Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

couldn’t be happening. This went beyond occasional hallucinations, maybe to a complete psychotic break.
    She dropped her head on his chest to blank out the city street. He smelled good—dark and woodsy like those trees, and masculine, with something sharp and exotic besides. She smothered the impulse to put her arms around his neck and hold on tight. Wait, she was holding on to him tight. Maybe a little bit longer . . .
    If she could just take a deep breath, everything would be okay.
    â€œMagic,” he said into her ear.
    Layla shook her head in denial. Couldn’t be.
    â€œIt is,” he said with that honey-dark voice. “I would have taken you directly to your residence, but I do not know where you live.”
    She choked on a sarcastic laugh. “You can’t use magic to find out?”
    â€œWould that it worked that way. I’d have found you sooner.”
    Layla noticed the amused glance of a middle-aged man walking briskly with a paper under his arm, as if she and Khan were canoodling in public. She pulled away, straightening her clothes. Without his arms, she needed a coat. The city was freezing.
    â€œSo we teleported?” Maybe he had some superadvanced technology, like from an alien civilization. Maybe that was it.
    â€œI would say we passed. ” He held out a hand to invite her back to him. “Is it so hard to believe in magic?”
    Kinda, yeah. Magic belonged to fairy tales. Life was based in reality. Growing up as a foster kid, she’d learned that the hard way. Shunted from home to facility, she’d been forced to abandon any and all daydreams, all hope for a bit of magic. It was too painful when those hopes were dashed over and over again. Things were what they were, and nothing more. Even her hallucinations were just a chemical imbalance, a defect probably caused by her addict mother during pregnancy. Reality was cruel, but she could trust it. How could she possibly believe in magic?
    â€œThen you’re like, what—a wizard?” She took a step back. The space between them chilled her more than the winter weather. That she was already halfway home, in semifamiliar surroundings, helped her keep her composure.
    â€œI warned you that your perceptions would be challenged.” He reached a little farther toward her. “This is just the beginning.”
    Layla didn’t budge. Perceptions challenged?
    No, no. It was way worse. More like . . . perceptions confirmed. Because if this guy had a magic mirror, then maybe all the weird shit she’d seen throughout her life was real, too.
    Oh, God, she was going to be sick. She couldn’t think about that possibility.
    â€œThe wraiths—are they infected with a disease or . . . or . . . are they magic?”
    â€œMagic.”
    â€œAnd Talia Thorne?”
    â€œMagic.”
    Legs suddenly weak, Layla ignored his hand entirely and lowered herself slowly to the sidewalk. She wrapped her arms over her breasts to keep warm. This changed everything.
    A young woman walking by gave her a wide berth, but her sweatered Shih Tzu yipped briefly before being yanked on its way.
    â€œWhat about Adam Thorne?”
    Khan towered over her, tall and dark and now very dangerous. “Not magic.”
    Figured.
    She focused across the street into the park, gazing at the break in the low stone wall where the sidewalk led into patchy November-stricken grass. Some guy stood at the edge, staring at Khan. Beautiful, dark haired, model perfect, the guy was positively glowering with his icepale eyes. He must have seen them come out of “magic” nowhere.
    She had the urge to ask the stranger if what had happened was real. What it looked like from his perspective.
    But Layla felt Khan’s hand under her arm and she followed his upward pull. He was returning the other man’s glare. “We go.”
    â€œWhat?” Layla tripped into a walk, dragged along. “Is he magic, too?”
    â€œNot exactly.”
    Layla had to double her stride to keep up. “Wraith?”
    â€œNo,” Khan ground out. “Something else. Where do you live?”
    Ahead, an outrageously beautiful woman, blond and glossy, turned in a doorway and stared as they approached. Her intensity burned. Khan pulled Layla into traffic to cross the street before they got too close.
    â€œAnd her?” Layla was getting scared. Magic everywhere. A taxi horn blared at them.
    Khan didn’t answer. He halted