Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

Myr stared at him for a beat, telling herself not to be an idiot. Problem was, she didn’t know which answer counted as idiocy: accepting his peace offerings and risking what little hard-won balance she’d managed to get back after their night together . . . or telling him to get lost.

The fact that she could come up with a laundry list of why she should send him away probably should’ve made the choice for her. She hesitated, though, and not just because of the brownies. It was the mix of hope and “I dare you” in his eyes, and the shimmer of heat that snapped in the air between them, one that she couldn’t quite ascribe to the fighting magic that was pumping in her veins. And, to be honest, it was the shame of knowing she had wimped out this morning.

Tell him to stay? Tell him to go?

It would’ve been easier if he’d been just another guy, like the ones she’d hooked up with in New Orleans. But there were millions of those guys out there, and only one Rabbit. He awed her, impressed her, sometimes scared the hell out of her. He had the potential to save them all . . . and the potential to destroy her. She wanted him, yearned for him, and after last night she knew damn well it would be far too easy to submerge herself once more in a relationship with him.

But he’d brought her brownies and beer, which had been a Friday night ritual during their year-plus together in college, a way to celebrate the weekend back when they’d thought they had it so tough and hadn’t had any idea what tough actually felt like. Now, she knew exactly how it felt . . . and it was asking her for a chance to get back with her, and to let things between them go deeper than she’d had any intention of going.

She should tell him to get lost. Instead, she nodded to the six-pack. “Vitamin B?”

The tense set of his shoulders eased slightly. “Something like that.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Wanna take a walk?”

She really, really shouldn’t.

She did it anyway.

They ended up at the pueblo. Nostalgia tugged as she crested the narrow, winding trail leading up and saw the wide, flat ledge and familiar round doorways. This was where Rabbit had gone when they fought, where they had gone together to get a little drunk and make love under the stars, and—although she hadn’t told him—it was where she had hidden out in the weeks after he disappeared, while she recovered from his attack and tried to come to grips with what had happened between them.

She hadn’t been back since she gained control of the magic. It didn’t look any different, though. She was the one who was different . . . or at least trying to be.

Sitting on the very edge of the cliff, she let her legs hang and felt the shimmy in her stomach that said there was nothing to keep her from falling. Rabbit sat beside her, with a few inches separating them, extinguished the foxfire he’d used to light their way, and stared out as the night closed around them. The lights of Skywatch shone in the distance, but everything else was dark, save for the glimmer of stars up above.

“About last night,” he began after a moment.

“I’m sorry I wimped out and did the tiptoe thing,” she said, knowing she owed it to both of them, especially after what he’d just said about wanting to make more of an effort with her. Wanting to, in effect, court her, even though they both knew the timing couldn’t be worse, and she wasn’t even sure it was what she wanted. “Look, last night was great. Better than great. It was incredible . . . but I didn’t want us to wake up together and be back where we started.” She paused. “I need some space, Rabbit. I went from living under the Witch’s thumb to being your girlfriend. Not that I’m saying the two are equivalent. I loved what we had together, loved learning about the magic and how to fight . . . but I never really learned how to be myself. I’m starting to figure it out now, and I don’t want to lose that.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Okay, yeah. I get that.” But the lines beside his mouth deepened.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Don’t be.” He took her hand, lifted it to kiss her knuckles, and shot her a crooked smile. “Like I said, I didn’t really work hard enough for you the last time around. You want space, you’ve got it. But that doesn’t change the fact that I want you in my bed—or your bed, one of the Jeeps, a closet, all of the above . . . your call.”

Her skin heated at the low rasp of his voice. She didn’t believe for a second that it was going to be that easy. Even if he stuck to a no-pressure, whatever-you-want arrangement, she wasn’t sure she would be able to stick to it, despite all her newfound determination. If the old Rabbit had fascinated her and made her feel like she wasn’t alone anymore, the man he’d become compelled her, made her yearn.

Forcing herself to stay casual, she bumped him with her shoulder. “Does that mean I can still have a beer and one of those brownies?”

“You can have whatever you want,” he said simply. “Whatever, whenever, if it’s mine, it’s yours.”

“Rabbit . . .” Don’t say stuff like that. She wanted too badly to hear it, to believe it.

“Don’t worry, no pressure. We’ll take things as slow as you want.” He paused, smile fading. “It’s not like we won’t have other things to focus on for the next eight days. And after that . . . well, there’ll be plenty of time for us to figure things out.” He looked away as he said that, though, making her think he was just saying the words, or maybe trying to believe them. Was that because he didn’t think they could work things out, or because he thought it would be a moot point, the earth destroyed? It doesn’t matter, she told herself. What matters is the next eight days. And after that, well, he was right. If they made it through, there would be time to figure out whether to stay together or go their separate ways.

The thought made her want to scoot closer to him and cling. Instead, she pulled her hand from his, balanced a brownie on her knee and reached for a beer. “That’s true enough, I guess. Unfortunately, we don’t have much time when it comes to figuring out what to do about the gods.”

Like it or not, it was easier to talk about battle plans than it was to talk about what was happening between them.

He shot her a sidelong look that said he knew what she was thinking. But then he took a swig of his beer, leaned forward and braced his elbows on his upper thighs. “I’m trying not to let this be an easy choice. It shouldn’t be.”

Before, back when she’d been pushing him to reach the full potential she saw in him, she probably would’ve jumped right in with all sorts of opinions, probably none of which would’ve been “have faith in the sky gods.” Now, though, she hesitated. Over the past few months, she had prayed to the gods for her magic and talked to them when she was alone and uncertain. It was unsettling to think that she might’ve been praying to the enemy all this time.

“Maybe Dez is right,” she said. “Maybe we should hold off on making any decisions until we’ve looked into the info Bastet gave us.” It felt weird to call the goddess by name, but was that any weirder than the message itself? Probably not.

“Maybe.” Rabbit flicked a couple of pebbles off the ledge, tilting his head as they clinked and clanked on the way down. “The whole Egyptian thing feels right to me, though. It makes sense. But what if that’s because I’d already talked myself out of the sky gods once before? I don’t trust myself on this one. Not after what happened with Phee.”

“Well, for better or worse, it’s not really going to be about what we believe, is it? Dez is going to have the final say.”