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“Ah,” he said, his voice filled with mock distress. “You’ve uncovered my evil plan to have you helpless with desire by the evening’s end.”
Despite the annoyance—at both myself and him—I couldn’t help smiling. “Amaya’s presence won’t stop that from happening.”
“No, but it may stop the sorcerer from helping us. Will you leave her behind? Please?”
I eyed him for a moment, then said, somewhat reluctantly, “Okay.”
He bowed lightly. “Until tonight, then, when the games will commence.”
He gave me another smoky smile, then turned and walked away. And I knew that if I didn’t end up in his bed tonight, it would be a goddamn miracle.
* * *
It was just after three by the time I arrived at the café we’d named RYT’s, an acronym for rich young things, which was precisely what we’d been at the time we’d started the business. Though I was a good fifteen minutes late, the café wasn’t that busy, with only a couple of regulars sitting at the bar drinking Irish coffees and a third at one of the tables reading the newspaper. The article, I noticed with amusement, was one of Jak’s, but I resisted the temptation to peek over the customer’s shoulder to see just what he was reporting on this time. He might have stepped back into my life, but that didn’t mean I now needed to keep up with everything he was doing.
Even if that wistful, not-quite-over-him-no-matter-what-he’d-done piece of me desperately wanted to.
“Hi, Risa,” Manny, one of our newer waiters, said as I walked in.
“How’s things going today?”
“A particularly insane lunch rush has been followed by this lovely lull.”
“Enjoy it while you can,” I said with a smile, “because it won’t last long.”
The afternoon rush usually hit between five and seven, when werewolves hungry from the afternoon spent at the werewolf sex club Blue Moon came in to eat, and those on their way to the club came in to fuel up.
I looked around for a moment, then added, “Where’s Linda?”
“Apparently one of the kitchen hands didn’t turn up today, so Tao’s asked Linda to help with the dishes while we’re slow.”
I cursed softly. If there was one position we couldn’t seem to keep filled long term, it was the damn kitchen hand. It paid well enough, but it was hot, grubby work, and it seemed the younger generation weren’t inclined that way—it was all middle management and high starting salaries for them, or it was nothing.
Which was a comment Mom often used to make. I smiled, even as the wistful ache that she was gone swept through me again. No matter how close I was to my aunt Riley, she wasn’t Mom and never could be.
I grabbed the banister and headed up. “I’ve got to go do some paperwork, Manny, but give me a yell the minute it gets busy down here.”
He nodded, and I continued on up to the office.
I was near the top of the stairs when the kitchen exploded in flames.
Chapter 4
There was a gigantic whoosh; then the kitchen doors burst open and a fist of flame punched through them. I ducked instinctively, but the flames were sucked back into the kitchen almost as soon as they’d appeared.
It wasn’t a natural action.
The flames were Tao’s.
He’d lost control. Had to have. Fuck.
I jumped over the banister, landed lightly in a half crouch, then surged upright and ran forward. The fire alarm went off, forcing me to shout as I said, “Manny, get everyone outside!”
He nodded, his face white as he herded the three customers out. I made a quick dash into the bathrooms to ensure that no one was there, then bolted for the kitchen.
I hit the doors with enough force to wrench one from its hinges. Water poured from the ceiling sprinklers and soaked me in an instant, but it wasn’t doing anything to extinguish the source of the fire—Tao. He was on his knees in the middle of the kitchen floor, his arms wrapped around his chest and his entire body alight. It wasn’t burning him—it couldn’t, because he was now more a spirit of flame than a werewolf with pyrokinetic abilities, thanks to the fire elemental—a creature created from magic—that he’d consumed to save Ilianna’s life. But his flames leapt high enough to fan out across the ceiling, and there were thick scorch marks above the stainless-steel oven surrounds—obviously, that was where the initial loss of control had happened. Yet nothing else had been set on fire, even though the intensity of the heat pouring off him had me flinching.
My gaze swept the rest of the kitchen, looking for Linda and Rachel—the other chef who was rostered on to help today. Neither of them was here, but the rear door was half open. Tao must have sent them out just before he exploded.
