Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (8 page)

Cool fingers brushed across my cheekbone. “It is not a one-time offer, dowser. When you want the bond broken, I believe my magic can break it.”

I nodded and opened my eyes. He was standing so close that I could see flecks of red in his eyes like bloody ice shards. I blinked and the red was gone, leaving only pure blue behind. The bathroom air was thick with his pepperminty magic.

“You’re not trying to influence me, are you Kett?” I asked.

A frown creased his brow, replaced microseconds later with his cool demeanor. “You know that type of magic doesn’t work with you, dowser.”

“And if I let you bite me …”

“Yes?”

“You could tell me who my father is? Or at least what his magic is?”

“If I have tasted it before.”

“Are there many of the Adept you haven’t tasted?” Was I really having this conversation? As if blood was fine wine?

“Not many. And those of power who I haven’t tasted, aren’t likely to be your biological father. The Adept do not interbreed across species very successfully.”

“You’ve made a list and checked it twice?”

“Yes.”

“And who are the likely candidates? For father of the year?”
 

Kett fell silent as he always did when confronted with a question he either didn’t want to answer or — heaven forbid — didn’t know the answer to. And there was the itchy rub. If Gran and Scarlett hadn’t figured out what kind of Adept my father was in all these years, then how the hell was a vampire going to know?

“You overplayed your hand, vampire,” I said. Then I very deliberately stepped to the side, around Kett, and walked to the exit.

“You upped the ante yourself, dowser. Not I,” Kett’s cool tone was firmly in place again.

The door banged open and nearly hit me. I jumped back a step.

Desmond filled — literally — the frame of the doorway. He was doing a scowling-but-inscrutable thing with his face. He glanced from me to Kett over my shoulder and raised his eyebrows. “Caught up to us, vamp?”

“Apparently,” Kett replied.

Completely blocked by Desmond and all but trapped in the bathroom, I noticed the way the magic built between the shifter and the vampire. I supposed my magic must be somewhere in the middle, but all I could taste was dark chocolate and peppermint on either side of me. One pressed from the front and the other from the back, never touching, never mixing as the magic continued to build. The shifter and the vampire just stared at each other with me caught in between, like, like … oh, God. This was awkward and uncomfortable, but so … so … tasty.

I twined my fingers into the wedding ring charms on my necklace and tried to center myself within its magic. It helped. Problem was, magic was about intention, and my body didn’t intend the same as my mind.

“Do you really want a broken life debt hanging over you?” I blurted.

“No,” McGrowly answered. “But it’s not the vampire’s place to fix it.”

I frowned. Had he been listening into my bathroom conversation? That wasn’t creepy at all.

“Nor,” Desmond continued, “can he tell you who your father is. We’ve had this conversation, vampire.”

“We disagreed,” Kett said. He stepped closer to me. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his magic move.

Desmond’s mouth twitched as if he was fighting the urge to speak. Then he said, “We will settle the bond, dowser. I wouldn’t have come back to Vancouver without that intention. I was simply unaware you’d be in peril at the time of my arrival.” This last bit was glared at Kett, but the vampire didn’t respond.

“I’ll drive,” Desmond said as he turned away. He’d bought a ‘Super, Natural BC’ T-shirt from the minimart. On anyone else, it would have been a vast source of amusement, but my eyes mourned the sight of his naked backside. I’d never seen an ass like that before. It suited him, since he was such a colossal ass himself.

“I still need to use the washroom,” I said to Desmond’s too-wide back. Then I turned to glare at the vampire. I wasn’t peeing in front of him.

A smile ghosted over Kett’s face as he slid by me out of the bathroom. “The offer still stands, dowser.”

“Yeah, I get it. My blood will always be a rare treat.”

“Indeed,” Kett laughed. His voice was soft and so, so human, emanating from the darkness between the light of the bathroom and the overhead lights at the pumps. “You will find I have endless patience and endless time.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a warning or a promise, so I just shut and locked the door on both possibilities.

Freaking vampires and shapeshifters with their tasty magic and arrogant pissing contests. I wasn’t some prize. Okay, I was a prize, but I wasn’t some toy. Not for either of them, at least.

∞

By the time I climbed into the back seat of the SUV, things between Kett in the front passenger seat and Desmond in the driver’s seat had cooled to glacial levels. I didn’t mind at all. Kandy, still in wolf form, snuggled next to me and radiated the heat of a small volcano. The iciness between the two predators in the front somehow dampened their magical aura. So things were better all around.

The werewolf nosed something against my hand. A chocolate bar. A 70-percent single-origin chocolate bar from Venezuela, to be exact. The packaging was a bit battered by tooth and claw, but it was chocolate and I was in desperate need.

“Ha,” I whispered. “You’ve been holding out on me. And developing expensive habits.”

The wolf rested her head on my thigh as I tried to not simply tear off the wrapper and inhale the slightly melted bar whole. This kind of chocolate was meant to be savored, and the act of eating it should help calm me down. I broke off a piece and just let it sit on my tongue. It was smooth and creamy, with a cashew undertone that was divine and addictive.

Wary of her inch-and-a-half long canine teeth, I offered Kandy a square. She took it from me delicately. I figured if her werewolf metabolism could burn off skinwalker spells then a little chocolate wouldn’t kill her. I wondered again why she didn’t change back. Maybe the transformation was exhausting?

“Maybe you just helped yourself to this bar out of my personal stash, hey wolf?”

Kandy pawed at me and I laughed. Then I gave her a second piece.

Desmond caught my gaze in the rearview mirror while I was still smiling. “You going to share that?” he asked. “Or is there some sort of BFF club going on in the back seat?”

My smile fell, and not because McGrowly saying ‘BFF’ was ridiculous. Sienna was — had been — my BFF. Sienna who had tried to kill every single person in this car.

Desmond actually looked concerned for me. His green-flecked eyes reflected … what? Pity? Because I was walking around completely and utterly aware that the object of my pain was — according to the rational world — utterly underserving of my love?

He shouldn’t be looking at me. He should be paying attention to the road. I dropped my gaze, snapped another piece off the bar, and passed it over his shoulder. He took it, and thankfully didn’t try to engage me further.

“The Grand Council,” Kett said. His cool voice was a balm to my aching soul. “Which, as you noted correctly in the forest, is comprised of representatives from all the major species of the Adept, is overseen by what governing body?”

“There is no higher authority,” Desmond snapped. “The Grand Council itself barely exists.”
 

I could actually hear the way the chocolate coated McGrowly’s tone. Which would have been cool, except for the fact that it meant I was far too intimate with the sound of his voice.

“The question was for the dowser, shifter,” Kett replied. “Your ignorance is well earned. Hers can be rectified.”

I snapped off another piece of chocolate and wished I could see beyond the headlights of the SUV. This was a beautiful drive in the daylight or at sunset.

“Teach her something useful, vampire. Like how to fight or focus her alchemist powers.”

“Everything has a time and place. The dowser already had a lesson in both those disciplines today.”

Desmond’s gaze returned to the rearview. I kept mine pointed out the side window. “You made a magical object today?” he asked.

I didn’t like the almost imperceptible eager edge to his question.

“She rescued you, didn’t she, shifter? Did you find the bindings of the skinwalkers easy to break?”

“I didn’t bother testing them,” Desmond said, a growl on the edges of his tone. “The dowser was handy with the knife. That was simple and quick.”

Kett — his point made, I imagine — dropped the conversation. Or he just lapsed into one of his fugue states. I got the feeling that we all bored the hell out of him most of the time. We moved and thought too slowly, ponderously. I know I did.

“Has Kandy’s magic been affected by the skinwalkers?” I directed the question to whoever would answer, lightly petting the short hairs on Kandy’s forehead and nose.

“No,” Desmond answered. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to elaborate. He cast a look at Kett, who didn’t stir, then shook his head as if in disbelief that a vampire was sitting next to him. Like I’d said, the Adept didn’t like sharing information. And they really didn’t like sharing information with vampires. “She’s demoralized. The wolf form makes her feel more powerful, and it’s … simpler.”

Ah. I wouldn’t mind that kind of escape from everything going on right now. “It’s that way for you all? Powerful yet simpler?” I wasn’t really expecting an answer. I usually only got one at a time with the vampire.

“ ‘More focused,’ might be a better way to phrase it. Hunt, eat, care for your pack, fight … mate.” His gaze lifted to mine in the rearview again. Yeah, so I was watching him. Having practically mauled him in the forest, I decided I was allowed to look at him now.

“Clarity. I wouldn’t mind some of that.”

“You got more of that chocolate?”

“Yeah.” I passed him another piece. I was probably supposed to just give him the whole bar — pack status and all — but I wasn’t in his pack. I also had a feeling that Kandy might have been withholding from her alpha in the first place. But, if she was going to transgress for me, and Desmond was going to let it slide, I’d be a moron to point it out.

I sucked on another square. At this rate, the bar would be gone by Britannia Beach, with thirty more minutes of chocolate-free drive ahead of us.

“Who oversees the Grand Council?” Kett asked again. His voice was cool through the darkness that had warmed between the shifters and me.

“The Guardian Council,” I answered by rote. We’d gone over all this earlier today.

“And who are the Guardians?”

“Dragons,” I answered.

Desmond laughed just once, but sharp enough that I flinched. The ride and the chocolate had relaxed me more than I thought. “Myth,” McGrowly sneered. “There are no such things as dragons or elves or leprechauns. Pure myth.”

Yeah, I was familiar with having a narrow understanding of the Adept world. I’d thought that all shapeshifters were werewolves, that I was half-human, half-witch, and that my Gran would never, ever hide the truth from me.

“The west coast of North America is a very small territory, Desmond Llewelyn.” I was pretty sure that was the first time I’d ever heard Kett refer to McGrowly by name. Oddly, I think he was trying to be kind.

“My father is a lord of the North American Assembly. I’m not just some ignorant hick born in the woods and raised to be the strongest,” Desmond said. “Dragons are mythical creatures, as are elves and fairies and angels.”

“And demons?” I asked. I’d hoped — ever so briefly — that it had been a demon, called up by Rusty, that had eaten him, and not as it turned out, my sister, Sienna. I was still attempting to bury that same hope underneath cupcakes, yoga classes, and tedious lessons with the vampire.

“Demon’s exist,” Desmond answered, before Kett could elaborate. “Possession and all that. Sorcerers getting into places they —”

“Dragons of tooth and claw and scales are indeed mythical, but Guardians who derive their powers from —”

“Bedtime stories for children. There are no all-powerful guardians watching over the world, human or magical. Protecting us from all the things we don’t see, all the epic disasters that don’t kill us.”

“The nine make up the Guardian Council. Yes, they are rare, but they are a race, just like you and —”

“Have you ever met one, vampire?”

Kett went quiet. So that was a ‘no,’ then.

Desmond snorted, and returned his full attention to the road.

I was so going to run out of chocolate before Britannia Beach. No wonder Kandy stayed in wolf form. That way, she had a major excuse for not participating in what masqueraded as a conversation, but which was really just a sausage swing-and-measure.

I didn’t know if vampires even had functional genitals, but I was damn sure that Desmond had Kett beat in girth alone.

And with that not at all unpleasant thought in my head, I attempted to sleep.

A necromancer was sitting on my front stoop. Okay, I didn’t have a front stoop. A necromancer was sitting on the front steps of my apartment building. A fledgling necromancer, to be more exact. Morana Novak, aka Rusty’s sister, to be very specific. I hadn’t known Rusty even had a sister, not until after he died. She didn’t know me well enough to know I always entered my apartment through the bakery alley exit. But, neither did Desmond, seeing as how he’d pulled up on West Fourth Avenue rather than around the back.

We had managed to not actually speak to each other for the remainder of the drive down the mountain from Squamish. Kett had hopped out at a stoplight in the middle of downtown, and Desmond had continued to drive Kandy and me into Kitsilano without missing a beat. He’d pulled up right in front of my bakery, Cake in a Cup. Since it was now north of midnight, West Fourth was dead quiet.

Having jumped out the moment Desmond slid the SUV to a stop at the curb, I now found myself staring at the young teen, who was glowering at me from the third stair to my and Kandy’s apartments. Kandy — or rather Desmond, for Kandy — had rented the neighboring apartment from Gran when he’d installed the green-haired werewolf as my keeper.