Jennifer Rardin [Jaz Parks series book 2] Another One Bites The Dust

 His eyes lightened to green and my heartbeat must have tripled at the thought that we could so easily ignite those feelings again.

 “So, banishment,” I blurted, so loudly they probably heard me three blocks away. Vayl dropped his hand. I didn’t even know he’d reached for me. He turned away.

 “Yes.”

 “What exactly does that mean for you?”

 “Liliana and I were forced to distance ourselves from all members of our family for ten generations.”

 “What happened if you didn’t?”

 Vayl whipped me a look over his shoulder that told me he’d had about enough. You can only scratch a scar so long before it becomes a wound again. “Magical banishment is not like a restraining order, Jasmine. It is quite effective. Well, it was.”

 “You mean, it’s over now?”

 Vayl nodded. “The banishment expired three years ago.”Fat lot of good that does me , said the bleak look in his eyes.The family I knew is all dead now. Dead and gone . Or, as he so desperately hoped in the case of his boys, dead and reincarnated.

 I felt like such an ass. I’d made Vayl dig up some bad old memories just so I wouldn’t have to face down my own growing desire to toss that tape recorder he’d mentioned off the nearest flat surface and throw Vayl down there instead. Thing was, when I looked in those remarkable eyes and thought of sharing that ultimate moment of ecstasy with him, the image that came to mind was not me and Vayl. It was me and Matt. My fiance had been dead nearly sixteen months, but parts of my brain still couldn’t seem to believe it.

 Vayl had fished some socks out of a drawer and sat on the bed to put them on. “Are you all right?” he asked.

 Great, I’d hurt him and he was asking after my welfare. Typical. “Yeah, look, I’m sorry I made you talk about that stuff. It’s none of my business—”

 “Actually, it is. As myavhar you should be privy to all my secrets, past and present.” His lips twisted. “It is just that, there are so many to tell. And very few of them are pleasant.”

 “Well, by all means, take your time. I know, maybe every couple of weeks we can have a slumber party. You can come over to my apartment and we’ll play Truth or Dare. You can let a couple juicy ones slip while we gossip about how Cassandra wears too much jewelry and Cole always smells like grape bubble gum.” An image came to mind of Vayl wearing SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas and pink fuzzy slippers and I started to giggle. When I got a load of the confused look on his face I laughed even louder. The sharp rap on the door didn’t stop me, but the look on Cole’s face when he stepped in did. He looked pissed. When he saw that Vayl and I were practically on opposite sides of the room his shoulders dropped and his fists opened.

 Oh man, he can’t still be carrying a torch for me, can he? I mean, we had it all out already, right? Yeah right, drawled my cynical self, a chain-smoking echo of my mother, who wore hair curlers like diamond tiaras and was a master at keeping her kids out of the house.

 “Yes, Cole?” Vayl’s tone could’ve frozen a pitcher of lemonade.

 “I just wanted to know what you thought about the security guards.” When Vayl gave him a blank look Cole’s shoulders bunched right back up. “What’ve you been doing in here all this time?” he asked me.

 Before I could reply Vayl said, “The conversations that occur betweensverhamin andavhar are private. If information arises that concerns you, we will let you know.”

 “That’s enough,” I told them both, holding out my hands, which immediately seemed kind of stupid. Did I really want to be the one standing in the middle of a pissing match? Ick. “If you boys can’t play nice I’m sending you to your rooms.”

 Vayl raised an eyebrow as if to say,But I am already here .

 I went on. “Cole makes a good point. I should’ve told you straight off that we went to scout out the festival, and while we were there I saw something funky.” I described the guard. Luckily that made Vayl forget all about how much he didn’t care for Cole. Which made his presence on our current mission something of a minor miracle. Enter the flaming ball of guilt who is me.

 I’d met Cole on New Year’s Eve during a reconnaissance mission. His connection to our target’s wife had piqued Vayl’s interest. That attention had not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It had resulted in the burning of Cole’s office, his kidnapping and severe beating. At the end of that mission he’d held my hand in the dungeon below Club Undead, tears flowing unchecked down his battered face. “I’m so sorry,” he kept saying.

 The pain of my injuries had nearly overwhelmed me. I badly wanted a paramedic with a needleful of morphine. But it helped to concentrate on the men, Cole on my left and Vayl, running soothing fingers through my hair, at my right.

 “Why?” I asked, my voice raspy with barely checked agony.

 “I should be in your spot. If you hadn’t pulled me off that bomb and taken my place—”

 “She would have been fired,” Vayl told him.

 I squeezed Cole’s hand. “And that really would’ve killed me.”

 “But—”

 I squeezed harder, making him wince. “You saved me just now. We’re even.”

 But I hadn’t really felt that way. I still had a job, after all, while Cole’s was little more than a pile of ash. So when he visited me in the hospital a week later to ask for a recommendation, I called my boss, Pete, that afternoon.

 “Does he know what he’s talking about?” Pete had asked.

 “He was there for the big showdown. I can tell you he has no illusions,” I assured him. Then I listed all the