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“Okay,” I say. “That’s promising.”
Or it might have been if I had any magic.
“I need to gather the others. Where is Jason? Ah fuck, I…” His gaze trails down my body, red starting to bleed into his irises. “You’re so damn pretty.”
A new wave of heat goes through me, pooling between my legs. “Thanks.”
Is this what flirting between a girl and a boy is like? It feels so normal and yet it’s something I hadn’t realized I’d been craving for years, listening to my cousin’s stories. To be seen, really seen by a gorgeous boy, to be told I’m pretty.
Even if this boy is a monster.
Even if I’m trying to destroy him.
He killed a girl, Melissa had said. And he’s been through a terrible accident but—focus on the murder, Mia. This is worse than you thought. These boys didn’t only put your cousin in a glass coffin, they put other girls in the ground, six feet under.
Your revenge is justified.
“Jason has Scale-ball training,” I say. “And I have PE.”
“Then I’ll escort you there and leave you with him while I hunt down the others.”
“I’m perfectly capable of waiting on my own. Listen—” I lift a hand before he lectures me. “I’m not stupid, okay? I know I can’t be left alone right now. But there will be people there. I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
“You know, the Wicked Girls aren’t the only reason you need an escort,” he says, his eyes still tinged red.
“Oh?” I tug a little on the hem of my short skirt and his gaze darts there, following the movement. “Why?”
“With the way you look, woman, we need to protect you from the other boys, too. You look good enough to eat and everyone will want to take a bite.”
Worst vampire pun ever…
Half an hour later,we’re all gathered outside the stadium, around a bench set under a huge oak. There’s a table tennis a few feet away, and then a tennis court where a few sweaty students are running up and down chasing a ball.
I’m fascinated by the pointlessness of it. Then again, at the Church, sports weren’t even on the menu so I’m blissfully ignorant of their importance.
“What’s the urgency?” Jason is bare-chested and in those same shorts as before, using a T-shirt to mop the sweat off his face. I’m trying really hard not to stare at his washboard stomach and hard chest. It’s a losing battle.
The others are dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts—well, Emrys is wearing what passes for casual for a demon, I guess, which is a black sleeveless top and black pants, all tattoos and piercings and bad boy vibes.
And why am I taking so much notice of what they’re wearing or how they look?
“So I found a book,” Ashton says, producing it from a pocket. “Montmorency D’Aile wrote it last century, it’s his memoirs—”
“Stop talking about dead authors,” Jason growls, “and tell us what it has to do with us.”
Ashton says, “It talks about surges in blood magic.”
“That does sound relevant, I’d say,” Sindri drawls softly, sitting down on the bench and draping an arm over the backrest. “Do go on.”
“Have you ever heard of the Golden Moon?” Ashton says. At everyone’s blank look, he goes on, “It’s a convergence that augments all magic.”
“I’ve lived through plenty of red moons since I came of age,” Jason says, “but never a gold moon. What is it?”
Ashton opens the book, flips through a few pages. “A total eclipse of the moon coinciding with a particular trajectory of Venus, influencing magic. All magic.”
“And you think it’s the cause of the magical surges?” Emrys rumbles, standing behind the bench, one hand braced on its backrest.
“It’s possible.” Ashton flips through the pages. “It’s a natural phenomenon, one not often talked about nowadays because of demonblood and how it controls elemental magic.”
