Page 12 of Magic Claimed

Okay, look. I have a lot of flaws. When I feel helpless or embarrassed, I tend to argue when I shouldn’t. And when someone is a complete and total arsehat?

Sometimes I lose my temper.

“Fire and ice?” I repeated slowly, noticing a little distantly that the entire room had gone dead quiet. Even the drunk pixies seemed to have realized something was up, because they werehuddled together a few yards away, the glow from their skin and hair muted with dismay.

“You want fire and ice?”

Clearly, the man was an idiot, because instead of catching a clue, his smile widened.

“I’ll take whatever you want to give me, baby.”

Baby.

In a dreamy haze, I lifted the tray off my shoulder. It tilted dangerously, then spilled its entire load onto the floor at my feet. I barely noticed. I’d already gripped it in both hands and shifted my weight.

“Then here’s yourfire,” I ground out, and swung, putting every bit of my frustration behind the upward trajectory of the tray.

It connected with his face, and something crunched. The would-be Romeo squealed like an outraged pig and clapped both hands to his nose as I let the tray clatter to the floor.

Fun fact? When you get hit in the nose, your eyes tear up and slam shut. So he never saw the hook kick that took him behind the knee and sent him toppling to the floor, where he crashed into the fallen plates and glasses. I heard another crunch as something broke, then he rolled to his back, still howling in pain, eyes slitted open and searching wildly for the next attack.

“And here,” I spat, “is yourice.”

As if it had only been awaiting my call, my elemental magic rose up and seized the water that had splashed on the floor when I tilted the tray. Before my target even had time to flinch, it became a barrage of wickedly pointed iciclesthat sliced between us to hover menacingly about an inch from my would-be seducer’s face.

The scream cut off abruptly as his eyes tried to bug out of his head. Blood ran down his chin to drip on the floor, and in the ensuing silence I suddenly heard the sound of clapping.

Slow, deliberate, and somehow unmistakably sarcastic.

The entire confrontation had taken only a few seconds, so I knew it wasn’t Faris, though he was undoubtedly on his way. And the sound was coming from behind me, so I also knew it couldn’t be Seamus, or any of the other startled patrons currently staring at me with their mouths open.

I wasn’t quite ready to deal with another idiot—I was too busy cataloging the damage and wondering how much trouble I was going to be in—so I didn’t bother to turn around.

Until I heard the voice.

“Well. That was certainly instructive.”

I’d never heard it before, and yet…

“Apparently, there are more than a few things my children have failed to mention lately.”

No. There was no way my luck was this terrible. No way fate hated me this much.

I turned towards the front door, with my face frozen in what was probably an expression of pure horror.

The woman standing just inside The Portal appeared middle-aged. She looked like a Valkyrie come to life—over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, and her long, silver-blonde hair in a braid as thick as my wrist. Her amber eyes shot daggers at me, while the smaller blonde woman beside her merely appeared curiously amused.

It was with an absolute rush of relief that I heard Faris making his way through the crowd behind me, greeting our visitors as he approached.

“Lady Tairen, Lady Skye. Welcome to Oklahoma City. I regret”—he glanced at the broken glass, the spilled drinks, and the man still groaning on the floor—“that you have arrived at such a chaotic moment. Perhaps if you’d bothered to inform me of your arrival…”

“Are you suggesting,” the newcomer replied coolly, “that I must ask for permission to visit my own daughter?”

Yep. My eyes slammed shut for a moment as I contemplated the brevity of life and the ephemeral nature of existence.

Namely,myexistence.

Because the woman currently trying to stab me with her eyes?