“Did you enjoy the bonfire, Sean?” Kywyn asked. He sipped his tea straight-backed and proper.
Sean’s good mood evaporated, popping like bubbles against Anna’s skin. “It was…overwhelming. I met Nish.”
“Ah. I’m sure he was thrilled to finally lay eyes on you.”
Sean swallowed a bite of food in a way that looked just short of agonizing. “Do I need to sit on this Council thing?”
Kywyn paused, his emotions flaring with surprise. “You don’t want to?”
“I’m—I’m not the person they think I am.”
Looks traded among the table’s patrons, and pity edged into Kywyn’s expression. “Sean?—”
“Where’s your evil blond shadow this morning?” Cole asked Autumn, though his gaze was on Sean.
She shrugged. “He was gone when I went to check on him. Probably in the library again.”
Only then did Anna remember that she’d promised to meet David there after training. Another afternoon spent in the company of the most intimidating yet fascinating man she’d ever met.
A thrill shot down her spine. Or maybe a chill. She couldn’t tell.
Cole leaned his elbows on the table. “I don’t know why you’re trying to be friends with a guy like that.”
She raised her attention to the ceiling. “Because I know the good in him.”
“There is no good in him,” Cole said.
“You don’t see his mind the way I do,” she said, still studying the ceiling. “You don’t know the good parts he hides. Besides, isolating him will only turn him into his ancestor.”
Anna glanced at the ceiling, curious. What was the girl looking at?
“Hear, hear.” Kywyn lifted his glass toward Autumn, as did Blaire.
Sean eyed his father, then turned to Cole. “So you started in the infirmary yesterday? Planning to be a witch just like your mom?” This last he said with a wink cast in his aunt’s direction.
“I guess so.” Cole glanced at his mother. “Runs in the bloodlines, or so I’m told. This one spae, Estel, has agreed to take me on.”
Blaire ruffled his messy hair as she passed behind him, tidying up the kitchen. “Estel is a maven. He’ll be a master of the Light in no time.”
“That’s me,” Cole said under his breath. “Master of the Light.”
A laugh rose in Anna’s throat, choked by the sudden flames that engulfed Autumn’s tenacious happiness. Honey eyes blackened when they landed on Cole. Autumn’s smile faded as a weird carnal glaze smothered every emotion inside her. Magical pressure swelled around Anna, then cracked and broke loose, flooding the emotional landscapearound her.
Lust.
It attacked like an animal, so powerful that Anna nearly winced. Her face heated, heart sped, and low in her belly, a throb woke.
It took everything not to react, not to think about it. Instead, she focused on facts.
Autumn was a deva.
Devas charged their Light in the most salacious of ways—sex.
Devas were compulsive, easily addicted creatures, irresistibly drawn to ideal mates they calledlumás.
Autumn jerked her gaze back to the ceiling, and the lust decayed. “I have to go,” she said. “See you later.”
In a flash of red and gold, she was gone.
