Death and Relaxation (Ordinary Magic #1)(101)

“There have been people in the Reed line who were healers.”

“Dad tell you that?”

She nodded. “He left me a lot of family history books.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, thinking about how that made me feel. Good, I decided. Out of the three of us girls, Myra was serious and patient enough to actually sift through old records. “I’m glad,” I finally said.

“I know it’s usually passed down to the eldest…”

“I’m glad,” I said again, patting her leg. “Dad had good instincts. He knew when to break the rules.”

“Good news,” Crow said from the back seat.

Myra swerved. I yelped and half turned, while I grabbed for a gun I didn’t have on me.

“What the hell, Crow?”

He sat in the back seat where he’d just appeared, a canary-eating grin on his face. “God power. You should try it sometime, Delaney. It’s just all sorts of fun.”

Myra cussed quietly through clenched teeth. She had gotten the car back into our lane, which was good, because there were only two lanes on this part of the old highway.

“If you ever do that again,” Myra said, “I will kill you, Crow.”

He chuckled. “Don’t you want to hear my good news?”

I planted my hand over my side. I was pretty sure I’d ripped a stitch or two. It was bleeding again.

“It better be that you found Cooper and he’s waiting for us in a nice, quiet room, ready to take on the god power,” I said.

He threw his hands up in the air. “Yes! That’s it exactly. How did you guess?”

“Really?” I searched his face.

Crow smiled, and some of the mischief faded under a warmth I’d seen many times since I was a kid. “Really.”

A dizzy wash of relief rolled through me, and I grinned. “Holy shit. You’re amazing! Where is he?”

“The casino.”

“Which casino?” Myra asked.

“Our casino. Just outside of town.”

Myra immediately flicked on the blinker, pulled onto the narrow shoulder, and did a U-turn to get us heading south.

“Is someone there with him? Someone who can make sure he won’t run?” I asked.

“Hera, Jame, and Ben all stayed.”

“Good. Have you told Jean?”

“Thor said he’d mention it to her.”

I glanced at the clock in the console. “So we’re, what? About an hour away?”

“Or a second,” Crow said.

I glanced at him again. He had his arms crossed over his chest, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“You’d do that for us?”

He nodded. “It’s been a while since I’ve stretched my wings and used power, you know.” He somehow made it sound dirty. “It feels real good. Makes me want to do all sorts of things to you innocent mortals.”

He winked at me, and the light that flickered in his eyes was not the warmth and humor I usually saw from my friend. The man in the back seat of the cruiser wasn’t Crow. Or at least he wasn’t just Crow. This was Raven, the trickster, the god.

And if there was one thing I knew, it was that gods in the wild were dangerous, temperamental creatures.

“Do I need to draw up a contract with you first?” I asked. “To make sure that you will only do the things that I actually want you to do?”

He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling of the car and sighed. When his gaze ticked back down to me, the odd god power light was a little dimmer and the eyes of my friend were brighter.

“While it’s very, very tempting to say yes and spend some time bargaining you into a contract, I think you should just trust me on this one.”

“Like a stupid, innocent mortal?”

He leaned forward, fighting back a smirk. “Or a brave one. Trust me, Delaney. You know you want to.”

I glanced at Myra. She studied Raven in the rearview mirror, then looked away to catch my gaze. “Go.”

“Okay. Take me to Cooper.”

“My pleasure.” He winked.

We were standing in a carpeted hallway of the casino, the sound of piped music and games rattling in the background.

I’d never been manhandled by god power before. It wasn’t settling well.

“Delaney?” Raven tipped his head to make eye contact.

I leaned against the wall, one palm flat against it to keep me standing, the other cupped around my ribs. “Don’t come any closer. I might yark on you.”

He sucked in a breath. “Right. The Reed family immunity. I forgot. Probably shouldn’t let a god power do anything drastic with you for the next few hours.”

I straightened and took better stock of my surroundings. No one else was in the hall, and there was a closed door right next to me. “No problem. It’s going to take me that long to talk Cooper into this.”

I reached for the door just as it swung inward.

Jame Wolfe stood in front of me, his head tipped to the side like a puppy that had heard a strange noise. His warm eyes flicked over to Raven, and he tipped his head the other way.

“Hey, Jame,” I said. “Gonna let me in there?”

“Sure.” He stood aside, his eyes following Raven, his shoulder hunched up like he was ready to fight. I thought this might be the first time he’d ever seen Crow carrying power.