“Luke Oliver,” Sean said. “I heard you were running for sheriff. Shouldn’t you be off somewhere kissing hands and shaking babies?”
Oliver bared his teeth in something that might have been called a smile. “I never shake babies in Bordertown. Who knows what they might transform into?”
Sean didn’t think the man whom everyone called the Dark Wizard of Bordertown had said transform by coincidence. The fire demon inside him wanted to blast the wizard, but he fought back against the rage that was jacking up his body temperature to a dangerous level.
“You’ll be leaving the swan alone,” Sean said evenly, as he advanced on Oliver.
Oliver raised his eyebrows and then laughed. “You’re as fiery as your grandmother was, aren’t you?”
Sean abruptly stopped. “You knew my grandmother? Which one?”
None of the boys had ever met his dad’s parents. They lived deep in Demon Rift and had disowned their son for marrying a human. His mom’s mother had lived in Bordertown but had died several years before.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I knew her. I met your grandparents once, when I was traveling through the Firelands,” Oliver said, his face shadowed with memory. “She wanted to singe my ass for me when I accidentally walked through the edge of her garden.”
The corners of the wizard’s mouth turned up in a wry grin. “And I mean singe literally, as I’m sure you know, fire demon.”
Sean folded his arms across his chest, wariness replacing anger, but he didn’t bother trying to lie. “So. You know. What do you want?”
Oliver studied him. “I don’t want anything. I damn sure don’t want to be sheriff. I have no interest in telling Bordertown about your heritage, if that’s what you mean.”
Something in Sean relaxed. “You mean you don’t think a fire demon is behind the arson?”
“No, I do not,” Oliver said grimly. “But when I find out who is, he won’t be long for this world—or for any of the three realms.”
The remaining traces of Sean’s wariness vanished, replaced by a feeling of kinship. “If I don’t find him first.”
Oliver nodded and then headed off to wherever it was that wizards went at midnight. When he reached the edge of the square, he stopped and looked back at Sean.
“I was wrong. I do want something from you, O’Malley.”
Sean tensed. “Of course you do. That’s the way of life, isn’t it? What is it?”
“Be good to Brynn,” Oliver said. “I’ve known her since she was a baby, and I wouldn’t be . . . kind . . . to someone who hurt her.”
“Neither would I,” Sean said, and the words were both a promise and a threat.
TEN
Brynn hopped up and out of the fountain, transforming back to human as she moved, and headed straight for Sean. He sat, unmoving, on the same bench where she’d dropped her clothes, and even in swan form she’d known that he’d stayed and watched over her the entire time. She was naked, but she didn’t care. She needed to touch him, hold him, reassure him that it hadn’t been his presumption that had caused her tears, but his passion.
“You stayed,” she said, her voice breaking. “You stayed.”
He leapt up and strode toward her, holding out his arms, and she flew into them.
“Nobody has ever stayed,” she whispered. “Nobody but Scruffy, and I kept him, and now I think I have to keep you, too, because—because—”
But she didn’t have time to find or articulate any reasons. Sean lifted her off her feet and fiercely captured her mouth again, branding her with his savage possession.
“Put your clothes on so I can take you somewhere and take them off again,” he said, and his deep voice was a steely command coated in velvety seduction.
She laughed at his words and trembled at his touch, but within minutes she was dressed and they were sprinting toward her tiny house. She unlocked her door with shaking fingers, and then he was kicking the door shut, locking it, and stalking toward her with an almost feral determination.
“I’ll be having you now,” he said, his Irish lilt singing out in the words, sensuous and rich.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she raised a hand to her chest, backing away almost instinctively. He was too big, too male, too dominant. She’d never be able to control this man, and she prided herself on a life lived entirely under her control.
“You can’t just tell someone you’ll be having her,” she said breathlessly.