Chapter 8
8
“ W hat have you done?” I demand.
Devlin shoots me a harsh look before turning to my grandmother, who came outside as soon as we motioned for her to.
“It’s good to see you, Rebecca,” he says casually as if some weird magic hasn’t just ripped through us.
It occurs to me—where are Nana’s handlers? Where’s my aunt? My mother? Who’s supposed to be watching her? Who has left their post and is letting my grandmother run amok?
“It’s not good to see her,” I snap at Devlin. “She’s a bad omen. Everyone knows that, so don’t lie.”
He slips his hands into his pockets. “I’m not lying.”
Nana grins at me. “See? Someone’s glad I’m here.”
I just…can’t. “What did you do to us?”
She lifts her palms to the sky and shrugs innocently. “What do you mean?”
“Do not play coy,” I hiss. “What happened out here?”
“You mean to you?”
Oh my word. If this is how this conversation’s going to go, I might throw myself on a knife. “Yes, to us.”
“It looked like to me that the two of y’all were wishing on a star, and a beautiful one at that.” She peers up at the sky. “What a magical night.”
She can shove the innocent act where the sun don’t shine. “We were wishing, but then some weird magic thing happened.” I fold my arms. “What was it?”
“Not sure. You might want to ask the star.”
“Not funny.”
“Well, what did you wish for? Seems like the heavens may have granted it.”
Devlin’s eyes widen in surprise. “It was a joke. A casual wish. It wasn’t anything that should have been taken seriously.”
“Do I look like I rule the night sky?”
“No,” I snap, “but you look like someone who might meddle in the affairs of others.”
“Preposterous. I’m just an old dead woman. Look at me. I’m see-through.” She lifts her brocade skirt to prove that yes, she is indeed transparent. “But if you’re wondering about what happened, test your wish.”
I laugh. “Test it? No. There’s no way?—”
Devlin’s hand is on my skin again. This is happening way too much for my comfort. “Do as she says. Try your power.”
“But—”
His jaw flexes. He’s not joking.
“Fine.”
What should I try? Get Devlin to dance by himself? Yes, that seems appropriate,
So I stare at him, willing him, nudging him to move toward the dance floor (that’s still highly occupied with people, by the way).
But nothing happens. Like I felt before, the power isn’t there. But in its place there’s something else, a nugget of energy that I can’t touch. Like it’s sitting high on a shelf just out of reach.
Oh no. This is bad. I don’t like my power, but I don’t want to lose it.
“I…can’t,” I whisper.
Devlin shoots my grandmother a look that’s unreadable, and the next thing I know, his eyes go black. I have an overwhelming urge to find out the time.
“What time is it?” I ask Devlin. He tells me and then I turn to Nana. “Do you have the time?”
“No, I don’t.”
The need to ask everyone in the ballroom for the time is overwhelming. I’m stalking toward the door when an arm snakes around my waist, tugging me back.
The desire instantly fades. I push Devlin away and point finger at him in accusation. “You’ve got my power.”
“And you’ve got mine,” he says darkly before turning to my grandmother. “Switch them back.”
“I don’t know what y’all are talking about. I had nothing to do with switching anything.” She’s speaking to us as if we’re children and she’s explaining why you shouldn’t put a fork in a light socket. “As I’ve explained, the two of y’all wished on a star.”
“Then why is there a twinkle in your eyes?” I accuse.
“Who, me? Like I said, I’m just a ghost.”
Just a ghost, my foot. “What did you do?”
She shakes her head. Literally two hours ago Nana was fierce and in charge. But right now she’s pretending to be a feeble old lady, unable to remember where she stored her false teeth.
I’m not buying it.
“Okay, Nana. I get it. This is the old switcharoo in order for me to learn some lesson. Lesson learned. I like my power. I want it back.”
“Do you?” she asks, eyebrow lifted. “Are you sure that you don’t want to see it gone? Think of all the baggage you won’t have anymore. Think how you’ll be free of it.”
Her words sink into my bones. If I’m free of my magic, that means I’m not a freak anymore. So when Storm Grayson falls in love with me, he won’t think that I used my power to make it happen.
Not being cocky, just acting confidently.
This is amazing! No one can question if I’m manipulating them into a relationship because I can’t .
I can be free. For once I can be absolutely, completely free.
Nana clears her throat, and my gaze slides to her. Her eyes flick onto Devlin, and then my false high crashes to the ground like a burning rocket.
Devlin has my power. Devlin . The man who shows up to every single party with two women on his shoulder. When I had my power, I never abused it. I couldn’t. There’s no way that I would have used that gift to sway a person into doing something that would have harmed them—or me.
But Devlin?
“Switch us back,” I command Nana.
“I can’t, my dear.” Now her voice sounds sad, as if she’s seen the evil future that’s in store for our town as Devlin loves and leaves every single woman in Castleview, beginning his evil crusade to bed the women of earth.
“Nana, I know you’re behind this. Change. Us. Back.”
She shakes her head sadly. “Whatever power caused this to happen, I’m afraid it will simply have to play itself out. It will have to work its way out of you.”
“How long?” Devlin asks impatiently.
“I don’t know. A day? A week? A month?”
“A month? Devlin could give the whole world herpes by then.”
“I do not have herpes,” he grinds out. “I don’t have any STIs, thank you very much.” He shakes his head. “Rebecca, as good as it is to see you, and my own grandmother I’m sure would love to have a good long chat with you about the other side?—”
“I’d love to see Lilly.”
“I can arrange that,” he says gallantly like he’s the best gentleman in all the world. “But before you can go on your tour down memory lane, would you please excuse Blair and myself?”
“Of course.”
And then Nana floats away with her shoulders lifted as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. To her credit, she probably doesn’t.
As soon as she’s gone, I glare at Devlin. “Give me back my power.”
He glances up at the sky and shakes his head as if silently asking, Why me?
“Just try,” I explain. “I know that you can’t figure it out, but let’s just try. I don’t want it back, gods know, but I can’t have you running around town convincing every woman to sleep with you.”
His jaw tightens. “Is that what you think of me? That I would use your power to have massive orgies?”
“Yes, I do.”
He scoffs but says nothing. “How would you like me to give it back? Put our hands together? Maybe press our foreheads to one another and hope that it happens?”
“You don’t have to be smart,” I snap. “I just know that you can’t be trusted with my magic.”
“And you think that I want you having mine? ” He touches his chest. “I barely want it myself. If I’d known this would happen, I never would have spoken those words.”
His face contorts in hurt, but there’s more than that—worry. He’s worried. The great playboy Devlin Ross is worried about something? Impossible.
“What is your power?”
He punches his hands into his pockets and rips his gaze away. A moment later he sighs. “Sometimes I have visions of things that are going to happen. They always come true, always, and right now I’m waiting on one that will help me decipher the next piece of an invention that I’m working on. I’ve been feeling it coming, but now…”
“But now I have your power,” I murmur.
He drops his head for a moment and then glances at me through his thick eyelashes. “Yes, you do.”
It takes a second for this to sink in. Devlin can see the future. His magical power is that he has visions. “You… No one knows this.”
My tone makes it sound like an accusation, but there’s more to it than that. I’m shocked, really. This knowledge not only surprises me. It’s a blow. Devlin and I dated for months before I ever told him about my power, and he never, ever told me about his. I didn’t even know he had a special gift until tonight.
“Some things people don’t need to know.” His playboy mask drops for a second, and I see the vulnerability in his eyes. “There are people who would use it against me and for their own gain.”
His tone suggests this isn’t a theory. It’s a fact, one that’s happened to him before, and against my working brain, the smart part of my head that tells me not to feel things for this jerk, an unexpected wave of sympathy overwhelms me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about except that you have something that I need back. Now.”
And I can help that, how? “Maybe our powers will reverse tomorrow.”
“I don’t think so.” He glances over his shoulder, out into the garden that’s still bathed in moonlight. “You have to come home with me.”
“What? You just jumped from zero to sixty with nothing in between. I’m not going home with you.”
“But you’ll have the vision.”
I scoff. “What makes you think that I’ll have it?”
“You will if you’re near me,” he states stoically, dragging his gaze from the garden to me. There’s a fierceness in his eyes that sucks the breath from my lungs. It takes a moment before my body remembers how to breathe. “If you’re with me day and night, you’ll have the vision that I need.”
“How do you know? You could be saying that so that you can get me to your house and unleash my own power on me, keep me chained up as your sex slave for days or weeks on end. I can see it now—you’ll have me lashed to your bed so that you can play your sick games with me anytime you want.”
He smirks. “Is this supposed to be your fantasy or mine?”
Heat immediately floods my cheeks. “It’s yours obviously.”
He drops his mouth to my ear and purrs, “Darlin’, I don’t need to use magic if I want you in my bed.”
My panties are suddenly soaking wet. “There’s no way I’d go willingly.”
His eyes say, We’ll see about that , but his mouth says, “I need you to help me, Blair.”
“Whatever this curse is—and trust me, it’s a curse—it’ll have to work its way out by itself. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
With that, I turn on my heel and walk back into the ballroom.
The first thing that hits me is the cool air. It washes over my skin like a wave, making goose bumps ripple on my flesh. I shiver off the feeling and then take in the scene.
There are a dozen couples on the dance floor, but the one couple I see, the one that strangles my attention, is Storm Grayson dancing with…Cathy.
Still? What the hell?
She’s smiling at him. He’s smiling at her. Fury boils in my blood right then. Jealous, angry fury.
Cathy glances to her right and spots me. Her lips curl into an evil smile. She’s won. That woman already thinks she’s won.
“If you do this for me…” Devlin’s standing beside me. When did he arrive? He leans down and whispers, his breath floating across my ear and causing me to shudder. “If you do this for me, stay around me, don’t leave my side, then I will…” There’s a very long pause here, as if he’s trying to figure out what to say next. He inhales and finishes. “If you help me, then I will get Storm Grayson to marry you.”
A pulse of excitement zings through my body. I turn my head, and Devlin’s so close our lips are an inch away from touching. He immediately stiffens.
“How can you do that?”
He takes a position behind me, his mouth to my ear. His breath is a wave of electricity rushing over my skin, igniting me from inside and making every cell in my body shudder.
“You can’t use my power on him. I forbid it.”
Devlin chuckles. It’s a husky, seductive sound. “No, I won’t use your power on him. But I’ll help you. Darlin’, by the time these courting weeks are over, Storm Grayson will be begging you to marry him.”
“How can you?—”
“Trust me, okay?”
I shouldn’t trust Devlin. I should run for the hills and not look back. But this is the man who has women dropping their panties for him like they’re on fire. If anyone could get someone wrapped around their little finger, it’s Devlin.
He can help me win Storm’s heart. He can help me secure my family’s magic.
My body is screaming at me not to do it. If Chelsea were here, she’d be telling me to think long and hard about this. Do I really want to be near Devlin Ross for weeks on end? Or until our magic switches back?
No, I don’t.
But I sure as hell don’t want Chatty Cathy to steal Storm. I want him all to myself.
I glance over my shoulder and, from the corner of my eye, see that Devlin’s watching me closely.
“Devlin Ross, you have yourself a deal.”