Unseen by Rachel Caine Page B

back. “I don’t scare that easy. Right, Mike?”
    “Right,” he said. I could tell he really wanted to put his arm around her, but had good enough sense to know that she wouldn’t welcome it. “Gillian is badass. It’s the hair. Redheads are always badass.”
    Gillian did, indeed, have fiery red hair, of a brilliance that put me in mind of bright new bronze. She had it pulled back in a small queue at the back of her neck, tied up with some complicated arrangement of rubber bands that looked as if they’d be impossible to untangle without yanking out entire hanks. Gillian was a Weather Warden, and I could tell that beneath the surface bravado she was terrified of me.
    Whether she was terrified because I was simply a stranger or because she knew that I’d once been a Djinn, it was obvious to me, as it must have been to Mike. She could raise her chin and pretend, but there was no doubt that I held some kind of very real terror for her.
    I liked her for nevertheless standing her ground and glaring defiance.
    “You a new teacher?” Mike asked me.
    “Perhaps,” I said. “For a short time. I don’t know yet. I’ll be speaking with Warden Bearheart in a moment.”
    “Well ...” He eyed me doubtfully. “We need teachers who aren’t afraid of us. You know—of what we can do.”
    “I’m not afraid of you.”
    “Yeah, I can see that.” Mike grinned suddenly. “But you haven’t seen what we can do yet.”
    “ We haven’t seen what she can do, either,” Gillian put in. She punched Mike in the shoulder, hard enough that he winced. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
    With that, they escaped back inside through the still-open door and banged it shut between us. I eyed it thoughtfully. There were no handles to enter, but obviously it was unlocked from the inside. A fire exit.
    Interesting.
    I completed my perambulation, and arrived back at the front to find Marion Bearheart and Luis standing in the shade of the porch, talking. She waved to me impatiently, and wheeled herself inside.
    I paused next to Luis, who said, “Do I sound paranoid if I say I don’t like all this?”
    “Yes,” I said. “But I don’t like it, either.”
    “Excellent. Glad I’m not the only one.” He gave me a quick, furtive kiss as I moved around him toward the door, for which I rewarded him with a wide-eyed look of surprise and then, considering, backed him up against the wall and kissed him long and thoroughly. Which I felt was highly appropriate, given that it had been a very long drive and I could see no conceivable way that we would have a night of unfettered passion within the confines of this school.
    After going still with utter shock, he finally joined in with a will, his lips warm and soft and sweet around mine, his hands moving slowly up my back as we kissed. It soothed some wild need in me that I hadn’t actually known was present until it howled for release. Luis finally sighed into my open mouth, ran his tongue around my lips (which made me flare even hotter inside), and drew back to whisper, “We’re keeping the boss lady waiting.”
    “No,” Marion said, from the doorway. She had glided up unheard in her chair and was watching us with eyes that I was fairly sure seemed amused, and perhaps a little envious. “You’re reminding the boss lady of what it is we’re supposed to be fighting for. I’m all in favor of kissing breaks. But now you’re keeping me waiting, so move your asses.”
    She zipped off, and with a shake of his head and a muttered imprecation in Spanish that I didn’t bother to try to understand, Luis followed.
    The interior door slid shut behind me as I stepped in, and I saw our friendly Weather Warden Ben standing off to the side, in a booth that was likely bulletproof as well as fireproof; he touched a series of controls, putting in motion security measures that I was fairly sure would come as a nasty surprise to any intruders. Which, I was also sure, applied to us, since we were not