I grimaced when I opened the door. Then sneezed.

The tiny stockroom was exactly that. A stockroom. With boxes of glasses, napkins, and a couple of keg shells resting on a bed pushed into the very corner. Across the hall was a restroom with a toilet and a sink, lit by a bare bulb hanging overhead.

I dropped my duffel bag at my feet and moved a few boxes so they were at least properly stacked. Who just opened doors and threw boxes in? Granted, the glassware had its place, but other than that, it was a messy heap of brown squares.

I set about righting everything, trying to reestablish that same calm energy in the air that I’d found in the alleyway. It was there, but watered down. The electrical charge was absent entirely. Something about when I physically touched Emery, or at least stood really close to him, amplified my magical ability.

That was worth exploring.

I thought back to that cursed church. To the spell in the circle of women. I’d felt something similar with them, but not as potent. Certainly not as focused.

I grinned as I made my way into the room, then beamed. Working with magic felt really good. The thrill of it was indescribable. The slide of it against my skin and how it seeped into my middle fired me up. Working with Emery made it that much more awesome. He was all raw power and force, which blasted fire through my usual calm. I liked the change. It was like an upgrade to my programming. Hopefully he wouldn’t get annoyed that he had to keep schooling the newbie for fear she’d blow up a neighborhood.

I pulled another box off the floor. Something rushed out, straight at me.

“Turdswallop Donkey Kong!” Energy spiked around me. I plucked out elements from the room by feel and directed them at the thing dodging into a crack in the wall, wanting it fried.

A stream of red blasted from my hand. It hit the box and blew it to the side. The boxes on top fell, tumbling toward me.

“Buttercrack.” I threw up my hands to protect myself as something else darted out. “No, no. Holy Hades on a pogo stick.” I zapped it. Then zapped it again, pulling harder from the world around me, wanting it dead.

A tower of boxes fell. I jumped out of the way, narrowly missed. Glass shattered.

Oops.

Maybe I should’ve tried to catch those.

“What’s going—”

I blasted the shape in the doorway, surprised. Joe dove to the side, barely missed by my magical zapper, and a shimmer of green surrounded him.

Magic pulled at me. Throbbed in my middle.

The intent of his wolf magic could change, all right.

Attack. Harm. Kill.

“We seem to have come to a slight misunderstanding,” I screeched, straightening my arms and feeling electricity crackle all around me.

Huh. When Emery wasn’t around, it was necessary to call the magic—it didn’t just come to me willy-nilly. I would have to remember that.

“I am simply ridding your establishment of vermin.” I pulled out various elements, as Emery called them, naturally categorizing each by what it felt like and whether I had felt it go into a spell before. I knew next to nothing, but I’d managed to create a zapper, so I strongly suspected I’d arrive at something.

A giant gray wolf filled the doorway, and while I’d never seen a wolf in person before, this one had to be larger than the creatures that existed in the wild. Its lip curled, exposing white fangs. A growl rumbled deep in its throat.

“Oh holy shit bombs.” My mother would’ve had to agree that this situation warranted a genuine swear word. “I can pay for those glasses. Well, my mother can pay. She’s good for it, I swear. Oh, I know! How about a stolen car? Can I interest you in selling that to a chop shop? The owner has insurance. It’ll be fine.” Of course, Emery was currently in the process of getting rid of it, but I would have said pretty much anything to pacify Joe.

The wolf sniffed the air and the growling increased. Hair rose along its spine.

Something zipped by my foot.

“Snicker-frack charms a lot!” I jumped, trying to get off the ground to get away from the thing, but gravity pulled me right back down. “No, no. Dang you to Hades, you horrible little varmint.” I zapped without thinking. Then zapped again as more movement brought another box down. “What kind of place are you running here?”

The growling stopped, which was good, but there were boxes all around my feet, and while mice themselves didn’t scare me, their unpredictability did. With an imagination like mine, even a tiny thing could turn into a flesh-eating beast.

“Do not scurry around me, you diseased little creatures,” I warned, picking up one of the boxes and setting it onto a pile that hadn’t been toppled. “Do not jump out at me.”

Energy pulsed and electricity sizzled. Emery was back.

I straightened up slowly and pushed hair behind my ears.

Emery stood next to Joe in the doorway, and a crazy grin spread across his face as he looked at me. Joe was back to being Joe, except he was also buck-naked.

“That’s”—I averted my gaze—“awkward.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry about the mess. I encountered a couple of mice, and things… Things kind of got away from me.”

“You should not be left alone,” Joe said in a dry voice. I didn’t want to chance looking up at his face because I had a feeling my gaze would catch elsewhere, and no one needed that.

“Yes.” I nodded. “That has been the general consensus throughout my life. I apologize.”

“Sorry, Joe. I didn’t realize…the full extent of what she meant when she said she caused havoc.” I didn’t have to see Emery’s face to know he was smiling. “Her mother had a bigger job than I thought.”

“Sure, yes. Rub it in.” I gingerly righted another box, looking at the ground. Any second, a rabid creature with giant fangs, red eyes, and projectile acidic spit might zip out.

“She doesn’t even swear,” Joe said, and I heard movement.

I glanced up, then tore my gaze away from a less-than-fuzz-free backside. Joe needed a wax.

“I was in the back counting the drawer, and the first thing I heard was ‘turdswallop Donkey Kong.’ What is that? Teach her to swear first, then work on her magic. Otherwise she’ll be a laughingstock.” He stalked down the hallway. “I’ll tell the staff there’s a cat up here in case she goes hopping around,” he called back, “but it might be best to muzzle her.”

“Well, that is not very nice,” I said, piling another box.

“It takes a lot of energy to change to the animal form and back,” Emery said, staring instead of helping with the mess. “Doing two changes in such a short time is enough to make a guy like Joe a little cranky.”

“Then maybe Joe should’ve thought about finding a real cat. And a mousetrap or two.” I piled another box. Silence dripped between us.

“Turdswallop…Donkey Kong?” Emery still wore that stupid grin. His eyes glittered in the light, and in this moment, I hated how pretty they were.

“You know my mother. I shouldn’t have to explain my aversion to swearing. It’s been beaten into me.”

“I know that your mother hates swearing, yes. I do not know where words like ‘turdswallop’ come from—”

“England, I think.”

“—or what Donkey Kong has to do with it—”

“You’d be surprised what those two get up to together.”

“—or why someone would put them together into one swear when freak, or gosh darn, or crap would do.”

I straightened up and put my hands on my hips. “You swear how you want to swear, and I’ll swear how I want.”

Emery took a step forward and shoved a box away with his foot.

“No, no.” I pointed at it. “Stack that out of the way. This place is a mess.”

His smile burned brighter. “Yes, ma’am.” He bent slowly, his sparkling eyes still connected with mine. The first box he picked up jingled with broken glass.

My face burned, the crimson hue probably so deep that I looked like I needed to go to a burn ward. “It’d be best with an aisle so we can easily walk between the bed and the bathroom.”

“Yes, it would. You are absolutely right.” He picked up another box of broken glass, smiling at me all the while.

I ground my teeth and turned my back on him before gingerly picking up another box. I kept my version of cursing and threatening vermin to myself.

“When I told Joe how I found you earlier…” he said, and another box jingled. He was really concerned about all the ones carrying broken glass. “I was kidding.”

I hesitated, the box in my hands hovering over its intended destination. “I know.” I shrugged to try and pull it off before gingerly setting the box down.

“Do you? Because your response implies you were actually trying to run me over.”

I searched my brain for some way out of this as I resumed my cleanup, but nothing came to mind. I sighed. “I was coming toward you at high speed. Of course I was trying to run you over.”

“Then why were you surprised I figured it out?”

“Flinging monkey turds, you are annoying,” I yelled. “Fine. Since you never mentioned it, I thought you might not have figured it out. But if you just want to put it all out there—”

“Yes, please.”

“When you stalked into the center of the street with that black ball between your hands, I thought you intended to kill the witness to your crimes. Me. So I figured I’d run you over. Only, you didn’t move. I was about to run you down, and you just stood there and stared at me with that blasted black ball in your hands. So I lost my nerve, cranked the wheel, and the next thing I knew, I was running over the dead guys and things had gotten out of control. There, happy? You’re welcome for not killing you.”

His laughter filled the room. He shook with it, bending over with a box, the fragments inside jingling for all they were worth.

I hit him with a box of napkins. “Shut up. I’ve never been in that situation before. I panicked.”

“What situation? A magic fight or trying to run someone over?”

I rolled my eyes and ignored the questions. “Well, if you didn’t want a fight, why did you stalk into the middle of the street with that black ball?” The smile dripped off his face. Then something dawned on me, and my stomach churned. “Oh my God—”

“Don’t say the Lord’s name in vain,” he said, his tone not as teasing as he’d probably intended. His gaze had turned intense. Sorrowful. Something was troubling him.

I couldn’t worry about his drama right now. I had my own.

“I killed that one guy, didn’t I?” I palmed my chest. “You told me the white magic was mine…”

“Survival magic,” he said. “Yours is pure white.”

My head spun and my legs weakened as the full extent of what I’d done dawned on me. Running over dead guys killed by someone else was one thing; killing someone with magic was something else entirely. I’d sworn not to use magic until I knew how (I kept breaking that rule), and I’d killed another person because of it.

I stepped back on wobbly knees, reaching behind me for the edge of the bed. My fingers brushed it, but I was already falling, my head light.

“Whoa, whoa. Hey…” The sound of boxes crashing preceded a pair of strong arms wrapping under my legs and around my back. I was rising before I’d hit the ground.

He held me tightly against his body as he stepped closer to the bed, the effort of holding me not causing him any strain. Like always, electricity surged between us. I soaked into it, letting it cocoon me.

“You had no choice.” Emery’s deep voice rumbled inside his chest. “They would’ve killed you if you hadn’t reacted. That’s what our survival magic does. It protects us in the direst situations. Usually our subconscious directs it, like it did with you.”

I sighed, burrowing a little deeper into his arms. He paused in putting me down, and I could feel the uncertainty in his hold. I needed him to keep holding me. Needed a couple minutes of his comfort to wash away my growing uncertainty. I was managing as best I could, but it was tough to come to grips with the stark reality of what I’d done with magic—again—not to mention the whole “Joe turning into a wolf” thing. I was living in a daydream half the time, and a nightmare the other half, shifting back and forth by the minute. A little taste of Emery’s strength and power was welcomed.

He must’ve sensed it, because he straightened up and adjusted his hold. My head inched up his shoulder until my face rested against the hollow of his neck.

“I just need a moment,” I mumbled into his warm skin.

“Of course. Take as long as you need.” He swayed, rocking me. “I mean it, Penny. You honestly didn’t have a choice,” he cooed, his voice soft. He squeezed me tightly. “Those three men had killed more than their fair share of mages. Innocent people who got in the way of the guild. Your conscience is clear. Should be clear. You were defending yourself.”

“I know,” I said, and nearly meant it. “It’s just a shock, is all. All of this is a shock.”

“I can imagine. But you are handling it beautifully. You might be easygoing most of the time, and content to follow directions, but you have a deep fire in you, Penny Bristol. When it is required of you, that fire rages. Don’t be ashamed of it. Your father would be happy to know you have some of your mother in you.”

The electricity filtered down until it hummed deep and low in my gut, tightening my body. I lifted my head a little as I slid my palm up his chest and then hooked my arm around his shoulder. I wasn’t sure where I was going with this, but when he suddenly stilled and the muscles along his arms and chest popped, I blinked out of my reverie.

“Sorry,” I said, tearing my hand away. “And thanks. Your words help. Except the bit about my mother, but I guess I should come to grips with that.”

His chuckle was soft and his hands felt strong and reassuring against my body. The breath exited my lungs slowly, washing over his neck. I hesitated within the sphere of his heat, knowing exactly what I’d intended when I’d felt him up. But I wouldn’t be able to give him what he was expecting, and then it would turn embarrassing for me and frustrating for him. Best not to tease him. Then accidentally kill him with my unconscious power if he got too handsy.

“Anyway.” I forced myself to push away. He set me down gently, staying close, and only then did I notice the slow churn of the magic surrounding us. “Am I doing that?”

“We are. We are doing that together. When we create this focused bubble around us, the magic flirts and plays within it.”

I stared up into his eyes, like looking at the Milky Way on a clear night. My gaze roamed the angles of his face and his defined jaw before stopping on his lush lips, shapely in a way that softened the severity of his features just enough to make him startlingly attractive.

“We should get the rest of these boxes set to rights.” I meant to step away, but my hand ended up on his chest, my palm over his heart.

He covered my hand with his, his gaze open and raw. Inviting and pleading and filled with pain and longing. His whole history was expressed in that look, topped off with the shared need we felt in the moment. “Okay.”

Our breath mingled and his head bent a fraction. The air between us heated and I strained upward.

“My bad,” Joe said.

I jumped at the sudden intrusion. The magic ballooned around us before morphing into a spear and blasting toward the door. Joe dove out of the way for the second time, his reactions, thankfully, fast.

“Would you stop doing that?” he demanded, not reappearing. “This is my bar, damn it! I shouldn’t be shot at with magic in my own bar. Not to mention the door was open.”

The electricity around us dissipated, and with it, the magic. I brushed myself off, a random reflex that made no sense in the moment, and looked around at the boxes on the floor. “Sorry about that, Joe. If that was my fault, I mean.”

“That was your fault, yes,” Emery said, his smile back but his eyes still deep and intense. “I don’t make spells that crude. Just jokes.”

Joe poked his head into the doorway. “Can I come in, or are you going to shoot at me again?”