Page 18 of Magic Betrayed

By the time I was done, I was feeling weak and a bit wobbly, so I leaned against the vanity as I pulled the door open… Only to take a staggering step backward when I encountered six and a half feet of dragon looming just outside.

He caught me before I could trip over the toilet, steadied me, and then let go. Possibly because he saw me turning six different shades of red.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” he asked carefully.

I scowled at his chest and nodded. “I’m sure. If you’re ready, then we should go. I don’t want to keep Faris waiting.”

One cautious step at a time, I made it to the living room, with Callum hovering at my elbow. Once we reached the kitchen island, he stopped hovering just long enough to pick up a to-go cup with steam rising from the lid, and a packet wrapped in paper.

“Breakfast bagel,” he explained, shoving the packet into my hands. “And coffee.”

Dang it. Just when I thought I had my emotions firmly under control…

At the look on my face, Callum just grinned sympathetically. “Not alone anymore, remember?”

It seemed they were going to hit me over the head with it until I gave in.

“Thank you,” I murmured, unable to keep looking at him without losing what little composure I still had. “We can go now.”

* * *

We tookthe glacially slow elevator—thanks to my still-wobbly limbs—and approximately three years later, it deposited us on the ground floor. Callum’s phone buzzed twice during our descent, but he merely glanced at it and frowned before stuffing it back in his pocket. Must not have been Faris again.

I managed to walk out to the curb under my own power, then stopped dead at the sight of a familiar-looking custom SUV idling at the curb. It was long and bulky, and built like a limo on the inside, with just two seats in the space behind the driver.

“I thought you were on leave,” I accused, as I eyed the vehicle cautiously. “Usually, that means you don’t bring your entourage with you.” I wasn’t in any hurry to repeat my experiences from the last time I got into a vehicle like this with Callum.

“Entourage?” a horrified voice echoed from behind me. “I am offended by the suggestion that I am anything less than my own unique and memorable self.”

I winced as I looked back over my shoulder. “Very memorable. Mostly because every time I’m around you, something blows up.”

Ryker chuckled wickedly. “Don’t worry. I rarely make the same mistake twice. We’ve definitely fixed the door lock problem, and the engine has a crush-resistant frame.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Avoiding wedding plans, of course,” Ryker responded promptly. “Also, Callum asked me to come, and I always do what I’m told.”

He winked. Callum glared. I decided to shut up and get in the car.

Though I did end up holding my breath most of the way to our apartment, especially when we drove past the exact spot where a team of Blake’s henchpeople had dropped a rock on our SUV and then tried to fry us to death on the inside. We’d survived, thanks to Ryker’s shifting into a dragon and tearing the doors off the vehicle, but I wasn’t sure we would be as lucky a second time.

Thankfully, we arrived without incident, and Ryker let us off at the curb before heading off to find parking.

I managed the short distance from the curb to the stairs, but the stairs themselves were too daunting, so we took another elevator ride. This one was faster, but the moment the doors opened, I felt my chest grow tight with remembered terror.

Unlike last night, the lights were on. It was a bright, sunny day, and I wasn’t alone. But with every step I took towards the open door of our apartment, the fist around my heart squeezed tighter until I almost couldn’t breathe.

“Oh good, you’re here.” Faris appeared in the doorway and gave me a critical once-over before beckoning us in with a jerk of his head. “I have another crisis to deal with, but I need to show you this first.”

“What crisis?” Callum followed me in, casting an assessing glance over the interior of the apartment while he waited for Faris’s response.

I tried not to think about what it must look like through his eyes and was only mostly successful.

“Glamour failed on the front of the club,” my boss admitted with a bit of a growl in his tone. “I hired an expert, and she was supposed to fix it last night, but she never showed. So this morning a human wandered in, spotted Chicken and Waffles and Hugh in his draperies and ran off in a huff to report us for health code violations.”

I wanted to care. I really did. On a normal day, I probably would have found the situation mildly amusing. But my eyes were glued to the wide, dark stain of dried blood in the middle of the floor. There was so much, and all of it was mine. I really was lucky to be alive.

Faris was still talking to Callum. “…the city is already giving us the side-eye after Blake sent that anonymous message accusing us of kidnapping and abuse of humans, so now I have to go play nice and explain why they shouldn’t slap me with fines.” His eyes were starting to glow with frustration, and for good reason.

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