A large conference room greeted me, with an oval table in the middle surrounded by plush chairs. Moss and Marie each stood in a corner, standing tall with their eyes directed straight ahead. In another corner, a block of a man took up residence, clearly a vampire on the same detail as Moss and Marie.
Darius sat on the side facing the door in the windowless room, his elbows on the table and his fingers steepled up near his face. Opposite him sat a burly guy with tree-trunk arms and dirty blond hair, his broad back to me. The seat to his right was open, but the one beyond it was filled with another stack of muscle with dark brown hair, wearing a suit that pulled at the seams, fighting to stay in one piece over his large expanse of shoulders. Shifters, both of them.
Reagan sauntered around the end of the table toward Darius, exchanging words with the muscular blond guy. Emery walked behind her, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. He pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat down like the room should praise him for showing up.
It was clear he could really strap on the ego when he thought it fitting.
A slight shifting drew my notice to the left, and a little lean-in revealed two more people, a woman and man, each with a certain pose and balanced stance that yelled fighter. Another couple shifters. The woman in the corset was out of sight, which meant others might be, too.
Knowing I couldn’t, on my best day, strut in like I owned the place, I figured I’d take Darius at his word. Hoping to stay hidden, I skulked into the room, veering right, and slipped toward the corner, where I was happy to notice a big, bushy office plant. It would do swimmingly to hide me from these extremely intense individuals who really didn’t seem like they should be cooped up together in a confined space.
Having achieved my partial hiding spot, I put my back to the wall and finally took a glimpse at the other end of the table. I sucked in a quiet breath, which I then held.
The most unbelievably gorgeous man I had seen in my entire life, on the big screen or otherwise, sat in the high-backed chair at the foot of the table, his posture perfect and his manicured hands on the table. With cheekbones and straight nose seemingly etched out of marble, he looked like one of those pictures in a history book depicting nobles. Lean body exuding power, he was refined grace and infallible charisma wrapped up in a perfect package.
Like…almost too perfect. He didn’t even look real, he was so incredibly attractive.
I wiped drool from my chin with the back of my hand. He was so hot he literally made me drool. That was a first.
“Now, since we are all here…” the stupidly attractive man said, his voice so perfectly pitched and smooth that I caught myself leaning forward a little bit, anxious to get it to my ears just a little more quickly.
Son of a marmalade maker, Penny, get a hold of yourself!
“Sabrine, please, if you would?” the man said, and I forced myself to lean back again.
Ms. Corset—Sabrine—strutted toward the doors, her hips bobbing and swaying so much that I almost got queasy watching them. She passed the shifters a little too closely, skimming their comfort bubbles and smirking when each of them stiffened, before fitting the doors into the frame as best she could. She didn’t so much as glance my way.
Vampires and shifters didn’t like each other, I remembered. No, that wasn’t right. They hated each other. And hating, in the magical world, often resulted in death.
And here we all were, in the same room. Spacious or not, the room was still much too small.
“I am overjoyed I could host such a group of people. What luck that this location was agreeable to you,” Unnaturally Handsome said with a smile that tightened my body in worrying ways: arousal and fear and excitement.
The brown-haired shifter at the table moved in his seat, clearly not as overjoyed. He leaned forward, resting his large arms on the table. His biceps strained his suit jacket to the point of absurdity.
“You didn’t introduce anyone around. Is that the other mage?” He pointed at Reagan.
“Nope,” she said, leaning back in her seat. The low light glinted off her bald head. “I was only invited because I’m banging this guy.” She hooked a thumb Darius’s way. Cleary this group didn’t know what she really was.
“She was the first to thwart the Mages’ Guild in Seattle,” the blond-haired shifter said, his voice deep and rough and his posture tense and ready.
“But she’s not a mage?” Bursting Jacket asked.
“Not a mage, no. But rest assured, gentlemen,” Darius said. His voice, once smooth as silk, now sounded a bit gravelly. Unnaturally Handsome was doing a number on me. “She will be an infallible asset. Now, if we could move on…”
“Wait.” Bursting Jacket leaned forward then back, practically buzzing with pent-up energy. He glanced at the blond shifter. “Am I remembering this wrong? Weren’t there two mages that battled the Guild in Seattle? I was told they’d both be here.”
“And so they are,” Unnaturally Handsome said.
The blond shifter clasped his hands, and I could tell it was in confusion. It occurred to me that neither of them had noticed me enter. They didn’t know I was in the room.
Reagan clucked her tongue and shook her head, the light moving around her shiny skin scalp like a disco ball. “Roger, I’m surprised at you. I mean, your nitwit friend I get—lots of brawn, no brain—but you? That’s a big miss…”
Ah, so that was Roger. I sank a little closer to the bush, because Reagan’s joy of riling up shifters was not in the best interest of this overall meeting, and also because the shifters were on my side of the table.
As expected, Bursting Jacket puffed up, putting that jacket under even more strain. Shifter magic exploded through the room, jagged and hot, smacking into me and putting my energy on boil.
Attack. Kill.
A weave sprang through my fingers, unbidden, ready to slice Bursting Jacket in two if he so much as flinched in Reagan’s direction. I clenched my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on keeping calm. In this room of power players, I was not needed for defense. I needed to mind my own business so Darius could talk everyone around.
“Oops. Now look what you’ve done,” I heard—Reagan, as calm as a spring day. “You went and got the other mage all riled up. That’s okay; I like your beta better anyway. It would probably do everyone a favor if she took over.”
That intensely powerful shifter magic continued to pump into the room, burning my eyes and making me grind my teeth.
Shred. Rip.
I felt the energy building, the shifter close to changing shape. I wondered if it would have a spark like that goblin, and if it did, if I could just reach in…and quell it. Stop the change.
“Calm yourself,” came Emery’s voice, a whip crack of command. Rough and masculine, it flowed over my skin like a caress, so much better than Unnaturally Handsome’s voice. “Get it under control, or things are going to get violent.”
Another wave of shifter magic vibrated toward me, more potent than the first, whispering of trees, cold mornings, and the thrill of the hunt. It must’ve been Roger’s magic, and I savored the natural feel of it. How it sang through my bones and seamlessly blended into my surroundings.
The power soaked into my body, and my already raging energy flared. Elements flowed through my fingers again without my consent, weaves half realized before I could force them to dissipate.
I shouldn’t have come. This was a huge mistake.
“Darius, calm it down, now,” Emery said.
A warning sounded somewhere in the back of my head. The train was a little too wobbly on the tracks. And while this might’ve happened a lot when I was first learning to use my magic, I knew better now. And, on the flip side, I also knew a lot more deadly spells.
“Gentlemen,” Darius said, an edge to his voice, “may I present Penelope Bristol?”
Fabric groaned, and I wondered if Bursting Jacket would tear out his seams when he looked around.
“You see,” Unnaturally Handsome said, “vampires have a tendency to keep track of the most dangerous person in the room, even when he or she is disguised in such a perplexing way.”
Like the tide going out, the magic receded slowly, leaving me shaky and trembling in its wake. I peeled an eye open in time to see Bursting Jacket smirking at me through a big, square face and small, beady brown eyes. He turned back around and his magic diminished to the point of a whiff. The other shifter’s magic followed suit. I sighed in gratitude.
“Most dangerous person in the room?” He chuckled. “She looks terrified. She’s not even trained, right?”
“Precisely,” Unnaturally Handsome said, his finger firmly on the pulse of the situation.
Bursting Jacket shook his head, still chuckling, clearly thinking this was a farce. I bet I could still reach in and flick off—
“Nope.” Reagan stood. “This might not work, boys. I can control my dislike of that meathead because I mostly dislike everyone. I’ve had practice. But she hasn’t, and she is planning horrible things. I can feel it.”
Emery nodded and shifted so he could look back at me, his eyes sparkling with confidence. He wasn’t passing judgment. He was ready to fight with me, if it came to that. I could see it in his posture, feel it in his magical chemistry as it connected with mine.