Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(46)

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Finding a place to pin this up. It would give me some freedom to walk around without worrying I’ll smudge up the symbols. Since you’re watching TV, I’ll hang it up on the other patio by the beds.”

His gaze darted to my unbuttoned jeans. I think. Maybe I imagined that. “No room to walk around back there,” he said. “You might as well do it here. I can sit somewhere else.”

“Makes no difference to me.” I told myself to keep my feelings guarded, but it really wasn’t a problem, because I was actually getting downright pissed about his bad attitude and unwillingness to talk.

I unfolded the tarp and stepped up on the chair to close the heavier blackout drapes over the sheers. Then I wrestled the tarp up, accidentally smacking Lon in the head as I did.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Give me the corner.”

He held it up as I anchored it to the drapes with safety pins from the sewing kit. A strong tug could pull it down, but as long as I didn’t manhandle the thing, it would stay. I dug out my caduceus and could have sworn I heard Lon mumble, “Please be careful,” as I siphoned electricity and kindled enough Heka to charge the tarp.

After it fired up nice and bright, giving me solid protection from the floor almost all the way up to the ceiling, I said, “Why are you being so weird?”

Instead of answering me, he just walked around the sitting area, holding his hand up to test the magick. “How far you think this’ll extend? Never mind, I stop feeling it here.” He moved a love seat there to mark a boundary. “Don’t go past the back of this.”

“If you regret it, just be a man and say it.” I pushed my jeans over my hips and kicked them aside when they dropped to the floor. “I’d rather it be out in the open so we can move past it.”

“I don’t regret it.”

Aha! Must keep satisfaction in check. Maybe he was far enough away that he couldn’t hear me. I kept my back to him and pulled the clip out of my hair. “Then what gives? Was it not as good as you hoped, and now you’re having some doubts? Not feeling it?”

No response.

I supposed there was really no reason to get naked like I did in Golden Peak—we weren’t inspecting my markings again, unfortunately. However, there was also no reason to be uncomfortable in front of someone who had already seen all of me, so I left my panties on and did the girl trick of unhooking my bra under my tank top and pulling it out of my sleeve. Then I took a deep breath, shook out my hands, and transmutated.

My vision turned to silver. My hearing went weird. And that familiar coolness spread over my skin, along with the strange itch of my horns growing and the disconcerting pressure at the small of my back as my tail pushed out over the top of my black bikini underwear.

“Just hold steady, as you are,” Lon’s voice said over my shoulder with forced calmness. “Don’t try to reach for anything more than this. You’re doing great.”

I inhaled slowly, making sure I felt no connection to the Moonchild magick. It was fine. I could tell the difference when I pulled moon energy. It was like pulling electricity, something that fired up my innate power. I knew I could do some magick without kindling Heka; therefore, I could definitely hold this form without tapping into the Æthyr.

“You know, we’re friends,” I said, catching a glimpse of him behind me in a mirror that hung near the drapes. He was discreetly fidgeting with something around his neck. What was that, and why was he being sneaky? Sneaky and obvious, because I could tell by the angle of his stare where his eyes were. I flicked my tail to be sure. Uh-huh. Just what I thought.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, we’re friends.”

“Good friends,” I said. “So, just like you advised me in Golden Peak, if you’re having some physical problems, you know you can tell me.”

His eyes met mine in the mirror. He didn’t respond.

“It’s probably natural for a man your age to have a few issues,” I taunted. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed to see a doctor if you’re experiencing . . . dysfunction.”

The air shuddered.

Flames flared up over his shoulders—a fiery crown, topped with stunning horns that spiraled into place on either side of his head.

Arrow, meet bull’s-eye.

I spun around to find him leaping over the love-seat barrier as if it was a trivial inconvenience. He landed with a thud in front of me. My heart thumped so madly inside my chest that I nearly dropped my serpentine form. And when he grabbed my shoulders as if he was going to shake the living daylights out of me, I could smell the arousal all over him, and it thrilled me to no end.

“Happy, are you?” he said, reading my thoughts as he lowered his face to mine. “Think you’ve won? You think you can break me?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Let me tell you a little story. I sat in a f*cking hospital looking at a body that was black with blood and bruises, with shattered bones poking out of your flesh. I didn’t know if you were going to live or die. And when Mick put you under and you didn’t wake up, I didn’t know if you ever would—or what condition your brain would be in if you did. I nearly lost my mind grieving over you. And I nearly lost my spirit beating myself up over it, because it was my fault.”