Bittersweet Magic (The Order #2)

Tara entered the room behind Jonas and Christian, filling the space with her own exotic blend of sweet and bitter. “Tara, how lovely to see you. What the hell are you doing here?”


She grinned. “Lovely to see you too.” She sounded just about as sincere as he had. He studied her for a minute, searching for outward signs of her demon-fae heritage, but she still looked exactly the same—maybe even prettier. Living with Christian obviously agreed with her. Who would have thought it?

He had an inkling as to why Christian had brought her here today. To take care of the sisters perhaps, take them under her wing, protect them from his evil ways. Well, she could have Sister Maria, but Sister Rosa was his.

“Hey,” he said to Sister Rosa. “What is your name?”

“Rosamund Fairfax. Roz will do.”

Tara crossed the room and put the glasses she was carrying down on the table before holding out her hand to Roz. “Hi, I’m Tara. Christian’s wife.”

Roz grasped the hand almost gingerly and shook it.

Piers took the bottle of scotch from Jonas and poured out four glasses. He hovered the bottle over the fifth glass, and glanced at Tara.

Christian shuddered. “Don’t you dare.”

A teasing look passed from Tara to Christian. “I thought you liked me to drink.”

“Maybe when we’re alone and can lock all the doors, shutter the windows, lock away anything breakable…”

Roz was glancing between them, her expression confused. Piers decided to take pity on her.

“Tara is part demon,” he said.

If anything, Roz’s frown deepened.

“Don’t you know anything?” he asked.

A scowl replaced the frown. “No,” she snapped. “So why don’t you tell me?”

He shrugged. If she was more than five hundred years old as Jonas had hinted, where the hell had she been all that time that she understood so little of their world? “Demons tend to have a rather extreme reaction to alcohol—it makes them lose all their inhibitions. Demons can be quite restrained, but give them a drink and that restraint goes straight out the window—or wherever.”

“All demons?” she asked.

“Some more than others. The more powerful can control it and even the less powerful can learn—like people, I suppose. But Tara’s a little new to all this—”

She was studying Tara now. “Why? Why is she new?”

“Perhaps she’ll explain all that to you later, but for now, I think you’re supposed to be telling us something.”

It was Roz’s turn to shrug. “There’s not a lot to tell.”

“How about starting with who you are, what you are, what that thing on your arm means, and what the hell you were doing in a convent dressed like that when you’re no more of a nun than I am?”

“She’s not?” Christian asked. He sounded surprised, so obviously Jonas hadn’t had time to fill him in.

Roz pursed her lips. “I’d make a very good nun.”

“The hell you would.” Piers moved around the table, sat in one of the chairs opposite, and gestured to the empty seats. “You may as well all get comfortable—I have a feeling this is going to take some time.” While Roz had agreed to cooperate, he had a feeling that getting information out of her was not going to be a quick or easy process. Even now, he could almost see her brain working. She caught his gaze, and her expression turned guileless. She must be an excellent actress to stay unnoticed for so long. He waited until everyone was seated. “Well?”

Instead of answering, she swallowed her scotch in one gulp, reached across the table, and poured herself another glass. Finally, she took a deep breath.

“I told you the truth—well, some of it. I don’t know what I am.” She stared at the point behind his shoulder for a minute, and he curbed his impatience. He had an idea that she hadn’t told this story to anyone, and that intrigued him.

“A while back some people were going to kill me because of what they believed I was, so I made a deal with someone, and that someone saved me. But in exchange for saving me, I was indebted to him until I had done a certain number of tasks. Apparently the mark on my arm will vanish when I’ve completed them.”

How could she manage to say so much and so little at the same time?

“When was this?” he asked.

She bit her lip. “About five hundred years ago—1495, to be precise. And I was to be burned as a witch. They killed my mother.”

Even after all this time, he saw the pain flash across her face. But not only pain; there was rage there as well, and he’d guess it was the rage that had fueled her actions all those years ago. His little Roz was a maelstrom of emotions inside that serene exterior.

“Was your mother a witch?” he asked, as much to get a reaction as anything else, but instead of her anger, she looked thoughtful.