Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

“Telling me to go away.”

“I don’t do that.”

“You do.” He caught one of my hands. His fingers were warm. His touch radiated a sense of peacefulness, of calm.

I, on the other hand, radiated nerves. Too many things were going wrong: Dad, Greyson, Chase. And now Violet was in trouble over the disks. The whole Anthony-Davy-Pike’s-death thing was one more hassle I didn’t need.

“I’m staying right here, with you,” Zayvion said. “Because I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world.”

I inhaled his words, felt the assurance of that promise reverberate through me.

“Me too,” I said. And I meant it. Zayvion and I had an agreement that we were going to give this relationship everything we could. And that included trust, faith, and honesty.

Not a single one of which was among my strong points.

He gave me that sexy smile that usually got me in bed, then pulled away. It had been a few seconds, us touching. But the absence of him, of the awareness of him in my mind, rolled through me like a cold chill. I took a deep breath to keep from reaching out for him.

Being Soul Complements made letting go difficult.

Understatement of the year.

Zay didn’t appear to have the same problem. He lifted his ratty jacket off the back of the chair, then gathered his empty coffee cup.

But I’d been around him enough to know he was gliding through those motions. Like a mantra, the ordinary actions guided his muscles and body, helping to clear his mind. I knew there was a storm inside him. And that storm was sparked by a need for me.

I liked that I could ignite that kind of heat in the man.

But right now I had to see if Davy had thrown Anthony out a window.

I finished my coffee and waved to Grant, who waved back. Zayvion and I left Get Mugged and strode to the warehouse next door.

Chapter Five

Zay and I let ourselves into the warehouse through the side door. There was an elevator inside, but I took the stairs behind the door.

Grant leased out the second and third floors to me. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the third floor yet, but liked the view and the strange architecture enough to keep it.

At the top of the second-floor stairway was a door. I pushed it open, out into the wide hall that split the entire floor in two. Half the space nearest Get Mugged was reserved for my office, a dojo, and a smaller kitchen/living area that had enough locks and wards, I could keep the Hounds out if I needed to. The other side of the building was set up as the main living quarters for the Hounds. Bunks would eventually line one or two walls, and there were a couple bathrooms, showers, and a larger kitchen. A few couches, a TV, computers, and a space cordoned off for meetings.

It wasn’t a home, but it was a roof and walls, and a place out of the weather.

Right now, it was open loft space with bits of furniture here and there. Which meant it was easy to hear who was here, and easy to find them.

I planned on keeping it that way.

Davy Silvers, arms crossed over his chest, leaned against one of the walls on my side of the floor, between the windows that overlooked Get Mugged. Anthony was halfway across the room from him, about dead middle of the space, his hands out of his pockets, empty. No guns, spells, or blood yet.

“Hey, Davy,” I said. “Anthony. You boys figure things out?”

Davy spoke. “He said you okayed him being here. Hounding.” It came out low and soft. Even though it had been several weeks since Davy had been mauled by Greyson and betrayed by his girlfriend, Tomi, he still hadn’t fully recovered. A few weeks ago, we’d found out Tomi left Oregon. Went back to California to stay with her grandmother. Ever since Davy had heard that news, there was something different about him. Something broken inside him.

And out of that breakage poured a cold anger I’d never seen in him before. I figured it would just take time for him to get his footing again, to feel normal without Tomi. And I figured he did not need Anthony rubbing salt in his wounds in the interim.

I wandered over to my desk, letting my oh-so-casual body language wet-blanket as much fire out of their standoff as I could. Davy was my secretary and righthand man when it came to Hound business, and had been indispensable during the renovations. He’d put a few files on my desk for me to look through. I opened the first one, and pretended to read it.

“I told Anthony he has to get his act together before he can be a part of the pack,” I said.

Davy shifted his fists to crack his knuckles against his ribs. “I don’t like him,” he said. “I don’t want him here.”

“If we only opened our doors to Hounds who got along, there’d never be more than one of us here at a time.” I closed the folder. Looked over at the boys.

Still hadn’t moved. Still looked like they were ready to attack.

“Did I mention the new rule? No killing each other. If you two can’t be in each other’s presence, then I don’t want you in the same room.”

To my surprise, it was Anthony who listened. “I should go. I just wanted to say-”

“Good-bye,” Davy said. End of conversation.

Anthony looked over at me. I nodded. Kid had guts. No smarts, but plenty of guts.

“See you around, Anthony.”

He looked down at his shoe. He walked over to me, head still down. Davy tensed with every step Anthony took.

Me too, but I hid it better.

“Here.” Anthony handed me a piece of paper. “Like you said, right?”

I glanced down at the note. It was a name and a number. His counselor, I assumed. “So far,” I agreed. “Go on home.”

He hesitated. “I was trying to tell him, you know, the same things I told you.”

“Fuck,” Davy whispered.

“Go home, Anthony,” I said a little stronger. “While you can do it walking. This isn’t going to get solved in one night.”

He hitched one shoulder and gave me the angry gaze. Didn’t like me much. Yeah, well, I already had friends.

“Good night,” I said.

“Screw this.” He strode across the room and out the door without once looking back. When it was clear he had taken the elevator down, I opened the file on my desk for real.

“You staying here much longer?” I asked Davy.

He finally shifted away from the wall and walked over to me. I kept my eyes on the paper but out of my peripheral vision paid attention to how he moved. He wasn’t limping anymore, which was good, but still looked a little stiff, as if something inside hurt every time he took too deep of a breath.

He sat in the chair on the other side of my desk, leather, comfortable-hey, I had some money. “I was just headed out when Bell showed up. You could have warned me.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know he was coming up here. He was down at Get Mugged. Wanted to apologize. Wanted to join.”

“And you’re gonna let him?”

“He screwed up, Davy. We all know that. I can’t forgive him for what he did to Pike. But I won’t throw him under a train. If he can pull his life together, I’m not going to get in his way.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do. I understand what Pike would have done for him.”

Davy scowled, his eyes narrowing, his teeth showing.

“Pike saw something in Anthony,” I said. “He stuck with him even when the kid was being an ass.”

“And it got him killed.” Davy stood. “I’m not that stupid. I didn’t think you were either.”

“Lon Trager killed Pike,” I said. “Not Anthony. You know that.”

“I know Pike wouldn’t have gone down to Trager alone if Anthony hadn’t used his blood to frame Pike.”

“Pike went there alone because he was a stubborn old man. I told him the police would go with him, with us. He wouldn’t listen. Sometimes Hounds make stupid, stupid choices, Davy. Just like Pike did, just like Anthony did, and just like Tomi did. She almost killed you. And if she came walking in here, telling me she was clean and had pulled her life together, I’d give her the chance to prove it to me too.”

Davy’s face flushed red. The thin scar that still hadn’t healed over his left eyebrow and down his temple turned white.

“Leave Tomi out of this.”

“Listen-” I stopped. Took the volume out of my voice. “What I’m saying is, Hounds make bad decisions. It comes with the territory. I think you have to be willing to do stupid things if you’re going to Hound. We’re hardwired that way. Pike understood that. I think if he were still alive, he’d probably give Anthony the ass-kicking of his life, and then take him in, and teach him so he never made that kind of mistake again. It’s up to Anthony to pull his life together. There’s a good chance he’ll find something better than Hounding, safer than Hounding, before I let him in the pack.”

“You think that’s how Pike would want you to run this place?”

“I think that’s how I’m going to run it. When someone wants to take over, they can run it their way. Until then, I make the rules. If you don’t want to follow those rules, no one’s saying you have to stay.”

I leaned back. “I hope you won’t leave. Not over Anthony. He’s not worth it.”

Davy gritted his teeth again and looked out the window. Not much to see out there, just the roofline of Get Mugged and a few lights shining through the rain.

I waited. Gave him some space to think, some time to breathe.

Zayvion, who had been silent this whole time, stayed where he was, sitting in one of the couches behind Davy, in my line of vision, watching Davy, me, and the door, without looking like he was doing any of those things.

The rain pounded harder, wind kicking it across the window. It felt suddenly much colder in here, as if night had crept unnoticed through the seams of the walls and sunk down into all the shadows of the room.

“Things aren’t. . aren’t what I want,” Davy said quietly.

“Hounding?”

“Everything.”

“You want some time off?”

He shook his head. “More time only messes with my head. I can’t even sleep, well, not enough. Not really. Not since. .” He stared out the window, and I watched his eyes shift, as if he could see someone there.

“Sometimes I think I can feel her.”

I didn’t let my surprise show. “Who? Tomi?”

He nodded. “When she’s hurt. I think when she’s cutting. . ”

“That seems a little strange, doesn’t it?” I asked gently.

He laughed, a short huff. “You think?” He looked back over at me, gave me the half grin that I hadn’t seen in weeks. “Just a little strange?”

I had no idea what to say to that. Davy didn’t know about the Authority. He just thought Zayvion was my boyfriend, who sometimes hired out as a bodyguard. Since Davy didn’t know about the Authority, he also didn’t know about the kinds of magic the Authority kept hidden. And other things, like the magically half-man, half-beast Greyson, who had been using Tomi to try to trap me, and dig my dad out of my brain. Zay was careful not to use much magic around Davy, and I was trying my best to keep who knew what straight.

Blood magic had been used to hurt Davy. And Blood magic was. . intimate. It dug into your body and senses, deep and hard, and offered you pleasure-so long as you did everything the caster wanted you to do. It tied you to the caster in ways other magic disciplines did not.