Page 34 of Consume Me
“I’m going to the back room for a bit to work on something for a client,” she says a few minutes later.
“I’ll hold down the fort,” I tell her a little too brightly.
She frowns and walks off.
The dagger is restless now. Agitated.
And then, without warning, it moves.
I’m behind the counter, shelving vials of wolfsbane,when it leaps—actuallyleaps—out of its holster. The steel flashes in the light as it spins once in the air and lands point-down on an open page of a thick, leather-bound tome. Natalia’s grimoire.
Shit.
I live under strict instructions to never touch that thing.
The impact sends a tremor through the book, and a puff of dark smoke rises from the page. The scent hits me instantly—burnt magic, bitter and metallic. Inside my head, the dagger’s hissing goes abruptly silent.
Natalia appears from the back. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“Felt like a ripple of magic.”
“It was nothing,” I say quickly.
After a moment, she disappears again. The moment she’s gone, I lunge forward and yank the blade free from the book. Then I jam it back into the holster before the smoke even has time to clear.
“What the hell was that?” I demand under my breath.
No answer.
I turn away from the grimoire and exhale, trying to shake off the weirdly ominous feeling.
A moment later, the bell above the shop door rings, the sound sharp in the thick air. I turn—and my pulse skips.
Noctan stands framed in the doorway, a darkly handsome silhouette against the bright street beyond. The Autumn sunlight catches in his hair, turning the strands near his temple lighter shades of brown. His coat hangsopen, the collar of his shirt catching on the breeze that sneaks in with him. Even here, in this grounded, ordinary place, he manages to look like something carved from a fantasy.
Natalia emerges, and I tense.
Her gaze sweeps over him, her lips curving with a smile I’ve only seen her use when she’s holding a particularly good secret. “Well, well, well,” she says, voice dripping with amusement, “If it isn’t the Amarok? So, this is what happened last night.”
My head snaps toward her, my cheeks heating. “What are you talking about?”
But she’s already looking at him again, leaning one hip against the counter. “Hello, Noctan Fenhaven. Always a pleasure.”
My gaze jerks between them. “You two know each other?”
Noctan’s mouth curves faintly, though it’s not exactly a smile. “Natalia.” His voice isn’t friendly exactly, but it’s familiar. “It has been a while.”
She tilts her head, studying him like she’s flipping through the pages of a memory only she gets to see. “A couple of centuries, at least. You look… the same.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “So do you. Still warding the place like a paranoid old fox.”
“Paranoia has kept me alive longer than most,” she says lightly, though her eyes glitter.
I glance between them, trying to piece this together. “I’m sorry—a couple of centuries? You two have known each other for that long?”
Finally, Natalia says, “Let’s just say this isn’t the onlyrealm that has use for talents like mine. In fact, Noctan was one of my first customers.”
