She trembled. Just the barest of a shiver ran through her. Her eyes slipped shut.
Crash!
A glass vase hit the floor and blew into a million pieces near the door. He jerked in surprise. Marguerite yelped and ducked reflexively. Whirling, she had her hand pressed to her chest.
The hero. Of course.
He stood there next to the broken glass vase, a stupid grin on his face. “Butterfingers.”
If there was any magic in the world that could implode a man on sight from rage alone, just then would have been the moment Gideon summoned the ability to command it. Sadly, he could not, and the irritating man simply stood there with that proud expression. I hate you, he seethed silently.
The revenant’s expression said that the feeling was not only known, but mutual.
“Damn it, Harry.” Marguerite sighed as she walked up to the bigger man, looking down at the broken bits of glass. “You did that on purpose.”
“Me?” The other man put a hand on his chest. “Never.”
“I’ll get a dustpan…” She let out another breath and headed toward the kitchen.
It was the loud and childish kissy faces that the hero made in his direction that finally broke what remained of Gideon’s frayed temper.
* * *
Maggie hitthe deck for the second time in as many minutes as the sound of a heavy thud and the smashing and splintering of wood filled the library the moment she stepped through the door.
Turning, she saw Gideon atop Harry, having thrown him through a table, the two halves shattered and bent to the floor in the middle. Gideon had one fist balled up in Harry’s shirt, and the other poised by his shoulder, ready to lay into the revenant beneath him.
Darkness swirled like smoke around him. She could sense the power in the air like lightning before a storm. The necromancer snarled down at him, his face a mask of rage. “I have had enough!”
Harry’s eyes were wide in terror.
“Gideon!” Shouting at him was probably pointless, but what the hell else was she supposed to do? Throw something at him? He could turn into a big, weird, smoke…shadow…lich…thing. But to her surprise, he froze. She watched his jaw tick as he clearly struggled with his temper.
He punched Harry once in the face. Hard. Harry groaned in pain, his head rolling to the side. Grumbling quietly to himself, Gideon stood, brushed himself off, straightened his black three-piece suit and his bright silver tie. Without even a glance at her, he strode from the room. “I wouldn’t bother with the dustpan.”
Harry sat up out of the rubble of the table, holding his nose. She was sure it’d be broken or bleeding if that kind of thing could happen to him. Gideon was storming up the stairs.
“Where are you going?” she called after him.
He hesitated, took a deep breath, and then slowly let it out. “To change into something more casual for tonight. Because if we do not leave now, I fear I will turn that cretin’s bones into a coffee table.”
She could only watch dumbly as he finished storming upstairs. A few seconds later, a door slammed. She looked over at Harry, who was busy attempting to realign his nose. There was a crunch, and he groaned.
“Was it worth it?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Absolutely.” He sniffed experimentally. “You were gonna let him kiss you.”
Yeah. She was. She was absolutely going to let him kiss her. She frowned and walked away from him without another word. She needed some space.
“Are you mad at me?” he called after her.
“No.” She went out the front door and shut it behind her. She wasn’t mad. She was confused. Sitting down on the white alabaster stairs that led to the door, she took in the city of London for the first time in daylight.
She couldn’t really focus on it. Not the black cabs that zipped along, not how compact and yet expensive everything in this area was, none of it. Everything just kind of skipped over her mind like a rock on a pond.
He had been about to kiss her.
And she had wanted him to.