She came closer, all long, muscled limbs and coiled grace. Tightly coiled grace, like she was ready to spring to action. She caught my hand and lifted it, studied it closely. “Takes balls to face somebody like Tate the way you did,” she murmured. “She’s not…”
A sad look entered her eyes. Then she shook her head. “Not all there.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that in any way that might not piss her off so I just kept my mouth shut.
“We need fighters,” Kori said quietly. “But we don’t need cruelty.”
“Nobody needs cruelty.”
Kori shrugged. “It has its place at times in our world.” She let go of my wrist and then backed away. “Our house is here when you need it, kid. I’ll be ready.”
Again, I didn’t know how to respond. It was an offer too generous for a mere thank you, but it was all I had. With a short nod, I said, “Thank you. If you ever need a sword…well, it’s not magic like you have, but I’m damn good with it.”
“I bet you are.” She grinned and nodded. “Go find the little cat. I think the mother finally got through to her earlier, but…”
She craned her head around, studied Damon. “You might want to leave the boy elsewhere. He’ll scare her.”
“I know how to handle kids going through the spike. And just so you know? The boy has a name,” Damon said.
“Yeah. I think you growled it at me before, but I forgot,” Kori responded. “If I was at all interested, I’d ask you again what it was…but you don’t really want me knowing yet. If I take that much interest in your name, it would be because I want to fuck you or kill you.”
I managed to swallow my laugh.
Barely.
Down at the end. Through the mirror on your right.
I stared at the mirror and twitched at the massive amount of energy that hovered over it.
“It’s just a mirror,” Damon said, standing behind me.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is. If they had the girl around here, I’d smell her and I don’t…”
I listened to his words trail off as I pushed my hand through the glass.
This was amazing…
“Son of a bitch,” Damon said from behind me.
I took a step forward. Then another.
I was halfway through the doorway when his hands closed over my shoulders. I could smell it now—it was like a sick house. A hospital. Like the healing hall back at Aneris, where I’d lived the first fifteen years of my life. Some of the healers in my mother’s family had practiced a magic that was much like a witch’s ability to heal and I could recognize the herbs just by scent alone.
All the time I spent at Colleen’s had only added to that ability.
I glanced back and looked at Damon. “Come on, are you afraid of a mirror?”
He hadn’t been holding me as tight as he could have and I took advantage of it, twisting out of his grasp to push completely through the glass. His fingers swiped through, brushing over my hair, but I was inside the room now.
If he wanted me, he’d have to follow.
“Oh, he wants you.”
I searched the gloom for Es, moving away from the glass. I found her sitting by a narrow bed. “What?”
“He wants you, I said.” She smiled up at me. “I believe it’s already been mentioned that he’s in rut.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I glanced back over my shoulder, a little surprised that he hadn’t come through the mirror yet. “Several people have used the phrase, but I’m not too familiar with it. What, is he in heat or something?” I wrinkled my nose at the thought. “That would get weird.”
She started to laugh. “Oh, it’s more complicated than that. Don’t worry. He’s not going to go spraying the grass where you live or anything. If he decides to mark his territory, it will get more personal.”
“Gee, that sounds so very reassuring.” He still hadn’t come through.
“Magic unnerves some of the shifters,” she said quietly. “Even though they are as much a product of it as we are.”
“I’m not very magical.” I could go invisible and I could call a sword. That was it.
“That’s it? You almost always have luck on your side. You have an uncanny insight into things. And you can see magic,” she murmured. “And you see it better than most others. Like her…what do you see when you look at her?”