Magic Shifts (Kate Daniels 8)

“Oh, shut up.”

A brilliant golden flame ten feet high and five feet wide ignited in the middle of the street. Inside it, Eduardo writhed in his cage. The ifrit was punishing Eduardo because we’d killed the bull.

A voice rolled through the street, a voice charged with inhuman power that prickled against my skin like static. It raised every hair on the back of my arms. “All who are guilty will die. Witness the betrayer spawn. See his suffering.”

George ran. I jumped to my feet and chased her. Jim made a grab for her, but he wasn’t fast enough. George dashed into the street, right into the fire. It broke apart into a thousand sparks and transformed into a thirty-foot-long, glowing snake.

George screamed at the top of her lungs. It was a scream of rage and pain, rolled into one horrible, soul-crushing sound. She screamed as if something inside her had torn and nothing could put it back together.

The snake lunged at her. George grabbed it by its neck, heaved it upright, and slammed the body against the pavement. The snake hissed, the massive coils trying to wind around George and crush her. The werebear planted one foot on the snake. The muscles on her arm flexed and she tore the reptile in two. The light went out of the snake’s eyes, but George didn’t stop. She mauled and ripped the creature again and again, venting her grief on its body.

We watched her rage, tears welling in her eyes, until she finally let it go, and then Curran and I led her back into the house off the street.

Chapter 18

I OPENED MY eyes. I lay in our bed, on my side. Something felt odd. I puzzled over it and realized Curran wasn’t with me.

The blackout curtains had turned our bedroom into a quiet, dark place. I had no idea what time it was. After George had calmed down, Lyc-V finally took its toll and she crashed in one of our spare bedrooms. I tried my best to describe the building I’d seen in the vision to Raphael. He owned a reclamation company that took useful things out of crumbling skyscrapers, and he had files on just about every major ruin in the city. He wrote everything down, but I could tell nothing clicked with him. My description had been too generic. He said he would look through his files and Dali said that she would send a survey team out to the buildings Raphael identified. Curran told me that when he had dropped Derek off at the address the Clerk had given us for the gig Eduardo had turned down, he had recognized the scent permeating the area. It belonged to the man who’d stalked Eduardo. We still didn’t know who he was or why he was obsessing. It was nice that two and two fit together, but so far they still equaled twelve, which didn’t help us.

The djinn spoke English this time and it wasn’t just a single word. He was growing in power. Nobody liked that news.

Finally everyone left. I dragged myself upstairs, took a long shower, and collapsed on the bed. I had woken up when Curran came in and went into the bathroom to wash the blood off. He never came out of the bathroom. I would’ve sensed him moving. Exhausted or not, my instincts still worked.

I slipped out of the bed, walked across the slick wooden floor to the bathroom, and nudged the door with my fingertips. He was sitting in our enormous cast-iron bathtub, leaning back, his eyes closed. The tub was his favorite place aside from our bed. Huge, custom-made to accommodate him even in his lion-form with more than enough room to spare, the tub was heated with electricity during tech and with a magic volcanic rock at other times. Usually his face was relaxed when he soaked, but right now it looked tight. He was almost frowning, his thick eyebrows furrowed, the line of his square jaw hard.

There was something I’d been wanting to do, ever since I woke up in the hospital bed and saw him stalking through my room, worried and angry, all coiled strength and hard will.

I slipped off my T-shirt. My panties followed and I walked naked to the tub. Tubs always got me into trouble. I touched my fingers to the water. It was near scalding.

Worth it.

I stepped into the water. It came midway to my thigh.

His eyes stayed closed.

I bent my knees and sank in on top of him, straddling him. My thighs brushed against his long lean legs.

Curran’s eyes snapped open, a feral, piercing gray. I pressed my lips against his and licked his bottom lip with the tip of my tongue.

Come back to me. Come out of whatever dark place you’re in and feel me instead.

He opened his mouth and kissed me back, his fingers tightening on my back. I felt him harden under me. His tongue slid into my mouth, the kiss deepened, and I moved on top of him, my body hot and pliant. He made a low growling noise in his throat, harsh and male, filled with raw need, and I felt him leave whatever he was thinking behind. He was mine now. There was no worry, no dread, no tomorrow. There was only us and now.