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I rolled my eyes and went back to my book. Finn had come over for an early dinner and to help me brainstorm how I could get close enough to Elliot Slater to bury my silverstone knives in his broad back. So far, all Finn had done was eat my food and muse about how difficult it was going to be making sure the giant got dead before he killed Roslyn Phillips-or Bria. Finn's defeatist attitude wasn't helping, and since I hadn't come up with any bright ideas of my own, I'd turned to Huck in hopes that something would spring to mind while I was reading about someone else's adventures. But nothing had so far-
The front door opened, causing the bell to chime. I looked up from my book, ready to greet my potential customer. To my surprise, Roslyn Phillips stepped inside the restaurant. Today the vamp wore a short, plum-colored coat over a pair of winter white pants, which looked both elegant and sexy on her at the same time. A silverstone pin gleamed on the lapel of Roslyn's jacket-a heart with an arrow through it. The symbol for her nightclub, Northern Aggression. Like most magic types, Roslyn wore her rune with pride.
The vamp paused in the doorway a moment, her toffee eyes sweeping over the interior. Roslyn had come during the postlunch lull, so the waitresses that had been working were in the alley behind the restaurant taking a long smoke break and eating their own dinner. Several customers still sat at the tables and booths against the windows, finishing up their meals, lost in their own bubbles of conversation. When she realized no one was within earshot of Finn and me, she nodded, yanked the door shut behind her, and stomped over in our direction. The vampire's high heels clattered against the floor like falling silverware.
Roslyn slammed her small handbag down on the counter next to Finn, startling him and making him jiggle the spoonful of baked beans he'd been ready to shove into his mouth. The beans slipped off his spoon and splattered on his gray suit jacket, along with a healthy amount of barbecue sauce. Finn cursed and reached for a white paper napkin.
But Roslyn didn't care about Finn's fashion emergency. The vamp only had eyes for me-eyes that flashed with hot anger.
"What the fuck did you do to Elliot Slater last night?" she snarled.
"Lovely to see you again too, Roslyn. " I marked my place in my book with a wayward credit card receipt and set it aside. "Care to take a seat?"
Roslyn plopped down on the stool next to Finn's, her back as tall and straight as the arrow in her rune pin. The vamp's hot gaze never left my face.
"I ask again," she snapped in a low voice only the three of us could hear. "What did you do to Elliot Slater last night?"
I shrugged. "Nothing much. Killed a couple of his men. I was going to do him too, but the bastard ducked out a window and ran away before I could get down to business with him. "
My confession didn't appease Roslyn. If anything, it made her angrier. I could tell by the way the vamp bared her pearl-white fangs at me. Finn gave Roslyn a sidelong glance and kept trying to rub the barbecue sauce out of his suit, more concerned about the stain setting in his jacket than the danger presented by the pissed-off vampire. He was rather impractical that way.
"I take it there's a problem with Slater?" I asked in a quiet tone. "Beyond what you told me yesterday?"
Roslyn stared at me. I met her gaze with a calm one of my own. If anyone else had busted into my gin joint and bitched about the way I handled my bloody, dangerous business, I would have set her straight, perhaps with the point of my knife. But Roslyn was the victim in all this, had suffered so much because of me, I was going to be as gentle with her as I could. Even if gentle was something I didn't really know how to do-or that I hadn't been myself in a long, long time.
After a few s
econds, the vamp made a visible effort to get herself under control. Finn gave his stained jacket up as a lost cause. He sighed and tossed his crumpled napkin in the middle of his plate. Dinnertime was officially over.
"Would you care for something to eat or drink?" I asked, trying to be the responsible hostess once more.
"No," Roslyn muttered.
I ignored her curt answer and moved over to a glass cake stand resting on the counter against the back wall. I cut Roslyn a piece of the chocolate-chip pound cake and put the dessert in front of her, along with a tall glass of milk and a fork. Since no one liked warm milk, I wrapped my hand around the glass and reached for my Ice magic. A silver light glowed on my palm, centered on the spider rune scar embedded in my flesh. Ice crystals immediately formed on the surface of the mug, and a moment later, it was as cold and frosty as if I'd just taken it out of the freezer. Steam curled up from the lip of the glass.
Not so long ago, doing something as simple as cooling a drink had been about the extent of my Ice magic. Now it wasn't any harder than breathing. Jo-Jo Deveraux claimed that the silverstone metal melted into my palms had inhibited my Ice magic, since Ice elementals tended to release their power through their hands to make cubes, daggers, and other shapes-or just to blast someone with their cold magic.
But I'd finally overcome the blockage during a desperate moment when I was facing off with another elemental, when my life had been on the line. Now, doing things with my Ice power was far easier than it had been before. I was getting stronger in it too. Jo-Jo claimed that my Ice magic would continue to grow until it was just as powerful as my Stone power, making me the rarest of elementals-someone who was equally strong in two elements.
I wasn't exactly comfortable with that idea for a variety of reasons. Mainly because I'd seen my mother, Eira's, Ice magic let her down when she'd gone up against Mab Monroe. I wasn't so sure I wanted to tempt fate by relying on my own Ice magic when Mab and I had our inevitable confrontation. Because it would be damned ironic if Mab killed me the exact same way she had my mother and older sister. Irony. Always out to get you.
Roslyn eyed me some more, and I realized that I'd never done any kind of magic in front of the vamp before. That she hadn't even known I was an elemental until now. The other customers were all still too busy with their food to notice my small magical display.
I wasn't worried about Roslyn telling anyone, though. She'd agreed to keep quiet after what had happened to Fletcher Lane, and she'd held up once already under Elliot Slater's questioning. Her word was good.
Roslyn opened her mouth to turn down the food I'd just shoved her way, but I cut her off.
"You're welcome," I said. "Now, you want to tell me what's going on? And why you decided to storm in here like Sherman marching through Atlanta? I know you've been around a while, but the Civil War ended a long time ago. "
Roslyn sighed, and some of the angry fight sagged out of her slim shoulders. "Elliot called me last night, around three in the morning, demanding to know where I was, what I was doing, and if there was anyone with me. "
I frowned. "Why would he want to know all that?"
Finn snorted. "You mean besides the fact that the bastard's obsessed with her? That he wants to know and control her every movement?"
I ignored Finn's snide comment. "What did Slater want?"
Roslyn fiddled with the fork I'd set down in front of her. "He said he had some trouble with someone last night. That someone had come after him, and he was worried that they'd come after me in order to get to him. " Her mouth twisted. "Because everyone knew how much he cares about me. How fucking precious I am to him. "
