Magic Steals (Kate Daniels #6.5)(25)

They stepped over the dead bodies and Brune carefully opened the door.

“Hi,” I said, with a bright smile.

“Hi,” the dark-haired guy said.

“Are you Christian?”

He nodded.

“Are you afraid of zombies?”

He nodded again.

Right.

“Have you seen your neighbor today?” Jim asked. “Steven Graham?”

“No,” they said at the same time.

“What about Cole?” I asked.

“Cole and Amanda left,” Brune said.

“They went down to Augusta,” Christian said. “Until whatever this is blows over.”

“How sure are you?” Jim asked.

“I saw them board the leyline last night,” Brune said. “Amanda wouldn’t get into the car after what happened yesterday, so I gave them a ride in my cart to the leypoint.”

Jim glanced at me, a question in his eyes.

“No,” I said. “Augusta is too far for the curse to work.”

Cole wasn’t our guy.

“Thank you,” I said and shut the door. “Steven.”

Jim’s face snapped into a harsh mask. “Let’s pay him a visit.”

? ? ?

WE got Steven’s address from his bodyguard at the courier shop. At first he didn’t want to tell us, and then Jim asked him if he was left-or right-handed. The bodyguard asked why and Jim told him that he would break the other arm first, because he wasn’t a complete bastard. The bodyguard folded.

Now I was driving through an upscale neighborhood to Steven’s building. All of the houses on both sides of the road had really tall fences topped with barbed wire and at least three acres of land. Life in post-Shift Atlanta required fences and plenty of space between them and the house, so you could shoot whatever was coming at you.

“What’s the deal with you?” Jim asked.

I’d been thinking about the zombie fight. “Nothing.”

“I have three sisters,” Jim reminded me. “I know what nothing means.”

“What does it mean, Mr. Female Expert?”

“It means you’re upset about something, it’s been bothering you, but you don’t want to bring it up because you’re not sure you’re up for the conversation that might follow. Sometimes it also means I am supposed to magically guess why you are upset.”

I harrumphed. It seemed like a good answer.

“You know I’ll never figure it out on my own,” Jim said. “Don’t be a chicken. Just tell me.”

Come on, tiger girl. You can do this.

“I just want to be clear. This isn’t a needy commitment thing.”

“Okay,” he said, stretching the word.

“Where is this relationship going, Jim?”

“This is the kind of question that can explode in my face,” Jim said. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“I mean what happens from here?”

“We discover if Steven is responsible, beat his ass, go to your place or my place, and celebrate.”

“Are you being deliberately obtuse?”

“No, I’m being very precise in my answers.”

Grr. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that we continue this relationship.”

“I thought that was a given,” he said.

I waved my hand. “Let me keep going with this, or I’ll never get to the point. Where do you see us a year from now, if everything goes well and we stay together?”

“Are you asking about marriage?” he asked.

“I’m asking about mating.” Mating in the shapeshifter world was a firm declaration of being in a relationship. Some couples married, some didn’t, but mating cemented the relationship.

“I never liked that word,” Jim said, “But yes. Mating. Marriage. This wasn’t the way I wanted to approach this.”

I made a conscious effort of will not to freak out because the word marriage came out of his mouth. This had to be said. “That would make me the alpha of the Cats.”

“Yes.”

Words came out of me, tumbling one over the other. “What happens when we’re challenged, Jim? My purifying powers don’t work against shapeshifters. The magic won’t always be up. I can’t always use my cursing and even if I could, they wouldn’t respect me for using magic. You and I both know that they understand and respect physical prowess. They would see me as a freak. Not only that, but I would be a liability. If you stand there and protect me so I have time to write my curses, that makes our battle strategy predictable. It would anchor you to one place. I’m not a fighter, but even I understand this. We sacrifice mobility and the element of surprise. I will get you killed, Jim. I’m not an alpha. I’m a half-blind, vegetarian tiger.”

There it was. It lay between us now, out in the open.

Jim opened his mouth.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be badass,” I said. “I do. I would like nothing more than to grow giant claws and do the kick and spin and disembowel everything around me thing, but I can’t.”

Jim nodded and opened his mouth again.

“And it’s not even the blood, because I can bite. It’s just that I’m not good at fighting. I’m not vicious. I’m scared of getting hurt. I am afraid of pain. I don’t want you to die because of me.”