Page 12 of Demon Loved
“Then I guess it was very lucky that I heard you playing when I passed by the tasting room.”
For a moment, her gaze met his. The lighting was dim enough in here that normal human vision probably wouldn’t have been able to detect the pure blue hues of her eyes, but Belshegar’s sight was anything but normal. He could detect the subtle shimmers of paler tones, almost crystalline gray, could see the dark ring around her irises, something that only served to make her eye color stand out that much more.
Even if the rest of her hadn’t been equally as lovely, those eyes alone would have made her a beauty.
“I suppose it is,” she said lightly. Her lips parted, as though she intended to ask him something else, but the waitress arrived with their food right then.
A moment was taken up by their plates being set down in front of them and the waitress asking if they needed anything else. Belshegar wasn’t sure why she would pose such a question, not when they hadn’t ordered anything other than their entrées, and those had already been delivered.
But Brianna smiled and thanked the other woman, and said she was fine and everything looked great. Picking up on her cue, he murmured much the same.
And then they were alone again.
He had to admit the food smelled delicious, and the first few bites only supported that impression. It seemed Brianna’s brother must have used magic to create such dishes, for the flavors were blended so skillfully that he thought the food had become far more than the sum of its parts.
Of course he couldn’t ask Bree if that was the truth, not when she knew she must never divulge anything about her magical nature to a stranger…and not when she thought he was no more of witch-kind than the woman who had just brought them their food.
To be fair, he wasn’t witch-kind. No, he was something far, far different, even though he possessed magical gifts of his own.
“How is your food?” he asked politely.
“Wonderful — but it always is when Shane’s cooking.” She paused there, fork resting against her plate. “How’s yours?”
“It’s excellent,” Belshegar replied, knowing he could be truthful about that…if not a host of other subjects. “Your brother obviously has a gift for this sort of thing.”
She blinked, clearly a little put off by the way he’d phrased the comment. But then something about her seemed to relax, as though she’d told herself it wasn’t such a strange thing to say, and that people made remarks about “gifts” and “talents” all the time without those comments ever referring to the powers that a witch or warlock might possess.
“Yes,” she said as she set down her fork and reached for her glass of wine. “He knew from the time he was really young that he wanted to be a chef, and he went to culinary school down in Phoenix. Still, landing the top spot in the kitchen here was kind of a coup for him, since he’s only twenty-seven. Usually, you need to earn your lumps in a sous chef position for a few years before you’re running the back of house.”
Several of the phrases she’d used were unfamiliar to him, but Belshegar did his best to sort out her words. From what he was able to tell, she was saying that her brother was young for the position he currently held, and that was all due to his unique skills.
“I suppose it’s always good to know what you want to do in life,” he said.
Something about Brianna’s mouth seemed to tighten, and he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. But then her expression smoothed itself and became almost cheerful once again.
“And what do you do in life?” she inquired, her tone almost teasing now.
Damn. He hadn’t taken the time to concoct much of a story about himself, mostly because he hadn’t thought he would have to do anything more than pose as a tourist interested in local history.
He’d never thought he’d be sitting down to dinner with a member of the local witch clan.
But Brianna was gazing at him with those astonishing blue eyes, so he knew he had to think of something. For him to be here at a time that wasn’t a holiday and with no real itinerary seemed to indicate that he had plenty of leisure time to do with as he pleased.
And he had the example of the Castillos to go on. True, many of them had some sort of career, if only to help obfuscate the true source of their wealth, but others seemed to do very little except paint or write or simply be.
“I live off my investments,” he said, thinking that felt simpler than trying to explain a job he didn’t even possess, and her eyes widened a little.
“Those must be some investments,” she responded with a grin, and picked up her fork again.
Had he misstepped? Well, he’d said the words, so it wasn’t as though he could retreat now.
“And an inheritance,” he added, hoping that would help to explain the situation, and now she actually chuckled.
“Well, I’m glad you’re being honest about it. So, you just travel where you like, when you like?”
“More or less,” he said. That wasn’t completely a lie. Except for those times when Elena had summoned him for companionship and comfort, his time had been entirely his own.
Until the voice sent him here to retrieve the artifacts, of course.
