Page 37 of Magpies & Mayhem
Jordan made a noncommittal sound in response, absentmindedly dropping my strands of hair and trailing his fingers through again. “I had too much to drink that night, and I don’t remember most of it. I don’t remember leaving the party, or how we got to the girl’s place, but my friends confirmed I left with her. The only thing I remember is how much it hurt. This searing, burning pain in my neck that wouldn’t go away. The first thing I remember is having some naked girl in my lap, latched onto my neck, and the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life blistering through my carotid.” He swallowed loudly. “I pushed her off me, but she wouldn’t let go of my throat, so I reacted out of instinct. I torched her.”
When he fell silent again, I asked him, “Can I hug you?”
He swallowed again before saying, “Yeah.” His whispered reply in the darkness felt like it echoed a thousand times in my soul. I laid my arm over his waist and gave him a gentle squeeze. “Someone heard her screaming,” he continued hoarsely, “and called for the medics. But when they came, they couldn’t save either of us.”
Chapter 24
Icouldn’thelptheway my fingers clenched into fists and chills washed over me in reaction to his words. The melancholy way he said, “they couldn’t save either of us,” as if he had died too, as if he werelost, made me physically sick. The idea of him being destroyed like that, being broken, somehowunsavable… He was right in a sense; his life wasn’t over, but itwasirrevocably changed. That someone had purposely done this to him was inexcusable. Unforgivable. My own voice sounded hoarse when I admitted, “I’m glad they couldn’t save her. I’d want to track her down and kill her myself.”
There was no emotion in his voice when he answered. “You wouldn’t have gotten the chance. She’d have gone to prison for it and been locked away for at least one lifetime.”A paltry sentence for an immortal.
“Then I’d just have to survive long enough for her to get out,” I grumbled. “How did you manage to kill a vampire, anyway?”I might need that information against one someday, since blasting one into a gas giant or feeding them to sharks was probably out.“And why would she go to prison? Assault?” I didn’t know how vampire law worked. Biting someone seemed like a pretty natural vampiry thing to do.
I felt him shrug. “Burn someone hot enough and even rapid healing can’t compensate.” He paused to focus on untangling a knot he’d found in my hair.He was preening me!My arms tightened around him as I fought to control my inner-squee of happiness. “They have laws against taking blood from people without conscious consent,” he continued, “and they’d have thrown the book at her for changing me while I was under the influence. There’s a ton of paperwork that has to be filled out beforehand to prove the one being changed consents and understands the consequences.”
Huh.Paperwork and bureaucracy really were everywhere.I felt my forehead scrunch into a frown against his chest. “I don’t understand how your parents could blame you for any of that,” I said, remembering his comment in the desert about why they didn’t get along.
“If I hadn’t been drunk, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“What the hell?” I half-shouted, rearing back to look him in the face. He was dead serious, with a resigned sort of tiredness behind his eyes. “I’ll kill them too,” I growled angrily. I wouldn’t actually kill his parents, but how dare they?Victim-blaming assholes!
“Shhhhh,” he whispered, blinking sleepily at me before pulling my face back down against his chest. “I’m okay now,” he murmured against the top of my head. “I just don’t want to be around them anymore.” I felt his gentle shrug, and after another moment, his breathing evened out, growing slow and steady as he dropped back off for a few more minutes of sleep.
I lay there wrapped in his arm while he slept, considering how unfair life could be sometimes, and what kind of evil hijinks I could plague his parents with for being so callous toward their own child. Nothing I thought of felt villainous enough. If we were mated, he could just have my parents, who were pretty awesome despite their own flaws. The thought was as startling as it was tempting.
I woke up alone a little while later and realized I must have fallen asleep again as well. The spot where Jordan had lain was cold, so he’d been up for a while. I rolled over and peeked under the bed to find the dragon was gone and half my stuff had been dragged out of my backpack to make a nest in the back corner. Luckily, it didn’t smell like pee. My skin felt prickly and tight again, but it was probably just from me not knowing where the boys were. My bag had been righted and a pair of clothes that looked like a smaller version of Jordan’s uniform was stacked neatly on top of it, with both of my sticks placed on top. They smelled like dragon drool.That little brat.
I set them aside carefully and suited up in the new clothes Jordan had left, since mine were full of dust. The trousers and jacket were black, padded leathers that were loose enough to fight in but tight enough to not get in the way. While leather was already fireproof, there were runes sewn into the insides of both pieces for protection against fire. The high neck wasn’t something I would normally have picked for myself, but it was practical and protective, so I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at it. I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and then rescued the rest of my belongings from Huck’s impromptu nest, tossing it all into my bag with my sticks carefully tucked on top and zipping it shut. I’d need to stop by home tonight and swap out for some clean stuff.
I threw the bag over my shoulder and followed the scent of vampire to the common room, where Allie the orc was poring over another file at the table and the big giant guy was warming up a blood bag on the stove. “Where is my dragon?” I asked, standing in the doorway. I couldn’t smell Jordan’s or Huck’s scent anywhere nearby, and the baby carrier had been missing.
The giant looked at me over his shoulder and did a double take. “Who’s that? And why is she wearing our clothes?”
“She’s the bird, dummy,” Allie answered. “Jordantold youshe was a shifter.”
I wiggled my fingers at him.
“Jordan said to tell you Augustus sent him out scouting and he was taking the little fire-breather with him,” she said to me. “I don’t know how long he’ll be out, but he’s always back to check in before daybreak. You’re welcome to hang out here if you want.”
I was immediately miffed that he’d left without me and wasn’t about to sit around twiddling my thumbs if there was no dragon to keep an eye on. “Thanks. I’ll be back,” I grumbled, heading for the stairs. I did my best to ignore how weird it felt to be without them and decided to take advantage of my dragon-free time. Theproblemwasthat it was hard to ignore. I’d been spending so much time with them that I must have just gotten used to it. The farther I got from his workplace, the twitchier I felt. It feltwrong.
A quick jaunt home showed that my brother had been busy. The couch was gone and replaced with a newish one—it looked like he’d found it on the side of the road somewhere, but that was fine. That’s how we’d gotten our last one. All the remnants of destroyed pillows and plants were also removed. There were cans of primer and paint stacked by the wall, with most of the charred damage already covered in a good coat of primer. He wasn’t home, but since he worked in construction, he had no real schedule to speak of, so that wasn’t unusual. I restocked my bag and dumped out some dried flowers from a vase on my dresser to replace them with my new sticks, taking a moment to appreciate their structure.
They were nice sticks.
Then it was time to head into Seattle and hope Elara was working late.
Itwasimpossibletoconcentrate. Every time I started to run the numbers on our accounts to balance the books, my mind would drift back to Jordan. The way he held me. The tremor in his voice when he spoke about his trauma. The shape of the words his mouth brushed across my back. The glint of curiosity in his eye when he held up his stick. The hot weight of his—I huffed out a breath and started angrily punching in the numbers again, feeling Elara’s eyes burning into my brain. The ice rattled in her cup, and I turned to find her staring at me owlishly while she sipped on a pink drink from the coffee shop down the street. She was looking healthier—her color was back to normal, and she seemed well rested. But that also meant she was back to being more observant of her surroundings. And she wasn’t even trying to hide her staring anymore, which meant a lot coming from her.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
She blinked at me, managing to look even more owl-like when she did. “What areyoudoing?” she responded dryly, which made me want to laugh but I kept it in check.
“I’m balancing the books.”
Her lip twitched the barest amount, but I saw the spark take hold in her eyes. “By staring longingly into space and making lots of huffing sounds? I’m pretty sure you’ve braided and re-braided your hair five times since you sat down.”
I frowned at her and tried to ignore her annoyingly observant remarks. “When is Levi coming back?” He’d been here with her when I arrived but ducked out to his apartment to grab some things.
