“And the necklace…” Trent held it up, and my eyes widened. It was gorgeous, made of interlaced rings the size of my thumbnail and matching the earrings. They made a delicate lace panel, and I would have labeled it goth but for its richness. A wooden pendant in the shape of the Celtic rune for protection hung from the nadir, and I hesitated in my reach. It was beautiful, but I suspected its peekaboo lace would make me a veritable vampire slut.

And Celtic magic gave me the willies. It was a specialized art, much of it depending upon one’s belief, not if you did the spell right or not. More of a religion than magic. I didn’t like mixing religion and magic—it made for terribly strong forces when something unmeasurable mixed its will with that of the practitioner’s intent, making the results not necessarily in line with what was expected. It was wild magic, and I preferred mine nicely scientific. If you invoke the help of a higher being, you can’t complain when things don’t go to your plan, but to its.

“Turn around,” Trent said, and my eyes darted to his. “I’ll put it on you. It has to be snug for it to look right.”

I was not about to show Trent I was squeamish, and as protection charms were fairly reliable, I took the simple fake gold cord from around my neck and dropped it into my clutch bag with my earrings. I wondered if Trent knew what wearing this was saying, deciding he probably did and thought it was a big joke.

Tension tightened my shoulders as I gathered strands of hair that Randy had pulled for effect. The necklace settled about my neck in a heavy feeling of security, still warm from his pocket.

Trent’s fingers touched me, and I yelped in surprise as a surge of ley line energy rose through me and into him. The car swerved and Trent’s fingers jerked away. The necklace hit the carpeted floor with a tinkle of metal. Hand to my throat, I stared at him.

He had put himself into the corner. The amber light from the ceiling glinted to make shadows on him. Eyeing me with a look of annoyance, he scooted forward and scooped the necklace from the floor, jiggling it until it hung properly across one hand.

“Sorry,” I said, heart pounding and my hand still covering my neck.

Trent frowned, meeting Jonathan’s gaze in the rearview mirror before gesturing for me to turn back around. I did, very conscious of him behind me. “Quen said you’ve been working on your ley line skills,” Trent said while he draped the metal over me again. “It took me a week to learn how to keep my familiar’s energy from trying to equalize when I touched another practitioner. Of course I was three at the time, so I had an excuse.”