Free She Blinded Me With Science by Michelle L. Levigne

safely
asleep in the basement?
    Actually, it was. He had been creating an illusion of himself asleep in bed since he was
four years old, to fool his nanny. He could do it in his sleep. And if Sophie thought he was
asleep, and she was otherwise occupied, she never noticed when he crept through her house,
cloaked in invisibility.
    She's going to kill me, when she finds out the truth.
    He swirled his hand through the air to call up the scrying globe.
    According to the globe, the person now standing at the front door, fiddling with the lock,
was female and Human with just a touch of Fae blood, but not Sophie. Enough Fae blood to give
her unusual good luck, and some influence over unguarded minds. Kevyn called up more
information in the scrying globe and sneered. Influence over male Humans, using the
most basic magic of all. Sophie could do that if she wanted to, and he liked her that she didn't
want to.
    This Human didn't have much magic sensitivity. He could leap through the door and
slap her while invisible. She would be spooked, but she wouldn't sense his magic at work.
    And she was trying to pick Sophie's lock. Should he let her, or zap her? Or amuse
himself by fuddling the lock and frustrating her? He went into the kitchen to bake a triple
chocolate sin layer cake, and spared a fraction of his attention for the unwanted intruder.
    One side benefit of Sophie's attempt at restraining his magic was that she had created a
privacy barrier around the house. He and Sophie could stay up to all hours, singing at the top of
their lungs, with all the lights on and all the curtains wide open, and no one would ever know.
The neighborhood would see a quiet, dark house. Kevyn speculated that once he got Sophie into
his arms, they could shoot off sparks and make love on the ceiling, and no one would notice.
    "Note to self," he said, calling up his personal ether memo file. "Make love to Sophie on
the ceiling." He snickered, snapped his fingers, and the block of dark baking chocolate flew
across the kitchen into his hand.
    The intruder gave up after only ten minutes. Kevyn sighed in frustration, put a holding
spell on the whipping cream and the mixture of honey and cocoa, and stomped into the living
room. He tweaked aside the curtains and watched the blonde slither down the driveway to a
poison green Jaguar sitting at the curb. He conjured up a three-dimensional image of her that he
saved to show Sophie when she came home. This was no ordinary thief. Anybody could tell
that.
    * * * *
    Sophie swore viciously, loud and fierce enough to make two light bulbs pop when
Kevyn showed her the image of the would-be housebreaker.
    "Mount Grief," she spat and slammed her fists into the counter.
    The fluffy mounds of cocoa cream and chocolate silk cake with chocolate shavings and
sour cherry filling wobbled. The plate Kevyn's masterpiece sat on took a single jolting step
toward the edge of the counter.
    "Who's that?"
    "The slimy twitch who was trying to break in." Sophie sank down onto the nearest
kitchen stool and rested her head in her hands. "What is she up to? Did she think she could just
waltz in here and steal my notes, since I won't work voluntarily with her?"
    A look of horror crossed her face and she sat up and stared at Kevyn until tears made her
eyes gleam.
    "What? What is it? What's wrong?" He wrapped his arms around her. When that didn't
work, he slid his arm under her knees and carried her out of the kitchen to the living room and
cradled her on his lap on the couch.
    "It hasn't been any good, has it?" she whispered.
    "No, it's okay." He guided her head down to rest on his shoulder. "She didn't get in. She
didn't see anything, didn't get anything. And even if she got in, she never would have seen me,
never would have taken anything. Your place is safe, with me here. I would have taken care of
her like that." He snapped his fingers to demonstrate.
    "That's just it." Sophie twisted out of his embrace and slid halfway to the floor before
she