“Excuse the fuck out of me.” Irritation clips Eli’s words, as if he hates submitting the point to a werewolf.
Ted steps in. “Eli is right, though. I don’t know much about mages, but I do know they stick to their own cities and are born with varying levels of power. One doesn’t just develop powers overnight.”
I'm too much in shock to explain, so Red jumps in. “Goldie has eaten some, uh, magic cookies that gave her the potential to develop powers.”
JJ snickers. “Magic cookies,” he chuckles, until he notices we’re not joking. The laughter dies as his eyebrows gather in confusion.
Ted appears to be having a stroke, while I have my own mini meltdown. I slip into one of the rose wingback chairs, clutching the padded arm. Have I gone insane? Am I drunk? Maybe I never woke up? This day started out crazy with Ted inside me, but at least that was a pleasant hallucination.
“The only magic cookies I know about are those Magic Morsels snack cake things made by that company, Grandma’s House,” JJ says. “They don’t work on us fae, but I know from the commercials they give humans super mild, weak powers for like, what? Ten minutes? But this seems more dramatic than the ability to float small objects for a couple minutes at a time.” He doesn’t know the blue-haired old lady who is a worldwide household brand is Red’s literal grandma, and I don’t care to illuminate.
Red doesn’t share that fact either as she goes on, dropping her hand from my back. “Yeah, well like those, but a million times more potent, so we knew it was possible Goldie might develop powers.”
“Why aren’t there many sirens left?” Ted asks, coming back to what Red previously said. I’m grateful he asks because I also want to know.
Red’s eyes bounce back and forth between him and me as I feel her uneasiness grow.
Or maybe I don’t.
She fidgets with her engagement ring. “Sirens enchant others, but sometimes because their power is so firmly rooted in the subconscious, they pull people in too strongly without meaning too. Then those enchanted start to feel they have ownership, feel the siren is an object they must possess. The enchanted can get into such a frenzy they want a piece of the ‘thing’ they love and will pull out hair, or take a piece of clothing, or uh maybe a finger, until. . . ”
“They tear the siren apart?” Eli asks horrified.
My nails dig into the chair arm as my insides quake. A marriage proposal was one thing, but someone trying to tear off a hunk of me?
Oh shit. Do I have to quit my job?
But then my stress doubles down as I think of the money, I need to get this house in order. The idea that I could get stuck with a half-finished house, lose my job at the Poison Apple because of the mess I make, and have to give people a wide berth for protection has my gorge rising.
Too much. It’s too fucking much.
That’s not even including the dangerous loan sharks that now also may want a piece of me.
“That won’t happen,” Ted says with authority, coming to stand next to me. His presence and certainty are far too assuring. I remind myself I am capable.
I am enough.
And I don’t need a man to fix my problems.
Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t.
Red turns to me again. “But it’s true? You’ve developed siren powers?”
“I—I don’t know,” I stammer. My stomach churns and the lovely breakfast Ted fed me starts to curdle under the stress. “I’m not doing it on purpose. I don’t even know how I’m doing it. And if I was, wouldn’t it affect everyone? It only seems to affect certain men. Maybe it isn’t me.” I’m starting to slip toward safe and cozy denial. Yes, that’s the ticket.
Red comes to kneel by my seat, her voice soft. “There’s probably something in your subconscious running the show, which is why you can’t control it. You don’t know how to tap into it and wrangle it. Mages go to school for years to learn how to control their abilities.”
“Oh great,” I choke out. “Another major for me to try out.” My laugh is wry and bitter.
It’s then I notice JJ and Eli slipped out when Ted jerks his head at them, and I’m grateful not to have such a large audience as feelings of vulnerability bloom inside me with uncomfortable force.
“The siren angle makes sense from what I saw,” Ted says. “Last night at the bar, I felt something in the air. Like a magnetic or electric field buzzing around. The longer I was there, it seemed to die down, until I left. When I came back, it was so out of control it felt like a hundred bee stings, causing the men to fight each other. It only eased when we got out of there.”
Brexley lets out a displeased grunt. “Why didn’t you stop it?”
“He tried,” I say, rubbing a temple, and trying to ease the hot pressure gathered there. “Everyone was nutso.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Brexley says, pushing off the wall and taking a couple steps toward Ted. “As a were, you can nullify a mage’s powers. Why the fuck didn’t you shut it down?”
