Hexed

casting—this was Mick simply driving into me, and me giving him every bit of power I had.
    I met his thrusts with my body, my nails raking down his back, my cries ringing to the ceiling. Outside the storm wound up, and inside we did the same.
    Mick’s eyes shone with fire. “Love you,” he grated. “Love you so much.”
    The snakes and whorls of electricity slowly dimmed, Mick’s dragon magic absorbing them all. But Mick was a long way from being finished. He pinned my wrists over my head and kept going, this lovemaking session growing ever more crazy.
    I think we would have gone on until we died, if the magic mirror hadn’t chosen that moment to let out a high-pitched keen. The sound spiraled up until it knifed through my head, and even Mick cursed and jammed a hand over his ear.
    “What the fuck?” he snarled.
    I rolled out from under Mick, and Mick landed next to me, panting, while I leaned from the bed and scrabbled for the piece of mirror in my pocket. “Hey!” I yelled at it.
    The keening wound all the way down and flattened out into a word. Summertiiime.
    “Hey, you moronic piece of glass. Call Drake. Get him over here.”
    The mirror kept on belting out the song from Porgy and Bess . I shook it and yelled at it, but my mirror ignored me.
    “I don’t think it can hear you,” Mick said breathlessly.
    “Damn it!” I flung the mirror into the wall. The voice dimmed somewhat but didn’t stop. I didn’t know which was worse, having the mirror dark or stuck singing show tunes.
    “If he starts singing to the dragons, Drake will be out here fast enough,” Mick said. He ran a firm hand down my body. “Right now I need more.” He kissed my back. “So much more.”
    It would be stupid to stay in here and have sex while Cassandra’s enemy waited for us to be at our weakest. But I willingly rolled over and drew him into my arms.
    Mick had started kissing me again with hungry strokes when someone beat on the bedroom door.
    “Janet,” Maya called through the wood, her agitation strong. “If you’re done screwing in there, Nash is out front. He’s with Pamela, and they’re trying to get in.”

SEVEN
     

     
    I YANKED ON MY CLOTHES AND WAS ABOUT to hurry out after Maya, but Mick put his arm across the door, blocking my way. He was a big man and made a formidable barrier.
    “Wait,” he said. “Let me check it out first.”
    Impatiently I buttoned my jeans. “It’s Nash, Maya said. Exactly who we need.”
    “ Maybe it’s Nash. I want you to stay in here and lock the door behind me.”
    This was getting annoying. “Staying in my room won’t save me from the hex,” I said.
    “Even so, wait for me to clear it before you come out.”
    I wasn’t about to obey. I knew I couldn’t fight Mick, but I was small enough and swift enough to duck under him before he could grab me. I heard him growling in anger as he came after me, but this was my hotel, and I was more than ready for Mick’s alpha-dragon instincts to recede.
    Someone was pounding on the front door. “Janet!” Nash called. “Open up. It’s Jones.”
    As though that weren’t obvious. The blue lights of the Hopi County Sheriff’s Department SUV flared behind him, and his sheriff’s badge winked on the uniform coat he wore against the cold. Pamela, a Native American Changer in black leather pants and jacket, stood next to him in tall fury.
    “Let me break it down,” we heard her say with impatience.
    Cassandra pressed her hands to the window. “No, Pamela, get out of here! I don’t want you here!”
    Pamela didn’t hear, and neither did Nash, nor did they see the rest of us at the windows like lizards against glass. Nash kept pounding and then trying the door handle, which wasn’t budging.
    “Come on, Nash,” I whispered. “Open it.”
    Nash took a step back, drew out his nine-millimeter, and shot the lock. I cringed, thinking of the Native American artisan who’d crafted the door handle and lock for me up in Santa Fe. His exquisite work was now slag with a bullet in it.
    Nash and Pamela slammed against the door in unison, and the wood bulged inward. Another blow and the door splintered from the hinges. I felt the wards around the entrance crumble and die, reacting to the magic void that was Nash Jones. The curse magic that had piggybacked on them faded to nothing.
    The wards in the walls were still intact, and so was the hex, but Nash was able to burst in and swing his pistol around the lobby.
    He took us in: Maya,