Page 14 of Magic of the Damned

“Lance, must you make a spectacle of yourself at all times?” the regal woman chastised. With a wave of her hand, a gust of wind pushed in my direction, followed by a swirling of golden lights that ensorcelled the human lion, and when it disappeared, he stood before me fully clothed in a fitted t-shirt, relaxed jeans, and flipflops. Unruly chin-length sandy-colored hair, his skin coloring just a few shades lighter. Predaceous, emotive golden-brown eyes and a long oval face. He was his animal incarnate.

He cast a look over his shoulder at the woman who’d clothed him. “Madeline, this isn’t a witch,” he announced.

Thank you. Listen to the shameless man who—oh dear fates—was a lion a minute ago. It hit me like a brick. He was a lion just moments before.

All eyes went to the man with the violet eyes. “She is the one I saw,” he confirmed. He leaned forward in his chair; his elbows rested on the table as he steepled his hands. Wary interest entered his kind eyes. “She tasks me. This is the one I envisioned before seeing the empty Perils. How can this be if she has no magic?”

Madeline’s frown deepened. “I thought she was shrouded in a cloaking spell, which was why I couldn’t sense it.” She directed her attention to Lance. “But a cloak doesn’t work on shifters. You’re sure she’s human?”

It wouldn’t be hard to determine that I wasn’t a witch, if everyone with magic gave off such foreboding dynamic energy. It prickled at my skin, plucked at my nerves, and made it very apparent that I was in the presence of something other. With all of Reginald’s declarations of being a witch, nothing about him felt like this. Surely, nothing about me hinted at it, either.

“Yes, I am human,” I offered before anyone else could. “So there’s no need for me to be at… whatever this is. I don’t know, the Meeting of the Weird and Scary?”

No one seemed to find me amusing.

I started backing away, but the shifter’s sharp predatory scope stopped me in my tracks. A warning. “She’s human,” Lance confirmed.

Madeline looked unconvinced. “But does it make her innocent?”

“As far as her role in the Perils being compromised, she is,” confirmed a deep, rich, commanding voice.

“Dominic.” Madeline’s eyes snapped in the direction of the voice, as did mine and everyone else’s. The vampire’s lips furled, displaying fangs.

“You can put those away because you’re definitely not going to use them on me,” Dominic told him, as he and the two people who were with him at the coffee shop moved toward the table. Speckles of blood stained the sleeves and front of Dominic’s white shirt that clung to the muscles of his chest and arms.

The man whose face I hadn’t been able to see at the coffee shop was in full view. Fawn-color complexion; I guessed Middle Eastern descent. His light-hazel eyes appeared to have undertones of green. The angles of his face were diamond sharp and he had a strong, well-defined jaw and cheeks. The roil of danger that came off him made holding his gaze hard. Initially distracted by the sword secured against his back, I eventually let my eyes trail to the scar that ran across his cheek.

As they moved farther into the room, two things became overwhelmingly apparent. The cadre behind the table didn’t like Dominic, and he was wholly unconcerned by that.

“You have no reason to be here,” Madeline asserted through clenched teeth.

A smirk flitted along Dominic’s lips as he cocked a brow. “Yet here I am.” Once standing next to me, he fixed Madeline with a hard look. There was a fine line between admirable confidence and unrepentant jackass, and from the cocksure look on his face, he precariously straddled that line.

“Were the sentries to entertain me or stop me?” he asked with a darkly amused smirk.

Anger swept over Madeline’s face. “Are they alive?”

“If that was a concern of yours, you shouldn’t have ordered them to stop me,” he countered, returning her glare.

I took that as confirmation that I needed to get away from him and this hot mess as soon as possible, but curiosity had me too intrigued to run at that moment. Desperately needing to find out what was going on and how I had mistakenly been pulled into it, I remained for an explanation.

Madeline stood, leaning into the table. The magic roiling off her changed the pressure in the room, stifling the air with minacious energy.

“You tell us that the Perils has been compromised, the prisoners escaped, and the worst of our kind are at large, and you expect us to do what? Sit around and wait for them to exact their revenge on us—the people who allowed them to be incarcerated there?” she barked. “Our seer confirmed that she is involved.”

“I expected you to take the necessary precautions for you and yours to stay safe. To lie low and not impede me while I remedy the situation. And I damn sure didn’t expect you to try to stop me from attending meetings. Tell me, what are your plans for this human?”

Not loving the wording of that comment, but I’d ignore it if it got me out of there.

Madeline’s jaw set as they held each other’s gaze. I was wrong; they didn’t dislike him. They hated him with a fiery passion that was amply displayed on all their faces but more profoundly on Madeline’s.

“The seer informed us that she’s the one involved. We plan to handle the matter.”

Before Dominic could respond with something that I guessed would further agitate Madeline, Dominic’s violet-eyed companion directed a question to the man whose eyes resembled hers.

“What did you see, Callum?”

His gaze slid to me. “Her, empty cells and…” He picked up the phone, unlocked it, then turned the screen to her. I moved with her to get a glimpse.

---