Burned by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #1)(2)

Still, being stuck behind the counter like this sucked. Yeah, I could mix a decent drink, but I wasn’t meant to be a bartender. As a black panther shifter I was a natural hunter, much better suited to chasing down criminals and turning them in like every other licensed Enforcer in the city. That’s what we do – we clean the riffraff off the streets so the mages don’t have to get off their entitled asses and do it themselves. And since we get paid per head, most of us are pretty motivated about the whole affair.

Unfortunately for me, Garius Talcon, the Deputy Captain of the Enforcer’s Guild, was in charge of distributing all the mission dockets. And ever since he found out that I was only half-shifter, he’d been treating me like a lesser being. Recently he’d decided that if I wanted to continue getting jobs I needed to get down on my knees and suck him off.

I’d told him that if I ever got down on my knees in front of him he’d better run like hell because it meant I was going to rip his balls off and feed them to him. And ever since then we’d been at an impasse.

I’d tried going to Captain Galling, but my word was useless against Talcon’s, and there was no one to corroborate my story. Truthfully, it was better not to draw attention, because as far as Talcon and Galling knew I was a shifter-human hybrid. If I gave them a reason to dig deeper, they would find out about my real heritage, and money would be the least of my problems.

Until I figured out a way around Talcon, the only Enforcer jobs I was getting paid for were the ones I brought in by answering the emergency response calls broadcasted by my Enforcer bracelet. As much as I hated to admit it, right now bartending paid the bills.

Turning my attention back to work, I served up the teca with a big, fat smile on my face, and was rewarded with a big, fat coin for my trouble. I nodded my thanks at the she-wolf before she disappeared into the crowd – the shifters here were always my best tippers.

“Sunaya!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of my mentor’s voice in my head, calling my name. Heart pounding, I scanned the crowded bar for him, though part of me wanted to simply shrink behind the counter and pretend I didn’t exist. Even though Roanas Tillmore knew about my bartending job, I didn’t like it when he saw me here – after all the time and effort he put into training me it was shameful that I was tending bar for a living. But I caught no sight of him, and weeding through the hundreds of clashing smells, I didn’t catch his scent either.

Shaking my head, I picked up another glass to get started on the next order. Must’ve imagined it. Mindspeech didn’t work well from more than a couple hundred yards away, so if I couldn’t smell him then he wasn’t here.

“Sunaya! Co… quick… need…”

The glass slipped from my fingers as Roanas’s garbled voice echoed inside my ears. It hit the ground and shattered, tiny pieces shooting across the floor, but I hardly noticed as acid-sharp panic filled my lungs – panic I realized wasn’t from me at all, but from Roanas.

As the Shiftertown Inspector, Roanas rarely ran into a situation he couldn’t handle. If he was able to reach me with a mental call from afar, he was in big trouble.

“Hey!” Cray snapped as he tapped me on the shoulder. “What the hell are you doing, standing around with all this broken glass everywhere!”

I whirled on him, baring my fangs. “I have to go,” I growled. He took a step backward, his eyes wide – Cray was a big guy, but as an unarmed human he was no match for me.

Turning away, I slapped my palm on the counter and launched myself over the bar. Patrons yelped as I sailed over their heads, and Cray cursed me, but I hardly heard them over the blood pounding in my ears. I landed in a crouch halfway from the bar to the door, then sprinted outside to where my steambike was parked on the curb. I was going to lose my job over this, but I didn’t care – nothing mattered more to me than Roanas.

With that thought taking up all available real estate in my mind, I hopped onto my bike and shot into the street, leaving a white-hot cloud of steam in my wake.



Twenty minutes later, I skidded to a halt in front of Roanas’s house in Shiftertown. The lights spilling out from the windows and into the darkness of the street told me he was home. I charged up the steps of the two-story brick townhouse, my veins full of fire as I prepared to face an army of enemies. I fully expected to open the door and find the place wrecked, the furniture splintered and the floor splattered with blood, because nothing short of a f*cking army would be able to take down Roanas.

Instead, I found him lying on the red and gold carpet in the living room, his big body splayed next to the coffee table.

“Roanas!” I was at his side in an instant, an icy fist of fear squeezing my heart. He was lying on his back, his skin pale beneath his dark complexion as he shook. Foam spurted from his blue lips, and his tawny lion-shifter eyes rolled.

“Fuck, f*ck, f*ck,” I chanted as I scrambled for the vial of antidote I kept in one of the pouches strapped around my torso. I knew the signs he was exhibiting all too well. This was silver poisoning.

I carefully positioned Roanas’s head in my lap, then pried open his mouth and poured in some of the antidote. The pale amber liquid trickled right out of his icy lips, but I tried again, doing my best to get it into his mouth despite the tremors. Still nothing. I bit my lip as his cheek came into contact with my hand – his skin was frigid – and then tried a third time. Finally, his throat bobbed and the liquid stayed down.