Mira forced herself to switch her attention from Jack's stroking finger to her magick. With care, she imagined a single smoky tendril of power, extracting it from the small bundle of magick tingling in her chest. It was hard to grab. Once she thought she had the edge of a wisp, it was difficult to draw it outward. Finally, she managed it, letting it hang in the air between them.

"Good," he murmured. "I can feel it rising.”

"What does it feel like?”

"Soft, beautiful, and tentative, but with an edge of unrealized power. Filled with possibility." He drew a breath. "It feels a lot like you.”

That comment left her speechless.

"Smells like fresh linen and lemons, too," he murmured.

It was very hard to concentrate under these conditions. His voice seemed like melted chocolate to her—rich, sinful... and very, very bad for her. His hand so near her breasts was even worse. It took all her concentration to pay attention to the task he'd set her.

"Now, what do you want to do with that wisp? It's yours to command.”

Mira concentrated on raising a breeze, just a small one. It felt cool and smelled of the woods. She let it blow over herself and Jack, let it play in their hair and caress their cheeks. The tendril dissipated easily as it expended itself.

Smiling, she opened her eyes and found Jack looking at her intently, his hair mussed from the breeze. Slowly, he removed his fingers from between her breasts. "That was excellent.”

Her smile widened.

He stood. "Now, do that one hundred and fifty times and we can move on to something bigger." Jack walked back into his bedroom.

Oh. That was a buzz kill.

Mira's smile faded as she watched him close the door. She sighed, glancing around at the carnage her magick had wrought, then stood and started cleaning up.

* * *

Jack stooD at the edge of a demon circle in the same place his father had stood when Jack had been a child. The sound of chanting filled his ears.

Mira's mother knelt in her place, her gaze fixed on him as she endured the ritual theft of her power. Jack tried to look away, but couldn't. As he stood there watching her die, her face slowly morphed to Mira's.

The scene changed. Now he stood in a cemetery under a night sky in high summer. Grass and weeds choked the bases of the crumbling tombstones around him, the air redolent with the scent of decay and rotting flowers. The stink gathered in his nostrils, in his throat. He gagged on it.

"Jack," called a soft, feminine voice.

He turned toward the sound and saw a woman lying at the foot of an enormous granite angel. Pieces of the sculpture broke off and fell in slow motion around the prone figure at its base.