Kate Daniels 03 - Magic Strikes

dawned on me that Raphael was sitting very still. Frozen, like a statue, his gaze fixed on the point above my head.
    “He’s standing behind me, isn’t he?”
    Andrea nodded slowly.
    “Technically it should be ‘may I,’” Curran said, his voice deeper than I remembered. “Since you’re asking permission.”
    He stepped into my view, reached for a chair at a table next to us, and found it bolted to the floor. He gripped the chair and plucked it from the concrete with one hand, leaving four screws sticking out of the floor. He put the chair next to me, back first, and saddled it like a horse, crossing his arms on the top of the back to show off carved biceps.
    Why me?
    “To answer your question, yes, you may kiss my ass. Normally I prefer to maintain my personal space, but you’re a Friend of the Pack and your services have proven useful once or twice. I strive to accommodate the wishes of persons friendly to my people. My only question is, would your kissing my ass be obeisance, grooming, or foreplay?”
    Raphael went a shade paler and bowed his head. “By your leave, m’lord.”
    Curran nodded.
    Raphael grabbed Andrea by the hand.
    Andrea blinked. “But . . .”
    “We have to go now.” Raphael’s smile had a bit of an edge to it. He fled and dragged Andrea with him, leaving me and Curran alone. Traitors.

CHAPTER 5

    “YOU DIDN’ T ANSWER MY QUESTION,” CURRAN said. “What will it be?”
    “No,” I said.
    Curran grinned and my heart made a little jump. I didn’t expect that.
    “That’s it? That’s your witty comeback?”
    “Yep.” Eloquence ’R’ Us. When in trouble, keep it monosyllabic—safer that way.
    Curran rested his chin on his crossed arms. Really, he wasn’t anything special. Today he wore faded jeans and a grayish-blue polo shirt of all things. It’s hard to look lethal in a polo shirt, but he managed. Perhaps because it did nothing to hide the definition on his chest or the hard lines of his shoulders. In fact, if he flexed, he’d probably rip it. I knew that under that shirt his body was hard like a suit of armor.
    Perhaps it wasn’t his body, but the air about him. When he wanted to, Curran literally emanated menace. I had seen him roar in fury and display an icy, determined anger, sharp like a dagger, and I wasn’t sure which was more terrifying. The gold fire in his eyes triggered some sort of primordial fear in me, a feeling born ages ago by the light of the young fire, before reason, before logic, when human existence was ruled by the fear of things with claws and teeth and of being eaten. That fear shackled me. I couldn’t rationalize it away. I had to fight it with pure will and so far I had held my own, but I had no guarantee I would resist it the next time he decided to treat me to his alpha stare.
    Curran looked me over slowly. I did the same, matching him smirk for smirk. Blond hair cut too short to grab. Nose that looked like it had been broken and never healed right, an odd thing for any shapeshifter, and especially for one of Curran’s caliber. Gray eyes . . . I looked into those eyes and saw tiny gold sparks dancing in their depths. And my heart made another little jump.
    I’m in so much trouble.
    “I like the hair,” he said.
    In the spirit of an off-duty Friday, I wore my hair down. I mostly braided it or curled it into a bun to keep it out of the way, but today it just sort of hung there, a long dark brown wall shifting in the breeze on both sides of my face.
    I flexed my wrist, popping a long silver needle into my palm from the leather wrist guard, grabbed my hair, twisted it into a bun, stuck the needle into it to hold it in place, and showed him my teeth in a little smile. There.
    He laughed. “Cute. You ever get tired of pretending to be a hard-ass?”
    Cute. I think I would prefer to be stabbed in the eye rather than be called cute. “To what do I owe the pleasure of Your Majesty’s company?” And the ruination of my lunch.
    “I just wanted some peaches.” He smiled.
    Since when did a death in the Pack result in such good cheer?
    “Is there any particular reason you were asking about the Midnight Games?” he asked.
    “I have a passing interest in history.” I was on shaky ground. I had no clue if he knew about Derek or not. I needed to cut this conversation short. “Does the Pack require my services as an employee of the Order?”
    “Not at the moment.” He leaned back, picked up the plate with Andrea’s peaches, and offered