2. Devlin
2
DEVLIN
5 minutes earlier
I ’m screwed.
Irrevocably, completely, totally screwed.
But maybe I’ll be lucky enough to survive the explosion.
“It’s going to blow!”
In front of me hovers a pulsing, basketball-sized, golden mass of magic. It stretches like a balloon about to burst.
“Find cover!”
A pair of white-gloved, disembodied hands that are currently resting on the table jump to the floor and scurry to safety.
“Hang on!”
I throw up a force field as the mass implodes, sucking the air from the room like a vacuum, pulling me along with it. My shirttails threaten to get sucked into the vortex, but I hit the mass with another blow of magic and the balloon deflates, falling on the table in a lifeless heap of golden threads.
I glare at it for nearly destroying my home and say sarcastically, “And here I thought we had the spell that time.”
Hands (both of them—they always act together) jumps back onto the table and glowers at me.
Yes, hands can glower.
I rub a palm down what I assume can only be my very tired-looking face. “You’re the one who wanted to add milkweed.”
Hands shakes, telling me that I’m not so easily forgiven for throwing around sarcasm like a pair of tossed-aside underwear.
“Look.” I scoop up the mess and drop it into a trash can. “I told you it wasn’t going to work.” Hands’s fingers sag over the palms of his body in shame. “It’s all right. You’re forgiven. It’s nothing that a bottle of water and a new set of hands can’t solve.”
He does not look amused.
“I’m only joking.” I chuckle and head from the lab into the kitchen, which is pristine—everything in its place. I run a palm over the smooth marble counter, dance my fingers to the edge and open the refrigerator. “I wouldn’t give you up for anything. You know that.”
Once a bottle of water is in my grasp, I shut the door and lean on the refrigerator, taking a large gulp. Hands walks his way into the room and jumps onto the counter.
He signs and I nod. “I’m aware that sometimes milkweed can work, but I told you that it wouldn’t, and before you ask, no, I haven’t seen it yet.”
Hands stares at me blankly.
“Staring at me doesn’t make my visions come any quicker. I will see the one we need. Trust me, it can’t come soon enough,” I mutter under my breath.
He signs, Maybe you should have some fun to get your mind off it.
“What would I know about fun?” Hands twitches his fingers. Hint taken. Yes, I like the company of women, and no, I don’t like to get emotionally involved.
When you can see the future, sometimes it’s not a future that you want to know about.
Hands teeters over to a slip of black paper and lifts it.
“That’s not funny.” I snatch away the witch ball invitation and toss it to the other side of the counter, where that pest can’t get to it. “Yes, I know Blair Thornrose is up for grabs. Well aware, thank you, and no, I have no intention of going to that ball. What do you think, I want to torture myself?”
You went before, he signs.
“That was before it was her ball. For her. For Blair to be married off. No. I’m not going, and that’s the end of it.” He waits a moment, which is Hands’s annoying habit of suggesting that I really want to attend that dance. “I know we had something in the past, but I’ve explained all that.”
But explaining it doesn’t change anything. If there is a ball and I know that Blair will be present, it has been my habit in the past to go. But I shouldn’t have. However, I am what you call a glutton for punishment. I simply can’t stop myself from dancing with that woman every chance I get.
But good grief, she’s going to be getting married. I can’t keep flirting with her, which is what I would do if I went tonight. Flirt shamelessly and drink it up while she verbally flambés me.
Such a turn-on.
No. She is trouble. Too much trouble. Distance between us is good. A lot of distance. So much distance that I don’t even know she exists, and so that she continues to believe the lie that I cheated on her.
Yes, it’s a lie.
It’s all for the best, because whenever I see her, it feels like someone’s putting their hand through my chest and squeezing my heart. I can’t keep doing that to myself.
Decision made—I’m not going to the ball, and I’m sure as hell not going to flirt with her anymore. From now on I’ll be stone-cold.
A stone-cold fox.
Hands stares at me. Right . We were having a conversation. “I’m not going to that ball, and I’m not pursuing Blair. If I hadn’t?—”
The doorbell rings.
“You expecting someone?”
Hands shakes a no.
“I wonder who it could be.”
The trek from the kitchen to the front door is a showcase of every invention that I’ve created. All of them hovering on shelves or bobbing up and down, suspended by nothing more than magic.
There’s the pocket cauldron, my first successful creation and the one that put my name on the map. Then there’s the warmer in a bottle. Just uncork it and every time a witch has to dance naked under the moonlight, she won’t freeze to death in her birthday suit. Then there’s my personal favorite—instant eye of newt. Just one drop on anything and it becomes eye of newt—a key ingredient for many potions.
The doorbell rings again. “So impatient.” I lift my hand, and magic slinks out, creeping over the polished marble and to the door, where the handle turns and opens it.
And there she stands—Blair Thornrose.
It feels like I’ve been punched in the gut. Or perhaps it’s just the wintry air entering the house.
No. Not the air. It’s definitely my body’s reaction to this woman.
She is the most beautiful creature on earth, even now as she glares at me with chocolate-colored eyes full of hate. Her pouty, sensuous lips are puckered in displeasure (what those lips could do on my skin), and she’s tapping her foot like she’d rather be anywhere but here.
She’s making my knees freaking weak.
There is no one like Blair Thornrose. I have never, ever gotten over her. Trust me, it’s not for a lack of trying. There have been many women (too numerous to count), but no one has ever even come close to outshining her. No one else understood me like she did, could make me laugh like her.
And then it ended because of me.
My heart lurches from my chest, and it takes all my will not to slide my hand up the back of her neck, wrap my fingers in her hair, drag her into my house and do all the things to her that I’ve imagined over the years. Oh, we would play for hours, days, weeks.
If I were a werewolf, I’d mark every inch of her skin with my razor-sharp canines, even the delicate bits.
Though I want her, she’s staring at me as if she’s deciding whether it would be better to throw me off a bridge or set me on fire.
“Why, Blair. It’s been a while. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”
Without a word, she shoves a stack of books into my gut. Hard.
I double over and grunt in pain.
Good thing she didn’t aim for the crotch and crush the family jewels.
“There. Take your stupid books.”
What?
She’s already walking away, her backside swishing hypnotically. I should let her go. I should walk inside and return to my experiment. There are a lot of shoulds that I should do.
But apparently I am an idiot.
“Wait.” I’m down the steps, ignoring the cold as it bites into my face and neck, and grabbing her by the arm, which of course she yanks away as if I’m made of fire. “I didn’t order any books.”
She barks a laugh, and steam rolls from her mouth. “Right. How to Impress Witches with Magic Tricks ? Come on, Devlin. That title has you written all over it. Sure, you didn’t order books.”
What?
I glance down at the spines, and sure enough, not only is there a book by that title, but there are two others, A Way To a Witch’s Heart and Wash Your Face, Wizard.
What sort of self-help magical hell did someone order for me?
“Have a nice life,” she says, strolling off.
“Wait, wait, wait.” She stops, twists back toward me. Not only is this embarrassing, it’s a downright joke. “Look, Blair, I didn’t order these books.”
Her beautiful mouth quirks. “Like I said, I don’t judge, Devlin. What you read is your business. But I thought you didn’t need any help in the romance department.”
She says it with a little lilt to her voice, like it’s a challenge.
I smirk. “I assure you, I don’t need any help.”
“Oh, I know.” She folds her arms. “I’ve seen all your women.”
It’s my turn for a brow to lift in question. “Have you been looking through my windows?”
She gestures toward them in frustration. “Everyone looks in there. You don’t have curtains. We’re all witness to your exhibitionist behavior.”
“I have a bedroom.” It comes out seductively. Can’t help it. It’s my go-to voice.
“One that I’m sure will give someone herpes as soon as they step foot inside.”
With that, she starts to walk away again, and I can’t help but be both ticked off and completely turned on. But this woman isn’t getting away from me that easily. She’s like a rare bird. Once I’ve seen her, I must have more than just a glimpse. I want to own her.
“Now, hold on a minute.”
She pauses. “What do you want? I have things to do.”
What do I want, Devlin? What can I possibly say that will keep her in my presence for two more seconds? “What if I don’t want the books?”
She clicks her tongue. “Well, I’m not taking them back. There’s no telling where your hands have been.”
I chuckle. Oh, Blair. If she’s not joking about STIs, then she’s joking about STIs. “Where would you have liked my hands to have been?”
Her face turns red. “I’m leaving.”
I scamper to catch up, and man, can she walk fast. “Sorry. That was a bad joke. Just so you know, my hands haven’t been anywhere bad. I’ve been working on an experiment.”
She lifts a palm, giving me the stop signal. “I don’t want to know the details. Whatever it is, it probably involves copious amounts of lubricant and penicillin.”
The fact that she’s insinuating my experiment involves sex is downright insulting, maddening and giving me a boner. “For your information, I wasn’t telling you any details.”
“Good. Because I don’t want them.”
I don’t know what makes me say what comes next. I really don’t. Probably my whole glutton-for-punishment thing that I need to talk to a psychiatrist about. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s walking away and this could be the last time I see her before she’s engaged to someone else. A man who’s better for her, who’s right for her, who won’t give her a life of misery.
A man who’s better than me.
But even that thought doesn’t stop me from word vomiting, “Your ball’s tonight.”
She stops again. Turns around. Cocks her head and stares at me with fire burning in those perfect chocolate-colored eyes. “Why would you say that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She sucks in her cheeks and juts her hip out. “You’re not going to that dance.” It is a statement that sounds like a warning.
I throw attitude right back at her. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good.”
“Great,” I snap.
“Fantastic. Because Storm Grayson’s coming, and I don’t want you screwing things up for me.”
“That’s even better, because I don’t want to— wait. What?” The world stops, tilts. I fall off it and into the abyss before I’m somehow spit out and placed back in front of my home. “ What did you say?”
Now her gaze flits around, worried that she’s said the wrong thing. It lasts about half a second before she shoves back her shoulders, defiant.
“Storm Grayson. You hate him. I know that. The whole world knows it.”
My spine tightens into a steel rod. I do hate Storm Grayson. She’s right about that, but it’s not for the reason most people think. Storm Grayson is not what the world believes he is.
Blair walks away, and this time I let her.
When I’m back on the front porch, Hands is in the doorway, holding the invitation. Little bastard’s been spying this whole time.
I take it and stare at the black paper stamped in golden ink.
Storm Grayson is going to be at that ball.
He’s making a play for Blair.
And there’s no way in hell I can allow that.
No, I can’t have her.
I don’t want her.
I don’t need her.
My body might go nuts when I’m in her presence, but there is no way that the two of us will ever be together.
And there’s also no way in hell that I’ll allow Storm Grayson to have her. She could have anyone, anyone in the world besides him.
And I’m going to make sure of that.
“Get my tux, Hands. I’m going to a ball.”