I thought of the groups of kids around my age who’d come in and out of the store, who’d joked and messed up our stacks of T-shirts and taken loopy Instagram pictures with the javelina figurines in the background. How many of them had been Damon’s unwitting spies?
“That’s messed up, Connor.”
“You think I don’t know that?” The area around us was becoming more populated as we headed south, and he had to slow abruptly as a Dodge truck pulled out almost in front of us. I felt the tires slip a little on the icy road before they caught again. “Asshole,” he muttered under his breath.
My fingers had unconsciously tightened on the edge of the seat. Driving in these kinds of road conditions was not something I enjoyed, even though Connor clearly knew what he was doing. Something he’d said nagged at my mind, though. “So if our wards should have alerted us to your presence, how did Damon and his little band of commandos get past them?”
“You’d have to ask him that. I told you he’s been experimenting with spells, changing them, making them stronger, altering them. I don’t know the details.” He lifted his shoulders, and a frown creased his brow. “I do know he’s frustrated because, although he’s done some amazing work with spellcraft, he hasn’t made any headway with the curse. He made a comment not too long ago about investigating alternative magic, but when I tried to get him to tell me more, he said he was only in the preliminary stages of his research, and there wasn’t much to tell.”
That didn’t sound very reassuring. Damon using his physics knowledge to somehow twist spells into something different, something new, was bad enough. But if even that wasn’t enough for him, what could this “alternative magic” possibly be?
I shivered, and Connor must have misinterpreted my reaction, because he added, “Anyway, I didn’t even go with him to Jerome…I was waiting back at Lucas’s house with the others.”
So it was Lucas whose house had the basement rec room, the one where they’d turned the pool table into an altar. I wondered why they’d done it there, and not out at Damon’s house, which seemed secluded enough. Maybe they wanted someplace that was easier to get to.
And for some reason, I was irrationally relieved that Connor hadn’t gone on the Jerome raid. Yes, some people would say he was complicit just by waiting at Lucas’s house, but I didn’t see it quite that way. He’d known we were meant to be together, that Damon’s plan would ultimately fail, but it was still important for him to be there at the moment of truth, so Damon would turn to Connor to make the binding.
Plots and plans, twisting around one another. This latest ploy of Damon’s hadn’t worked, either, but I couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before he came up with something else.
“Are we almost home?” I asked.
Connor’s eyebrow lifted at the word “home,” but he replied with hesitation. “About five minutes.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I want you to do everything you can to scrub the last few hours from my brain.”
* * *
And he did, more or less — when we got in, he scooped me up in his arms, took me upstairs, then laid me on the bed, slowly removing every article of clothing until I was naked, while he looked down at me, still fully dressed.
“You’re the best Christmas present I’ve ever unwrapped,” he whispered, voice husky.
“Well, get down here so I can unwrap mine, too,” I replied, warmth surging over me at the gleam I saw in his eyes. I should have been cold, since we’d turned down the heat before we left, but all I needed was the raging fire of our bond flooding through every vein, a glow that could defeat even the iciest winter.
He’d already discarded his coat. The rest of his clothing went quickly enough, and soon he was naked as well, bare flesh pressed up against my body. There was no real foreplay this time, save his mouth on my breast, and my hand drifting down his shaft, until he shifted his weight and pushed inside me. I was ready for him, had been from the second his gaze met mine. There was something frenzied in the way our bodies joined, as if he needed to bond with me all over again, just as I wanted him to claim me, to put his mark on me once more so Damon Wilcox could never, ever attempt to make me his.
Afterward, we dozed off in one another’s arms, sleeping for an hour or so, then waking up to full darkness. Still, it was early, not much past six o’clock. Despite the various tidbits I’d snacked on at the potluck, I was hungry.
As I stirred, I heard Connor’s stomach rumble and couldn’t help laughing. “Glad I’m not the only one,” I said, sitting up and reaching for my discarded underwear.