I might be a great thief, but I wasn’t so great when it came to people, preferring to pick their pockets than to make friends with them. But Devon had steadfastly ignored and overcome all my defenses, just by being the kind, caring, genuine, loyal guy he was. I hadn’t done a single thing in my life to deserve him, but now that he was mine, I was going to care for and protect him as best I could. Technically, being Devon’s bodyguard was one of my jobs within the Family, but he watched out for me just as much as I did for him.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t like I’d gone soft or anything. I still picked plenty of pockets on the streets of Cloudburst Falls, West Virginia, and I wasn’t above snatching phones, cameras, and other shiny things from people who could afford to lose them. After all, a girl had to keep in practice. But now I did most of my thieving for the greater good and with a little mob muscle behind me. Like my job tonight. One that Felix was jeopardizing with his constant chattering and tromping around.
Felix rolled his eyes. “Enough with the lovey-dovey stuff already,” he groused, grabbing his duffel bag and hoisting it onto his shoulder again, making more clank-clanks ring out. “I thought we had places to break into and stuff to steal tonight.”
Instead of letting me go, Devon wrapped both arms around me and pulled me even closer. “And you’re just jealous that Deah’s not here, or you would be doing the same thing with her.”
Felix huffed. “Please. I would already be kissing my girl and telling her how beautiful she is—and that’s before I took her for a moonlit stroll. Totally working my romantic A game from start to finish, which I intend to do the second we sneak into the compound and meet up with her. So, if you’ll excuse me, my lady awaits.”
He snapped up his hand in a cheeky salute, then whirled around and started stomping through the woods again, making almost as much noise as he had before. He might have put away his sword so that he wasn’t hacking through the bushes anymore, but he started muttering instead. Felix wasn’t completely happy unless his mouth was going a hundred words a minute, even if he was only talking to himself.
I sighed. “I don’t know whether to strangle him or admire his confidence.”
“Relax, Lila.” Devon turned so that he was facing me, his hands dropping to my waist. “Felix will quiet down once we actually get close to the mansion. He knows how important this is. We all do.”
I nodded. “You always know just what to say to make me feel better.”
He grinned. “That’s part of being a good boyfriend, right?”
I looped my arms around his neck. “The best boyfriend.”
Devon stared at me, his green eyes glimmering like dark emeralds. My gaze locked with his, and my soulsight—my magic—kicked in, letting me look into the depths of his heart and feel all of his warm happiness flooding my chest as if it was my own emotion. In a way, it was my own emotion since I felt the exact same thing whenever I looked at Devon, whenever I heard his voice, whenever I made him laugh or smile or brightened his day in any way.
I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his. Devon’s arms tightened around me, and he kissed me back, our lips coming together time and time again, until I felt as though we were spinning around and around in dizzying circles, even though we were standing still.
“Any time you two lovebirds are ready!” Felix called out, his voice loud enough to make the rockmunks on the forest floor scurry into their stone dens.
Devon and I broke apart, both of us breathing hard and holding on to each other.
“Unfortunately, duty calls,” he murmured in a husky voice. “To be continued later?”
I grinned. “You’d better believe it.”
Devon and I caught up with Felix, and the three of us headed deeper into the woods.
The summer sun had set while Devon and I had been kissing, and darkness was quickly creeping over the land. We didn’t dare use a flashlight, and Devon and Felix fell back, letting me take the lead, since I could still see everything around me as clearly as if it were noon. Not only could I use my rare soulsight magic to look into people and feel what they were feeling, but I also had the much more common and mundane Talent of being able to see everything around me in crystal clarity, no matter how dark it was.
And the place we were going was definitely dark—the Draconi Family compound, home of Victor Draconi, the most powerful person in Cloudburst Falls, the sworn enemy of the Sinclair Family.
And the monster who’d murdered my mom.
The longer we hiked, the darker it got, and the quieter the three of us became. Even Felix stopped talking, dropped his hand to his sword, and scanned the trees around us, though he couldn’t see through the thick fog that was slowly sliding down from the top of Cloudburst Mountain and invading the forests below.
Every once in a while, I could hear the faint rush of water in the distance from one of the many waterfalls that tumbled down the mountain. The resulting clouds of mist always cloaked the top of the rugged peak, even during the hottest part of the day, but at night, after the sun had set, the fog grew thicker and thicker and sank lower and lower on the mountain.