Crash sighed and I could imagine him shaking his head. “Feish, you’re looking to start a fight?”
I fluttered my eyes open as Feish tipped her rounded chin up in pure defiance. “No, but that one would love and leave her. I won’t let him hurt her.”
My heart twanged a little. She was loyal if nothing else.
I looked to Sarge for help, but one glance at him told me he was being pummeled by Corb’s magic too. He’d taken a step back, eyes closed, and judging from a quick look at his pants, getting control was going to take him a few minutes, and maybe a really cold shower.
Well, shit. So much for support from that quarter.
“I’m not getting lucky with anyone.” I finally managed to find my voice. “I need to find my gran and now Charlotte too.” Maybe if I reminded them why we were here it would calm the hormones down. And I really hoped it worked. Because I could still hear Corb telling me he was falling in love with me, something sirens didn’t do, and I didn’t want to hurt him.
Sarge cleared his throat. “Yeah, we’re here to help Celia. Corb, this can wait.”
Corb didn’t so much as flinch. He might have been made of stone for all that he moved not a blinking inch. His gaze was still fixed on me.
I carefully stood and stepped away from Crash, brushing his hands off mine when he offered them, though that meant Corb’s magic hit me full force again.
And as good as it felt sliding over my skin, as much as it called to me to shuck my clothes and run naked into the ocean with his arms around me and his mouth on mine, I didn’t like that he was trying to force it on me. It sparked an old flame of anger and hardened my certainty like nothing else could.
“Tone it the hell down, Corb,” I snapped, channeling my inner cranky, tired-of-this-shit, done-with-men, woman. “My gran is missing and a little girl needs us. Whatever is between you and me, or me and Crash is going to have to wait until they are safe and the police don’t want to string me up for an impromptu lynching.” I stared hard at him and knew what I said next would change the trajectory of my life, and maybe my heart. “Can you handle that, or should you go back to Savannah?”
Corb’s magic hadn’t let up, and Alan took that moment to stick his head into the room. “What’s happening? It smells like the ocean. Are you fighting with Corb again?”
Corb and I spoke in tandem. “Shut up, Alan!”
I looked back at Corb, and that flame within me fanned higher. Maybe it was my own magic, reacting to his, or maybe it was just that I could almost see my last duck, and it was on fire.
Hand on hips, I gave him a hard stare, seeing that this wasn’t going to go well. “You know what, let me make the decision for you, like you keep trying to do for me. Go back to Savannah, Corb,” I said. “Go. I can’t deal with you right now. People’s lives are on the line, and you want me to make a choice I’m not ready to make. Go back to the Hollows, or the council, or wherever you need to go. But it can’t be here. You can’t be here.”
I swallowed hard on the tears that suddenly threatened and the tightness in my throat. I’d kissed him in the morning, and cast him out by afternoon. And I knew this would be it for us. His eyes softened ever so slightly, horror flickering within them as if he realized it too, and then they hardened almost as if he’d never cared about me at all.
It was telling at how quickly he let his anger control him.
I forced my feet to move. “Feish, you ready to go?” I asked as I strode past Corb and Sarge. I knew they were a package deal, and that was okay. I could do this without them. I had good friends like Feish and Kinkly, like Crash and Penny.
Even so, a few tears slipped down my cheeks as I opened the door to the house and stepped into the gloom of the day. It matched my mood and the ache growing in my chest.
“You couldn’t have them both,” Kinkly said softly. I hadn’t even noticed