A Perfect Blood

it. The carpet has been replaced and most of the fish survived.”
    “No,” I said, coming around the corner of the counter. “I didn’t mean that . . .” Trent looked up, waiting, and I swallowed hard. “I didn’t really thank you. For helping with Al.”
    “You’re welcome.” He hesitated, his eyes going to my empty wrist, tossing his hair from his eyes. “Is that all?”
    “No.” He snapped his phone closed and tucked it back in an inner pocket of his jacket, and I fidgeted, remembering his face when he’d opened up to me, just that little bit. “Ah, I’m sorry you can’t be what you want . . . to be.”
    His professional mask back in place, he put his hands behind his back. “I never said that.”
    “I know.” The silence stretched until it became awkward. “Thank you for the charms.”
    Finally he smiled, but it was faint and it faded fast. Even so, I exhaled as if it meant something. “You’re welcome,” he said, tugging his jacket sleeves down. “Good luck finding HAPA. My guess is they’re downtown somewhere.”
    Downtown? They couldn’t be downtown. We’d find them in an hour if they were downtown, and they knew it.
    But he was leaving, and I just stood there, feeling inadequate. Trent glanced at my hands, then gave me a sharp nod. “I’ll see myself out,” he said as he turned away. “Good choice on the fabric color for the table. Red is tacky.”
    Red is tacky echoed in my mind as I slumped back against the counter as his steps grew faint. He made a comment to the Weres working on the table, and then he was gone.
    “You are pathetic, Rache,” Jenks said, and my eyes darted to the top of the rack and I saw him standing there, hands on his hips and frowning at me, his wings a silver blur. “Rachel and Trent, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. No wait, it was a hospital room, and he had his hands on your ass and you had your tongue down his throat. I can see why you might be confused.”
    “Grow up, Jenks. He’s helping me to help himself. You watch. In three months, he’s going to be knocking on my door with some problem that only I can solve, and I’m going to do it because I owe him. He’s a businessman. Period. I am a commodity he has been working toward for two years.”
    Damn it, why had I fallen for that poor-me crap? Ticked, I went to the demon texts, piling them up in my arms before going behind the counter and shelving them.
    “Yeah, okay.” Clearly not believing me, Jenks landed next to Trent’s charms and kicked one, sending it rocking. “Except for one thing.”
    I came up from shelving my books, catching the charm he had kicked as it rocked off the counter. The tingle of wild magic pricked, and I shivered, remembering it flowing through me and the charms he’d been making for the last year or so. Wild magic. “What,” I said flatly.
    “This,” he said, kicking at the ring, and I took it up, turning it in my fingers to study it. It really was pretty, made of three individual metallic bands, interwoven to make one solid piece—sort of like a puzzle ring but able to hold together off a finger. “He didn’t tell you what it does,” Jenks said, rising up as his kids started screaming from the front room, arguing over the chalk again. The Weres began laughing, and I didn’t think it was because they were almost done.
    I’d noticed that myself, and I set it down in mistrust. “So? He was in a hurry.”
    “Knock it off or I’m going to come in there and turn your wings backward!” Jenks shouted down the dark hall, then came back, grinning. “So I’ve seen my boys do that a hundred times with the neighboring pixy girls. Give her their favorite seed and be too flustered to tell her what it was.” He rose up again, the screams from the front becoming louder. “I gotta take care of this. ’Scuse me.”
    He darted out, leaving me blinking as I stared at the ring, among the rest of the charms. A cold feeling was trickling through me. Jenks was wrong. Trent had simply forgotten.
    Right?

Chapter Twenty-two

    T he pool cue slid between my fingers in a steady motion that Kisten had taught me. Squinting in the sun, I pulled back, staring at the one ball perched at the top of a very tight rack. I’d watched Wayde set them up, and he knew what he was doing, jamming everything to the front of the rack before carefully lifting up and away. A tight rack was crucial for a good break. With that you didn’t need a lot of power, just a wee bit of