Page 33 of Transfiguration
“Thanks. I’ll be back to it soon enough,” Con said. “I appreciate the update.” He stuffed the stack under his arm and shuffled out of his office, locking it behind him. He hated anyone in his workspace. Nate waved and headed off in the opposite direction, down the hall and through a door. Con thought it went to a computer room or record room, but had never been inside. He spent little time in the building at all, mostly just his office, to work through his thoughts if he needed some space to hyper-focus on a case.
“This place is wild,” Kelly said, when Con got back into the car. “Guard stopped and chatted. Said you’re all more CIA than CSI?”
Con waved his hand at Kelly. “Not CIA. We just deal with more information than tests and body evidence. Undercover work sometimes. Not as cloak and dagger as the CIA. Spying or any of that. Though I&R might have folks who do that. My job is a glorified finder and courier. Sometimes all I do is shuffle stuff across the globe. Sometimes I have to find it before moving it.”
“You do undercover work?” Kelly asked.
Con smiled and enacted a rune that shifted the surrounding air in small ways, and knew it worked when Kelly squinted.
“Holy crap, is that glamour?” Kelly asked.
“In a way,” Con agreed. “Not as solid as what the fae can do, but both are perception. From a distance, and if no one touches me, it can fool most people.” It was all minor changes, a difference in hair color, basics like hiding the tattoos, and even making people think he was shorter. Perception rather than reality.
Link and Bella stared at Con, too. “I like the real you better,” Bella said.
“Super cool, Uncle Con. First, you work for the CIA and now you’ve got fae magic? Ki will not believe me,” Link said.
Con sighed. “I don’t work for the CIA, and I don’t have fae magic.” He shut down the runes and pointed them toward the exit. “Let’s go. We all need food.” Con wanted to get home to his men.
“The things you don’t know about a guy,” Kelly said as he steered them out of the lot.
FOURTEEN
Luca dropped into bed after taking a brutal beating in the ring. He hadn’t lost in a long time, and he had to admit that Nate had been fast, and more than a little savvy, attacking as if he could predict Luca’s moves. He also didn’t need symbols to cast, or at least not physical ones.
Quick casting as a skill was an understatement. Luca wondered if Con could cast that fast, or even Seiran. But Luca knew, as a physical fighter, there were only so many ways he could respond to attacks from a witch. Magic made the playing field one-sided, no matter how hard Luca tried. Sparring with Sam and Con was much the same. He could try to outmaneuver them, but they had magic on their side, and the combinations of kicks, punches, and dodges were limited.
Luca had lost miserably. The rise of red filling his sight for a few seconds and blinding him to a hit that sent him sprawling and gasping for breath. Nate had been cordial, helping him up and back to the locker room where Luca showered, his pride stinging from the loss, the rise of the red in his vision making him worry at his lip. He was starving. But the idea of eating actual food made him nauseous. He needed to talk to his guys.
“You okay?” Nate had asked him. “Need help to get home?”
“I’m good,” Luca lied. “Just an off day. Sorry for the short fight.”
“No worries,” Nate said. “Maybe get some rest.”
Luca nodded like that was the plan, but his heartbeat was sluggish, anxiety rising unfamiliarly. Change, he thought, and hated the uncertainty.
When he’d gotten home, Con and Bella were gone, and Sam was sleeping. He’d had to wake Sam to get inside, as there were wards on the loft now. Sam walked him through setting and releasing the alarm. Luca didn’t feel the buzz of power Sam claimed he could, but it worked. Wards on or off, the only sensation he got from them was a tightness in the back of his jaw, but he was too tired to care. Luca dropped himself into bed beside Sam and let himself sleep for a few hours; Sam’s arms wrapped around him. Sam’s embrace took away a lot of the fear and gave him a little rest. Luca woke to the feeling of someone’s fingers in his hair. He grumbled, feeling like he had hardly gotten any sleep. Everything hurt again. His joints filled with glass, lungs tight. Whatever reprieve his father had given him, already over.
“You okay?” Sam asked, sounding concerned.
Luca opened his eyes to find Sam leaning over him, laptop in his lap.
“You were making noise in your sleep,” Sam said. “Growling?” He touched Luca’s cheek, which registered an ‘ow’ in Luca’s head. One of the landed hits causing a bruise? “You went to fight?”
“Needed to burn off some steam after the Blake thing,” Luca muttered, uncertain where to begin with all this mess. Would Sam understand? He had never wanted to be a vampire. How would he feel about Luca’s transition?
“Did it help?” Sam asked.
“I lost,” Luca admitted. “Got my ass handed to me by a witch.”
“You shouldn’t be fighting witches. It’s never a fair fight.”
Luca wouldn’t back down either. Both of his lovers were witches. What if witches came for them? He had to be ready, no matter what change took him. He reached up to catch the back of Sam’s neck and tug him down for a kiss. Since Sam delved deep, he suspected Con wasn’t home with Bella.
Sam nipped Luca’s lip, as he often did when they kissed, but paused at the blood. Could he tell that Luca was changing? Luca tried not to pull away but couldn’t help his flinch. Sam licked the wound closed and studied Luca’s face for a minute, lots of questions on his face. “Babe?”
Tears filled Luca’s eyes. “Can we just have today? Talk about it later with Con?”