Page 61 of Divine Oaths

“That’s a lie. I saw you play. At Center City Mall.”

Startled, I gave him a look. I’d played briefly that day. But I had no idea that he’d seen or heard me. He must have been there not long before the stabbing, before my last break in the evening when I’d witnessed Jojo and his bodyguard arguing in the parking lot.

“That’s different,” I said. “No one was really there, and the ones who were didn’t care who I was or expect anything from me.”

“Maybe that’s true for them. But I don’t want to hear Baby Mozart play,” Kasem said. “I want to see Sianna.”

He ran his hands along the piano keys and I laughed, instinctively leaning against him in surprise. He wasn’t that bad. His form was half decent, his finger work light, playful yet measured all at once.

Despite myself, I sat beside him. I must have still been drunk, because I leaned closer to him and started playing too.

As my fingers ran across the smooth surface of the piano keys, memories surged in my mind. Kasem, earlier that day, playing to drown out the footsteps and voices of the faculty from upstairs. The vision jumped back in time, to a young Kasem and Jojo taking lessons while their mother watched and cheered them on. She was beautiful, a tall woman with thick, coily hair and a face that was all soft lines, as welcoming as she was regal. Kasem was playing wrong, and Jojo was trying to hide his annoyance by patiently explaining the notes to Kasem again. But his younger brother was too busy smashing the keys and singing a song he’d made up.

“Sianna,” Kasem whispered. “Do you want to stay with me in the present, or are you all right there?”

I shook my head, realizing my eyes had been wide open when I’d been accidentally channeling. I pressed them shut and whispered, “I want to be here. With you.”

Kasem gave me a little squeeze. I focused on the certainty of his touch, on the firmness, how it grounded me in the present as I played. Slowly, I was drawn out of the vision completely, even as the burnt skin of my fingertips touched the keys.

Music anchored me to the present, to this moment with him, and his touch was my lifeline.

When, finally, I finished the song, I turned to Kasem, beaming.

“That was lovely,” he said. “Really.”

My smile widened, but I shook my head, blinking as a wave of nausea overcame me.

And then, I vomited all over the keys.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

After every tempest come such calms

“SIANNA.”

My lashes fluttered and I groaned. When I sat up, my legs dangled from the side of a bed and there Kasem was.

He knelt before me, holding a chocolate chip cookie with a candle half buried in the center, the wax dripping now as the flame burned.

“Is this another summoning?”

He rolled his eyes, a smile soft on his lips. “Birthdays are special,” he said. “I’d be remiss if we didn’t do something to celebrate. So, make a wish, Sianna.”

A thin curl of smoke drew between us as I blew out the candle.

“What did you wish for?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I answered, but instinctively, my gaze fell to his lips, my heart a drumbeat against my chest.

A knowing look churned in his eyes. I swallowed, glancing at the door and then back to him, unsure. Gently, he ran a hand along my thigh, as if testing the waters, uncertain until I drew toward him.

A soft moan of pleasure escaped my lips. He hummed in appreciation. The birthday treat lay forgotten, the candle tipped and slowly burning at the foot of the bed, flames nipping at the ground and making their way closer.

“You want me,” he whispered. “Don’t you?”

I wrapped my legs around his waist, the only answer I could give with my heart racing and my breath caught in my throat, my body warm and hot and reeling from his touch.

Kasem smiled, pulling me into his arms, laying me gently on my back as he mounted me. Our clothes were a barrier between us that I wanted to tear through—that we both wanted to.