Page 8 of Magic of the Damned

“Believe me, you don’t want me to repeat myself,” the stranger told him. His breezy tone sounded menacing. With a viper’s strike of movement, precise and swift, he was behind Jackson, giving me an unobstructed view of his hand as it wrapped around Jackson’s throat. Jackson’s face blanched and he managed to let out one strangled gasp before his words were cut off. Mr. Ominous whispered something in Jackson’s ear.

I should do something. Scream. When you witness an assault, you do something.

The stranger released Jackson. Jackson shuffled back, glaring at the man, then he sneered at me before backing away. Leaving his drink on the bar’s counter, he headed for the exit.

The stranger’s amber eyes showed an unsettling level of indifference for someone who’d just wrapped his hand around someone else’s throat. He eased closer to me, leaving just a few inches. The light cascaded over the sharp angles of his jaw and cheek, over the bridge of his nose and the outline of his full lips. Looking into his intense eyes was like staring into a fiery abyss. His presence: coiled violence. If I’d seen someone who emanated such intensity and bound danger, I’d cross the street to avoid them. Here in the crowded bar, I was in his crosshairs. Steely curious eyes regarded me with interest.

My side eye wasn’t as inconspicuous as I thought.

“You wanted him to leave.” He said it so matter-of-factly, I choked out an inappropriate scoff of laughter.

Fully aware of his lethality, I took several steps away from him. He inched forward. I inched away. He stopped, giving me space, a bemused gentleness moving over his features. It was disarming but not enough to keep me from being guarded. If necessary, I’d redirect the course of action to him that I’d planned for Jackson.

“Yeah. But I tend to just ask. I guess choking a person out is an option, too.” I smiled. I thought he’d mirror it. Isn’t that what normal people do?

“Give me your name,” he ordered.

I hadn’t seen him move, but the new distance between us was noticeable. Stifling the air around us, his all-consuming presence made the people surrounding us seem miniscule.

“Dominic,” he offered when I didn’t respond. “I’m Dominic.”

We were definitely closer. There wasn’t enough room between us to extend my hand to greet him. Shaking his hand: too formal. Was nudging him in the chest to give us space an acceptable greeting?

After several moments of stony silence, I offered my name. “Luna.”

He repeated it in a low voice. Slowly enunciating each syllable. Tasting the word. Seemingly turning it over in his mind, trying to place it.

When he spoke again, he leaned in, right against my ear. Heat radiated from his body, enveloping me. I inhaled his scent of sandalwood, my hand going to his waist, my thumb brushing over the hard muscles of his abs. Damn. My mind wandered to a place it shouldn’t.

“Are you still enjoying the book?” he asked.

There was only one book he was inquiring about. I nodded, trying to read his expression. He’d asked me about being a witch, and I was curious as to how far down the supernatural rabbit hole he was.

“It’s more detailed than I expected. I’ve read my share of fantasy books. But the author presents it in a manner that leads me to believe it’s nonfiction.”

“In what way?”

“The detail. It’s very specific, especially when he writes about shifters and vampires. It’s very reminiscent of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, a gothic supernatural tale that draws you in so much you feel like you’re reading a biography. The Discovery of Magic reads like I’ve been made privy to someone’s journal about their experience with the supernatural world. Very introspective.”

A dark cast fell over his eyes as they bored into me. Lips set into a tight line. Had I offended him? He believed in magic and witches, so were vampires and shapeshifters a leap? Like Reginald, would he claim to have his own dubious magical ability? “Luna, my magic is making vodka disappear faster than anyone else. When I ease it to my lips, it just disappears.”

“You have no beliefs in the occult?” he asked.

“No.”

His tongue slid across his lips, moistening them as he leaned in. I tried to make out the words he whispered. The air thickened around us, and I sucked in a sharp breath when the heat of our closeness was replaced by wisps of coolness that slithered over my skin and wove around my skin, constricting around me. The tightness then loosened and breezed over me like a brush of wind. His eyes were pools of darkness, submerging me, leaving me unable to look away. The sensation abruptly stopped. I yanked my eyes from his.

“Tenebras Obducit,” he hissed. “Impossible.” He grimaced and was gone.

Scanning the crowd, I looked for him. A glimpse. Nothing.

More people had flooded in. It wasn’t packed. Navigating was difficult but not impossible. It wasn’t crowded enough for him to completely disappear. But he had.

What the fuck was that?

Putting aside the weirdness was difficult and I had to force myself to focus on Emoni’s performance. But my attention kept being pulled to Dominic’s parting words. Was he insulting me? Possibly, based on the sneer. He definitely wasn’t complimenting me. Taking out my phone, I wrote the words out, spelling it phonetically despite not knowing exactly what he said—or called me. I’d search it later.

Night Ravage now got my undivided attention. Emoni did. No matter how many times she performed, like the audience, I was captivated by her powerful and hauntingly elegiac voice and her undeniable stage presence. The audience had succumbed to fluid mesmeric movements, ensnared by her. This was her element. Despite her saying that music gave her life, I believed it was the opposite. She infused vitality into the lyrics like no other.

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