Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows) by C.V. Larkin Page A

eye.
    You poor ignorant bastard , she thought.
    "Prove it and I'm going to do things to you that you never even saw coming. How's that for a trade?"
    She hadn't thought it was possible, but the warlock's eyes went even rounder, flaring like twin saucers. He let out a barely audible squeak and swallowed hard.
    "Like what?" he choked.
    Like rip your liver out through your asshole.
    It was the lucid moments like this one that the knowledge that she was a psychopath asserted itself with the utmost clarity. "If I told you it wouldn't be a surprise," she said.
    A piercing heat flared in her wrists to match the one smoldering everywhere else. He nodded vigorously.
    "When do we get off?" she asked.
    For a second the kid looked so damn enthusiastic she actually thought he was going to start clapping. He scaled it back to a smug grin.
    "Next stop," he told her with an eyebrow waggle.
    The human leaned in, looming right up in her grill. Tian froze and all that banked internal heat dissipated like it had never existed. She struggled against the desire to escape as he pawed at the sides of her face to hold her steady. Warlock Tom moved in for the kill and she checked out, let him mash his pie hole up against her mouth in an overly wet and discombobulated attempt at a kiss as she counted to ten while he molested her face. She pulled back and focused on the searing pain in her wrists.
    "You know," he said, sliding his arm across the back of her seat, "I can see us being together for a very long time."
    Magic using human or not, he had nothing going in the precognition department.
    "We're going to miss your stop."
    The warlock's phone rang, belting out some tinny emo-pop nightmare as they got up to debark. He fumbled with it, and the messenger bag he was carrying because they'd both become second priority to the attempt he was making at holding her hand. The call went to voicemail, shutting the shit up for thirty seconds before it started ringing again. Tian made her way out of the Colma station with Tom the apprentice warlock and his wailing smartphone nipping at her heels. She was hyper aware of the Progeny spell burning full tilt in her forearms as she turned to her overly eager tour guide.
    "Don't you want to answer that?"
    He flushed, fixating on her mouth as if he were imagining it places it was never going to be. "It's just my ride."
    "Where?" Tian scanned the line of cars at the curb. She flinched as Warlock Tom's hand whispered over her left ass cheek.
    "Right there," he answered, gesturing with his non-assaulting other hand.
    The black Toyota Camry he was pointing towards was idling quietly, piloted by a comfortably plump middle aged woman with wide beige glasses and a collared sweatshirt with a photo print of an animal on it. Tian had been expecting a lot of things, but this sure as fuck wasn't one of them.
    "How old are you, Tom?"
    "Twenty-seven."
    He shrugged and grabbed her hand hauling her towards the car. "You said you wanted to meet my Coven," he added when he caught her looking at him like a couple of bats had shaken loose from his belfry.
    She hadn't exactly said those words, but it was close enough to the result she'd been aiming for so she rolled with it.
    The woman in the car eyed them both with sour distaste as they slid into the back seat. "You're late," she said.
    "It's not even dark yet." Tom rolled his eyes in an overtly patronizing manor and put a proprietary hand on Tian's thigh. "Some of us last longer than others, Claire."
    "We both know that you're not one of them, Tom."
    Claire pulled away from the curb with a screech. She shot the warlock a venomous glare through the rearview and proceeded to exit the parking lot amid the chorus of blaring horns from the cars she'd cut off in the process. Warlock Tom continued to paw at Tian, who deflected by readjusting the angles of her body as they drove in uncomfortable silence. The sigils were burning clean, searing bone, and pulsing their encouragement. Tian gritted her