version of a birds and the bees talk was pretty traumatizing.”
“Birds and bees? You mean like reproduction and biology?”
“The point is, if I kiss you there should be a good atmosphere, you shouldn’t be hungry, and it shouldn’t be in the middle of a bar fight.”
The timer went off and Zach turned to get the petite fours out of the oven while I leaned against the counter. I was going on a date with Zach.
I watched Zach cut up the cake sheet into little shapes, spread the filling between the pieces and cover them with the glaze, an edible flower on top. In other words, the petite fours were perfect. I snatched one and bit into it, drowning my unhappiness in deliciousness. I carried the rest of the pan to the couch and curled up on it, pushing a tray of lopsided éclairs onto the floor to make space for my petite fours.
Zach cleared his throat. “Are you going to share any of those?”
Deadly Morsel: Rosewood Academy of Witches and Mages (Darkly Sweet Book 5) Page 19