In the Company of Witches(39)

“You’re outdated, Mikhael. This is the generation of drive-through divorce, if your prescription mood drugs can’t make you happy every minute you spend together.”

“Hmm.” He leaned forward. He did it slow, giving himself time to anticipate her reaction, but she didn’t think anything she did would change his goal. He looked pretty set on his course. She stayed still as he rubbed a thumb on the corner of her lips, taking away the chocolate. “What you said earlier, about fucking Derek to even the score?” Those dark eyes flickered with heat, fixing on her mouth. “It’s not just over Ruby’s dead body that you would ever touch Derek Stormwind.”

Derek and Ruby came out of the sundae shop. She could tell Mikhael was entirely serious, though his thumb had been gentle on her mouth. He sat back as the other couple joined them, Derek straddling a chair and Ruby sitting next to Raina, generously offering her another bite as well. Raina covered what she was feeling with her usual feline smile, but Mikhael had pulled her chair closer to his again, and now his hand settled on her thigh, his fingers casually curved to the inside of it, a touch that made it clear he had carnal knowledge of her. He kept it there as the men spoke of more innocuous things, a lot of undercurrents happening but at least decently civilized. Derek had even brought Mikhael a beer, which was kind of like the world turning on its axis.

That wasn’t the only skewed thing. She’d been okay with being swept up in this as long as she was sure, no matter her own feelings, that to him it was simply an intense fling between two unattached adults. But now, with that comment about Derek Stormwind, with this entire day, Mikhael had shifted it to a different footing.

It was hard to follow who and what he was when she was getting so many conflicting messages. She knew her thigh was warm beneath his hand, that her every nerve ending was pointed in his direction. She was so aware of him, that he was with her and that he was making that very clear to anyone else. She wasn’t missing Ruby’s pointed glance at that hand, slightly more discreet than Ramona, but still a what-the-fuck look.

She must be carrying some of those hormones from their movie, because she wanted to pull Ruby off to a ladies’ room and say, “Did you see how he was touching me? Isn’t he the hottest thing ever?” Goddess, she was losing her mind.

“There’s a Grim Reaper in town,” Mikhael mentioned.

“I think Ramona’s adopted him for the afternoon,” Raina added. Ruby lifted a brow.

“Should we be worried?”

“No. Mr. Know-It-All here says that he’s not here for her. That it’s all part of the natural order, blah, blah, blah.”

“Sorry; this is Mr. Know-It-All.” Ruby tilted her head toward Derek. “One’s got to be an impostor.”

“Or we’re just letting them think they know everything. Female condescension and all.”

“Sssh. That’s ultrasecret girl code.”

Raina smiled. It was good to see Ruby joking again. She gave Derek credit for that. He’d helped her friend heal from the loss of their baby and the terrible fallout from that, which had nearly taken Ruby from all of them. That won him a lot of points in her book. Not that she’d show it.

“Ice cream’s done. I’d like that moment now,” Derek said, looking pointedly at Mikhael.

“If you’re going to do the ultraprotective, husband-of-my-best-friend thing where you threaten to kick his ass if he’s mean to me, you can sit right here and do that,” Raina said. “And I don’t need anyone’s protection.”

“Actually I was going to warn him that you’re a rabid pit viper and not to go to sleep in the same house with you. Unless he chains you in the basement first.”

“Asshole.”

“Shrew.”

“Chaining her in the same room with me would be far more exciting.” Mikhael wiped his mouth with a napkin and rose. “I’ll walk with you, sorcerer.”

He gave Raina a glance that made her visualize in great detail what being in chains and at Mikhael’s mercy would be like. There went that shiver again. Ruby registered her reaction, damn it, but there was no help for it. Mikhael’s specialty was dark souls, and hers just rolled out the red carpet for him. Each time he made comments like that, she knew he was drawing closer to when he’d make good on them. It didn’t matter if she registered it as promise or threat—she looked forward to it.

“YOU HAVEN’T TOLD HER, HAVE YOU?” DEREK SAID, HIS jaw tight. They’d moved a block down the street, turned into an alley between a café and a wine shop. There was an iron gate to protect the cottage garden there, but it was open, allowing them to step out of the flow of foot traffic onto a pattern of concrete stepping stones.

“Told her what?”

“What you’re feeling, what it means.”

“What am I feeling?”

“We saw you across the street before we came up. The hand holding, the peanuts.”

Mikhael blinked. “My God. I knew I should have concealed my nefarious peanut-crushing activities.”

Derek set his teeth. “I swear, you’re just like her.”

“In a few days, I’ll likely have to kill the wild incubus she’s protecting. Possibly in front of her. How do you think she’ll feel about me then?”

“You’re part angel, Mikhael.”

“Any other obvious statements you wish to make? Do you need to remind me that I used to spread your wife’s legs and—”

Derek had him shoved up against the alley wall in a heartbeat, just as Mikhael expected. He dodged the punch to the face but caught Derek’s fist in his own before it impacted the wall. Broken fingers would be hard to explain. They held that pose a charged blink in time; then Derek shoved away from him.

“The hell with you. But if you hurt her, if you hurt my wife’s best friend, I will disembowel you.”

“You can try.”

Derek stepped to the opening of the alley, then swore, pivoted. “Is it the Darkness that makes you like this? You always had it in you, but over the years…it’s become darker. I thought we were friends, once.”

“You even the scales for the Light, Derek. I do it for the Dark. It may be for the same goal, but it’s from different sides. I work from the shadows; you work in the light of the sun.”

Mikhael’s gaze shifted. Derek turned to see Ruby and Raina standing there. They knew them too well, apparently. Ruby’s face was tight with concern, but it was to Raina Mikhael’s attention went, knowing she’d heard his last statement. He couldn’t tell much from her expression, but she was listening. Waiting.

He came back to Derek. “When a civilization becomes so prosperous it gets lazy and falls into entitlement, decadence, apathy and inertia, my job is to push them into brutality and hardship to accelerate change, bring the scales back to rights. You may save a child to ward off evil; I will cause its death for the same purpose.”

He heard Ruby’s indrawn breath, but he wouldn’t look toward either woman, not now. “Without struggle, there is no character and strength. But some force has to provide that adversity. We work for the same goal, but on sides that can never be reconciled.”

“I would have taken the thirteenth straw.”

“Yes, you would have. And it would have been the wrong thing to do. I was the right person for the job.”

Derek studied him a long moment. “Ruby, Raina, I need to say something to him. Privately.”

Both looked ready to argue, but Mikhael looked toward Raina. “No more fighting. I promise.”

“Right.” She gave him a searching look. “Play nice. We’d hate to have to separate you boys.” Curling her fingers around Ruby’s arm, she tugged her away with her.

Derek waited until Mikhael knew he was certain the women were out of earshot, but even then he kept his voice low.

“Angels only give their hearts once, Mikhael. I know it; you know it. You have sex—insane amounts of it—but I’ve never seen you act like you’re in a relationship. I’ve never seen you crush peanuts for a woman.”

“I’m quarter angel.” Leave it to Derek to laser in on what had crossed his mind a hundred times today, but it didn’t matter.

“You’ve always had more of your grandsire’s blood than your parents’. No matter how you amp up that bullshit Russian accent.”

“You’re wrong, and even if you aren’t, it’s my business, Derek. She won’t be affected by it. She’s not an angel.” A diabolical ripple of humor went through him, remembering her trying to electrocute him with a metal ice cream table. What an understatement.

He met Derek’s scrutiny dead-on, Guardian to Guardian. “I won’t cause her any more harm than my mission requires. Not that I feel any obligation to you, but as my…apology to Ruby, I give you my word on her behalf. I will leave her friend no worse than I found her.”

Derek grunted, a noncommittal noise. “Can you live without her when you have to walk away?”

“I’m immortal, same as you, sorcerer. We live on, no matter what.”





13



HE’D BEEN QUIET SINCE HIS ONE-ON-ONE WITH DEREK. They drove back to Sweet Dreams, but when they reached the driveway entrance, she wanted to walk, so they left the car. As Raina glanced over her shoulder, she saw it shimmer and disappear. Back to the Underworld garage. Thinking about the train set, she wondered what other things Mikhael had in that cache deep in the Earth. An old toy from his youth, a picture of his mother, all indications of what he was, other than a Dark Guardian.