I gasped when he dumped his cold coffee into the paper-napkin cup and coffee predictably went through the napkin and all over the table. “What are you doing?” I protested, my motion to stand halting when he reached across the table and grasped my wrist. Smiling, Pierce squished the napkin in one hand to get the last of the coffee out. Taking my finger, he traced it through the puddle and touched it to my lips, bringing the nasty taste of salty coffee to me. That’s not why I shivered, though. Stop it. Just stop it now, Rachel.

“Just like the salt, your aura can be tuned so the gaps within it are bigger. It is still your aura, unchanged, but when the holes match up with the holes of the line, you can slip through right smart. Like magic. Each line is different. Know the line, and you can travel to it.”

My lips were salty, and I felt another quiver as he held my wrist with the width of the table between us. “You’ve made a mess,” I said, not looking from his eyes. They were blue, but not like Kisten’s. Not like Kisten’s at all.

“Do tell?” Pierce leaned across the table until he was inches away. His eyes were glinting. I didn’t care if it was him or what he had told me that got my pulse racing. He was holding my wrist, almost pulling me closer. “Are you of a mind to try to shift your aura?” he offered. “Without Bis, you won’t know what to match it to, but if I should make a die of it, my wicked witch tucked away in Alcatraz will have something to ponder.”

The memory of Alcatraz was like a slap, and I jerked from him. “God, yes,” I said as my hand slipped from his. “What do we do first?”

He smiled, taking a moment to swipe the coffee up with the dish towel before he held his hands out over the table, palms up. “We bring our souls to perfect balance.”

My eyebrows rose. Tap a line and bring the energy in our chi to an equal state?

“My intentions are honorable,” Pierce protested, but his lips twitched in amusement.

Eyes narrowing, I crossed my arms and looked at him. Balancing two people’s chis was innocent enough. Sort of. It was a common event between teachers and students of the higher ley-line courses, sort of finding ground zero when learning a new charm, but it was also the same thing as a power pull, which was basically sex with your clothes on if you did it right. And I’d be willing to bet that Pierce knew how to do it right.

“If you’re skeery …,” he taunted, leaning back and letting his hands fall below the table.

My eyes scrunched up. “This is something I really want to know,” I said softly. “Please?”