“I got you something,” he said, reaching to his pocket.
Something he didn’t want the others knowing about?
He showed me a phone. I blinked at it, not sure what to make of it, until he said, “I lifted it off Cortland.”
My gaze jerked up to Damon’s face. He gave me a cocky grin, but my heart had hitched. “You stole it from him? Damon, what if he’d caught you?”
“He didn’t, did he?” He pressed the button to turn it on. “I know a guy who can get past the passcodes on these things in two seconds flat. I didn’t see anything obviously incriminating, but you know what we’re dealing with better than I do.”
I hesitated, staring at it. Master Cortland, one of my former magic tutors, had only been involved in Celestine’s plot peripherally. She’d gone to him for advice on how to twist the magic of the consort ceremony to her purpose. I knew he’d looked into the subject rather than reporting her for criminal magic, so obviously I couldn’t trust him, but beyond that, I had no idea how much he’d participated. Or how much he might care now that she was gone.
The answer to that first question came to me quickly enough. Damon scanned through the call history as I watched. Master Cortland had tried to call my stepmother several times two mornings ago. The morning after I’d sent her on her way, after she’d meant to complete the ceremony.
He’d wanted to know if she’d succeeded, I guessed. Or maybe he hadn’t even known, just been disturbed when he must have arrived home and discovered someone had messed with his notes. Either way, he’d clearly been worried when she hadn’t answered.
“What about farther back?” I said. It’d been a few weeks ago that I’d overheard the two of them talking about the “binding” part of the spell. Who had he reached out to since then?
Damon kept skimming. There was a wide range of numbers, some local, some scattered across the country. A few with the area code I recognized as Seattle. So he’d been chatting with people who worked for the Assembly, maybe, while helping with illegal magic under their noses. I gritted my teeth. I’d make sure they found out about his involvement as well.
I didn’t recognize any of the numbers, though, and the rest of the phone’s offerings were pretty spartan. Master Cortland, like much of the witching community even in my generation, wasn’t all that keen on modern technology. It didn’t surprise me that he wouldn’t have risked adding any sensitive information to the phone.
I grabbed a scrap of paper and jotted down the numbers he’d called shortly after his conversation with Celestine, in case one of them led me somewhere. I could try to search them out—and if I got nowhere, Ky’s hacking skills couldn’t be beat. Then I gave Damon a pointed look.
“You need to get rid of this. Leave it on the street so he’ll think he just dropped it or something.”
He tucked it back into his pocket with a nod toward my paper. “Are those going to lead anywhere?”
“I don’t know yet.” I let out my breath. “I know you just wanted to help, Damon, but you really shouldn’t be taking risks like that. Master Cortland has a lot at stake if his association with my stepmother comes out. The new estate manager will be coming tomorrow. I’ll be able to see through my plan to test my dad’s loyalties then. We won’t have to wait much longer.”
Damon shrugged. He stepped closer, his dark blue eyes holding mine. “I can take care of myself, angel. And I want to take care of you.” His voice dipped as he leaned in. “In every possible way.”
Call me weak, but I couldn’t resist him. Not when he looked at me, talked to me, like that. My fingers curled into his shirt as he kissed me. He parted my lips with the press of his, and his tongue stroked over mine. I yanked him right up against me, my spark searing with desire.
With a hungry sound, Damon grasped my waist and sat me on the edge of the table with one smooth movement. He followed, capturing my mouth again as he pushed between my splaying legs. A whimper crept from my throat as the bulge inside his jeans grazed my core. I kissed him back, hard. His hand crept up under the thin fabric of my shirt, heat washing over my skin in its wake, and—
The basement stairs creaked.
We jerked apart with a stutter of breath. I only had time to gesture a hasty spell in the air before a hand closed on the knob of the archive room door.
The figure on the other side paused. Then they headed back up, struck by the sense that they’d forgotten something.
My gaze met Damon’s. Both of our breaths were coming a little ragged. Longing coiled in my belly and ran with an ache down to my core, but I knew better than to take too many risks myself.
“I’d better go,” I said. “But… later?”
A smile curled his lips. “Later, for sure.”
“And be careful,” I called after him as I motioned him to the door.
“If I have to be,” he replied, and ducked out.
I sent up a brief prayer to the Spark that blessed all witching kind.Please, by all that is lit and warm, let him mean that.
Chapter Eight
Rose
Gabriel knew I was coming. No one could have noticed me leaving the house in the deepening evening, not with the magic I’d cast around me. So there was no reason to feel nervous climbing the stairs to the garage-top apartment.