Five minutes later we made it outside. His wife was dead and all Antonio could think about was how it would affect his social standing. What a colossal asshole.

“The right attire and a trip to the salon?” I rolled my eyes, heading for the car. “I may have to break my piggy bank.”

“That right there is why I don’t socialize,” Rogan said.

“It’s good that we had him explain all this to us. I feel so unprepared. I had no idea I had to have the right outfit before I talked to a Prime. You should’ve given me a list of what was appropriate to wear. I hope you’re not offended.”

I turned and suddenly Rogan was there. I stepped back on pure instinct and my back bumped against the car. All of the ice in his eyes had melted. They were hot, inviting, seducing. He was thinking of sex and that sex prominently featured me.

“I’m not offended.”

His big muscular body caged me in. He focused on me as if the rest of the world didn’t even exist. When he looked at you like that, he made you feel like you were the most important person in the universe. Every word you said mattered to him. Every gesture you made was vital. It was devastating. I wanted to keep talking and doing things to keep him focused on me just like that.

“I don’t care how you come to see me.” His voice was casual, almost lazy. “You can come in a suit. You can come in jeans.”

He was just screwing around with me now. Well, maybe it was time to take some of that power back from him.

“You can come wrapped in a towel. You can come naked. Really, it’s up to you. As long as you come, I don’t care.”

Aren’t you smug? I took a tiny step forward, raising my face as if to kiss him. “What if I don’t come at all?”

His voice dropped. “That would be a tragedy. I would use all of my power to prevent it.”

His eyes were so blue and they were making promises. All kinds of promises about being an outlaw in bed and doing things I would never forget. I looked right into them and tried my best to make some promises of my own.

“All of your powers?” If I leaned forward an inch, we would be touching. The space between us was so charged with tension, if we brushed against each other, we might spark. I was playing with fire.

“Yes.” His magic hovered around him, anticipating and eager, almost daring me to reach out.

“Are we still talking about clothes?” I asked.

“If you say so.”

He leaned forward and I put my finger on his lips and pushed him back. “No.”

His eyes narrowed. “No?”

I dropped my hand.

“Let’s see, you ask me to be your toy, I say no, you move on. You don’t call, you don’t write, you don’t come by. You make no effort to prove to me that you wanted anything more than some casual sex.”

His eyes darkened. “There would be nothing casual about it.”

I believed him, but it didn’t change my point. “You treated me like some cheap amusement.”

He leaned an inch closer. “I didn’t.”

I should’ve been alarmed, but I had too much emotion pent up to stop now.

“Rogan, do you know how little I mattered to you? You didn’t even want to go through the motions of dating me. You just wanted to skip all of it and get straight to sex. You made me feel this small.” I held my index finger and thumb apart about an eighth of an inch. “Have sex with me, Nevada. I’m not even going to pretend to want to know you better.”

His jaw tightened. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I offered you a chance to fight for a relationship and you didn’t take it. You clearly moved on. I did too.”

A muscle in his face jerked.

“And now that I’m conveniently here, you decide to give it another shot. Is there a shortage of attractive women in your life, Connor?”

“There is a shortage of you in my life,” he said.

“Really?”

“A critical shortage. One that must be immediately corrected.”

He was being deliberately vague. He couldn’t lie to me, so he resorted to making the kind of statements I’d have a hard time qualifying. You had to admire the man’s brain.

“Not interest—”

Rogan yanked me to him and jerked his hand up. My Mazda left the ground. A six-foot wide disk of crimson fire slashed into my car and exploded. Chunks of razor-sharp metal blades rained on both sides of us, trailing crimson and hissing. I sprinted for the massive oak behind us. Behind me the Mazda crashed onto the pavement with a metal clang.

I pressed my right shoulder against the bark and pulled the Glock out. Rogan landed next to me. Blood soaked his right thigh.

“You’re bleeding!”

“A scratch,” he growled. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

My heart pounded too loud and too fast. The bitter taste of adrenaline coated my tongue.

Something thudded into the tree on the right. I almost jumped.

Another thud.

I leaned forward carefully.

A smaller disk of crimson spun right at my face. I jerked back, colliding with Rogan. The wheel of magic whistled past me and sank into the ground, smoking. A metal star, a foot wide, with four double-edged razor-sharp points. Deep red magic boiled off its blades.

“A barrage mage.” Rogan leaned on his side and ducked back as another star thudded into the oak. “Two.”

“How do you know?”

“Two different shades of red.”

On my side a disk shaved off a slice of the tree.

“Can you stop one in flight?” I asked.

Another disk sliced a three-inch-thick slab from Rogan’s side of the tree.

“No. They’re coated in magic.”

That’s right. According to my books, an object wrapped in magic lost its physical properties until the point of impact. If he jumped out there, the disks these guys threw would slice right through him.

Another chunk slid from the oak. They were chopping it down from two sides. Running to the house was out of the question. The closest place to hide would be the arched entrance to the De Trevinos’ house, which required a fifty-foot sprint. They would hit us. Making an arcane circle was right out too. We were on the grass.

Rogan leaned out. Another thud. He swore, pulling back. All of his magic meant nothing unless he found a target. He could level the entire row of houses across the street, but there were families in those houses.

I dropped down to my knees and peeked from behind the oak.

A shadow moved on the roof of the mansion across from us. A crimson disk hurtled toward me. I threw myself behind the tree. It whistled past me, its magic singeing my shoulder.

“One is on the roof directly across from us.”

Rogan’s face was grim. “The other is at the next house on our left.”

“They’re quick.”

“I noticed that.”

“You can’t collapse those roofs.”

“Not planning on it.”

“This is a family neighborhood. There could be children inside those homes.”

He grabbed my hand and looked at me, his blue eyes calm and reassuring. “I know.”

He wouldn’t hurt them. At least no other people would die because of us.

Disks thudded into the wood, gouging the oak. The tree shuddered from the impact. The barrage mages were ducking and throwing, too fast for Rogan to lock on to.

We had to move. We were running out of the tree.

I leaned back, facing the tree, and turned my head. Nothing to my right. Only houses. Nothing to my left, except more house and a carpet of brown mulch that crawled toward us . . .

Wait a minute.

Not mulch. Ants.

“Rogan, we’re about to have company.”

He glanced to the left and swore.

The carpet of the ants advanced in thin rivulets, the currents of insects pooling and changing directions as if momentarily confused, then realigning themselves. Whoever was controlling them didn’t have a good hold on the ant horde. He didn’t need to. We were in Texas, facing an insect mage, and that meant fire ants. They would flush us from behind the tree and the barrage mages would finish us.

The tree shook continuously now. It wouldn’t last much longer.