Max grumbled. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It clearly does. You obviously know that guy, and you obviously hate him,” my voice rang on the word hate as I tried to emphasize it with the vocal equivalent of an exclamation mark. “He’s a fairy, too, isn’t he?”
Max looked as if he would ignore me but soon set his lips into a grim line. “It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that you stay away from him, understand?”
I spluttered. “No. You haven’t told me—”
“Fine, you want to know why you should stay the hell away from Dimitri?” Max’s eyes flashed with warning.
I gulped.
“I may lose my memory when I practice strong magic, but Dimitri….”
“… Dimitri what?”
His gaze locked on me with all the force of ropes. “Dimitri loses his control. The more he practices, the crueler he gets, the crazier he gets, the less he can see reason. So you stay away from him, you got it?”
I paled, and it took a heck of a long time to find the energy to nod.
Silence spread between us. Though Max clearly wanted to drop the conversation about Dimitri, suddenly I frowned. “Why… why did he have so many of those transport keys? Farley had one,” my throat tightened as I pushed his name out. “He gave me the impression they were expensive.”
Max stopped growling. Maybe it was because of the raw emotion I’d shown as I mentioned Farley, or maybe it was something else.
He gritted his teeth. “They are expensive. Extremely expensive. They are also hard to get hold of. You need to have… contacts.”
My lips scrunched up and my nose crinkled, but it wasn’t a sneer – just a wince. “Contacts?”
He hesitated and nodded low. “An ordinary fairy might be able to get their hands on one or two. But he had…” Max trailed off.
“Hundreds,” I finished quietly. I felt itchy. Thoroughly itchy. Hot, too. These were not pleasant sensations, though. It wasn’t my body reacting to Max’s presence again. Instead, I swear it was a sense of foreboding. It wasn’t as crystal-clear as when I saw the future. Fireflies of sparking light were not charging across my field of view. That didn’t matter, though. The sensation was just as undeniable. Something told me Dimitri would be back, and those hundreds of transport keys would return to haunt us.
Max didn’t seem to be willing to say anything more on the matter, and soon I fell into step behind him, appreciating just how tense his shoulders were and just how angry that experience had made him.
I didn’t have much longer to assess that thought – we arrived at a door.
Once more, he hesitated. He appeared to take a stiff breath before he locked his equally stiff fingers around the handle and twisted it.
We walked in.
I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting. Maybe some seedy magical den were people were playing the equivalent of fairy poker and gambling with people’s lives. Or maybe I just thought it would be a storeroom stacked with chairs and liquor.
It was neither.
What I got was a nervous looking, pretty young woman sitting on an upturned milk crate, ringing her hands together in obvious distress.
As soon as Max walked in, she punched to her feet, a relieved expression slackening her features. “Max? God, I’m so relieved you’re here!”
She wasn’t faking it. She sounded seriously relieved. You couldn’t deny her expression, either. Her lips spread into a kind smile, and her generous chest punched forward as she sucked in a deep breath.
Max? He smiled. It was a charming, electric move. The kind of move designed to get any girl’s heart thundering.
Max was my magical bodyguard – my magical pain, too. He was not my boyfriend. No matter what my pounding heart sometimes told me, we were not together, and that was never likely to change.
So why did I feel a pang of jealousy as Max shifted forward and warmly clutched the woman’s hand? He shook it, squeezing it reassuringly before he took another step into the room. Me, I just hesitated in the doorway and wondered what the hell I was getting myself into. Jealousy aside, it was obvious this woman was in some kind of trouble. Just as it was obvious Max wouldn’t have brought me here unless he thought I could do something about that trouble.
For the first time since I’d entered, the pretty young woman tilted her head back and looked at me. “Are you sure you can help?” she asked, almost as if she was giving me the opportunity to leave.
Max, however, did not give me that opportunity. He turned and frowned. “Don’t hang around in the door. Close it and come in already.”
My top lip ticked up, and I sneered at him. I still followed what he’d snapped, though. I walked in, closed the door, and tried to pretend the sinking feeling rushing through my stomach wasn’t my clairvoyant powers trying to tell me that this was the wrong thing to do.
For the first time since clapping eyes on her, I actually looked at the young woman. She was about my age, but a little taller, a hell of a lot rounder, and a great deal prettier. Oh, she was also a witch. I didn’t need the magical bangle and necklaces she wore to reveal that fact. Not only was she in a magical bar, but I could vaguely sense her magic.
“We have to stop him,” she stuttered over her words, taking deep gasping breaths between each. “I’ve lost six already. The police can do nothing. Not as long as he’s got friends on the inside of the force.”
She was taking such large, stuttering breaths,
