Page 2 of Warlocks Don't Win
“Clary, I’m glad to see you’re doing well,” he murmured while I waited for the door to recharge before I put him through. Now it wasn’t Clarinda?
My blood boiled while steam curled out of my ears. Not actually. I kept as cold as a block of ice. “I’m sure my happiness and well-being is one of your greatest priorities. Why are you really here?” I asked, turning to face him fully.
He was so tall, broad-shouldered, powerful. He was trouble, and he’d come to my city, then my shop, like he wanted to pull all of us under his wing for our protection. I’d relied on him for my protection once before. For some reason, I wasn’t interested in an encore.
He studied me back with an impassive expression that I couldn’t read. He’d gotten quite good at acting in the past fifteen years. “I’d like to apologize,” he said abruptly, stiff and formal. Where was his pleasant smile as he wormed his way into a coven he wanted under his control?
“What for?”
He winced. “Your incarceration.”
I froze for a beat while reason and control lost to anger and vengeance. Wow. He was sorry for my incarceration. Not for betraying me, for witnessing against me, for making sure I ended up behind bars in the prison for the worst kinds of offenders. The way he said it, past tense, ‘I’d like to apologize for your incarceration,’ like he wasn’t the one who personally ensured my being convicted of murder.
My skin buzzed with rage. I took a step closer to him, cocking my head as I studied him from that angle. “I forgive you.”
I’d rather eat broken glass than absolve him of his sins. I took another step closer to him, letting myself look at his broad shoulders for a moment. I smoothed my fingers over the patched warlock coat, tugging on a loose seam. “It’s not in the best shape, is it? I have a section of coats that you could look at. Not on sale, sadly, but you don’t need sales, do you?”
He cleared his throat. “You forgive me?” He didn’t believe me, or didn’t believe his ears. It’s like he used to know me. No, he knew the idiotic, sweet, helplessly in love child of a notoriously evil family. I’d wanted him to take me away from her shadows and bring me into the light of respectability and true love. He was supposed to be my prince charming. I’d believed in him, thathe’d be my hero. Instead, he’d condemned me to a fate worse than death.
I shrugged and tugged on his lapels. “What’s to forgive? It was a long time ago. You really should replace this old thing.” I was going to cut off his head and stick in on a pike in my front yard. Not that I had a front yard. Other than the creaky mansion where my mother had died. That would be something to really decorate the place. Lean into the haunted ambiance.
His voice was low, rough. “You left all polite society, untraceable, hidden from everyone you knew. Why would you go to those lengths if you didn’t still…”
I raised my chin. “I believe in moving on, putting the past behind me. Like you should do for your coat. How about we do a buy-one-get-one-fifteen-percent-off?”
He raised a perfectly groomed brow over those caramel eyes and I tried not to feel weird in today’s lime-green and yellow striped color combo. Including eyebrows. “And color. You used to prefer black or dark purple.”
“Did I? Maybe I just thought that’s what I was supposed to like as dictated by my position in upper neutral magic society.” I frowned at the door. It was taking too long to reset, almost like someone was interfering with it. Could that be a subtle magical surge from our dear old friend, Winston? It had to be. That was an attack I would be completely justified in responding to in kind. How could I undo him? The stitching on his coat. I could start unravelling that easily enough.
I turned and gripped his lapels again, pulling him closer so I could stare into his eyes.
His eyes widened in panic, but he didn’t push me off him. Good. I’d be better able to destroy his priceless coat if he was distracted by the fear that I might kill him like he’d testified I’d done to my mother.
“You look tired, Win,” I said, looking deep into those pools of melting caramel. “Maybe trying to rule the world isn’t worth the exhaustion.”
His eyes flickered with purple lightning for a moment before he slid his large hands around my waist and pulled me against him.
Wait. What was going on? I was undoing the seams of his coat. Of course I was, but being so close, he smelled so good, and I felt the same rush of warmth and rightness I’d felt the first time I’d danced with him. He’d put his hand on the small of my back, leading me into the elaborate steps that my current coven wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to follow. It had been love at first dance.
I’d been so stupid. I’d loved him so completely. If I’d found him over the body of someone holding the knife, I would have given him an alibi, mine to protect whether he committed the crime or not. He gave the judge his testimony against me.
“You look perfect,” he murmured and then lowered his head, slowly, slowly, until his lips met mine.
Excuse me. This wasn’t happening. My heart wasn’t racing, my toes weren’t curling, and my soul wasn’t singing. Nope. Except…
For too long, I let him kiss me, swept away by the sensations of happiness and well-being that were so perpendicular to my real life that I was able to swim my way through the madness and process some things.
Winston the Warlock was giving me access to his skin, his breath, his vulnerability. Of course it was all a ploy to accomplish one of his elaborate plots. He was trying to sweep me away back into that insipid obsession I’d had for the beast.
He felt so good. I had two choices: forget about reality and pretend that this was a dream segment with no consequences, or I could use our connection to absorb his magic, using thatdark legacy my dead mother had left me. I hadn’t stolen anyone’s magic since I’d turned seventeen and realized that it turned meathead jocks into super stalkers. He was the reason I’d taken that trip to Apple City with my new friend, Jessica’s distant cousin, and met Winston at the ball no Sage from the Salem Coven would ever go to. And fell in love. I’d been such an idiot.
Still was if how incredibly good it felt to be back in Winston’s arms was any indication. I slipped my hands around his neck, finding skin to skin contact with my palms, and then I pulled him against me, his magic, his taste, his will.
I kissed him until his hands relaxed their grip and he fell back, shoulder thudding against the door while he looked at me with bleary eyes.
“Clary?” he slurred, squinting at me. “What did you do?”
“It’s called forgiveness,” I said, pushing him away from the door so he crashed into the wall and wouldn’t block the door when he collapsed. “The next time I see you, I’ll forgive you so hard, you’ll never recover,” I whispered as I pulled his coat off his shoulders, freeing his arms easily.
