Free Sacrificial Magic by Stacia Kane Page A

day gone. Another day closer to the end.
    She popped into the bathroom to give her hair a quick brush, give her face a bit more makeup. She had to tell him where her case was. She had to tell him she’d gone to Lex’s place. Had to tell him right away. Not just because he might find out himself, but because that was the right thing to do, and she wanted to do that.
    She threw three more Cepts into her mouth, washed them down just as his key turned in the lock and the wards on the door slipped open around him.
    His presence filled the room. He seemed to vibrate when she looked at him. Of course that could be her nerves, but she didn’t think so. It wasn’t the first time it had happened.
    She stood up, waited at the juncture of kitchen and living room, trying not to grin like a lovesick lunatic. Trying to be casual. Trying to gauge his mood. “Hi.”
    His eyes sparked hard behind their darkness as he crossed the kitchen floor, not speaking. Too much energy moved in the air around him, and when he stood right in front of her—close enough to make her tilt her head all the way back—and reached out to touch her cheek she knew what it was. He’d had quite a day, she guessed; violence clung to him like black oil.
    Violence and a wild sort of intoxication from that violence, to be more exact. Whatever it was inside him that made him so good at his job, that made him the most feared man in Downside, had been riding him for hours from the looks of it, the feel of it. Now there was nothing else to hit, and that energy, that almost feral whatever-it-was … wanted to find some other satisfaction. Something or someone else to overpower, something or someone else to subdue, to defeat, to conquer.
    She knew he’d never think of it that way. He probably wasn’t even aware of it, that dark bloodthirsty excitement lurking behind his eyes, surrounding him like a vicious cloud. His work—fighting in general—didn’t always do that to him, not that she’d seen, but when it did … Her heart jumped into her throat, then fell straight into her pelvis and stayed there, beating like a hummingbird’s wings.
    “The fuck happened here? It hurting?”
    “Oh, I just …” She bit her lip. “I got a new case today. And no, it doesn’t hurt, not really.”
    “Aye? Ain’t so much?”
    “Yeah, it looks worse than it—”
    Definitely violence. Even if she hadn’t known from his energy she would have known from the way he kissed her, the way he fisted her hair tight at the nape of her neck, the firm possessiveness of his hand on her bottom as he yanked her up against him, bending her backward. Rough and eager, and that energy infected her, too, made her grab his shoulders, wrap her leg around his.
    She bit his tongue just hard enough to hurt a little, her head already swimming. His gasp shot a thrill straight down her spine, shot her temperature up what had to be ten degrees or so, because she was sweating even before he slid his hand between her legs from behind and it was her turn to gasp. A gasp more like—almost embarrassingly so—a whimper. A week was too long, way too fucking long. A minute was too long, it was all too long when he was every fast panting breath she took, when the smell and taste and sight of him blotted out everything else in the world.
    She already had one leg around him; she wanted to add the other one, to climb up him and let him take her wherever he wanted to go.
    Which he did anyway. Instead of her climbing him, he grabbed her hips, hustled her the few steps into the living room until the backs of her thighs hit the arm of the couch. She drifted over it slowly, controlled by his hold on her.
    She needed to tell him. She needed to tell him right away. Now, as he helped her slide up on the couch so he could cover her with his body. Now, before they actually had sex. If they had sex before she told him, it would look as though she’d been trying to hide it from him, as though she’d known he’d be mad