Edge of Magic (Tara Knightley Series Book 1) Read online

  At the door, Judah turned to me, again examining my face like he had earlier.

  “You look incredible, Tara,” he said, his tone weighted with sincere and open appreciation.

  Caught off guard by the compliment, my eyes widened and I reached for a response that didn’t materialize. He let himself out, closing the door with a soft click.

  When I turned, Luna had her hand over her mouth, trying to hold back a giggle. Nolan was oblivious, his attention already back on the TV.

  Sasha was giving me a sly look. “He’s cute.”

  “I suppose,” I said with a noncommittal shrug.

  Mom appeared from the hallway that led to her room.

  “Is Judah okay?” she asked.

  Just then, Felicity bounded down from upstairs.

  “That was Judah?” My sister looked back and forth between me and Mom.

  I frowned at Felicity. I wasn’t enjoying all the attention. “You didn’t recognize him? He doesn’t look that different.”

  Mom and Felicity traded a look.

  “What?” I demanded, propping my hands on my hips.

  “Um, yeah he does,” Fel said.

  “See?” Sasha crowed triumphantly. “I said he was hot! And Aunt Tara was all, I guess.” She lowered her voice to a morose tone to imitate me.

  Felicity flicked a glance at the closed front door. “I saw him from the window upstairs. I didn’t realize that’s who it was. What’d he want?”

  “He’s in some kind of trouble, I think,” Mom said.

  Curiosity shone in my sister’s eyes. “What sort of trouble?”

  I shook my head, glancing at the kids.

  Felicity strode over, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into the kitchen. Mom followed. They cornered me between the fridge and the sink, Felicity demanding to know what Judah and I had talked about. I quickly summarized the conversation.

  “You’re not going to help him?” Felicity asked, her disapproval clear.

  “It wouldn’t be a good idea for me to get involved,” I said.

  “But . . .” She raised her arms in a little loose-limbed flail.

  “What, I should help him because he’s good-looking?”

  She gave me a withering look. “No. You should help him because he’s your oldest friend.”

  “We haven’t talked in nearly a decade, Fel. He’s not my friend anymore.”

  Mom stepped in between us, holding her hand out.

  “Tara has to make her own decision,” she said. “And if helping Judah would cause problems with Grant Shaw, she’s right to decline involvement.”

  Mom rarely missed a chance to try to get me to distance myself from Faerie.

  Felicity folded her arms. “It might do you good to reconnect with him.”

  I gave her a stony look. “I don’t think so.”

  I’d had enough. I turned sideways and slipped around Mom, went upstairs to the bedroom I shared with Fel, and closed the door.

  I was ready to push the entire encounter with Judah from my mind. And anyway, I needed to get a hold of Ray Artois and see if he knew anything else about Shaw’s big bounty. I sat cross-legged on my bed and found his name in my contacts. Just as I was about to dial, there was a soft rustle at the door. A little slip of paper slid under. I squinted at it. Nope, not a slip of paper. Judah’s card, which I’d left on the kitchen table.

  “Butt out, Felicity,” I grumbled.

  But I got off the bed and snatched the card, glancing at it briefly before returning my attention to my phone. I jabbed at Ray’s number. He picked up after a couple of rings.

  “Hey, it’s Tara,” I said. “Would you be willing to try to find out more about Shaw’s big game? I’d make it worth your while.”

  I bit my lip, waiting for Ray’s response and trying not to think about Judah.

  Chapter 5

  I DIDN’T LIKE the long pause on Ray’s end of the line.

  “I’ll ask around,” he said. “But I can’t make any guarantees. I’ve got my own thing going, now, and I don’t want to screw it up. It’s early days still for my business. You understand?”

  He didn’t want to attract negative attention from Shaw.

  Grant Shaw had tried to lure Ray into the organization years ago, but he’d refused. Instead, he’d taken work with Katerina until he decided to venture out on his own. Ray had played it smart.

  Shaw usually only went after halflings, quarterlings, and sub-quarterlings. It was so much easier to gain their loyalty when they were still young and angry, the exact point where they were likely to be at the height of their feelings of alienation from both sides of the hedge—Faerie and the Earthly side. It was a shrewd strategy, but it hadn’t worked with Ray. I had no doubt Shaw still remembered. He didn’t like it when something he wanted slipped away. He didn’t just collect objects. He collected people, too.

  “Yeah, I get that you need to cover your ass.” I said it without blame. “Could you at least tell me who you heard it from?”

  “Sorry, I’d rather not.”

  I swallowed back a grumble. “Okay. Let me know if you come up with anything.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thanks.”

  We hung up, and I stared out the bedroom window, trying to figure out what my next move was. After a minute or two, I found my gaze had dropped to the first two lines of the business card in my hand.

  Judah McMahon, Esq.

  Harmony Legal Services, LLC

  I snorted. Harmony? Cute. Joining the world’s humans, Fae, and preternatural races in the name of profits for all, tra-la la-la.

  I didn’t actually know that all Harmony’s contracts were about money, but it was probably a good guess. Wasn’t money always the reason for disparate groups to make deals with each other?

  Judah’s phone number and email were listed on the card. His face sprang to my thoughts, and I sat there for a minute, staring off into space.

  Ugh, what was I doing? Maybe my angsty teenage crush was bubbling up. Didn’t matter. I blinked hard, clearing his face from my mind’s eye.

  Judah had seemed so full of faith that I’d be able to do something about his predicament. But he didn’t know what my life had been like for the past decade. I had a full-time job to hold down, a blood oath to a Fae mob boss to deal with, and a family who would sink if I wasn’t there to help out with bills. I didn’t have the power to do much of anything except madly tread water to keep it all from pulling me under.

  I scrubbed my hand down my face and stood up. Just then, there was a quick knock and the door opened. Felicity stood there.

  “I didn’t mean to get up in your business earlier,” she said, her expression contrite.

  I let out a sharp laugh. “Yes, you did, Fel. It’s what you do.”

  She plopped her hands on her slim hips. “Hey!”

  Her indignation earned her an eyeroll from me.

  “Okay, fine, I didn’t mean to get quite that far up in your business. Is that better?” She came in and sat on her own bed, facing me. Her blue eyes clouded. “You just seem . . . weighed down today.”

  For the truckloads of crap she gave me and all the ways we were so utterly different, I knew she genuinely cared about me. And I admired my sister. She had a small business creating and selling botanical magic potions that helped kids with life-threatening allergies. When Dominic had been a young toddler, he’d starting reacting to everything Fel fed him and he’d gotten really sick. I didn’t remember it too well—I was only about eleven at the time, and Dom was the only baby I’d ever been around, so I didn’t really understand how sick he was. Felicity had dedicated herself to figuring out a way to help him, and she had. She’d helped countless others, too.

  I reached up to finger comb my hair into a ponytail, securing it with the elastic I always wore on my wrist.

  “It’s okay,” I said. I let my arms drop. “Nothing for you to worry about. I’ll figure it out.”

  She was twisting her ring around her finger. It was the he
aling charm I’d gotten from Shaw so many years ago. The gesture was an unconscious nervous tick she’d had almost from the day I’d given her the ring. She straightened suddenly and shifted to pull her phone from the back pocket of her jeans.

  “Shoot, we’re going to be late.” She sprang off the bed. “I’ve gotta take Nolan to practice. See you this evening? It’s spaghetti squash night.”

  I tried not to make a face. Spaghetti squash was not anything like actual spaghetti, in my opinion, even with the delicious homemade bolognese sauce Mom made from scratch.

  “I’ll try to be home for dinner,” I called after Felicity as she walked down the hall.

  My phone let out a two-tone chime. It was a text from Roxanne asking if I wanted to meet up to practice. Some physical exertion to dispel the stress of the morning plus getting to hang out with my best friend? Yes, please. Sounded like exactly what I needed.

  I told her I’d come and get her in a half hour and then changed into slim-fitting black joggers, a sports bra and workout top, and a zip-up track jacket. I dropped to the floor and reached under my bed for a black suitcase made of hard molded plastic and secured by two locks. Grasping the handle, I pulled it out. Case in hand, I was out the door.

  Rox must have been watching for me because when I pulled up, she came running out of her place before I even had the chance to text her. She hopped into the passenger seat.

  “Want to spar or throw stuff?” I asked.

  She leaned forward to look up at the sky through the windshield. “Doesn’t look like rain. You brought your toys?”

  I pointed my thumb over my shoulder. “Case full of pointy things to throw is in the back.”

  “Cool. Let’s go out in the country and toss shit.”

  I grinned. “You got it. The usual spot?”

  She nodded, grinning back at me.

  We needed some wide-open space to practice throwing my knives, shurikens, and darts, and Rox had a hookup. Her Aunt Ella, who wasn’t an actual blood relative, owned some property in Star, Idaho, a small farming town about twenty miles outside of Boise. Ella was none other than Ella Grey, the infamous reaper witch who’d prevented the Cataclysm from unleashing chaos and hordes of demonic creatures into the world. She was a hero, but the Cataclysm wasn’t without consequences. It had rippled through the magical world, affecting everything from the VAMP virus that caused vampirism, to the way human magic users could draw and combine elemental powers, to a unique Fae race that spontaneously formed in Faerie.

  And, of course, there was the more personal repercussion of the Cataclysm—the unknown illness that had struck my sister and nearly killed my mother.

  “So, what’s new?” Roxanne asked.

  I arched a brow, glancing at her before returning my attention to the road. “New since I saw you last night?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, Tara,” she said. “I can tell you’re mentally chewing on something. Brain gum. Chomping away. Your brain’s practically smacking and blowing bubbles.”

  I snorted. “Good one.”

  “So?” she pressed.

  “Judah McMahon came by this morning.”

  She sucked in a loud breath. “The guy you were in love with? The one who ditched you and took off for Portland?”

  “It wasn’t love. It was a crush. And he didn’t ditch me. He needed to connect with the shifter side of his family.”

  That was true, but before he’d decided to leave, he’d offered to wait for me for a year. I’d been about to take him up on that offer when he told me he’d changed his mind and was going. That was when we got in a fight, and I’d told him about my feelings for him, which thank the goddess he hadn’t brought up that morning.

  Rox ignored my corrections. “He was your best friend, right?”

  “All the way through high school.”

  “Did you even know he was in town?”

  I shook my head. “I got back from Faerie and Mom said he was at the house.”

  I told her the whole story, recounting the exact conversation as best I could. When I got to the end, I glanced at Rox. She was staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Wow,” was all the could say.

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d you feel when you saw him?”

  My brows lifted in surprise. I’d hardly let myself think about that aspect of the encounter.

  “Tell me the truth,” she said, clearly taking my hesitation for reluctance to answer.

  I let out a breath. “Weird. Surprised. Confused.”

  “Why confused?”

  I gave my head a little shake. “In my mind, he was this guy, this teenager. He was my friend for a long time. But he looked so . . . grown up. That sounds stupid, I know. It’s been nearly a decade, so of course he’d looked different. But there was a sort of gravity to him, a fierceness or something, that was new to me.”

  “Did you like what you saw?”

  I shot her a withering look. “That’s irrelevant, but . . . Yes. I think any heterosexual woman would like what she saw. A lot.”

  “On a scale of zero to Ray Artois?”

  “He’d give Ray a run for his money.”

  “Ooh!” Rox fanned her face for a moment. “How’d you feel when he asked you for help?”

  Ugh, Roxanne, always with the feelings. I knew she wouldn’t let me wiggle out of answering, though.

  “Part of me felt flattered he’d sought me out, I think. I wasn’t totally unsympathetic to predicament. But honestly, I felt like he didn’t really know what he was asking. He didn’t know how much it could cost me.”

  “And that pissed you off.”

  I sighed. “Maybe it did,” I said reluctantly.

  “Or maybe you were just still mad that he abandoned you.”

  “He didn’t abandon—” I cut myself off with a grumble.

  “Look, I’m not saying you should help him. It’s just . . . how risky would it be, really?”

  My eyes widened with surprise. “Damn risky. I thought I explained that pretty clearly.”

  “No, I hear what you’re saying. I do. But maybe this is a chance for you to gain a little independence. Feel like you’re more in charge of your life.”

  Easing to a stop at a red light, I slid her a side-eye. “How so?”

  “You know, use Shaw’s network for your own purposes, instead of always letting Shaw use you.”

  My first reaction was a spark of irritation. I waited it out and then considered Rox’s words. Maybe she had a point.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” she asked.

  “I could piss off Killian, and he could turn people in the organization against me. Much worse, I could piss off Shaw. He could decide to start summoning me every day instead of only once in a while. Make it impossible for me to hold down a regular job. Get me fired from Katerina’s. Trash my name so I can’t find any other work.”

  “Okay. So yeah, that would be bad,” she said in a carefully neutral tone. “But you’d figure it out. You’d find a way.”

  I let out an exasperated breath. “Would you mind if we dropped this for a while? I think it’s spiking my blood pressure a little too much.”

  “Of course. Sorry, but I just want you to think bigger. Think of yourself for once.”

  Think of myself. Right.

  She held up her hands. “And I promise that’s all I’m gonna say.”

  “Thanks.”

  After a few minutes of silence, she pointed up ahead. “Let’s stop in there for coffee. My treat.”

  I knew it was a little gesture to smooth things over. I gave her a quick smile. “Sure, sounds good.”

  I pulled into the drive through line for Moxi Java. Rox got her usual—soy latte with hazelnut—and I got a medium Americano. I’d loved mocha lattes as a kid, but over the years and many pots of hastily-drunk black coffee, I had lost my taste for anything that sweet.

  As we left the city limits behind and I savored my coffee, some of my tension eased. Strip malls, business comp
lexes, and suburban neighborhoods with homey, welcoming names gave way to crops and wide-open spaces. Boise would never be as cool as Seattle or as hip as Portland, but it was great to be able to hop in the car and get to farmland, hiking paths, or mountain biking trails in a half hour or less—even with traffic. An ironic little smile played across my lips. My teenage self would have been outraged to know I’d grudgingly come to appreciate my hometown. Back then, I’d been dying to get out.

  Thoughts of other places of course brought me back to Judah. He said he would be in town until the next morning. If circumstances were different, I might have tried to meet up with him. Not to try to rekindle our friendship, necessarily. Just to attempt to satisfy my curiosity about how his life had progressed, how deeply he’d put down roots in Portland, whether he was happy, what he wanted out of life . . . and, maybe, where that unfamiliar intensity behind his eyes had come from.

  “What do you want, Rox?” I asked suddenly.

  She coughed and lowered her coffee cup. “Huh?”

  I laughed. “Sorry, I should have given a little more context. I mean, what do you want in life?”

  She thought for moment. “A few years ago, I would have said something about my career. Probably that I wanted my coven to be the most successful one in history.”

  “But now, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, you’ve already checked that off?”

  “Well, we’re not the most successful one. But we’re on the right path, and we might be someday. In any case, that stuff doesn’t seem quite so urgent anymore.”

  I shot her a wry look. “Easy to say after you’re already there.”

  “Hey,” she said, playfully defensive. “It’s not like I’m a millionaire or anything.”

  “Yeah, but it sounds like you’re mostly satisfied in that area. Or at least you don’t feel the need to be quite so driven.”

  She tilted her head, her pink bangs falling across her forehead. “I still want to put a lot of energy into the coven, but I also want . . . more.”

  “Like marriage?”

  “Goddess, no! Not yet. I would like to find someone, though. A relationship with the right guy.”