doublecrossed him, it would activate, like a time-release pill. It would wait until I felt safe and then go off. The ununculous would feel it, and come for me. Revenge served cold.”
A bolt of lightning slammed to the ground not a mile away, followed by a boom of thunder that rolled on, and on, and on. Before its rumbles died, another bolt cracked not far from the first one. My body pulsed with electricity, my Stormwalker magic reaching to suck it in before I could stop it.
Wind struck the hotel with such force that the building creaked. It howled through the eaves and every crack in the edifice, and I felt a breeze cross my face.
“Janet,” Fremont said, staring at me. “Your eyes.”
“What about them?” Sparks laced my fingers as I raised my hands. “Are they green?”
“No. Black. All black. Like nothing’s there.”
I could see out of them fine, no change there, but Mick was watching me in concern. I snatched out the piece of magic mirror I’d shoved into my pocket and stared into it. Sure enough, my eyeballs had gone all black, no pupils or irises. I looked into the black void that was me, until lightning struck again, and white electricity encircled my face.
“I see,” I whispered in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. “I see so much. Darkness. Pain. Terror. The end of all things.”
“Janet,” Fremont said, worried. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I wrenched my gaze from the mirror and looked up. I had their attention now, even Cassandra’s.
“I don’t know why I said that.” Or did I? I had seen it, deep in the mirror, flashes of terror, darkness, fire, white light rising from the ground. Everyone I loved in torturous pain. And then, nothing . . .
Lightning struck again, its white flare rendering the candle flames ineffectual pinpricks. Electricity crawled up my arms, and I bunched my hands to keep from blasting the table, floor, my friends, everything in sight.
I wasn’t certain how I was pulling in the storm magic when the hex wasn’t letting anything physically in or out, but maybe it was because magic isn’t physical. It’s the coupling of the mage and the elements that mage uses for power—Mick and his dragon nature, Cassandra and her spell accoutrements, me and a storm. A psychic connection no one understands. I don’t actually direct the storms themselves—I absorb their elemental might and use it to fuel my own magic.
Or the hex might be letting me use my storm magic so it could busily fuck it up.
I couldn’t control the power. I’d felt this before—at age eleven, when I’d first called a storm’s power, not on purpose. I remembered flailing my hands, trying to get rid of the lightning that clung to them. I’d succeeded only in blasting a tree and burning down a shed. I’d run off into the desert in terror, the storm following me.
This storm was big and close, and I was locked inside my hotel by a curse. No running away to keep my loved ones safe.
“Janet,” Cassandra said, watching me with a hint of her usual witchy focus. “What did you see?”
“I don’t remember now.” The visions were fading, dying as fast as they’d come. “Fire, darkness. The vortexes. Nothing.”
Cassandra didn’t answer, but she held on to the back of a kitchen chair, her knuckles white.
More lightning struck, and electric arcs crawled all over my body. I moved my hand, and a tail of lightning caught the end of the counter and blew it into pieces.
“Whoa.” Fremont threw up his arms to shield himself from the rain of wood and tile. Coyote, still a coyote, grabbed Cassandra by the skirt and towed her back out of my way.
Only Mick stood his ground. Mick, whose eyes had gone as black as mine, watched me with a predatory stare.
“Mick,” I whispered.
He moved to me and took my hands. His body jolted as the lightning jerked into him, but he smiled a wide, bestial smile. “Want me to draw it off?”
“This is a full storm. The last time you were with me in a full storm, I nearly killed you.”
“That was different.” Mick leaned down and bit my cheek, and the heat of his mouth awoke every need I’d ever had. “That was battle. This is me, drawing off your power so you can function. Give me your lightning, Janet.”
I turned to Mick and kissed him.
The kiss canceled out every worry I had, every terror of the night. This was me and Mick, and this was raw. His lips bruised mine as he drew me up into him and explored my mouth with deep, hot strokes. I clung to his shoulders, and my lightning flowed straight into him.
Mick cupped my breast, his palm rough through my shirt, and I wound my leg around his thigh. I wanted him; gods, I wanted him. The lightning was driving me crazy, the storm outside was escalating, and I craved Mick.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and melted against him, finding him hard for me. Sex with Mick could be fast, brutal, and exciting, and then he could turn around and be so incredibly tender it made me cry.
Tonight, I wanted him with everything I had. If the others hadn’t been in the kitchen with us, Mick would have had laid me across the stainless steel table and taken me then and there.
“Um,” Fremont said. “I appreciate that you guys are in love, but . . . a time and a place?”
“He’s toning down her storm magic,” Cassandra said, sounding weary. “He’s afraid she’ll kill us with it. Dragons can imbibe storm magic. It won’t hurt him, I don’t think.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
I was aware of Coyote watching us closely, a far-too-interested look in his yellow eyes. As if in answer, Mick lifted me into his arms and strode with me out of the kitchen. I clung to him, my mouth still seeking his, blue crackles of electricity crawling over both of us.
Maya came charging down the stairs as Mick carried me toward the back hall. “I’m not staying up there to get struck by lightning,” she said. “Anyway, it’s raining now, so the fire’s out.” She stopped. “Janet, what the hell?”
“Go to the kitchen,” I said breathlessly. “Talk to you later.”
Maya rolled her eyes as Mick whisked me into the hall that led to my bedroom. Before we hit the threshold, I shouted back, “Keep Coyote away from us.”
Mick kicked closed the bedroom door, cutting off Maya’s deprecations directed at me in Spanish.
MICK DUMPED ME onto the bed and started pulling off his clothes. Even while my bedcovers started to smolder from the lightning in my hands, I didn’t mind sitting back and watching my boyfriend strip.
His body was delicious. I remembered the night I’d first seen it, in a hotel room in Las Vegas. I remember sitting on the bed, nervous as hell, while he pulled off his shirt to reveal a chest and six-pack abs a bodybuilder would kill for. As he’d turned around to toss the shirt somewhere, his jeans had dipped to reveal the jagged fire tattoo riding across his lower back. Plus the fact that he wasn’t wearing any underwear. By the time he’d turned back around, I’d had my shirt off, too. Mick had smiled at me, his eyes so damned blue. He’d put his knee on the bed, touched my face with his big hand, and said, “Gods, Janet, do you know how beautiful you are?”
His eyes were black tonight, but my heart still pounded as hard as it had then.
Mick threw his shirt on the dresser. “What are you smiling at?”
“Memories,” I said.
Lightning struck right outside, and Mick stripped me, not slowly, not gently, but with the skill of long practice. He jerked out of his own jeans and laid me down on the mattress, his mouth all over me. My lightning fired into him as he covered my skin with openmouthed kisses, his breath hot when he kissed the stud in my navel.
He looked up, my lightning sizzling around him and sparking in his eyes. “More,” he whispered. “Give it to me good.”
The power in me wanted to dive into him, like the best sex, but I worried I’d hurt him. Mick never touched me when the storm was at its peak; it would be too much.
Mick pulled me up until we were kneeling together, naked, sweat slicking our bodies. “Don’t hold back,” he growled. “I want it. All of it. As much as you can give me.”
