Ilona Andrews - Magic Slays

It wasn’t a bluff; I heard it in his voice. He would do it. He would walk away. “You would leave all these people, all the bowing, and the . . .”

His gray eyes looked into mine. “If I fought for them and was crippled, they would all say nice things, and then they would replace me and forget I was ever there. You would stay with me. You would take care of me, because you love me. I love you too, Kate. If you ever became hurt, I would not leave you. I’ll be there. Wherever you want ‘there’ to be.”

I felt like crying. Great, he’d turned me into a weeping weakling.

“Would you like to leave?” he asked.

I swallowed. “Not unless you want to.”

“Then we will stay. For now.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he said.

I was lucky. Somehow, maybe because of all the messed-up shit the Universe had thrown my way, I’d gotten him. He was mine, completely mine. He loved me.

I kept making barriers between us and then heroically knocking them down. Whether it was because of fear or mistrust, or for whatever other reason, I had to stop doing it.

I glanced down. The food was cold, our plates sat empty. “Do you think it will keep?”

He stood up. “Hell yes.”

THE CANDLES DIDN’T KEEP. BY THE TIME WE MADE IT back to the kitchen, the candles had dripped wax over the candelabra. I poked my steak—lukewarm. The baked potatoes were cold. Corn on the cob was barely warm. I didn’t care.

“I’m starving.”

“Got to keep your strength up.” Curran grinned. “So you can keep up.”

I clasped my hand to my throat and made some strangled noises. “Help me, I can’t breathe, your ego is pushing all the air out of the room.”

He laughed.

“This menu looks really familiar,” I said, loading my plate. I’d switched to a sweatshirt and sweatpants. My dress had been discarded anyway and besides, we had agreed to take our plates back to the couch, and I didn’t want to get food on it.

“Mm-hm,” Curran said, spearing a chunk of meat. “Apple pie is in the fridge.”

He’d recreated the menu he requested for the naked dinner. Ha!

“How did you even know my shoe size?”

“I’ve seen your foot up close.” Curran pointed to his chest. “I’ve seen it here.” He moved his hand to his jaw. “Here.” He touched the place over his cheek where my kick had cut him. “And here.”

Aha. “Would you like to watch a movie while we eat?”

“Sure. What sort of movie?”

“It has everything: action, drama, comedy, beautiful soundtrack. Hot male lead.”

His thick eyebrows crept up half an inch. “That last one isn’t exactly a plus.”

“Jealous of the actors now, are we?”

“What, of some fancy boy on the screen? Inconceivable.”

Oh, this was going to be good.

We took our plates to the coffee table by the couch, and I slid Saiman’s disk into the player. The warehouse full of cars solidified on the screen. Curran’s face went blank.

When the first notes of the song sounded through the living room, he looked at me. “He set it to music?”

“His exact words were, ‘It begged for a soundtrack.’ ”

A Ferrari flew across the screen and crashed into the wall. Curran looked impassive.

I chewed a piece of my steak. It had to be the best steak I’d ever had. “I seem to recall a certain man boasting about his ‘superhuman’ restraint.”

“I did show remarkable self-control.”

“You destroyed five million dollars’ worth of luxury cars.”

“Yes, but none of them are wearing human heads as hood ornaments.”

I dropped back onto the pillow. “So you want credit for not repainting the place with blood?”

“The guards walked away. Saiman walked away. Tell me that’s not superhuman.” Curran pulled me close to him and kissed my neck where it joined my shoulder. Mmm.

“Where did you get this?” His voice was entirely too casual for comfort.

“That source Jim keeps referring to is Saiman. He is knee-deep in this whole thing. He left some evidence at Kamen’s place, and I tracked him down.”

“Did you go to see him?” Curran asked.

Warning: danger ahead. Rocks fall, everyone dies.

“Yes.”

“At his apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Where is Saiman now?”

“I’m not sure. Under the bed? Maybe you should try the closet.”

“Kate!”

I laughed. “You should see your face. Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust you,” he said. “I just need to talk to him.”

Aha. Talk. His Majesty, Master of Negotiation. “I took Derek with me when I went to see him. Saiman is so scared of you, he didn’t even want to let us in. And the Keepers sent a team into the place to finish all of us off. How can you be jealous of him? It’s like me being jealous of Myong.” Not that his latest ex-girlfriend didn’t inspire jealousy. She was a stunning woman, elegant, beautiful in an exotic way. She was also fragile like a delicate glass ornament.

“Nothing ever happened between me and Myong,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Right.”

“I’m serious. Not that I didn’t want to at the time, but I tried to kiss her once, and she got a deer-in-the-headlights look. I got a feeling that if I went any further, she’d shut her eyes and pray for it to be over, so I backed off.”

“Maybe I should check the closet to see if the beautiful Myong is hiding in there, since you are so hot for her . . .”

He blinked. How does that foot taste?

“Blah-blah-blah.”

“You’re so eloquent, Your Majesty. So kind and generous to your subjects. So full of snappy comebacks.”

“Don’t forget brutally honest. To my own detriment even.”

“Oh, yes. Honest to a fault.”

“You never told me where Saiman’s hiding.”

I took my plate into the kitchen.

He followed me. “You like to screw with me, is that it? Saiman, that Russian mage, that merc . . .”

“What merc?”

“Bob.”

I racked my brain. I’d barely said two words to Bob. “He stopped by our table to ask me which way I’d vote in the Guild elections. They still haven’t figured out who is in charge, and I’m technically on the roster.”

“Yeah. Did he have to lean over you while he was talking?”

“He was trying to let Mark think that he and I were buddies.”

“And you are not.”

I threw a bread roll at him. Curran snapped it out of the air.

“Would you like me to carry a foot-long stick? I can just poke people with it when they get too close.”

“That’s a good idea.” He held his arm out. “If you can extend your arm and touch them with the stick, they are too close.”

“You’re insane.”

“If I’m insane, what does it make you?”

“A terrible judge of character.”

I went back to the couch. I could’ve fallen for someone steady. Dependable. Well-grounded. But nooo, I had to lose my head over this idiot.

Curran pounced. It was an excellent pounce, executed with preternatural speed. He pinned me to the couch. “Tell me where Saiman is.”

“Or what?”

“Or I will be displeased.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s worried himself into paranoia, Curran. When Jim and I were dealing with the rakshasas during the Midnight Games, Saiman went into the Pit to plant a tracker into a rakshasa opponent. He was so terrified, he could barely move. The rakshasa cut him, and Saiman snapped. He bashed the rakshasa to death and kept beating his body for about five minutes. When he finally calmed down, there was only mush left. I know you can take him. I can take him, too. The question is why. Why make an enemy of him? You have to either kill him now or stop screwing with him, and if you’re going to kill him, I really am a terrible judge of character.”