Page 133 of Throwing Shade
“Without magic.” Laurent drained his coffee. “But born to magic parents.”
“That protection is gone now,” Tatiana said. “You have two choices. Go back to being a blank or work for me and I’ll keep you and your family safe from those people. From the vampires as well, if necessary. Zev won’t make a move against you if I forbid it.”
“You didn’t forbid it with me,” Laurent said. “It’s an empty promise.”
“You didn’t ask,” she said.
Laurent tensed, likely remembering I’d said the exact same thing to him about Max. If we’d been better friends, I would have rubbed his back to calm him down, but instead I folded my hands in my lap.
“Why can you order Zev around?” I said. “What do you have on him?”
“Zev can be made to see reason with the right incentive. The carrot is generally more effective than the stick.”
My mouth twisted. “Except in my case.”
“This isn’t the stick,” Tatiana said. “Trust me, you’d know if it was. This is the reality of your situation. If you want to use your magic, you will be in danger. I can protect you, so long as you get over your moral hang-ups. You get excitement, adventure, and the added bonus that I’ll help you find your parents’ killers.” She smiled. “Sounds like the carrot to me. Do we have a deal?”
Was this mazel or free will? Power or empowerment? I could walk away and take my chances, never use my magic again, and bury myself in my work and my parenting like I had before, and do what was expected of me.
Or, I could blow up my life, firmly embrace my magic, and possibly trade away my morals for my family’s safety and the names of those who’d destroyed my childhood.
I couldn’t be a wayward child for a few hours a week with no repercussions. It either colored my entire life or I shut it down.
When Jude had quit the corporate world, it was because her Sunday night dread attacks had gotten acute. I’d never suffered from them, but now I understood. How long would it take before I lived for 5PM and that feeling of being released out of the prison gates into a fleeting freedom? Even if I miraculously landed my dream librarian job, I’d be reading about adventures instead of living them.
I turned the silver stirring spoon over in my fingers. “I—”
“She can’t work for you,” Laurent said, smoothly, “because we already discussed her coming to work for me saving the enthralled. She doesn’t require either of your choices.”
For a second, hope burst hot and bright inside me. Did the Lone Wolf really want a partner? My morals would remain intact, but given Zev’s ability to compel Laurent, it wouldn’t come with the same protection, nor could he pay me. Not that I was really considering his offer, because it wasn’t real.
I slumped back against the banquette. I was floundering in the stormy waves and he’d simply thrown me a lifeline. Sadly, in my case, it only led to a different piece of wreckage.
There were two choices, both dangerous for different reasons, so which was the path of least regret? I glanced down at my shadow. Or the one of most possibility?
As a teen, I’d been scared and alone, and I’d hidden the secret of my magic under a shiny sheen of respectability. Nothing to see here, folks. After years of therapy with Eli, I prided myself on my self-awareness, but I’d been fooling myself as much as I’d accused the others of doing. Responsibility, invisibility, those were comforting excuses I’d used because I was scared to keep landing wrong.
“What would I tell everyone that I do?” I said.
Laurent threw up his hands.
Tatiana’s expression softened, and she squeezed his arm. “It’s not the same thing, Lolo, and you know it.”
He shook his head and stalked off without another word.
Tatiana watched him go, her eyes clouded with worry.
“Will he be all right?” I said.
She shrugged, a weariness in her gesture. “As for you, say you’ve accepted a private contract from a world-famous artist to catalogue years of family letters and documents to assist with her memoirs. We have a deal then?”
“I’ll need to give two weeks’ notice and I draw the line at hurting or killing anyone human, but yes. We have a deal.”
We shook on it. Tatiana ordered another basket of croissants for me to take home.
I pulled up to my house, smiling at its neat white trim and the budding rosebush under the picture window. The sun warmed my skin and the sky was there for the taking.
Shoving my newly purchased pack of batteries in my purse, I got out of my car and flopped on my sofa, thrilled to be home with no immediate crisis looming over me.
