Page 13 of Magic of the Damned

I nodded, the urge bubbling in me to say, “No, a book bit me, a lot of strangeness happened, and now I have this plain-ass ring covering marks on my finger. And now I have to play amateur sleuth to find the person I think is responsible.”

He closed the thick hardback in his hand to get a closer look. “Same style. This one fits you better.” He gave me that half curl of a smile that had entrapped so many people into unrequested history lessons. His eyes dropped to my bag of books. He took a look at me in my Converse, jeans, Baby Yoda t-shirt, and messy ponytail that displayed the minimal effort I put into styling it.

“If you’re not in a rush, do you want to have coffee?” He flashed me his wayward smile, which I quickly realized wasn’t as unintentional as I’d previously assumed. He was setting out bait. Not today, Mr. History Man. Not today.

“Maybe another time. I have a ton of errands to run. I just needed something to read tonight,” I lied. Although listening to Peter’s lecture would have been a good distraction to keep me from looking at my phone and waiting to hear from Reginald or pursuing my quest to find Dominic.

Blind determination, wariness, and obstinate curiosity led to me trawling the area where I’d seen Dominic. I even went back to the bar where he’d threatened Jackson. Desperation wouldn’t allow me to rule out any possibilities. I wished there were dark, dangerous, and broody Bat Signals I could deploy. Maybe if I left a trail of ristretto…

Standing on the middle of the sidewalk, I was planning where to search next when a hand girded my waist, pulling me against a firm body. Coolness wove around me, engulfing me.

“Close your eyes,” the stranger ordered.

I didn’t. Dropping the bag of books, I clawed at the stranger’s offending arm and stomped indiscriminately, aiming for his foot, until the building that surrounded me and the distant view of people several blocks away disappeared. I was plunged into darkness.

When the arm released me, I doubled over until my head stopped spinning. When it eased to tolerable, I straightened up to find four people seated at a semicircular conference table, watching me.

“I told you to close your eyes,” someone said from behind me. “You never really get used to it unless you’re the one zoning.”

I spun around to get a look at my abductor, who honestly should have been cast in stone and placed in front of a museum. Tousled umber-brown hair, parchment-colored skin, aquiline nose, broad pronounced cheeks, and generous rose-tinted lips. My eyes fixed on the unnatural contrast of his opal-colored eyes.

He was too close. When a person abducts me off the street, they aren’t doing it out of politeness. I shoved him back. “Personal space.”

His taunting smile widened, exposing sharp canines. Vampire. One hard blink. I convinced myself that when I opened my eyes, he’d be gone.

He wasn’t. Standing just a few inches from me was a vampire.

A vampire.

“I like her. Perhaps a taste before we proceed.”

A perverted vampire who wanted to taste me. There wasn’t time to process it. My only goal was to protect myself. Come out of this alive. More optimistically—unscathed.

“Try it and you’ll never taste anything again,” I shot back, demonstrating a bravado I didn’t feel and touting abilities I didn’t have. How would I stop a vampire? If he tried to get a “taste,” I’d do what I could to make good on my threat. The only weapons I had were my knees, which were going straight into his groin, and my fingers into his eyes. Damage be damned, I was going to smack him across his head with the phone in my back pocket.

He dismissed me with an exaggerated flourish of a bow.

I looked around. The creepy vampire wasn’t the only person I had to worry about.

“I see the appeal. But as you know, the fiery ones tend to cause the most trouble. And this one has caused a great deal,” said the woman seated at the middle of the semicircular table.

The vampire was still too close for my liking.

“Kane, step away from her,” the woman instructed.

After he moved back several feet, her calculating hazel eyes homed in on me. Her narrow face took on a more severe appearance and her lips thinned into a tight line. I was willing to bet the lines that crinkled as she drew her brows together weren’t from excessive smiling. Warm ivory skin was a stark contrast to her cool and aloof countenance. Her dark hair with hues of purple was coiled into a crown braid and the back in a low bun. Dressed in a blue suit complemented by a pearl silk shirt, she seemed to be in charge—or perhaps the role was self-appointed. The cool discernment in her eyes led me to believe she was older than she looked.

It felt like I’d been dropped into the middle of a conversation and couldn’t figure out the right questions to ask. Whatever they were convinced I was guilty of had made me their enemy. I divided my attention between the people, the room, and the view of the city, compliments of the floor-to-ceiling window that took up the entire back wall of the room. I wasn’t on the main floor. Maybe the third or fourth.

When I pulled my attention back to the people, I found the woman who’d called me trouble looking down her pert nose at me. Hazel eyes that bored into me with revulsion came from the younger woman to her right. Maybe enemy was being optimistic. The man seated to her left had the same luminous violet eyes as the woman with Dominic that day at the coffee shop. A colorful sleeve of tattoos covered each of his arms. Through his teal V-neck t-shirt, I could see the outline of more ink. He observed me with a gentler look as his fingers twined around strands of his ear-length reddish-brown hair.

“What do you wa?—”

My question was cut off by the light padding of feet. Slowly approaching me was a lion. A lion. A huge lion. When he licked his lips, I began calculating how long it would take to make it to the door. The occupants of the room appeared totally unconcerned that an unbidden apex predator was just traipsing into the room as if it happened every day. Maybe it did. Sitting down for lunch, bam, a lion walks up and takes the steak off your plate.

I tensed as it moved around me, its nose brushing along my leg and then along my balled hand. Before I could gather a plan, it shuddered, and a man—a naked man—was on all fours at my feet. He stood, his lips quirked at my effort to hide my shock, which was something he definitely expected and wanted.

I needed to get away from this den of freaks.

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