“Well, I think stealing weapons makes for an excellent first date myself.” I arched my eyebrows. “Are you saying that you want to take me out, Sinclair?”
He flashed me a grin. “Always.”
I looped my arms around his neck. “Why do we have to go anywhere when I have everything I want right here?”
He grinned again, and I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his.
The past would always be dark, always haunt us. But suddenly, the future was as bright as the two of us could make it.
A door slammed open, but Devon kept right on kissing me, and I did the same to him—at least until a voice called out behind us.
“See? I told you they would be up here.”
The door slammed shut, and Devon and I finally broke apart to find Felix and Deah standing on the roof. Felix was shaking his head, but he was grinning, while Deah was looking around at everything. She eyed the punching bags dangling from the scaffolding like she wanted to slam her fists into them over and over again. I knew the feeling and how much she had to be hurting right now. Whatever else they had been, Victor and Blake had been her family and she still grieved for them.
I went over and gave her a hug. The motion seemed to startle Deah, but after a second, she hugged me back. We stayed like that for close to a minute before we finally broke apart.
“How are you holding up?” I asked.
She gave me a tight smile. “Fine. Although if someone else asks me that, I just might scream.”
“Believe me, I know the feeling.”
“I was showing Deah around the mansion,” Felix said. “I told her that we’d find the two of you up here making out.”
Devon slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me close. “Absolutely. The question is why aren’t the two of you doing the same thing?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What was it you said in the woods a few days ago about working your romantic A game from start to finish?”
Deah arched her eyebrows at Felix, and a hot crimson blush flooded his bronze skin.
“Um, well . . . you see . . .” His voice trailed off under her steady look and he gave her a sheepish grin.
She arched her eyebrows a little higher, then winked at him. “Well, just remember that you’re not the only one around here with game.”
Felix grinned and he slung his arm around her shoulders. “Oh, girl, you have no idea . . .”
And with that, he was off and running, talking a hundred words a minute about how great he thought Deah was, how much he loved her, how happy he was that she was going to be part of the Sinclair Family now. And he would have kept right on talking, all night long, if Deah hadn’t let out an exasperated sigh, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him.
She drew back and Felix just stared at her, his face soft and his dark eyes shining with all the feelings he had for her—feelings that were mirrored in Deah’s gaze.
“Sorry about that,” she said, turning back to me and Devon. “But most of the time, that’s the only way I can get him to shut up.”
Devon laughed. “Not a problem. Believe me, we’ll take what peace and quiet we can get around here.”
Felix gave him a mock glare, but he slipped his arm around Deah’s waist. Together, the four of us walked over to the railing and stared out into the night, just enjoying the fact that we’d won the fight that truly mattered.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“When you said that you wanted to finally go out on our first real date tonight, I didn’t think you’d want to come here,” Devon said.
He peered over the side of the Lochness Bridge. It was a week after my fight with Victor, and the bridge looked the same as it always did. No trace of the battle remained on the cobblestones, and the river rushed along like usual down below the span.
I laughed and kissed him. “Just give me a minute, okay? Then we’ll go over to the Midway, stuff ourselves with junk food, sit on one of the park benches, and totally make out.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he murmured.
I grinned back at him. “I know you will.”
Devon kissed me again, then walked over to the end of the bridge and climbed into the front of the SUV that we’d driven down the mountain. He shut the door, giving me the privacy he knew I needed.
I turned back toward the bridge. I dug three quarters out of my shorts pocket and laid the coins on the center stone to pay the toll like usual.
“You’ve done so much for me this summer,” I said, hoping that the lochness was lurking in the water below and that the creature would hear and understand me. “I need you to do one more thing for me, if you will, please. It’s the same thing you did for my mom, once upon a time.”
I bent down and hefted several duffel bags onto the ledge, one after another, until they were all lined up in a row. A series of clank-clanks rang out as the swords, daggers, and other weapons shifted around inside the bags. Over the past few days, Devon and I had collected every single magic-filled black blade that I’d hidden in the library basement, as well as the few that the Draconi guards still had.
And now, I was going to get rid of them—every single one.
By now, everyone in all the Families knew about the black blades and what Victor had wanted to do with the weapons. There were simply too many of them, and they contained too much magic to store them at the Sinclair mansion. They would just make us a target all over again and I was sick of being in the line of fire. So this was the solution I’d come up with, and Claudia and the others had agreed. Besides, monsters had died to fill these blades with magic, so it felt right giving them back to the lochness.
“I want you to watch over these for me,” I said. “This is the best, safest place I know, and I know that you won’t let anyone steal them away from you. Will you do this for me? Please?”
A long, black tentacle rose up from the surface of the water and waved at me, as if telling me to go ahead. So one by one, I shoved the duffel bags off the ledge and into the river. They hit the surface with loud splashes and quickly sank below the waterline.
I stood there for the better part of three minutes, making sure the bags didn’t surface. Once I was sure they were all gone, I turned to leave. The tentacle was on the bridge in front of me just the way it had been before when we’d been hiding under the bridge the night of the restaurant fight.
The tentacle reached out, and I carefully ran my fingers over the cool, wet, velvety surface of the lochness’s skin. With my new, enhanced senses, I almost thought I could hear the creature sigh with pleasure down in the river below; then the tentacle moved away from me. It stopped long enough to scoop up my three quarters from the center stone, then slowly moved over the side of the bridge and sank back down into the water below.
I leaned over the ledge and waved at the creature a final time. Then I glanced back over my shoulder, looking in the direction of the apartment that I had shared with my mom four summers ago. This was the spot where it had all started that fateful day and it seemed fitting that this was where it was ending.
But it wasn’t ending. Not really.
Because there were still dangers in Cloudburst Falls. Still mortals, magicks, and plenty of monsters, and I knew I would be in the thick of things, along with Devon, Felix, Deah, Oscar, and the rest of my friends. And that thought made me happier than anything had in a long, long time.
So I stuck my hands in the pockets of my cargo shorts and walked away whistling, knowing I’d done everything I’d set out to do.
Nothing that I hadn’t done before.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2016 Jennifer Estep
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
KENSINGTON and the k logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
/> ISBN: 978-1-6177-3828-9
First electronic edition: May 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1-61773-829-6
ISBN-10: 1-61773-829-8
Jennifer Estep, Bright Blaze of Magic
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