Magic in the shadows by Devon Monk

Author:Devon Monk [Devon Monk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SF
ISBN: 9780451462879
Published: 2009-11-03T02:52:31+00:00

Chapter Eleven

I didn’t dream of my father. I didn’t dream at all. One second I was falling into a static darkness; the next my eyes were open.

It happened so fast, my heart tripped in my chest and stuttered hard before it caught up again.

“Morning, Sunshine.” Zayvion Jones, that dark Adonis, leaned down above me, his usually calm expression warmed by a smile.

“Mmm,” I managed. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. There wasn’t any spit left in me. I tried to swallow, felt like I hadn’t drunk in years. And tasted mint. Lots and lots of mint.

I knew the taste of that mint. Zayvion was Grounding the hell outta me. Which must mean I was using magic. While sleeping?

He drew his hand up my bare leg, cupping the back of my calf, up the smooth, warm inner arc of my knee, then over the lean muscle of my thigh, his thumb trailing the inside of my thigh, until he reached, much too soon, the fold of blanket draped over my hips, stomach, and chest.

He pulled the blanket down over my exposed leg, and looked me straight in the eye as he tucked me in, proper as a priest.

“Water?” he asked.

I nodded, which shook my headache loose. I groaned a little.

“Aspirin?” I asked. It came out sounding a lot like ass spoon, but Zayvion seemed fluent in mumbleze.

He handed me water and a pill from my bedside table.

I elbowed up (elbows working, check; stomach muscles working, check; heart and lungs still on duty, check; head hurting like a three-day bender, check) and sat against the headboard. My shoulder still hurt like hell. I closed my eyes and took a second to breathe. Zayvion rested his free hand on my thigh and warm, soothing mint washed over me like a blanket of morphine.

Yums. Even though I wasn’t using magic, I felt burned inside, raw. And the Grounding helped.

“Okay.” I opened my eyes, got lost for a soul’s breath in the deep brown and gold of Zayvion’s gaze before he gently let me free by breaking eye contact.

“Water,” he reminded.

I took the water this time and looked at the pill in my palm. Not the white aspirin that I kept in my medicine cabinet. This pill was blue and had a tiny little glyph carved into it. Magic medicine? How did that work? Did they put glass and lead in the pill to contain the magic?

“What is it?” I asked.

“Painkiller. Prescription.”

“The glyph?” I asked.

He shook his head. “It’s legal. I can get you the bottle to look at, if you want. I’m surprised you Hounds don’t eat this stuff like candy. The small bit of magic in the pill is capsulized in sodium chloride crystals. Won’t hold the magic for long, so that gives it a very short shelf life, but enhances the painkiller. And when the pain is because of magic . . .” He shrugged. “It’s a lot better than aspirin.”

I swallowed the pill and drank the rest of the water.

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