“Yes,” I said. “No. Maybe.” I groaned and flopped over on my back. I couldn’t think straight. I pressed my fingers over my eyes. “I don’t know,” I said through my palms. “It’s just happening so fast. I don’t know if I can handle this. Us. Whatever we are.” Hells, could I sound any more pitiful? “You don’t want the money, do you?”
He didn’t say anything. I waited, but all I heard was his breathing, slightly elevated, like he was still angry. I finally pulled one hand away from my face and peeked over at him.
Predawn light fingered through the slats covering the window. It was pretty, I suppose. It lent enough light for me to watch Zayvion’s expression close down until none of the warmth and passion of a lover showed in his eyes. Until he was calm, controlled, closed. Zen.
“I don’t want the money,” he said with such quiet and control it actually spooked me. “I don’t want control of the company. If this is going too fast, then I’ll give you some time to think about what I do want.”
He reached over and brushed my bangs out of my eyes. His thumb glided across the mark of magic that curled at my temple, and I found myself longing for the coolness of his touch. Something deep in my bones responded to him, drew toward him whenever we touched.
“What are you?” I whispered.
There was a knock at the door, then Nola’s voice. “If you two want to put some clothes on, I think you need to come out to the kitchen and see this.”
I didn’t know she was awake, hadn’t heard the springs on her bed creak, hadn’t heard her walk down the noisy wood stairs. Hells. Someone could have walked in and killed me, for all the attention I was paying. Or maybe I’d been paying very close attention to the only person in the house I wanted to see.
Still, it was predawn. Nola had a hideous habit of getting up before the sun, so she’d probably heard all the moaning and groaning going on in here. This old farmhouse had very thin walls. How fabo was that?
I blushed, and was glad the light was low.
“We’ll be out in a minute.” I pulled the top blanket around me and slid off the bed to gather the sweats and T-shirt.
Zayvion got out of bed, picked up his boxers, and put them on.
I managed to get my sweats on while contorting to hide my decency behind the blanket. Oh, screw it. It’s not like we hadn’t just been a whole lot of naked with each other a few minutes ago.
I dropped the blanket, turned the inside-out T-shirt inside-in again and tugged it on over my head.
Zay was watching me.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you want your father’s money?”
I rubbed at my hair and knew it must be sticking out like a Christmas cactus. I was glad there weren’t any mirrors in the room, because I was sure I was a vision of lovely.
“Listen,” I said while I rummaged for a robe in the closet. “I know I’ve had advantages in my life because of my father’s money, nice things and good education—especially the education. But when I failed at getting my degree in business magic and dropped out of college, he disowned me. I knew there would be no going back on that.”
“Why didn’t he hire private tutors?”
“What do you mean? To teach me magic?” I snagged a plain white robe off the hook, and shut the closet door. “No one teaches magic outside the universities. It’s too dangerous. If a student does something really stupid, you need a whole crew of people to set Siphons, bear Proxy, and do other kinds of mop-up.”
I thought Zay was just testing to see if I had really gone to college. But he was watching me, his nostrils flared like he was trying to scent the truth of my words.
“You never met other users?” he asked. “Teachers?”
And I knew there was something riding on my answer, something important.
“What if I had?” Okay, that was a bluff, but I was suddenly really interested in what had gotten Mr. Zen all worked up.
He shrugged one shoulder, but otherwise was still, waiting.
I was so not in the mood for a game of truth or dare. “I’ve never met with teachers outside of the universities. Well, maybe in a social setting, but not in a student-teacher sort of way. Okay? Why is that such a big deal?”
“Allie, your father was very powerful in the world of magic.”
“And you’re trying to see where I fit in all that?”
He nodded.
“I’ve told you—I didn’t fit. Wasn’t a part of it—whatever ‘it’ was. Disowned, remember?”
Zay nodded and looked over at the window, avoiding my gaze. “That’s good to know.”
What had gotten into him? I hadn’t tried to be public with my dropping out and estrangement from my father, but there had been a couple slow news days, so it wasn’t like it was a secret.
“What did you think?” I muttered. “That my dad and I were out to take control of all the magic in the world?”
Zay turned to look at me so fast I thought his neck was going to snap.
“Sweet hells, Zay. I was joking,” I said. “Joking. What is going on in that head of yours?”
Nola’s voice called out. “Allie, Zayvion. Breakfast.”
Zay looked down at the floor and rubbed at the back of his neck. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him embarrassed before. “Sorry. That was funny,” he said unconvincingly. “Let’s go get some coffee.” He pulled into his jeans and shirt, then escaped the room without looking at me.
Weird. Weird. Weird.
I tied the robe closed and tucked my hair behind my ears. Maybe I’d been onto something just then. Maybe my father had been out to control all the magic in the world. He already owned patents to most of the systems that made magic available. So what else was there to control? Who else was there to control?
I thought about Cody. I thought about him pulling magic through me, like I was a flesh-and-blood conduit for it. No one should be able to do that. I shouldn’t have been able to do that.
And I certainly shouldn’t have been able to heal him.
Were there other people who could do things with magic that they shouldn’t?
A shiver ran down my arms and the nauseating pangs of panic rolled in my belly. I’d been in so many bad situations lately, even the hint of something going wrong put me full into fight-or-flight mode, and it was exhausting. I shook my hands to loosen my shoulders and neck, and took a few good breaths to clear my head.
Coffee first. Then, if I still felt like it, I could panic.
I walked out of the room and made my way to the kitchen and the low sounds of unfamiliar voices.
Nola, Zayvion, and Cody were all in the kitchen. Zay stood at the stove, drinking from a coffee mug, and looking calm and unperturbed as always.
The unfamiliar voices were coming from a small TV set on the counter. Right now it was some woman talking about foot fungus.
“I’ll get you some food,” Nola said. “Why don’t you sit next to Cody.”
I looked over at the kid. His blond hair was damp and brushed down tight against his head. He’d obviously just taken a shower. It looked like Nola had found a spare pair of sweats and a flannel shirt for him. He was about Nola’s build, but I did a quick reassessment of his age. Slight of frame and delicate features, yes, but not because he was a kid. I’d put him in his mid-twenties, maybe even early thirties. His head was bent over the kitten in his hands. He completely ignored the bowl of cold cereal on the table in front of him, and, as far as I could tell, everything else.
“So your name’s Cody.” I sat in the chair across from him where I could keep my eye on Zayvion. “Remember me?”
Cody looked up from the kitten and smiled a bright, lopsided smile. “Pretty colors,” he said. He held up his hand and waved it in the air like he was pushing finger paints around. He frowned when nothing happened.
“There’s no magic here, Cody,” Nola said, and it sounded like she’d been saying that for a while.
Cody stopped waving and put his hands back around the kitten.