Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,9
Well, unless Ares got to them first, that is.
I’m smiling now, remembering that. He thought I didn’t know how he would chase them all off. But I knew.
Anyway, it wasn’t the stranger’s proposition that unsettled me. It was the man himself. It was Sterling. From the moment he’d walked in, he’d had me in some sort of sway. I wouldn’t understand that it was literally magic he held over me until much later. When it was too late.
“My name is Jarrod Sterling,” he said quietly. Calmly. “You have something that I desperately desire, Annaleia. Or rather, you soon will. It’s something precious and rare. I would never take it from you against your will. I’m not that kind of man.” He paused, glancing at the table top, and I could swear I heard him think the words, Not yet, anyway. And then he continued. “But if you agree to give it to me, I will grant you a great boon in return. I will give you what is most important to you.”
He laced his fingers together on the table, and I noticed they were beautiful, long and tapered and manicured. He radiated some kind of aura that made him and those fingers seem more than capable, in every respect. And I kid you not, I started to feel… well, I started to feel turned on. Despite the warning in his eyes.
My mouth went dry as he leaned forward. “As a matter of fact, I will grant you several boons. And believe me my dear, you will need each one.” He paused and studied me with a tilt to his head. The overhead lights hit those dark eyes, and they reflected oddly, almost like mirrors. He was an animal in the darkness at the end of a long, lonely road.
I felt mesmerized sitting there across from him.
One time, I had walked in on Lisa’s friends in the basement of her house on a Saturday night, and the air had been filled with smoke. Not cigarette smoke, either. The feeling I had with Sterling was similar to the one that came over me in that basement. But this was stronger. And definitely hotter.
He smiled at me. I’ll never forget that smile either. It was like he knew damn well what I was feeling. “Will you hear me out?” he asked.
All I could do was nod. I internally kicked myself ten ways to Sunday at my weakness in front of this complete stranger, but it didn’t change anything. I still sat there like a ragdoll and let him do his thing. It seemed like I should have been worried about my other tables, about taking orders or checking on customers. I should have been thinking about the scene we were probably causing. But none of that crossed my mind.
At my acquiescence, Sterling’s smile became relieved and even a little friendly. It touched his eyes, making them seem not quite as deep and dark. It was an enchanting smile. “Wonderful,” he said. “Then allow me to take us somewhere a little more private.”
He raised his graceful fingers and snapped them. The sound rang out far louder than it should have, and I felt something pull at me in all directions. I didn’t even have time to cry out in surprise before the entire world blinked away, out of existence. Then it blinked back in.
We weren’t in the diner any longer. And from that moment on, my life was a topsy-turvy impossibility of magic and the anything-but-mundane. It all changed in that moment, at the snap of a warlock’s fingers.
He told me what he was – or part of what he was, anyway – and what he wanted from me. Then he told me what he could offer in return.
In the end, I really had no choice. We will do anything for the ones we love.
But what he wanted and the way he needed to take it from me made me finally realize something vital. And it sent me flying into the arms of the man I had to at last admit I truly loved: Antares Mace.
I made plans. Then, on Christmas Eve a month after my initial meeting with Jarrod Sterling, I drove to Ares’ apartment, and I told him how I felt about him. I told him how I wanted him to be the one… the first one. He understood. Maybe he comprehended my meaning in a way only Ares could have. Or maybe it was just that he was a man.