Chapter 8 #2
He blinked. What the hell?
Who had unfinished business with pigeons? Were they aggressive pigeons? Judgmental pigeons? Gossipy pigeons? Had they flown off before the issue was resolved?
Pushing aside his curiosity for the absurd, he noticed that the pigeon lady’s flame burned steadily.
Thom dropped his gaze to his own lantern.
The flame inside sputtered, dimmed, flared—then dipped again, hovering dangerously close to dying.
Then it flared again, as if taking its last gasp.
Thom looked around at the other lanterns and saw they were all burning as they should.
Did they have the only two dud lanterns on Lantern Beach?
He started to ask Poppy whether she wanted to return to the table and get another one when Poppy’s lantern swayed back toward her, smacking into her arm, immediately catching fire.
Thom reacted instinctively, dropping his lantern and knocking hers away.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and, in the process, knocked his coat off her shoulders.
It fell on top of the burning lantern, and his coat ignited with a surprisingly big whoosh.
Thom yanked her away, pulling her closer.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide, utterly bewitching. She smelled of something wild but sweet, and beneath his hand her curves tempted him to explore. She was all woman. All lovely.
Pulling his eyes off her face, so hard to do, when all he wanted to do was to cover her lips with his, to take and take and take. He looked down, saw his lantern hovering about three inches off the ground, swaying from side to side. Beneath it, small flames crept across his jacket.
“Shit, I liked that coat,” he muttered.
“So much for having a calm, healing ritual,” Poppy muttered, her hands on his pecs. He turned his gaze back to her, and attraction, dark and dangerous, arced between them, as tangible as the lake behind them, as solid as Solstice Deep winking at them from down the shore.
Their attraction was a living, breathing, pulsing entity, massively difficult to resist.
But Poppy had more willpower than him, and she stepped away and stamped on his coat with her booted foot, smothering the flames. Then she tried to grab his lantern, but it danced out of her reach, as if an invisible hand was jerking it away when she got close.
“What the hell is happening?” Poppy demanded, lunging for the lantern again. “This makes no sense at all.”
The lantern bobbed and ducked her grasp. Annoyed by something he couldn’t explain, by his attraction to Poppy, the stupidity of this event, Thom reached for the lantern and instantly grabbed it. Crumpling it in his hands, he smothered the flame, feeling the heat in his clenched palm.
Poppy looked from his face to the lantern and back again. He sighed, desperately looking for a rational explanation. Nothing came to mind. “So how do we explain what happened here?” Poppy asked him.
Hell if he knew. He shook his head. “We don’t,” he curtly replied, scooping his coat off the sand. “I vote for ignoring it and never discussing it again.”
Because otherwise they might have to consider ghosts or unseen hands and inexplicable happenings, and he wasn’t prepared to go there.
“Works for me,” Poppy quickly agreed. She sighed, jammed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket, and blew air into her cheeks. “I need a whiskey.”
Thom thought he needed five.
Ruby
Well, that escalated.
Ruby’s eyes widened when Thom grabbed his lantern and crushed it within his hand, smoke curling around his fingers.
Tuning out their conversation about who and why and what—humans could be so narrow-minded!
—she looked at Thom’s smoldering coat and smiled.
Back when she was undead, a little destruction always relieved the pressure in her head and chest. Nothing drastic, but a little wild drinking, some rough sex, and flying down the highway at a million miles per hour went a long way to calming her jitters.
Since none of those options was available to her now, she’d had to get creative.
Ruby looked up and saw Lila wearing her favorite outfit, a barely-there corset, black stockings, and a purple ostrich feather in her hair. Naomi was half step behind her. Lila’s expression was sharp with suspicion, and Naomi looked disappointed. Shit. Incoming lecture…
Ruby folded her arms and lifted her chin, immediately defiant. “Why did you attempt to flambé Thom and Poppy?” Lila demanded.
They didn’t even ask if she’d messed with their lanterns; they just assumed, correctly, that she had. “Are we going to the theater to watch what happens at the singles evening?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.
Two sets of eyes narrowed.
Ruby watched a crab scuttling across the sand to disappear under a rock. They’d bug her until she told them.
Truth was, she was bored. Spectacularly so. On this side of the veil, time could drag when there was no decent drama, and Poppy and Thom—with all their simmering tension, long looks and this is a bad idea crap—were currently the only show in town. And they weren’t even doing anything.
But boredom was only part of it. The other part was an ugly ache she’d lived with on the other side—the one that bubbled when she was alone and lonely, when she didn’t have a man to focus on, no one to impress, no one to chase. She’d been a master at clinging.
And how did she rid herself of that ache? By acting out. It was who she was, what she did. Death, apparently, hadn’t changed her much.
“I will not let you change the subject, Ruby. You were playing tricks on them,” Lila said, her tone hardening.
Ruby rolled her eyes. Fine.
“I wondered what would happen if I nudged things, so I gave them a little push.” She lifted a shoulder. “Also, they keep saying this was a bad idea, so I thought I’d show them what that really looks like.”
Naomi blinked. Lila did not look impressed.
“Effie messes with humans all the time,” Ruby protested. “I just wanted to have some fun. Girls do, you know.”
“By setting them on fire?” Naomi asked.
“It was supposed to be a flick. A suggestion.” She lifted her chin in defiance. “I did it because I was bored and because I could.”
That wasn’t the whole truth, but it was as much as she was prepared to admit out loud.
Lila nailed her with a hard stare. “If you misbehave like this again, you will be making an appearance in front of the Bureau of Post-Mortal Conduct. The link between choices and consequences is stronger and more direct this side of the veil.”
Ruby shrugged, watching as Thom and Poppy walked away, still carefully keeping the distance between them. Whatever. She’d do better next time.
Or she might do worse—either way, she’d make sure she did it smarter. And that she wouldn’t get caught.