Page 25 of Bound and Tide

Evangeline sucked in a breath but then let it out—she should have known Xander was observant enough to note Horace’s frequent visits, so observant he’d seen more than she had, apparently. Yet the way he said something else made her insides twist up.

She finished with the bins and sauntered to the counter to lean on it as casually as possible, eager to shift the conversation. “His father used to own this entire street. Bought it up with his shipping profits off mostly stolen goods. It was little more than a slum then, so when he could turn another profit by selling it off piece by piece, he did. Now that the neighborhood is thriving and the Terrins aren’t, his son thinks the family’s owed something.”

“Ah, so they overlooked the charm this place has when they sold it off?” Xander’s gaze found hers, and he turned from the doctored pot, waiting.

She straightened, jaw going tight. “It didn’t exist then,” she said carefully.

“I suppose it took you putting your roots down to give this place life, eh?”

Anger swirled in Evangeline’s belly, and she pushed herself off the counter to stride right up to him. “What did you do?”

Chapter 13

ON HAVING, HOLDING, AND LETTING GO

The imps halted their play to stare up at Evangeline with wide, black eyes. She had been such a fool to believe this stranger’s act, to let him distract her, and instead of a reprieve from the lurking danger about her shop, he’d become another facet of it.

“I haven’t done anything.” Xander shrugged. “Unless you count a little snooping.”

“You bastard.” She shoved a finger into his chest, and he winced under her poke, and that just incensed her more. What was she thinking leaving him alone in her home when she still knew nothing about him? “If you touched a single petal—”

“Red!” Xander threw his hands up in appeal, but his infuriating smirk never went away. “Truly, I touched nothing, I simply let my arcana take a stroll in the walls and the ceilings and the floors. This place is quite magical.”

“What is it you’re really after?” Her elven senses sparked as she pressed closer, the smell of cinnamon and his arcana sharp and threatening. “The shop won’t let you attack me, and I’m—”

“Ah, mercy!” Xander writhed up against her, trying to escape the heat of the hearth she was boxing him into. “I appreciate fire as much as the next, but it doesn’t have quite the mutual respect.”

She snorted, the heat traveling through his hips to reach her. “Then tell me what you really are and why you’re here.” It was about time she found out anyway.

“Come, Red, it’s not bloody important, but my flesh is.”

“I’ve seen how quickly you heal.” She pressed into him. “And I’ll see to it that you need to heal over and over again until you tell me the truth.”

He contemplated that a moment longer than a man ought to have until he finally sighed. “Oh, very well. I’m a blood mage, all right?”

“What?” The tingling mixture of excitement and rage that had been playing along Evangeline’s flesh as she threatened and pushed him to his edge was torn away with that admittance, replaced with utter confusion. She retreated, fists balled at her sides and elven arcana swirling chaotically under her skin, called out by the magic in the apothecary’s walls but unsure where to go.

It sharpened everything, the briny smell of the imps over the pungent herbs and the bead of sweat that trickled down her back. It calculated exactly how far her protection mixtures were from where she stood, and mapped out every knife, rope, and throwable jar within reaching distance. Finally, it showed her every bend to Xander’s features as they rapidly flicked over his face, reading her as she tried to read him back. Exasperation came first, then anger, then fear—well, that was quite strange—but then another smarmy, self-involved smirk painted over it all.

“I know, it’s terribly impressive, son of a demon, lord of a whole tower—at least, I think it’s still a tower—inheritor of terrible power and so on and so forth.” He shook out the satiny sleeves of the robe and then he had the gall to turn his back on her and check the stew.

Rage welled up again, batting against the bewilderment. “You expect me to believe you’re a fucking blood mage?”

“Yes, that too.” He took a taste and sprinkled in a last herb. “Well, this was salvageable at least. Not perfect, but it will do. I thought I saw bowls—”

Evangeline closed the distance she’d put between them and reached over his shoulder to take him by the robe’s lapel. He was yanked around and down to her height easily, but he resisted just at the end to let her know he wasn’t nearly as weak as he’d been that morning. The glint that was always in his eyes sharpened, but not in the way she expected, not hungry or lustful or entertained. Instead he peered at her deeply, smirk thinning out into a tense line. “Tell me the truth, Xander.”

The man licked his lips as they twitched. Evangeline had an acute understanding of arcana, but if he really were a gods-damned blood mage—one she had just let take a recuperating nap covered in her best healing tinctures in her own damn bed—then why hadn’t he just killed her already and taken the el’erium?

“Infernal blood runs in my veins as well as in here.” He slipped a finger into the robe and pulled out a vial that hung from a long cord around his neck. Inside, deep scarlet coated the glass. She didn’t need to touch it to know the blood was arcane. That was the magic she’d felt at the forest’s edge, the magic that had worked with her own to save Willie. But demons weren’t in the business of saving.

“That’s the father you’re looking for? You came to Bendcrest to search for a demon that…that smells of mushrooms?”

“Oh, no, it’s my poor, banished mother who gifted me all this,” he chuckled. “My father is human. A mage, but just human.”

Evangeline swallowed, grip on the robe going tighter as if she could hold him there despite the power he was purporting to have both in his blood and at his beck and call. “So, you’re looking for him to help summon her back into the realm then? The el’erium would never allow itself to be used that way, and if you think I’m going to help—”

“Red, darling, I did not seek out you or this shop for unholy purposes,” he said with a deeper sincerity than she was expecting. “You’re mistaking my general curiosity for malicious intent, which is probably more than fair, but I am not some petty thief, and I don’t have any interest in damaging this place or you. In fact, if I’ve not made my intention with you clear, you can establish it with a quick glance downward.”

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