Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns

Great. Fantastic. The more distance that lay between me and the Beast Lord, the better it was for everybody involved. We had worked together during the Red Point Stalker case and almost killed each other.
    Myong shifted in her chair, adjusted the hem of her dress with a casual swipe of her fingers, and furrowed her meticulously waxed eyebrows. “You and Maximillian…”
    The mention of Max’s name brought a bit of unease. I had thought I was over him. We had met during the investigation of Greg’s death. He was handsome, smart, occasionally kind, and very interested in me. I had wanted…I was not sure what the hell I had wanted. Intimacy. Sex. Someone to come home to. It didn’t end well. In fact, he probably hated me. “Max and I are also no longer together.”
    Myong nodded. “I know. We’re engaged.”
    I didn’t quite catch that. “Who?”
    â€œMaximillian Crest and me. We’re engaged to be married.”
    The world had just stood on its ears. “So let me get this straight. You and my—” Ex-boyfriend would be inaccurate since technically we were never a couple. “Could have been” boyfriend was plain stupid. “You and Max are an item?”
    â€œYes.”
    Awkward, to say the least. I felt no jealousy, but talking to her made me uncomfortable and I couldn’t pinpoint why. I forced my lips into a smile and leaned back. “Congratulations. What do you want from me?”
    Myong looked uncomfortable. “It’s customary to ask Curran’s permission.”
    â€œYou mean he has to approve your marriage to Crest? Even though you and Curran are no longer together?”
    â€œYes. I’m a member of the Pack.”
    That explained things. Curran ruled the shapeshifter Pack with an iron fist. Every shapeshifter in the Southeast called him lord. Unless that shapeshifter was a loup, in which case he usually didn’t have a chance to call Curran anything before the Beast Lord ripped him to pieces. I looked her over and arched my eyebrows. “Fox?”
    She sighed. “Everybody thinks that. I turn into a mink.”
    I tried to imagine a weremink and failed. It would appeal to Crest, though. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
    â€œI asked Curran,” she said.
    â€œAnd he said no?”
    â€œNo. He didn’t say anything. It’s been two months.” Myong leaned forward, hands folded together. “My alpha refuses to broach the question to Curran. I was hoping you could ask my lord for me.”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œYou have a certain amount of influence with him. You saved his life.”
    You want me to ask your ex-lover/homicidal shapeshifter who scares me shitless to let you marry my “ex–could have been” boyfriend? You’ve got to be kidding. “I think you overestimate his opinion of me.”
    â€œPlease.” Myong bit her lip. The fingers of her left hand gripped and twisted the fingers of her right, exposing the small jagged white line of a scar on her wrist. Left-handed. She had slit her own wrist, probably with a silver blade—a dramatic gesture and completely futile. It took more than a three-inch cut to bleed a shapeshifter dry. She was looking at me, seemingly unaware of what her hands were doing. “Max said you would understand.”
    Oh, hell. He didn’t come himself, though, did he?
    I glanced at her. She looked off-balance, almost as if someone had knocked her legs out from under her, but she hadn’t hit the ground yet. I had seen precisely the same look on her face before, three months ago. It had happened right after the Red Point Stalker called the Pack Keep. Curran and I had finally figured out who he was, and he wasn’t happy about the situation. The Stalker had held a phone to a woman’s mouth so Curran wouldn’t miss a single whimper and tore her to pieces until she died. The woman had been one of Curran’s former lovers. I had sat in on the call and as I was walking back to my room, trying not to cry, I saw Myong through an open doorway, hugging herself, that very look of utter helplessness contorting her face.
    With this recollection, a feeling flooded me, a feeling of being too dumb to see what was under my nose, of being scared, hounded, and alone, dashing about the besieged city, blundering from one mistake to another while all around me people died. It grabbed me by the