Edge of Magic (Tara Knightley Series Book 1)

by Jayne Faith

  Oh, Dominic would be thrilled if we pawned his Christmas present.

  “Maybe we should move into a cheaper place,” Mom said quietly. She was pale, her blue eyes tired. Even though the charm she wore kept her alive, her health had never been great. It was obvious the money problems and stress were getting to her.

  Felicity and I exchanged a split-second glance, and I knew my half-sister was thinking the same thing I was.

  “Mom, leave this to us,” Fel said. “We’re going to figure it out, and it’s all going to be okay. We’re not going to have to move.”

  A flicker of fire ignited in Mom’s eyes. “I’m certainly not leaving it up to you. I’m an adult in this household, too, and you’re not going to shuffle me off into a corner.”

  I liked seeing her spunk, but Felicity was right. My sister and I needed to take care of it. Because the two of them hadn’t told me about the money issues, this had been weighing on Mom for much longer than I’d realized. It was taking a toll, and that couldn’t continue.

  We chatted for a few more minutes, but I already knew what I needed to do. I quietly let myself out through the back, and I went and got into my car. I allowed myself ten minutes to wallow in self-pity and say goodbye and then started snapping pictures of the interior. I took a couple of shots from the outside. I went back in the house and asked Fel if I could borrow her laptop. My stomach tightened into a hard ball as I typed out the description of the Land Rover, bulleting all the stats I knew by heart.

  I hovered over the button to submit the listing. I couldn’t do it. I’d give myself a few hours to come up with an alternative. I saved my work, erased the recent browser history so Fel wouldn’t see what I’d been doing, and closed the laptop.

  I called Roxanne, and she picked up right away.

  “Hey,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

  “Are you busy?” I asked.

  “I don’t have to be anywhere ‘til later. Want to come over?”

  “Yeah, I’d like that. I’ll see you in a few,” I said.

  I showered, put on fresh clothes, and grabbed a protein bar and an unclaimed sandwich from the kitchen.

  My heart had started to lighten at the sound of Rox’s voice, but when I went out to get in the Rover, my spirits plummeted again. I knew I shouldn’t wait to list it. We needed the money as soon as possible. I opened my saved for-sale listing on my phone and hit submit, making it public.

  I inhaled sharply through my nose in an effort to hold back the tears threatening to mist my eyes. It wasn’t just about a car, even a really awesome one I’d worked hard for. I was sad at having to say goodbye to the Rover, but under the sadness was a thick, heavy layer of discouragement. After I’d found the cure for Mom and Felicity and then gotten a great contract with Volkov Retrieval, I’d believed my family and I were finally at the start of an upswing. We moved into a bigger, better house, and Fel’s business grew. For a while, it felt like we were doing pretty well. Sure, it’d been stressful to be living with two babies and two small children and trying to keep both Katerina and Shaw happy. But there’d been a time when I’d felt truly optimistic.

  As I drove to Rox’s condo, I realized that upswing had never quite materialized. We’d managed, but we hadn’t really gotten on top of things like I’d hoped. Somewhere along the way, we’d sputtered out. And here we were, in one of the worst jams we’d faced.

  We’d get through it like we always did, but it was hard not to feel a little bitter. Before my pity party could expand into a full on rave of disappointment, I reminded myself that I was partially at fault. If I hadn’t missed the call from Volkov Retrieval, I wouldn’t be out a paycheck. But it wasn’t just about one paycheck. Our situation had gotten dire without my knowledge, as Fel and Mom had tried in vain to manage things alone.

  I sighed heavily. What I needed was a winning lottery ticket. A sudden windfall that would reset things for us.

  Pulling into Rox’s lot, I tried to perk myself up, pasting on a small smile and attempting to look less shitty than I felt. But when she opened the door and saw my face, I knew I wasn’t fooling her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, her brows knitting in concern.

  I slumped through her doorway and flopped onto her sofa. “Just about everything.”

  I spent the next half hour catching her up on all that’d happened since we’d last spoken. It was a lot—the stuff with Judah, Ray, and the sword, the agreement Shaw had forced me to sign, losing two weeks at Volkov Retrieval, and the ugly surprise of the money problems at home.

  “I’m going to sell the Rover,” I said. “That’ll at least get us close to paying off the previous unpaid months on the house.”

  She tilted her head, her blue eyes forlorn. I had to look away.

  “Let me do something,” she said. “I don’t have a ton of savings because we’re reinvesting heavily in the coven’s business right now, but I do have a little. I know you won’t take a gift, but at least let me loan you something.”

  I shook my head. “I appreciate that, you know I do, but I can’t let you do it. I don’t want to put that on our friendship. I don’t have many friends, Rox, and I’m not going to do anything to risk you. Besides, I can’t handle the thought of one more debt owed. But thank you, really.”

  Her lips pressed into an unhappy line. “Just know the offer stands, if you change your mind.”

  I nodded and ran a hand over my hair, smoothing back the stray strands that had escaped my ponytail.

  “Why don’t we talk about something else?” I suggested, already feeling guilty that I’d brought her down. “Like you. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

  She started detailing her coven’s activities, throwing in bits about the coven members who were vying for control, and weaving an entertaining story out of it. I found myself enjoying hearing about a life that was nothing like mine. I’d never wanted to be part of a coven—I was much too accustomed to feeling like an outsider to be comfortable in such an organization—but Roxanne’s tales helped me get out of my head and push away my problems for a while.

  After she’d exhausted her own stories, she got up and went into the kitchen, where I heard the fridge door open and close. There was the sound of lids popping off glass bottles, and she returned with a beer in each hand. She passed one of them to me and then returned to her chair.

  I took a long pull of beer and felt it hit my system almost immediately. I didn’t have the opportunity to drink very often, and I always felt the effects quickly. My insides warmed and my muscles released some tension. Most of the kids I’d gone to high school with had partied in their twenties and tested their physical limits with all manner of beer and liquor. I’d started working for Shaw right before graduation and for Volkov Retrieval not long after, which meant I was always on call for one or both bosses. I’d skipped the partying phase of life. Not that I had huge regrets over missing out. I doubted house parties and late nights at the bars downtown would have been my scene, anyway.

  “I want to hear more about Judah,” Rox said.

  “What do you want to hear about him?”

  “You said he made some kind of pledge to repay you,” she said. “What exactly did he have in mind?”

  I narrowed my eyes in a slight frown. “He said he wanted to help me find the Dullahan skull, but we haven’t had a chance to talk more about it. I haven’t told him about how Shaw’s pushing me out.”

  I thought of O’Malley, wondering again what would happen if I found the skull and took it to him. A queasy feeling washed through me at the thought of going against Shaw. I wasn’t ready to voice my idea aloud.

  “I’m surprised Judah hasn’t tried to call, actually,” I said.

  “Maybe you should call him,” she suggested.

  “Yeah, I will later,” I said.

  She tilted her head, sending her pink bangs drifting across her forehead. “So, he dated his coworker, Blake?”

  I couldn’t stop the grimace that pinched
my mouth. I wasn’t sure why I reacted that way. Probably just some latent sense of possessiveness left over from my teenage crush.

  “That’s what she said. Well, she didn’t say it so much as imply it, I guess.”

  “What do you mean?” Rox asked.

  I thought for a second, trying to recall the exact phrasing Blake had used. “She said something about how when she saw Judah with me, she understood why the two of them had never worked out.”

  I realized I’d filed away that little fact at the time, meaning to pull it out and examine it later. Given the more pressing problems I was facing, it would have been a while before I thought of it again. Except Rox was forcing me to.

  She arched a brow at me. “Blake sees chemistry between you and Judah, then.”

  I shrugged. “I guess. I think she’s wrong, though, about any significant feelings on Judah’s end.” I squinted at the floor, trying to make an objective assessment of my recent interactions with Judah. “Honestly, he seems intrigued by how I’ve changed, and he seems to want to show me that he’s not unreliable. He keeps insisting that he was a dumb, flakey teenager when he took off for Portland, and it appears to bother him.”

  “What about feelings on your end?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  She gave me a sardonic look, her lids lowered partway. “I mean your feelings for him.”

  I waved a hand. “I had an epic crush on him way back when. Those hormone-flushed feelings from your teen years never really die, you know? That shit’s powerful. It doesn’t mean anything now, though. We don’t really know each other anymore.”

  “So, you do still feel something,” she pressed.

  I cast her a mock glare as I sipped my beer. Ugh, Rox, always with the feelings.

  “Eh, I guess, maybe,” I said reluctantly, knowing she wouldn’t drop the subject until I answered to her satisfaction. “But I don’t know if it’s just stuff from the past, or if it’s real in the now.”

  “What if you’d never known him and were just meeting him for the first time? What would you think?”

  It tried to imagine that for a few seconds. But then I gave my head a slow shake. “It’s impossible for me to answer that. There’s no way I can set the past aside.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take the knowing look Rox cast me.

  “Want to grab some food?” she asked, moving to her feet and stretching her arms overhead.

  “Sure,” I said, suddenly relishing the idea of a change of scenery and getting out among people. I drank the rest of my beer, Rox finished hers, and I took the bottles to her recycling bin in the kitchen.

  Rox drove us to Red Matador, a hip Spanish restaurant downtown. The place was bustling and noisy, and I soaked it up. Somehow, it was comforting to be around other people and know that the world was going on as usual, despite my worries.

  When the check came, Rox snatched it.

  “My idea, so my treat,” she said. “You can pay next time.”

  “Thank you,” I said quietly, knowing she’d wait until I was in a better place money-wise before eating out with me again.

  On the way back to Rox’s condo, I almost felt relaxed. But when my phone buzzed and I saw a text from Judah, my heart skipped a beat, and a little shot of adrenaline enlivened my blood.

  “What is it?” Rox asked, noticing I’d become focused on my phone.

  “Judah,” I said. “He says said he needs to see me, and he wants to meet now.”

  Chapter 20

  I TEXTED JUDAH back, asking if he wanted to get together at a coffee shop. He said no, he had a different place in mind, and requested we meet on our old street instead. I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to do that but replied saying I’d be there in fifteen minutes.

  “You don’t feel like I’m ditching you, do you?” I asked Roxanne as we pulled into the lot of her condo complex.

  “No, not at all,” she said. “I’m glad we got to hang out, but it sounds like Judah has something important to say.”

  That made my pulse bump again. I silently told myself to calm down, even as I wasn’t sure why I was getting so keyed up in the first place.

  Rox and I said goodbye, and I headed toward Boise’s North End, a neighborhood with many historic homes, and a few ramshackle places sprinkled in, located along the north edge of downtown. I turned onto my old street. The duplex where Mom, Felicity, Sasha, Dom, and I had lived while I was in junior high and high school was still there, though it had a new roof and the exterior had been painted pale gray with bright white trim in the time since we’d moved away.

  Judah’s old house was a couple doors down, a stately Victorian-style place with original hardwood floors and a turret at one corner of the top floor. He’d occupied the basement that had its own exterior door, which as a teenager I’d thought was unbearably cool. As an only child, Judah was the apple of his mother’s eye. Looking back, I realized Judah’s mom and stepfather had probably been even more wealthy than I’d realized when I was a kid. All I’d known then was that Judah had nice stuff, got almost anything he wanted, and his house was way bigger than three people needed.

  I parked the Rover in between the duplex and Judah’s old place and shut off the engine. By the waning light of the late evening sky and the streetlights lining the sidewalk, I had a clear view of the basement door on the side of the Victorian house that led to Judah’s old pad, and I couldn’t help thinking of the many hours I’d spent down there watching TV and listening to music with him. It’d been quite a setup, with a living room area, his bedroom, a bathroom, and a storage room. A microwave and mini fridge meant he could stay down there for days if he wanted to.

  Even though Judah was a Pepsi guy, he’d always kept red-and-white cans of Coke Classic for me in his mini fridge. Real Coke was a luxury for me back then. Mom and Fel disapproved of soda in general, but on the rare occasions there was any in the house, it was the generic knockoff stuff, which never tasted as good as the real thing. The sugary fizz of soda and condensation gathering on a cold can in my hand were forever tied to Judah in my mind.

  Headlights pulled me from my musings. A familiar Lexus eased to a stop across the street. I waved at Judah, and he waved back.

  We both got out of our cars, and he came to meet me on my side of the street. I couldn’t help watching the way he moved. As a lanky teenager, he’d had the loping stride and slightly stooped shoulders of a kid who didn’t quite realize how tall he was. Ten years later, his shoulders were broad and muscled, and he moved with a confident ease that I guessed was influenced by both his wolf shifter genes and his marital arts training.

  “Hey, Rainbow,” he called softly.

  I allowed myself a tiny smile at the nickname.

  “Hi.” I gestured at his old house. “Any idea who lives there now?”

  “No one, at the moment,” he said. “It’s on the market.”

  “Do you know who is selling it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure. It’s changed hands a couple of times since my mom and stepfather sold it eight years ago.”

  He’d come to stand in front of me on the sidewalk, his body square to mine and close enough to force me to tip my head up to meet his eyes. There was a mischievous twitch in the corner of his mouth and a warm glow to his gaze.

  I tilted my head. “Why’d you want to meet here?”

  “’Cause we’re going to see how the old place looks,” he said.

  “We are?”

  He lifted his hand, showing a small object in his fingers. He held a key.

  I gave a little laugh. “Is that really your old house key?”

  “Yep.” He turned and flicked his gaze toward the house. “Let’s try it.”

  He took off down the sidewalk.

  “Surely the locks have been changed by whoever bought it after your parents sold it. It’s not going to work,” I said, moving a little faster to keep up with his long stride.

  “But it might.”

  “What
if someone sees us?”

  “I’ve got a key,” he said. “If it works, what are they going to say?”

  “Um, they might not say anything. They might just call the cops.”

  “Then we’ll run.” He glanced down at my Nikes. “You’re fast, and you know how to disappear in the dark.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “If I get cornered, I’ll shift and eat them. Problem solved.”

  A quiet giggle escaped my lips. Goddess, what a girlish, lighthearted sound. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually giggled.

  My pulse tapped a faster rhythm as we reached the top of the short stairwell that led down to the basement door.

  “Why are we doing this?” I asked.

  “’Cause I thought it’d be fun. You know, for old times sake,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Ready?”

  “Ready to get arrested for trespassing? Sure, why not. Jail and a criminal record sound like exactly what I need.”

  Ignoring my sarcasm, he went down ahead of me. I followed him, peeking around his arm as he pushed the key into the lock. It went in. He turned it, and the mechanism responded with a click.

  I covered my mouth with my hand, holding back another chuckle. I couldn’t believe his old key actually worked. A little thrill zinged through me as Judah turned the handle and pushed the door open. I broke into houses all the time for retrieval jobs, but somehow this was different.

  Judah reached for the light switch, but nothing happened when he flipped it on. Leaving the door open, he walked into the center of the empty room and stood where his sofa used to be. I went in, too, glancing toward the dark doorway of his old bedroom.

  It was distinctly musty, and there was a very faint tang of cat urine in the air, but underneath was a smell so familiar I nearly reeled. For a heady moment, I felt like a kid again.

  “So long ago,” I whispered.

  “What?” Judah asked, taking a couple of steps closer to me.