Read [Corine Solomon 5] Agave Kiss for Free Online Page B

what’s in your books, it’s you. I just hoped . . .”
    “Me too.”
    But sometimes the situation was impossible. There was only a dark night ending in the grave. Bleak thoughts filled my head as I ate in silence. Eventually it occurred to me that I hadn’t tried to use the touch since returning from Sheol. Maybe it could prove helpful in this regard, assuming it still worked.
    “Do you have anything that belonged to Macleish?” I asked at length.
    “I do, actually.”
    “Let me see it?”
    I was astonished when he brought me a gold tooth. Booke lifted his thin shoulders in a shrug. “I told you we fought.”
    Metal was generally good about capturing a charge, but this had physically been part of Donal Macleish. I had never attempted to read a glass eye or a prosthetic limb. The fact that their last encounter had been the catalyst for the tooth’s removal might actually prove valuable. I braced myself when Booke dropped the chunk of gold into my palm.
    After a bracing breath, I dropped the shields that kept me from indiscriminately reading everything I touched. There came a flicker deep at the core of me, like this ability had gone dormant. At first I thought it wasn’t going to work, and then the flicker became a conflagration. Pain burned through me, a fire in my palm that seared my nerves all the way up to my elbows. Sweat broke out as the vision suffused me. My eyes went blank, and then superimposed images cascaded through my head, along with lightning-fast emotional impressions. Fleeting thoughts.
    Kill him. No. Make him suffer.
    Two men, struggling. The punches rained between them with unskilled ferocity. One would stagger back and attempt to invoke a spell, only to be interrupted by the other in a desperate charge. Both their faces were bloody, broken noses, split lips. The room reflected the same destruction. Books were strewn about, pages torn loose, spines snapped. Crockery lay in shards, and one chair had been smashed flat, the legs surrounding it like a denuded daisy in the throes of He Loves Me Not.
    Bright blue energy streamed from Booke’s fingertips, but before he could complete the incantation, Donal slammed him headfirst into a wall. Which was when Booke lost the fight. I could see he was wandering in and out of consciousness, groggy as hell. Still, he lashed out with a final blow—and that was the one that knocked the tooth from Donal’s mouth.
    The vision dumped me on Booke’s kitchen floor. Well, that was new. I didn’t remember ever moving this way before, but I had been in the chair, and now I was on all fours, panting through my open mouth. And I had a new scar on my palm, the final evidence that I’d lost my mother’s magick in Sheol. Her abilities made the touch easier, somewhat less damaging, but that benefit was gone now.
    Booke knelt beside me, looking fearful, concerned. “Is it always like that?”
    I mustered a half smile. “Sometimes it’s worse.”
    “That’s rather awful.” He stroked my hair gently, a paternal gesture.
    “Trust me, I know.”
    “Did you learn anything useful?” He couldn’t help the hopeful rise in tone. It was human nature to look for the way out, even after you accepted you were fully painted into a corner.
    “If I still had my mother’s magick, I could use the tooth and my witch sight to unravel the spell. But since that’s not an option, I need to think about it.”
    There might be no way out of this for Booke, apart from my summoning Dumah. And if that was the case, I’d bite the bullet for him. She could devour the spell—maybe—in lieu of our souls and should count it a worthy snack. I just hoped she didn’t want additional payment, as I had shit for collateral these days. Demons didn’t care for cash.
    He helped me back into the chair, where we finished our lunch. Shannon joined us a few moments later, looking measurably happier.
    “You got in touch with Jesse?” I asked.
    “Yep. He’s not thrilled, but I told him we’d be