Jamie leans down, caging her against the booth as she murmurs, “Please, baby. Ican’thelp.”
Lacey cups her cheeks and pulls her face down for a kiss. “We’ll be careful.”
Jamie’s nails dig into the upholstery for a fraction and then she sighs, kisses her wife one more time, and whirls on me. An aura of preternatural fury surrounds her.
“If anything happens to her,I will come for your blood.”
The last six words send a rattle of terror down my spine.
“Jamie!” Lacey protests, but Jamie doesn’t back down.
Her eyes are transfixed on mine, unyielding in their demand.
“That’s fair,” I agree, deciding that Lacey will not be doing anything dangerous at all.
“I mean it,” Jamie says, her voice taking a menacing tone.
“So do I,” I say, offering my hand so we can shake on it. “If she gets hurt from this, you can hurt me in the same way.”
“This is ridiculous!” Lacey protests.
Jamie grabs my hand and I feel the burn of magic on the inside of my wrist. I hiss a curse, but endure. The pain ends and Jamie turns to Lacey one more time. I look at the spot just above Rhazan’s mark to find a dagger spearing through a bleeding eye. She’s freakingmagical?Is she human? What the heck…
Jamie kisses Lacey one last time and then walks toward the door, not stopping to look back. My gaze pins on Lacey, my mouth hanging open.
“Did you know?”
She looks at my wrist, then back up to meet my eyes, and nods.
“Know what?” Ace asks. “What are you guys looking at?”
I show him my arm, and he leans in to look.
“Do you have a growth or something?”
He can’t see it?
Nai Nai pats him on the shoulder. “You were blessed in other ways, grandson, but not with sight for magic.”
His shoulders slump. “I knew it.”
“Don’t feel bad, Ace. Most people can’t see magic,” Lacey says, and I’m suddenly very suspicious of her.
“How is it that you can?” I ask.
“Because of Jamie,” Lacey says as she smiles gently and pulls the neck of her shirt aside to reveal a magical brand below her left collarbone. It’s a dark silhouette of two clawed hands cradling a golden sunflower.
Apt, I think. Lacey is definitely a sunflower. I don’t think I want to know what Jamie is, but I know she will certainly be able to keep her promise to hurt me.
“I’m going to need that full story sometime, but now, we need to get to work,” I say. “There’s a lot to do, and not a lot of time to do it.”
“No!” Nai Nai snipes. “First, we feast!”
“Yes, please, it smells delicious,” Lacey says.
“I’m so hungry,” Ace says as he grabs a bowl for rice.
I smile as everyone loads up on the magical food I prepared for them. This will certainly be a night to remember. And with their help—and a little luck—by the same time tomorrow my parents will be safe.
