I stop teetering long enough to realize that I’m gawking. I should probably say something. Perhaps a sorry for the pinball impression I just did against your rock hard body. But nope, no words come out of my mouth; instead, I just continue to gape at him. At some point, and I couldn’t say when, I started to pet his chest. The button-down shirt he’s donning is incredibly soft, and I wonder what the material is, because it’s entirely too lush to be cotton.
Realization dawns on me, and I snatch my hand back, stepping away from the physical manifestation of all of my best dreams. I back up, his strong grip falling away as I put distance between the two of us. A part of me, one I like to call my inner fiend, really wishes he would have just kept holding on. That same part of me is really hoping he’ll pin me against a wall and show me what he’s really all about, which is exactly why it gets shoved to the far recesses of my deranged brain and ignored for the more logical and socially acceptable parts that can be trusted to deal with a complete stranger.
“Hi. Um, super sorry, but we’re closed. I must have forgotten to lock the door when I came in to do inventory. We should be open again in about a month, give or take maybe another month. I really, really hope you’ll come back for whatever you need then. We’ll do a grand re-opening with all kinds of fun things...and coupons…” I finally get a hold of my runaway mouth and stop talking.
Coupons? I want to crawl into a corner and rock back and forth until the mortification goes away. I’m pretty sure I also just said really twice. Well, that will become a moment I relive late at night when I’m trying to go to sleep but instead rehash every dumb or embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life.
He smiles at me, flashing his straight white teeth, and I force myself to take another step back in hopes it will keep me from being further twitterpated by whoever he is and whatever he wants.
“Are you Ruby?” he asks, a glint of confusion and interest in his swirling green gaze. “I’m Rogan Kendrick, we spoke on the phone earlier this week.”
“Oh,” I coo loudly before I can stop myself. I clear my throat and try to wrangle my hormones. “Yeah, no,” I start again more somberly. “I’m her granddaughter Lennox. I’m sorry to tell you that Ruby passed away...yesterday actually,” I inform him somewhat awkwardly, as a plume of sadness settles over me like my own personal rain cloud.
Surprise, disappointment, and then strangely defeat seeps into his quagmire-kissed gaze at my announcement, and his shoulders slump as he steps back and runs his fingers through his silky hair.
“I’m so sorry…” I offer, when I see how upset he is by the news. I immediately want to ask how he knew my grandmother, but then I recall that he didn’t know what she looked like so he couldn’t have known her well enough to warrant this level of emotion at hearing that she’s died.
I watch as his eyes move around the shop and land on the velvet purple bag of bones I set by the register when I walked in. His gaze flashes to mine, a flicker of hope burning on a wick of desperation in his stare. And then he goes and ruins all of his gorgeousness by looking deep into my eyes and saying, “Tedas ruk shaw aus forin ve Osteomancer. Ise hiruse ou fooiq tork shin iei.”
Warmth licks up my body to wrap around my wrists, neck and ankles. My eyes widen with shock and then betrayal, as I recognize the first half of the incantation he just made. I spoke those very words myself to Hoot when I bound him as my familiar. My Mancer is as rusty as a battleship at the bottom of the sea, but aside from this asshole claiming me as his familiar, he just bound me to him in another way. I only recognized a couple of words, but it’s enough that panic and rage are now surging through me, and I’m about to get my money’s worth out of the years of kickboxing classes I’ve been taking.
I don’t know what Rogan Kendrick expected me to do when he violated magical law and bound me to him, but judging by the way he crumbled like a cardboard box, me punching him in the stomach wasn’t it.
“What the fuck?” I demand, outraged as I go for a follow-up knee to the face.
He leaps back, saving his head from my patella and his dick from my Converse by mere inches. He slams into a shelf of lace dream catchers and crystals, hitting it so hard that it comes crashing down. I dive to get out of the way of the large wood shelves, just barely missing being clipped by them. Rogan stands up on the other side, annoyingly recovered from my hit, and glares at me.
He. Fucking. Glares. At. Me.
I pick up a candle and chuck it at him, following that up with another candle and another. He’s dodging and batting away projectiles, while Hoot just lies in the corner, calmly taking in the show.
“Please, just hear me out?” Rogan pleads when I almost brain him with a glass bottle of love potion. He eyes the shelf I’m pulling my missiles from, and we both come to the same realization at the same time: I’m about to run out of things to throw. There are shelves of incense behind me, but they don’t pack the same punch that potions, rocks, and candles do. I reach for another glass bottle, and the next thing I know, I’m being tackled. He just leaps over the tipped bookshelf like a graceful cat, and down I go like some grasshopper that didn’t even know it was being hunted.
Sonofabitch.
This soul-stealing bastard is heavy, and I’m suddenly cursing all the muscles that I was just drooling over. Should have fucking known he was too hot to be trustworthy. It’s always the pretty ones you have to look out for, my Aunt Hillen has always warned. Hate when she’s right. Rogan pins my wrists down on each side of my head in a way that would be sexy if he hadn’t just stolen me and connected us forever. I struggle against his hold, panting and screeching like a vengeful banshee from the depths of hell, but neither Rogan nor Hoot seem to be fazed at all by anything that I’m doing.
“Just listen to me,” Rogan grunts as I struggle to get free. “I need help. All you have to do is help me, and then I swear your life is your own again. This doesn’t have to be permanent if you’ll just cooperate.”
“If I’ll cooperate?” I seethe. “I’m going to kill you and grind your bones to dust. Then I’ll curse them so that you come back every week just so I can kill you again. I’m going to spend my entire existence making you suffer,” I snarl into his face. And just when I think I can’t get any madder, he goes and gives an amused smile at my threats.
“No, Osteomancer, because what happens to my soul, happens to yours. What happens to my bones, happens to yours. We are bound now, and unless I remove it, there isn’t a thing you can do to change that.”
Betrayal and terror bubble up in my throat, but I swallow it down and headbutt him. I wasn’t quite prepared for how badly that was going to hurt, but neither was he, and we both let out pained groans and shield our faces. My forehead is throbbing, whereas he’s holding his nose.
“Lennox, please. I’m begging you. I need your help, and you don’t know it yet, but you need mine,” he tells me, his deep voice a hint more nasal.
That probably has something to do with the blood I see seeping through his fingers. Good. Hope I broke his too perfect nose. At that thought, he reaches out to me with a bloody hand and smears crimson ichor down my chest.
“What the fu—” I bellow at the same time he growls, “Seno.”