Page 91 of Magic Claimed

When I woke up,the apartment was dark. A blanket covered me, and a pillow had been placed under my head. I could hear traffic from outside and the hum of the furnace, but no voices.

How long had I been asleep?

My phone was still an uncomfortable lump in my jeans pocket, so I pulled it out to glance at the time. No dice, it was dead, because I never remembered to plug it in.

So I rose on my elbow and turned instead to the kitchen microwave, which proclaimed it was ten-thirty.

Ten-thirty? I’d sleptsix hours?

Sitting bolt upright, I scrubbed at my face and ran my fingers through my hair, giving up when I encountered too many tangles to count.

Where was everyone?

I padded across the room and flipped on a light, then spotted the note waiting for me on the kitchen island.

Everyone is safe, we just wanted you to rest. Come down to the office when you wake up. We have news. Working on the best way to save Mom.

Callum

I growled under my breath at the audacity. They had news and hadn’t bothered to wake me up?

Someone was going to pay, but first, I needed to find my shoes and get down there.

I’d just finished lacing up when I heard an ominous thud from right overhead. Which is perfectly normal when you live in a multi-story apartment building, but not perfectly normal when you’re on the top floor and there’s nothing above you but the roof.

It wasn’t a normal, healthy thud either, like you get when someone drops a shoe, or trips and falls on the floor—more the kind of thud you might expect when a very large toothy predator lands on the roof with the intent of eating people or setting things on fire.

And that wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t know that allthe friendly dragons in Oklahoma City either couldn’t shift or were downstairs right now looking for a way to save Tairen.

Okay, maybe that was conjecture. It could have been Ryker or Angelica up there. But I didn’t think either of them would risk shifting inside the city—not with human authorities already on edge—so clearly I had some decisions to make.

My stupid phone was dead, so I couldn’t call anyone. I could potentially run down to the fifth floor and look for backup, but that would leave no defenses between the roof and the apartment where my family was probably asleep right now.

Nope, I needed to figure out who or what was up there first.

I jogged out of Callum’s apartment with every sense on alert, pausing only to knock on Shane’s door. No one answered, so I knocked very gently on the door to my own new home, which I had yet to spend more than a few minutes in.

No answer there either. Maybe everyone was still at The Portal, or maybe they were all asleep. Either way, there was no time to waste, so I headed for the door at the end of the hall—the one that led up to the roof.

It was unlocked for safety purposes, which admittedly made me nervous, but I knew Callum had other security measures in place. I just found myself wishing that I knew what more of them were as I crept upwards in the dark and cracked open the door at the top of the stairs.

I heard nothing but the hum of traffic and the wind, which gave me hope that perhaps I’d imagined everything else. But still, I wasn’t going to leave without checking it out, so I moved fully onto the roof, every sense alert for sounds that didn’t fit with the usual cacophony of Bricktown at night. And whenI still heard nothing out of the ordinary, I hit the switch that turned on the string lights for the rooftop lounge.

They flared to life, casting a warm golden glow across the closest corner of the roof. The small circle of outdoor couches and propane fire pit seemed undisturbed…

But silhouetted between the light and the edge of the roof was the tall, dark shape of a man.

I instantly wrapped myself in fae magic, forming the stout layers of a shield as I took two steps forward.

“You’re trespassing,” I called out sharply. “Whatever business you have here can be conducted during daylight hours—by going to thefront door.”

The dark shape paused, then turned, and I saw him finish the final button on his shirt before scooping something off the ground and striding towards me.

I braced myself and moved one hand behind my back, where I readied a glowing fae blade.

The trespasser entered the light and came to a stop, his coat in his hand. Then he looked up at me, and the weight of his stare punched me like a fist.

The amber eyes I’d expected, but his height and build…