Kiki stares at me with unerring focus, as if she is staring straight into my soul. It makes me want to squirm, but at the same time I don’t want to seem like I lack confidence. I keep her gaze and roll my shoulders back.
Internally I repeat my mantra.
I am capable.
I am enough.
I don’t need a ma—
“Is that big hunk of hot man downstairs, your neighbor?” Kiki asks with a not-so-innocent smile.
“Oh yeah,” Red waves a hand. “We call him the NFH. The neighbor from hell. He’s been super rude to Goldie, which is bullshit cause who the heck can be mean to this ball of sunshine?” She leans over and gives my shoulders a squeeze.
A half smile twists up on my face, as guilt eats at me from the inside. After getting dicked down and then saved from that guy with a gun, it feels wrong to refer to Ted as the NFH any longer. Ted says he wants nothing to do with me, and then he invites me to breakfast, fixes my mirror, comes to warn me about his brother’s intentions, and then. . . I let out a breath. I can’t shake the way he caught me faking it, before stopping everything, only to wring every last sexual pleasure out of my body. How can someone who is so standoffish and rude have such a piercing insight into me? Something no one else has ever caught onto.
Kiki nods and hums to what Red says before turning back to me. The way she looks into my eyes, the smile that plays with the corners of her lips, it makes me think she already knows that though she couldn’t possibly.
Normally I explode with any new or exciting piece of news, but for some reason I don’t feel like correcting Red. Maybe it’s because that’s not why the Dame is here, and I don’t want to waste her time. But I suspect it might be because I actually want to make my mind up about Ted before throwing out information again.
That’s… unlike me.
“Well my honey pet,” the Dame says, taking one of my hands into hers, before laying her other large, cool palm against my forehead. “Let’s see if I can help with this sleepwalking, shall we?”
I close my eyes, ready and willing for her to heal all my bullshit.
I expect to feel tingles, heat, magic, but there is nothing like that before she drops her hand and says, “I hate to tell you this, honey child, but there is nothing physically to heal.”
It’s like she’s popped my balloon with a sharp, merciless needle. Instantly, I deflate.
“But whatever is going on, it might have something to do with that second power of yours.”
Red launches off the bed. “What?”
“What?” I echo in a much smaller voice.
Red shakes her head. “Mages can’t have more than one type of magic.”
“True,” Kiki tilts her head before pulling out a gloss from her pocket, reapplying even as she explains. “But one type of talent can have multiple facets. It’s rare, but it happens.”
I cover my face with both hands, letting out a groan. “I have one power I don’t want or know how to control—why couldn’t I get healing, or telekinesis—and now you are saying I have a second one?” Who do I talk to about exchanging powers? I need to speak to a manager, stat.
Kiki shrugs. “Sorry darling, but we don’t always get what we want. But I can say with complete and utter sparkling certainty,” She leans in. “you always get what you need.” With that she taps the tip of my nose.
“What is my second ability?” I ask, already dreading the answer. Does my kiss poison men?
If that were true, Ted would be dead by now.
A little shiver runs through me. I can’t decide if it’s because I find the thought of him dying dreadful, or because my brain drums up all we did this morning in high definition.
“I can’t say,” Kiki pouts. “But I would say that if you are a siren, which—” She puts her finger in her mouth then pops it out, as if she is testing for the wind. “I sense that to be true—whatever secondary power will complement the first one somehow. Or perhaps be an opposing force, like the two sides of the same coin.”
“I have some resources, I can ask about this,” Red suggests helpfully.
“Perfect.” The Dame claps her hands.
“There’s something else.” Red lays a hand on me.
Oh great, what now?
