Page 2 of Magpies & Mayhem
The problem with my impulsivity was that I’d forgotten how nervous the reaper made me. Nervous was maybe a strong word. I wasn’t scared of him… much. Something about his presence made me jittery, like I should strike first and ask questions later. That was entirely inappropriate, however, because the man had never been anything but politely disinterested in me.
It didn’t stop me from glaring down his front door like it had offended my mother. Who knows how long I’d been standing there like a crazy person—I hadn’t even knocked—when the front door slowly creeped open. Standing on the other side was seven-foot-whatever of otherworldly maleness, holding a bowl of popcorn and staring at me like I was the weird one.How did he even know I was here?
“Grim,” I greeted him, standing there and pretending like I wasn’t nearly quivering with tension. I couldn’t feel people’s magic the way Elara could—that wasn’t in my wheelhouse—but I think it would have been impossible for anyone to be in this guy’s space and not feel something menacing emanating out of him. His aura swallowed a whole room just by him existing within it.
He simply inclined his head toward me in greeting, then gestured toward the room with his bowl, stepping back to make way for me. So nonchalant. So normal. You’d never know he could spawn all kinds of things from shadows and collect the souls of the dead. I wondered what he did with them.Does he eat them?
Grim’s expression became more inscrutable the longer I stared at him, but I got the distinct impression he wanted to roll his eyes at me. I narrowed my own eyes at the dark-haired man and turned sideways to slide through the doorway, pretending like I wasn’t trying to keep as much space between us as possible. Because I’m smooth like that.
It only took two small steps into the room to transport me back in time to twelve-year-old Sidney, because seated in front of me, glowering at me, was my childhood daydream. Jordan Houjin, my oldest brother’s super-hot teammate and my pre-teen crush, was gripping the arms of his recliner like he wanted to destroy them. He still had those gorgeous cheekbones that looked like they could cut glass, those perfect, kissable-looking lips, and that glossy, raven-colored hair. Looking at him instantly took me back to days spent on the sidelines ‘watching my brother’s matches’ as a gangly, gap-toothed child.
Jordan was different too. His skin was all wrong, pallid and sickly looking, and it caught the shadows in an odd way. Elara’s words came back to me, about Levi having a vampire roommate, and my heart plummeted. What had happened to him?
Worse still was how hard his eyes were as he stared at me. The playful, flirty, confident Jordan I’d watched growing up wasn’t the same person I saw before me now.
But then, I guess I wasn’t the same knock-kneed girl he’d known either.
“Hey! Sid’s here—” Right over my shoulder, where I hadn’t noticed his approach, Levi’s exuberant voice sent me into a conniption fit. Between the hair-raising presence of the grim reaper on one side, and the dawning horror of discovering Jordan’s fate, I had no mental space for anything else. My response to being startled was to shift—every time—and this was no exception.
Before Levi could even complete his sentence, I’d collapsed in on myself with bone-crunching speed, flaring with heat and sprouting feathers. I tucked my arms-turned-wings against my body with a snap to pump me up out of the neck hole of my shirt, flapping twice more before my clothes even hit the floor below me.
But—CURSES!I remembered too late.My pin feathers!
Outrage flooded me. I didn’t consider myself terribly vain about my human form, but when it came to my feathers? Yeah, I cared what they looked like. Corvids in general are striking birds, and as a born-and-bred magpie shifter, I wore my black and white markings with pride. But right then, mid-molt, I looked like a buzzard with mange.
I had two choices here: I could remain an ugly-ass, mid-molt bird, with raging hormones and tender skin, or I could immediately shift back and be naked as the day I was born. My choice was made before my clothes had even touched the floor, but dang it, ithurt.
Shifting was always uncomfortable—calling magic forth and commanding a change to one’s corporeal form was never a pleasant sensation. But twice? In less than a minute? The amount of magic required, and the physical exertion, caused the second shift to be downright painful. And that did terrible things to my mood.
I was poised to strike the instant my body reshaped, my leg pulling up and releasing with a snap. It was an overreaction. I knew it before the kick even connected, so I changed course just enough to strike his chest and not his face. Levi took far too much pleasure from startling me into shifting for me to let it go completely.
“Oomph!” Over the back of the couch he went as I landed on my pile of discarded clothing. “I probably deserved that,” he wheezed, sucking wind for a few seconds on the floor somewhere behind the couch. “Maybe not for this time, but definitely for one of the earlier ones.”
Elara stood, frozen, a few steps from where he’d landed, holding two full drinks she’d been carrying into the living area, exasperation written on every tiny elfin feature. I felt the tiniest spark of shame for punting her new husband across the room, but I ruthlessly stomped it into smithereens. I was standing here, buck naked in front of my childhood crush and a real-life-actual-grim-reaper, because Levi had startled meagain. My bones still ached from the rapid double shift.
“I told you she was molting,” Elara muttered.
“You did mention that.” I guess Levi had decided the floor behind the sofa was a comfortable spot, because he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get up. A soft crunching sound behind me told me that Grim was eating popcorn. That was my cue to extract myself from this ridiculous situation.
I unclenched my fists and my jaw, crouching to scoop up my clothes and careful not to give Mr. Reaper more of a free show than he was already getting.
“Levi’s room is the—” Elara started, but I cut her off.
“I got it.” I wasn’t an idiot. I headed for the closest open bedroom with my clothes and shut the door. It had a large poster of the boy who played Jacob from the movie Twilight taped to the back, and the room didn’t smell like Levi at all. It smelled like vampire.
Chapter 2
One Month Later
“Sidney,ifIdidn’tknow better, I’d think you were my mother,” Elara muttered distractedly.
I nudged the sandwich closer to her, half-considering what she’d do if I snatched up the project she was so intent on. Sometimes I did ‘mother’ her a little too much, but this wasn’t one of those times. “You’re still recovering from knocking yourself out, and your dad said to take it easy. Also, you’ve missed lunch again, and—” I picked up the work log to verify that her output had indeed gone above what I’d laid out for her today, “—you’re done.” Elara was technically my boss, but you’d be forgiven for not realizing that at first glance.
We ran a shop together in North Seattle. She made and modified magical items, and I sourced supplies, sold the products, and ran the books. I’d also taken over planning out her daily schedule due to her inability to pace herself when she was stressed, and for the last few months, she had been intensely so.
She was still trying to catch up on the backlog of orders that had piled up due to her recent absence while working on a project for the fairies. This was against the “light duty” order by her doctors after she’d over-exerted her magic just over a week ago. She’d blacked out and ended up spending a stint in the hospital. Two days of supposed light duty, while knowing she had a pile of orders waiting for her, had been enough to make her want to tear her hair out. We’d been at odds about it ever since. She got that obstinate look on her face that meant another argument was coming, and I held up my finger for her to hold her peace. I needed a moment toreallylook at her.
Her father was old-money elvish nobility, and while it showed in her delicate, aristocratic features and darker complexion, what really stood out was the wealth of jewels she covered herself in on a daily basis. I’d known Elara for several years now, and—first meeting not-withstanding—she was always tidy and put together.
