Mercenary Magic Read Free

pizza. She’d been looking forward to it all day, since even before the caterpillar fiasco.
    “Who’s ‘we’?” she asked, checking her tone.
    “Kai and I. He’s the one who told me about the cafe.”
    Sera unlocked her jaw and folded her hands together. “And just who is Kai?” Clearly, someone who was a bad element. Only a bad element would have the audacity to mess with pizza night.
    “A friend from my running club.” He looked over his shoulder. “Come on in, Kai.”
    A dark-haired man stepped inside, carrying a paper bag in each hand. He wore dark jeans with a hint of silver undertone, and a fitted ink-black t-shirt that hugged the smooth muscles of his chest, leaving nothing to the imagination. He might as well have printed ‘I crack walnuts with my biceps’ across the front. Riley said he’d met Kai at his running club, but his new friend looked like he’d be more at home lifting weights in the gym than hitting the trails. Though there was a certain suppleness to his movements. Like a fighter. A damn strong fighter who hit hard and didn’t miss.
    But that wasn’t what made Sera’s adrenaline pump into overdrive. It was Kai’s eyes. They shimmered like blue glass and burned with raw power. Magic, ancient and dangerous, wound across his body, draping him from head to toe. It ignited the air around them, burning Sera’s lungs. It snapped and cracked and promised of punishments cruel and painful. This is what it must have felt like to stand before a dragon—a real dragon, back when they’d still roamed the earth. Those fiery beasts that mages summoned were mere shadows of the real thing.
    Sera looked at Riley. Surely, he felt it. Kai was an aura of magical might. Never before had she met someone so saturated with power.
    But her brother gave no indication that he felt anything of the sort. He was giving her an odd sort of look, though.
    “Is something wrong, Sera?”
    Yes, they needed to get out of there. Now. “No,” she said.
    “I’m Kai,” said the magic lightning rod, amusement dancing across his lip. He extended his hand.
    Every instinct in her body was screaming for her to run, to escape the predator Riley had invited into their home. Instead, she took his hand and shook it. A spark shot up her arm—magical, dangerous…and a bit exciting. She dropped his hand and backed up a step.
    “Please excuse us for a second, Kai.” Her words slushed out as a hurried mush.
    She grabbed hold of Riley’s hand and pulled him into the kitchen, closing the door behind them. Then she spun around to stare him down.
    “What have you done?” she said in a hissed whisper.
    Riley leaned against the edge of the small table they’d stuffed into the corner of the kitchen. He pressed his crossed arms to his chest and glared on back at her. “I don’t know what you mean. Am I now not allowed to have friends or something?”
    “Sure, have all the friends you want. Just not that friend.”
    “You’ve known him for all of two seconds, and already you’re judging him. Is this about the pizza?”
    “No.”
    He gave her a hard look.
    “Ok, maybe it’s just a little about the pizza. That was really uncool, by the way. You can’t just go changing pizza night. Fantasizing about pizza was all that kept me going when I was up to my waist in demonic jumbo caterpillars.”
    Riley rolled his eyes. “You’re being melodramatic.”
    “Forget the pizza.” Sera dropped her voice back to a whisper. “Your friend is dangerous.”
    “How?”
    “His magic.”
    “Magic?”
    “Really? You don’t feel it?” She spread her arms. “That pulsing beacon of primeval power.”
    He snorted. “Have you been reading those naughty books again?”
    “Please take this seriously, Riley.”
    “Sorry.” He coughed. “Ok. Seriously , Kai doesn’t have any magic.”
    “He does.”
    “I may not be a magic detector like you are, Sera. But I can sense when someone’s magical. Kai is not.”
    It was as though they were