Ancient Magic: a New Adult Urban Fantasy (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress Book 1) (15 page)

I walked toward the back, making my way slowly so that I could absorb as much calm as possible from my favorite place.
 

At the very back corner, I dropped to my knees. My least valuable boots and jackets were stored back here, but it was a facade. I pushed aside a pair of older boots and pressed my hand to the tiny, invisible door.

My touch ignited the spell and it popped open. The battered golden locket that I’d been wearing when I’d woken in that field ten years ago glinted. Once, I’d hoped it’d lead me to my parents, but I’d been wrong.

I touched it briefly, then placed the daggers inside the safe. The door shut with a soft click. I rose to my feet and headed to the shower to cram myself into the little space. Though the pipes screamed and hissed, the water was usually hot and floods were infrequent.

 
It didn’t take long to scrub off the grime. By the time I got out, I was feeling almost human again.

Except for the fact that my stomach was trying to eat itself.
 

I tugged on jeans and a tank top, dreading the walk down the street to get food from P & P. I could order in from a delivery place, but that could take an hour. There was a chance I could scavenge from my kitchen, but the odds of finding something decent weren’t high.
 

My stomach grumbled loudly, objecting.
 

“All right, all right,” I muttered. I needed to get out anyway. Dr. Garriso worked late most nights. I could grab a bite to eat and head by his office for some info.

I was throwing on my jacket when a knock sounded at the door. My muscles tensed, and I crept silently over to it, peering out through the peep hole. Nix had a goofy knock, and Del was out of town.

Aidan.

Of course.

CHAPTER NINE

The rich scent of curry wafted through the door, so I yanked it open. What could I say? I was weak.

He held up a large white sack, a grin tugging at his handsome face. “Delivery.”

Oh man, I wanted that food. But I really didn’t want to let him into my house. He probably wouldn’t figure out that I had a trove behind the walls, but I hated to risk it.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I thought you’d be hungry.”

“You want to interrogate me.”

“Nah. I just thought you’d be hungry.” Sincerity shone in his eyes.

Butterflies set up a cacophonous racket in my stomach, which wasn’t hard considering how empty it was. I glared at Aidan, knowing that I looked unwelcoming but having a hard time wrapping my head around him. Confusion pissed me off.

“What’s your deal?” I asked. “I bet you live over in Enchanter’s Bluff.” There was no way a guy as wealthy as him didn’t live in the rich section of town. “It’s got to be a thirty-minute drive over here. Just to bring me food?”
 

“It was worth the drive.”
 

“Why?”

“To see you.”

Okay, this was so outside of my pay grade. Killing demons and stealing treasure—that was about all I was qualified for. Hot dudes trying to woo me? Not so much.

At least, I assumed this was wooing. Bringing a girl food sure sounded like wooing to me.

“This isn’t a date,” I said.

“No,” he agreed. “Definitely not a date. You’ll know when it’s a date. This is just me bringing you food because I knew you’d be beat when you woke up.”

I tried not to let the sentiment get to me, but it poked me in the heart all the same. Not only did I want to devour whatever was in the white takeout bag, I wanted to hang out with Aidan. Even though I knew it was a bad idea.

I weighed suggesting eating in the shop below versus letting him in. A sigh heaved out of me.

“Come on in.” Letting him in was less suspicious, and he didn’t need any more reasons to think I was hiding something.

“Thanks.” He stepped inside, and I shifted so that he wouldn’t go toward my bedroom. It meant I had to stand nearer to him, which just made my heart start to pound faster.

“Kitchen’s that way.” I tilted my head toward the doorway on the other side of the room and stifled a small sigh of relief when he walked toward it.
 

“You got any beer?” he asked as he entered the kitchen.

I followed him in, helplessly sniffing the scented air he left in his wake. “In the fridge. Help yourself.”

My kitchen was tiny and almost completely nonfunctional. All the appliances were ancient. Not retro in a cool way. Just ancient. With P & P down the street, there was no reason to cook. And all my money was tied up in the trove. I was probably a hoarder, but at least it was all packed away neatly in a secret closet.
 

I grabbed some paper plates and plastic utensils from the cupboard.

“PBR?” Aidan asked.

I turned to see him standing in front of the fridge, holding two cans. “Yeah? Got a problem with that?”

“Never pegged you for a hipster-beer kinda girl.”

“That’s hillbilly beer, thank you very much,” I said as I grabbed one. “And hipsters drink microbrew too, you know. I bet you drink microbrew.”

He raised his hands. “So I like a decent beer every now and again.”

“This is decent beer!” I held it out in front of his face. “Look, right there on the label! It says Blue Ribbon. That means it’s good. Blue Ribbons are for winners.”

He grinned.

He was screwing with me.

“Just bring the food,” I said as I headed to the living room.
 

Though there was a little round table pushed in front of the window on the other side of the room, I preferred to eat on the couch whenever possible. Since I still wasn’t feeling one hundred percent, I veered toward the couch.

I plopped down and put the plates on the table, then opened my icy beer and took a swig.
 

“So what if this doesn’t have much taste,” I said. “It’s refreshing and delightful. PBR delivers.”

Aidan gave me a skeptical look as he sat next to me and popped his can. “I’ll try to re-approach it with an open mind.”

I watched him drink, trying to keep my eyes off the motion of his strong throat as he swallowed.

Okay, I was clearly going nuts if I was looking at a guy’s throat and getting the hots for him. But I couldn’t help it. All of him was hot—from his model face to his sculpted muscles. Why couldn’t he look like a normal dude? That wouldn’t make my mind get all fuzzy.
 

When Aidan lowered his can, he caught me staring at him. I almost slumped with relief when he said, “Not too bad,” instead of calling me out for staring.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good, right? And cheap. There’s loads to love about it.”

“Don’t know if I’d say
love
.”

“Just get the food out, Mr. Critic.”

He pulled several cartons out of the bag, along with a paper-wrapped parcel of Naan bread. I made grabby hands, and he passed me a carton that smelled like curry.

“Okay,” I said as I swallowed a bite that I’d scooped up with the bread, “I’m officially thanking you for bringing this over. It’s amazing.”

“No problem.”

We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. Once the beast was sated, I asked, “So, you’ve got some healing ability and you’re a full Elemental Mage. What else can you do?”

“Turn into any creature, real or mythical,” he said. “You know, nothing interesting. Just griffons and dragons—that sort of thing.”

“Cocky.” I punched him in the shoulder. “Anything else?”

“You’ll just have to get to know me better.”

That wasn’t going to happen.
“Have you ever heard of another shifter/Magica hybrid?”

He shook his head. “I was an only child. My father was the Origin before me, and my mother was Magica. I don’t know why it passed down to me, but I’ve never met another.”

I scowled into my now-empty carton. I liked Aidan. For his sake, it was great he was powerful. Like, ridiculously powerful. But no one was throwing him in prison. Just my kind.

Self-disgust washed over me. I needed to quit moping. Just because this threat was looming over our heads didn’t mean I wouldn’t get us out of it. And people had an actual good reason to fear FireSouls. If we were power-hungry monsters, we’d have a good reason to go on a killing, power-collecting rampage.

“You okay?” Aidan asked.

“Yeah, just tired.” A food coma was coming on. My eyelids felt like they weighed ten pounds each.

“You need to practice your magic,” Aidan said. “If you did, you wouldn’t be so exhausted after using it.”

“Sounds like a me-problem, not a you-problem.”

“It’s a me-problem if you’re working for me.”

I scowled at him. “I’m not working for you for long, so don’t worry about it.”

“Then it’s a problem because I like you,” he added.

His words hit me right between the eyes. This was why relationships were dangerous. People worried about you and poked into your personal stuff. And my personal stuff was enough to get me locked up in hell. I needed to forget how freaking hot he was and move on.
 

“Uh, it’s time for me to hit the hay. Thanks for bringing dinner.”

“Fine. We’ll table this for now, but it’s not done. It’s not safe for you to do your job if you can’t control your powers. You’re unique. You need to be able to control that.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“For now.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Hang on.”

“Yeah?”

He didn’t say anything, but his healing warmth soaked into my shoulder. I barely resisted leaning into him, but it felt so good. Once he removed his hand, I felt amazingly better. Not one hundred perfect, but definitely able to leave the house.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning at seven,” he said as he got up.

“All right. Let’s meet at Potions & Pastilles. I can’t function at that hour without coffee.” And I didn’t need him coming back to my place again.

“Okay.” He let himself out.

His footsteps were silent on the stairs as I walked to the window. I watched him cross the street to his car and pull away, then I tugged on my jacket. It was past ten, but there was a good chance Dr. Garriso was still at work. He preferred the night hours.

On my way out, I went to my trove and quickly chose another pair of daggers. They weren’t enchanted to return to me, but they were wickedly sharp. And the shiny copper hilt looked badass.

I crept down the stairs past Nix’s door and out into the street. Clouds rolled in front of the moon, casting the night in shadows. Cecelia, old faithful herself, sat at the curb looking out of place on the trendy street. Her black paint was chipped and the bumper needed some work, but she still got me where I needed to be, so I was keeping her.

The streets of Magic’s Bend were quiet as I drove through town. Things were only hopping on the weekends, and usually that activity was centered around the historic district where most of the bars were. The Museum of Magical History, where Dr. Garriso worked, was only a few miles from my apartment. I pulled into the quiet parking lot.

Rain started to fall as I hurried around the side of the building. Dr. Garriso's office was on the bottom floor at the back. The boring part, he said, where the visitors didn’t want to go. When I reached his little window, I tapped on it. The golden glow of his lamps gleamed through the layer of dust on the window, and I could just make out his form rising from his desk.
 

I ran over to the door and hopped up and down as I waited for him. The rain was coming down harder now, and I wasn’t a fan.

“Come in, come in!” he said as he unlocked the museum’s back door.
 

I stepped into the narrow linoleum hallway. “Thanks. It’s really starting to come down out there.”

He peered out into the night and shook his head. “Looks like I’m not going home for a while.”

“Would you have anyway?”

He shrugged one skinny shoulder and let out a creaky laugh. Dr. Garriso was about seventy, with a tuft of white hair and sharp eyes. Though he’d told me once that he was from Missouri, he favored tweed coats that would do any old British professor proud. The aesthetic fit him.
 

He turned and shuffled down the hall to his office. “Come on, I just put the kettle on.”
 

I followed him down the silent hall and turned into his office and couldn’t help but grin as the scent of tea and books wafted over me. I loved his office. Though the hallway outside looked like any modern, boring hallway, Dr. Garriso's office was different. It was like stepping back in time—perfect for a little old man who wore tweed coats.

It was a narrow space but long enough to look large. Every wall was covered with bookshelves that were stuffed to the brim with old leather tomes. The lights were old Tiffany lamps with yellow bulbs—none of those modern white ones for Dr. Garriso. I was pretty sure he’d use candles if they’d let him.

I took a seat in one of the two wingback chairs at the far end of the office. I sank into it like it was a cloud. They were right under the window, though they looked like they should be in front of a fireplace. His desk was at the other end. In the middle, near the door, was the table with the tea supplies.