Neither of them noticed a tall, leggy blond woman nearby on the platform giving Owen the eye. That wasn’t unusual, as gorgeous as Owen was, but most women gave up pretty quickly when he didn’t notice the flirtation. This woman kept staring hard enough for her gaze to burn holes through me on its way to him, and then she grinned and licked her lips.

Chapter Four

A train arrived, and I herded the guys to the car just behind us. With all the bad magic flying around these days, I thought it was safest to assume the woman was trouble. She was a woman on a mission and shoved her way through the crowd to get on the same car with us.

The train was jam-packed, and as long as the she-wolf didn’t have a clear line of sight to use magic on Owen, he’d be safe. She hadn’t come close enough to snag anything of Owen’s to use to focus a spell, and I doubted she planned to enchant everyone else in the car. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. I wondered if Spellworks offered an anti-man-stealing-bitch charm.

Owen, Rod, and I clustered around a pole, Owen hooking the arm holding his briefcase around the pole while he continued holding my hand. “I bet you didn’t miss this,” he said to me as the train lurched forward.

“I missed some of it,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze.

He smiled, a flush of pink spread across his cheeks, and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but then suddenly he frowned and winced, then shook his head and swayed forward. At the same time, all the little hairs on my arms stood straight up—a sure sign that someone was using strong magic. I turned to see the she-wolf standing at the next pole, her heavily glossed lips moving silently in what was surely a spell.

Owen was susceptible to magic, but what this chick hadn’t counted on was that his girlfriend was immune. I repositioned myself so that my body blocked as much of Owen as possible from her line of sight, then I squeezed Owen’s hand tighter, in part to give him strength and encouragement and in part to keep him with me.

“You know how I said I might need you to slap me out of it?” Owen gasped, attempting a smile that failed completely. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead.

“What’s going on?” Rod asked.

“She-wolf over there sees something she wants,” I said, gesturing with my head. I looked Owen in the eye. “I’m trying to play human shield, but you’re bigger than I am so I can’t block it all. Can you fight it?”

“I’m doing my best. I should be stronger than she is.” He swayed toward her as if pulled by a magnet, then jerked himself back to me.

“Can you do anything?” I asked Rod.

“I’m trying, but there’s something odd about the spell. It’s getting past my shields.”

Owen’s palm was sweaty in my grasp, and I felt his grip weakening. His eyes went glassy and unfocused. I was losing him. “Oh, hell,” I muttered under my breath. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I released my hold on the pole, grabbed his necktie and pulled him to me for the biggest kiss I’d ever given him. There was more than one kind of magic, and I hoped that a particularly hot kiss from a girlfriend he’d been separated from for months was more powerful than any hocus-pocus.

He resisted for a second or two, then he melted against me, returning the kiss. It wasn’t the ideal setting for a heavy make-out session, and the whistles and catcalls from the other subway riders were a little distracting, but my plan seemed to be working.

After a while, someone nearby cleared his throat, then Rod’s voice said, “Whenever you two want to come up for air, I got a protective shield to work, and I think your number one fan has given up.”

The train jerking to a halt forced me to let go of Owen and grab the pole again. I heard a squeal of feminine outrage from the far end of the car and noticed the she-wolf getting off the train with her arm hooked through the elbow of a glassy-eyed man. She tossed a glare at me over her shoulder as she left. I knew they said that all was fair in love and war, but there had to be some limits, and magic definitely seemed unfair.

Owen was still a little shaky when we reached our station, and he walked with his arm tight around me. Once we were aboveground and had some breathing room, Rod asked, “What happened back there, man? Don’t tell me that chick was stronger than you are.”

Owen shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think she was particularly strong. There was just something about that spell I’d never run into before—like it sapped my will to resist. That was the strongest compulsion I’ve ever felt. I need to get a copy of that spell so I can come up with a counter or protective charm.”