Free The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) by Kirsten Weiss

tunic. 
    Riga wondered where he’d got the change of clothing.  He had gorgeous feet, perfectly formed, as if they’d never been tortured into shape by modern footwear. 
    Something was off though.   She looked at him carefully.  His insouciance remained in place, like a shield, but she felt something behind it.  He was worried.
    Her emotions hardened.  “What are you still doing here?”
    He looked up, surprised by the tone of her voice.  “Breakfast.”
    “Nervy.”
    He appeared genuinely puzzled, which, in Riga’s eyes, just made him a good liar.  “After seeing the gun safe in your closet, I have no nerve at all when it comes to you.  Is that standard equipment for a metaphysical detective?”
     “What did you do to the wine?”  It was magic, she knew, but none like she’d ever experienced.  And the fact that it left her feeling better rather than worse disturbed her, because a part of her wanted it to happen again.
    His dark brows drew together.  “Nothing.”
    “Then why did I blank out?  Again.  Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”
    He waggled the pan in her direction.  “You did not pass out last night, and I think I would have noticed.  I’m starting to think you just don’t want to take responsibility for your actions.”
    “What actions?  What happened?”  She felt his magic now, there but not there.  It sent a shiver of pleasure up her spine, and that frightened her even more.
    “Sadly, nothing happened.  You made me spend the night on the couch, which is, by the way, not as comfortable as my hotel bed.  When are we going to wake up together?”
    Fine.  Two could play this game.  “I don’t know what you are, but I will figure it out.”
    He smiled, wolflike.  “I guess we’ll be spending more time together then.  Come on, you’ll feel better after breakfast.”  He slid the omelet onto a plate and handed it to her. 
    She looked at it.
    “It’s just an omelet,” he said.
    She took the plate from him and lowered herself onto one of the stools opposite, at the counter.  Neither seeing nor sensing anything amiss (magic or otherwise), she took a hesitant bite.  It was the best omelet she’d ever tasted – the ideal to which omelets should aspire: light, fluffy, tangy, heaven. 
    “How is it?” he asked.
    “It’s good.”
    “That’s all?”  He frowned, looking into the empty pan as if it had betrayed him.  “I usually get a more effusive reaction than that.”
    “I’m still conscious.  That’s something.”
    He met Riga’s eyes, violet like wine held to the sunlight.  “I don’t know what happened to you last night,” he repeated, his voice low.  “This memory loss – are you sure it’s never happened before?”
    She gritted her teeth.  “Only with you.”
    “Then tell me about the street lights.  Have you always been able to put them out?”
    Riga speared a mushroom.  “Not always.”  It had started, she told him, in college and within a year she couldn’t get within twenty feet of a streetlamp without it going dark. “A rumor started I had a weird electromagnetic field that would give people cancer.  You can imagine how popular I was.”
    Donovan burst into laughter.  It rolled through the condo like benevolent thunder.  “Cancer!  The modern day bogeyman.  And do you?  Have a weird electromagnetic field?”
    “I found someone to test me – never mind how – and no, they couldn’t find anything.”  The Reiki masters and energy workers had been unable to help.  Riga had turned to a shaman, but things had not gone well there, either.  The shaman still refused to speak to her. 
    “Which left dark magic.”  Donovan chuckled.
    She felt heat rush to her cheeks.  “Look, I know my problem sounds ridiculous.  It is, in fact, ridiculous.  But it’s hell on a social life.  I can’t go out at night with friends, and night happens to be when most people want to meet up.  Even the magical community thinks I’m