Barely Bewitched by Kimberly Frost Page B

throat felt like it was on fire, but I was pretty certain it wasn’t, since no smoke came out of my mouth when I coughed.
    “Just a sec,” I said, hustling over to the bar. “Have any limes?” I asked the bartender.
    He gave me a small dish full. I put a wedge between my teeth and bit down, swallowing the tangy juice as I walked back to the table. My glass was full again; so was Incendio’s. He was ready to pour for Jordan, but Jordan put a hand over his glass.
    “Three’s my limit, mate. I don’t even like tequila.”
    “Gringos,” Incendio said with a roll of his eyes.
    I discarded the lime wedge as Jordan said, “I’ll just play a spot of pool.” He got up.
    “Hey, I thought we were gonna talk about the challenge thing,” I said in a low voice.
    “In a bit,” Jordan said as he walked away.
    “ ’Bout time he left. I’ll drink two to your one. You think you can handle that, Red?” he asked.
    Not for long. But now that the spell was already on us, how much difference would a couple more drinks make? From experience, I knew I could handle two or three tequila shots without getting sloppy drunk.
    “I think I can, but if I lean over suddenly, you’d better mind your boots.”
    He laughed, and we both lifted our glasses. He tapped mine with his, and we drank them down. I coughed a little and chewed another lime wedge while he drank a shot alone. Two to my one, and he started before I got here, I thought. I didn’t care how “bad to the bone” he was; I’d give a bottle of tequila the edge over a man every time. When he got good and drunk, I bet I could get a lot of information from him.
    “What do you know about my cat? You know where he’s from?” Incendio asked. There was already a slight slur at the edge of his words.
    “No, where is he from?” I asked.
    “We hooked up in Tijuana. He got in a fight with my hawk over a lizard. Jose never lost a fight ’til then.”
    “Yeah, Merc’s a real good fighter.”
    “He’s not the cat for a little girl. Few more months, he’ll be tearing up everything in sight.”
    “I suppose who he lives with is up to him,” I said, trying not to stick my chin out defiantly.
    “Ain’t hard to decide it’s time to move on if your old house is a pile of ash.”
    “You burn my house down, and you’ll be sorry,” I said. I slapped a hand over my mouth, wondering why I’d said that.
    “Why would I be sorry?”
    I shook my head and licked my tingly lips. He filled our glasses again.
    “Why would I be sorry? You think your boots are big enough to kick dirt on me? You been hiding your magic from the powers that be, and now you’re going to unleash it?”
    That surprised me. So WAM didn’t believe that the reason I’d never used my powers before was because I hadn’t had any? Did they think I’d been secretly training? If so, then Bryn was right. The guys in charge were paranoid.
    “ ’Course not. But if you’re here to cause trouble, don’t expect me to just stand around and take it,” I said. Sweat popped out on my forehead as he edged my drink to me. “Last one for me,” I announced and swallowed it.
    He drank, too.
    “You know, Incendio Maldaron, I don’t think that you’re just here to teach me spells. Why are you in my town?”
    He raised his eyebrows, then grinned. “Don’t think too hard about it, Red.”
    “Are you here to—”
    He reached across and covered my mouth with his palm. “You’ll follow your next question to the grave.”
    Fear curled in my belly, and, for a moment, I saw flames dance in his eyes.
    I leaned back and wiped my forehead. It was too hot in my seat. I kicked off my shoes, resting my toes in the sawdust on the floor.
    “Where’s Melanie? She still live here?” he asked.
    “Yep, but she’s out of town just now.”
    “You look like her.”
    “She’s my aunt.”
    “You drink like her.”
    “Recklessly with strangers, you mean?”
    He put a cigarette between his lips, and the end smoldered to life