Page 43

In front of the stove, holding a spatula and a plate piled with pancakes was the enormous man called the Council’s Teeth, otherwise known as Peregrine. Otherwise known as…Clark?

No. Impossible. More impossible than raising a cemetery. I marched over to him and snatched the spatula out of his hand. The plates slowly sank to the table while I shook it at him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, sounding basically hysterical.

He looked down at my bare toes and bare knees then gave me a smile that was almost sweet. “I’m making breakfast. Sit down, and I’ll serve you.”

I sputtered and waved the spatula around, narrowly missing his head. “Absolutely not. Out!” I pointed the spatula towards the door.

“Mom, why are you acting so cringe?” Sage said, coming over to grab my arm. “I mean, Peregrine was nice enough to bring you home last night so you weren’t passed out in the woods somewhere. And now he’s making breakfast.” She hissed low, “And I didn’t expect you to actually bring a guy home. Are you crazy? Obviously, but now that he’s here, you can’t just throw him out!”

My eyes jumped from Sage to Peregrine, or Clark, or whoever he was. “Do you want me to drive you somewhere?” I finally said stiffly. He could just rip a hole in space, and he was demonstrating to my children that magic was a fun, whimsical thing so they wouldn’t think it was dangerous and capable of killing yourself and others.

His chest was so broad. He handed Sage the plate and smiled at me, but his eyes were calculating behind his smile. “I won’t need a ride. But maybe you’d walk me to the porch.”

“Oh, does he have to go?” James asked while Jerome groaned. “He was going to show us some more tricks.”

“He’s a busy man. He has things to do.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the kitchen, towards the hall and the front door. The door opened for me, anticipating my needs. It was so creepy that I almost hesitated, but whatever. Magic houses opened doors. It was fine.

Once we were out on the porch, I released his arm and pointed to the lawn with the spatula. The grass was terribly patchy. I really needed to call a landscaping company. “Please leave.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the porch rail. Somehow, it didn’t snap like a matchstick. It looked like a matchstick compared to his raw, massive strength. “I’m not leaving.”

“What? But you said…” I scowled at him. “That you didn’t need a ride. Because you aren’t going anywhere, not because you could just rip a hole in the universe. You can’t stay here.”

“You can’t stay here with our kids unless you’re capable of defending them. You aren’t.”

“Last night I took care of the situation with your… Were you really engaged to her?”

He shrugged one large shoulder and sank into his lean. He looked so good in jeans. Even with the face tattoos, which he hadn’t covered up, so the kids thought I had really sketchy taste in men, he was still hot.

“A shrug? Seriously?”

“It was a family alliance. A trade of property that involved people. I never agreed to anything, and neither did she. But if I hadn’t met you, that alliance would probably have gone through.”

“Like medieval royalty, trading favors for power?”

“The council has been around since medieval ages. It pretends to be more modern and enlightened than it is.”

I nodded like that made sense, and it probably did if you were part of an inbred society of sorcerers. “So, why me?” That was the question, right? Why did this face-tattooed, super sorcerer royalty marry me? Of course he’d gotten me pregnant first, but why had he bothered with me at all? I wasn’t that beautiful, just average, and my body wasn’t anything special.

“I kept running into you, and it became a joke with my brother. ‘How much do you bet you’ll run into the null-void on this trip?’ And I always did, and then I started trying to, and afterwards, I didn’t want to wipe away your memories of me.”

I grabbed his wrist, squeezing hard. “You wiped my mind? Are you kidding me right now? How could you do that to someone?”

He studied me. “Do you want me to explain step-by-step or was it a rhetorical question?”

I glared at him. “So you forced me to fall for you? Messed with my brain?” I was going to stab him with the spatula. Never mind. I was going to slap him with it and see if that left an impression.

“No. I bet my brother that I could get you to fall for me. We’d had several interactions and all of them were like clockwork. I’d smile and say something, and you’d sneer and try to ignore me. You’d see something you weren’t supposed to see, I’d wipe your memories, and walk away. My brother found it hilarious.”

“You bet your brother that you could make me fall for you? Why would you do that? Weren’t you too busy fighting supposed evil to play such a stupid game with someone?”

“It was a challenge. You were a challenge. I had to figure out what you wanted, and then become that person for you. You wanted so much warmth. Needed it. I had to listen to tapes about positive thinking until I understood the point.”

Clark was always positive when he wasn’t contemptuous. “How did you become so much smaller? Or is the bigness the illusion?”

He smirked. “I’m every bit as big as you think I am.”