Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,34

lean forward. She watched his eyes widen, only to narrow again as they settled on her mouth.

“Tala.”

Now, this. This was her first kiss. It was inconceivable to imagine that Alex’s platonic peck the year before would ever be close to mattering, because this was a kiss. This was Ryker kissing her, the faintest touch of his lips against hers, light and fleeting at first, then growing more and more emboldened with every brush, surer and stronger as he applied the right amount of dizzying pressure, sweetly insistent until Tala’s mouth parted.

It was like lightning, a pleasant shock that sizzled in between them like a burst of truth. And still he wouldn’t stop, mouth stealing on hers over and over and over. By the time he finally raised his head, he was breathing harshly, while Tala was the complete opposite, her breath stolen away.

“Tala,” Ryker murmured. “I—”

A soft purr rose from behind them. The firebird stood there and grinned, a long tongue actually lolling out from its beak. If she hadn’t known any better, she could have sworn the damn bird was trolling her.

The mood was broken. “Get out of here,” Tala hissed without thinking. She expected that kind of behavior from Alex, but that his firebird would take after him in character was just too much.

She stopped. Ryker, too, was staring at the firebird, and his face was pale.

“You,” he whispered.

“You can see it?” Oh no. Was it her curse? Was his proximity to her enough to negate the spell and let him see? But then…

The firebird took to the air again without warning, and that was when Tala saw Alex.

He was surrounded by a group of boys and a few cheerleaders, away from the bulk of the crowd watching the fire. From her perch, she saw that Chris Hughes and his regular buddies were there and in fact appeared to be causing problems. Cassie Torelli, Hughes’s girlfriend, and a few other girls were watching avidly, staying clear of the confrontation while doing nothing to defuse the situation.

It was clear from their angry faces and Alex’s defensive stance that there was trouble.

“Tala!” Ryker exclaimed, but Tala had already vaulted off the rock, landing with a perfectly executed barrel roll before she was on her feet and running.

“What’s the matter, homo?” she heard Hughes ask as she drew nearer. “Can’t look me in the eye anymore?”

An infinite loop of choice Scottish curses that she’d learned from her father spun like turntables in Tala’s head. They knew.

“Where did you hide it?” Alex sounded remarkably calm despite being surrounded.

“So, you’re not denying it?” Hughes sneered. “Goddamn. We go out of our way to treat you like one of us, and in the end you’ve been some gay freak all along.”

Somebody was growling, and it wasn’t the firebird. Tala realized it was her.

Hughes glanced over, smirked. “And here comes your little friend just in time to defend you. If we had our way, we’d be running you gays and Mexicans out of town by now.”

Alex didn’t even look at her. “Where did you hide it?” he repeated.

“Chris!” And then Lynn was there, flinging herself onto Alex’s arm. “What are you doing?” she yelled at her brother. “Quit it! You’re making a scene!”

Hughes’s gaze flicked to the crowd of students now milling about. When none of them moved to stop him, he only grinned more broadly. “I’m doing you a favor, little sis. You always did have bad taste in guys. Your crush has been a raging homo all this time, and you should be glad I found out. Yeah, Smith, I’ll give you the video, but not before I upload it so the world can see you and your perverted boyfriend going at it. Go ahead and report me. See if anyone cares.”

Tala took another step forward, but so did Dryden and Landaker, Chris’s two friends. “You really want to do this, Warnock?” the former taunted. “I’m not afraid of punching girls.”

“Maybe Landaker should tell you how I kicked his ass the last time he tried.”

“Bitch,” Landaker snarled.

Hughes drew back his arm.

“Alex!” Lynn cried.

Ryker’s hands closed around Hughes’s wrist, holding him back. “Hughes, chill. You’re going to get everyone in trouble.”

“Stay out of this, Cadfael,” Hughes spat.

He moved to break free, and Ryker deftly twisted his wrist. Cassie shrieked, her face turning pale as her boyfriend sagged with a roar of pain. Landaker rushed to his friend’s aid, his own arms already raised to shove at Ryker, but Tala launched forward with a spinning