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A pep talk with myself was in order, so I locked into my own mind, half of me listening to the agents explain where they were going to be, how to reach them if we needed them, and where to avoid looking as to not raise suspicion. The team of twenty people that would be monitoring our every movement would be all listening in to our microphones. We would each be carrying one in our clothes, and one of the agents—I couldn’t really remember any of their names—stepped in front of me to put mine on.
It was a tiny thing, round and made of black plastic. A small blue dot was on the side of it to indicate that it was on. I’d have to be careful with it because apparently, I could turn it off if I pressed on it hard enough.
“I can—” do it myself, I was going to say, but then something towered over the both of us, and Dominic’s scent filled my nostrils and made my heart start galloping instantly. Not fair.
He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were on the agent in front of me. Dominic opened his palm, then watched as the agent put the microphone in it without a word and stepped back, cheeks slightly flushed.
Suddenly, Dominic was in front of me, looking down at the cleavage of my dress. I couldn’t wear a bra because of the thin straps, and the fabric was thick enough to keep my nipples invisible, so my boobs weren’t as high up. But still, they were pretty big, and with his height and his position looking down at me, he’d be able to see a lot more than I wanted him to.
“I can do it myself,” I croaked, my voice so small it was pathetic, except Dominic didn’t grace me with an answer. Instead, he took the microphone between his fingers, and with the other hand, he pulled at the neckline of my dress, right next to where the strap was sown. I held my breath when his warm fingers grazed my skin, and I reminded myself that I was a professional. There were people all around us, and I was not going to flush. I was not going to think at all about what it felt like to be touched by him, even if it was just a little, and by the time my talk with myself was done, he was, too.
“Good to go,” he said under his breath and moved back, allowing me to breathe freely again.
Not looking at him worked, too. That, together with chocolate, was going to make this whole thing a breeze.
“My turn,” Sandra said, and she suddenly had Dominic by the arm and guided him to sit on one of the couches. He murmured curses under his breath but didn’t stop her. “Take deep breaths and try to relax,” she instructed.
Sandra kneeled on the floor in front of him and raised her hands at his face.
“What are you doing?” I wondered, and with her eyes still closed, she answered.
“Altering magic. I’ve been studying every angle of Noah Bennet’s face and body for a week. I’m going to make your partner look exactly like him to anyone looking his way.”
Holy hell. I thought he’d be using a pendant, or a charm, or anything that could confuse eyes and minds. But those usually worked for a specific amount of time, and they weren’t as good as real, fresh magic, straight out of a live being.
Maybe I needed to ask Sandra to write down some things for me—anything I could use my own magic for. The possibilities were limitless. Magic was like art—you could do with it whatever you wanted if you were creative enough. I’d never been. Pixie magic belonged primarily to growth. Life magic. That’s why we were so good at growing all kinds of things from the ground. Well, pixies—not we. I couldn’t grow a cactus to save my life. But magic could be harnessed, just like any other skill, and the more you did a specific kind, the better at it you’d get.
That’s how I knew that Sandra had been at this for a long time. Her magic was warm, and it filled the air with something heavy that coated my tongue with the taste of grapefruits, both bitter and sweet. Her magic was invisible, but we could all feel it still, until it began to stick to Dominic’s skin.
Within a minute, he began to change right in front of our eyes.
His strong features softened. His brows thinned, and his eyes fell down at the corners. His nose developed a slight crook, and his lips became longer and thinner. But the real change happened when his hair turned lighter, and his beard disappeared, leaving way for lighter, smooth-shaven skin. His head shrunk, and his shoulders pulled in on themselves, too.
Five minutes later, he wasn’t Dominic Dane at all. He was Noah Bennett, an exact copy of the man I’d only seen the picture of.
He opened his eyes, and they’d changed to a light blue, too. I don’t know why my heart fell, but I wanted to look away. It was almost like someone had stolen Dominic and had put a completely different man in his place.
“Let me see.” Sandra pulled him up to his feet by the hands. No longer the giant man that he was, Dominic had shrunk to not even six feet tall, and with the heels I had on, my forehead reached his chin easily. “Good, good,” the succubus murmured to herself as she studied him. “Nice.” She turned to me. “What do you think? Anything that escaped me?”
She waved for me to approach, and I did. Dominic looked at me—through normal blue eyes, and that uncomfortable feeling filled me up again. This was wrong. So wrong.
“Is there anything on him that has remained the same? Anything that hasn’t been altered?” Sandra asked me. “Look closely.”
And I did. Dominic let me, looking into my eyes while I searched every inch of him. Everything about him had changed, and even his shirt looked a size too big now. Except a few things.
“The ears,” I told Sandra. “They’re Dominic’s ears.”
I recognized the shape of them—his earlobe that was a bit too long, like he’d had a heavy earring on it all his life. And the slightly pointy curve at the tip, too. Exactly like Dominic’s.
“Good catch,” Sandra whispered and raised her hands again before her magic did its thing. The ears began to reshape—the tip turned rounder, and they became smaller, too, exactly right for the face he wore now.
“Mhmm. The fingernails, too.” He had those U shapes that were almost completely white all the way down to the middle of his square fingernails, and they were still there.
Sandra closed her eyes once more and let out her magic. Within seconds, Dominic’s fingernails were no longer Dominic’s fingernails. “Better?”
I nodded. “Also, his skin. I’m pretty sure Noah had a lighter skin tone in those pictures.”
Sandra sighed, as if she was already tired, but she called for her magic again, turning Dominic’s skin a shade lighter. The change was so subtle, I’d have never caught it if I wasn’t looking at his face.
