A Taste of Ice Read Free Page A

about then would have been the perfect time for the old asshole Xavier to return, to shove his way through the ever-increasing crowd and not care if he hurt anyone, like the guy who’d knocked down Mr. Traeger.
    “I’m sorry, but”—her freckled nose crinkled and a curious smile lit her candy-colored eyes—“I know this’ll sound weird, but do I know you? You seem…familiar.”
    He pictured a pristine cutting board, felt the phantom weight of a scary-sharp chef’s knife in his palm, and imagined rows and rows of vegetables laid out before him, waiting. The vision brought him instant calm.
    “No, you don’t.” He turned away, found the tiniest crack between bodies, and shoved himself into it.
Get away, get away
. He angled for freedom, pushing and mumbling apologies to strangers.
    “Are you sure?” she called at his back.
    The alley mouth leading to Shed was forty yards and forty thousand miles away. The crowd eased some, but the constanttouch of unfamiliar bodies gave rise to panic. An elbow here, a hip there. The next one might be the one that made him crack. He had to get into the kitchen.
    At last he broke the edge of the crowd and veered into the alley. At the far end flapped the yellow-and-white-striped awning over Shed’s entrance. His long legs strode for it.
    “Hey, wait.” That smoky voice. Following him. “Can you hold up a sec?”
    Didn’t she realize that if she didn’t leave him alone, the Burned Man would come for her again?
    Giant pots holding yews decorated with bows in Shed’s signature yellow and white dotted the wide alley, and Xavier wove among them. Stupid to think he could actually lose her, given that the alley came to a dead end, but he was grasping for any way out. When he ducked under the awning and still heard her footsteps crossing the cobblestones, he knew there was only one option left.
    Xavier hadn’t just given up sex the day he’d arrived in White Clover Creek. He’d abandoned magic, too. But standing there, in the cold shadow under Shed’s awning, he reached deep inside himself and pulled out the rusty words of the Tedran language.
    No reason to speak it anymore, since there were only two people on Earth who could understand him. Adine Jones, the half Tedran born without magic, had guided him through the basics of the Primary world and then disappeared. Gwen Carroway, the Ofarian Translator who had freed Xavier’s people and stopped the slavery, had started a new life with her Primary lover in Chicago.
    It had been ages since he’d spoken his native tongue, but with the first hesitant word, the rest sprang up like the quick gush of blood after a pinprick.
    He chose his illusion, imagining the face and body he wanted, and whispered the Tedran words to bring it about. Glamour enveloped him in a light, airy caress. Head to foot, the new image fell around him in a shimmering cloak made of the thinnest material. Touch it and it would dissolve.
    He couldn’t deny that for some part of him, using his birthright after all this time was a well-deserved comfort.
    He grabbed hold of the thick iron bar on the original granary shed wood door, and slid it wide on oiled rails. Rushing through the little foyer that blocked the winter wind, he pushed open the restaurant’s main door and waddled inside, shouldering a huge purse that wasn’t really there.
    Pam, Shed’s owner and executive chef, sat hunched over table eighteen studying receipts and supply orders in neat little piles. By the way her fingers toyed with her short, platinum hair, he knew that something wasn’t adding up in the ledgers.
    The only reason Xavier could work for Pam, a woman, and not fear the Burned Man, was because she sent out zero sexual vibes toward him. Probably had to do with the fact he had a penis.
    Across the main dining floor, through the giant glass window of the open kitchen, Jose and Lars were setting up their
mise en place
for lunch service, their knives flying through prep. Ricardo was