“I wanted to talk to you,” I say, turning in his grasp. “I have an idea, and it’s a bit…unconventional.”
“Do you mean delusional?” he asks as he tucks my hair behind my ear.
“Noteveryidea I have is delusional, and even more of them work out, so delulu or not, my track record is decent.”
He laughs in the back of his throat, smoke pouring from his nostrils. “What is it, then?”
“The detective was able to get a general location for my parents,” I say, trying not to let any hope enter my voice. “I realize this is asking a lot, but would it be possible for a portal to be opened from here to over there, so that maybe I could find them?”
He nods thoughtfully. “Yes, but someone of power would need to be at the other end. Trying to open a portal without a precise destination is extremely risky.”
Well, that makes sense. Apollo didn’t justbloophimself and Sylvia over here…he used Rhazan’s magic as an anchor point.
“If my father was magical like Nai Nai, would that be enough?” I ask.
“I don’t know, Firecracker. The only portals I’ve created over my years were to places I’d been to, that I was familiar with and had left some of my magic behind in. That’s how Apollo and Sylvia can move so freely to my bar now. They marked it with their magic.”
“But the first time they hadn’t, right? How did they get there?”
My voice is starting to sound desperate. I stop and take a breath, closing my eyes.
Rhaz cradles my cheek. “He revealed himself to the people in his town last year. There was an uproar in the magical community, but since he’d never been a documented creature of interest and didn’t know the rules, they didn’t fault him for the breach.
“I found out through my parole officer. She mentioned he looked like me—troublemaker brothers, she called us.”
I chuckle and he smirks.
“I asked her to contact him for me. She set up our first meeting, using her power to ferry him to me. Then he made an etching in my library and poured some of his magic into it, binding a little bit of himself there so he can always find his way.”
“I guess I just thought, ‘It’s magic. It can do anything.’” I sigh. “I’m silly.”
“You’re not silly for hoping,” he says, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “I wish it could, too. I’d fix a lot of things.”
The look in his eyes is dark and full of self-loathing. I know it well, because I’ve seen it in the mirror for years.
I slide my hands up his chest and cup his face. “The past is gone, but we can work on the now, and the future, and we don’t need magic to make a good life.”
His face opens, vulnerable and raw. “You want to make a life with me?”
Is this impulsive? Maybe a little. But everything in my body, mind, and spirit is telling meyes.
“I do,” I say, smiling up at him.
He descends on me so fast I barely suck in a gasp before his lips collide with mine. He holds me against him so tight I can feel our shared heartache mending in the thrum of his pulse. Our mouths are mashed together in a painful stillness that I want to break.Needto break.
I wrap my arms around his neck and coax his lips to part with my tongue. He crumbles, drawing me down to the ground withhim as he pulls me onto his lap. My legs slide on either side of his hips and I mold into his desperate grasp.
“Need you,” he murmurs between kisses. “Needed you for so long.”
His admission burns in the pit of my stomach and my own desire flares with ferocious agreement. My spirit had been half as bright before him, and will never be as bright without him. This is not temporary. This is not a tryst.
This is forever.
He kisses across my cheek and down my neck, his hunger for me turned feral. I want this so, so much, but not here. Not where the floor creaks and my little brother sits on his computer thirty feet away. I need space to moan, and scream. I need his hands on me in rough ways that would have Nai Nai calling the police.
“Wait,” I urge.
He pulls back, panting and unsure.
