Tori's dad's wallet knew no end. He pulled out all the stops for his little girl.

Leaning against the stair railing, a group of girls giggled wildly behind me.

Rianne and her posse of hoodrats.

Oh goodie sugar plums.

"Looks like someone forgot to take the trash out," Rianne goaded with a sneer. Her eyes filled with ridicule and disdain.

"Apparently, they let you in," I grimaced. She deserved so much more. Turning my back, I ignored the clunking of heels as her minions trailed her down the hall. Far. Away. From. Me.

Where the h.e.l.l were my sidekicks?

Just as I was about to search them out, tingles skirted the back of my neck, and the tattoo at the small of my back roasted instantly. My eyes darted to the doorway.

Gavin, looking so insanely hot, my heart melted. He walked through the door with a rock-star swagger, his gaze sliding over me from head-to-toe lingering in some parts longer than others.

Whoa. My pulse darted all over the place as I waited near the stairs. There was a flutter deep in my chest. He made my head swim, my knees tremble, and my blood burn.

I still hadn't composed myself by the time he was in front of me. A small smile crept over his lips, and his eyes traveled up at something over my head. Mesmerized, I could barely pull my gaze from him, but when I did, I saw what capture his attention. Mistletoe hung directly above us.

I blinked. "Oh." I couldn't help it. I stared at his totally kissable lips. The silver hoop rolled as he played with it. And I knew without a doubt he was going to kiss me.

Or at the very least I was going to attack him, either way it ended the same, his mouth on mine.

Gripping the banister, I could do nothing but hold on as a gazillion pearls of antic.i.p.ation beaded through me. He pressed his lips against mine in a feathery kiss that left me aching and starved for more. One was never enough.

My breath got stuck somewhere between my lungs and my throat. Dazed, my eyes fluttered open.

Smirking he said, "You look...dangerous."

I toyed with the necklace at my throat needing something to do with my hands. They were itching to pull him back. "Thanks I think," I managed in a breathy whisper.

He casually interlocked his fingers with mine as if it was the most natural thing ever. "She's really outdone herself," he said surveying all the glitter, thousands of flickering candles, and lighted bulbs. There were people strewn around the great room, hanging out in the hallways and gathered around the food in the kitchen, playing some kind of drinking game. Red solo cups scattered over the countertops.

"That's putting it politely. I thought it looked like Frosty exploded. Everything with Tori is over-the-top." Including the lack of supervision. Her dad and his barely legal wife, Mariah, were having their own overnight holiday party at the Hilton. Wink. Wink.

In my mind, they were nuts to leave us alone. It was only a matter of time before their house was trashed. Or we were trashed.

He chuckled. "Poor Frosty."

"I bet this doesn't even compare to the parties in Chicago," I said, thinking how boring our little party in Holly Ridge must be.

He pulled us down on a recently vacated couch. "Considering the people I hung out with...yeah they weren't exactly your run of the mill. It feels good to have a little normal every once in a while. We need it to stay grounded." His deep blue's pointedly caught mine.

Got it. I needed some normal. Easier said than done, I thought to myself. "Tori and Austin saw my tattoo," I revealed, waiting for some kind of reaction.

He was as calm as ever nerves of steel. "And you were worried that they might notice something different about it?"

I nodded. It hadn't mattered that he had told me otherwise. "Sometimes it's hard not sharing this huge part of my life with them. We've been through everything together, and I feel like in some way that by not being truthful to them, I'm not being a good friend."

"I wish I could tell you that it gets easier, but I think right now is not the best time to tell them. I don't want to see you get hurt." There was concern crammed in his eyes.

"I know," I sighed heavily, laying my head on his shoulder.

Moments later Gavin stiffened beside me, and I felt the familiar p.r.i.c.kles in the air. Another witch.

Lukas. I didn't need to glance up to know it was him, everything in Gavin's body language told me what I needed to know.

Internally I moaned, suddenly feeling like I was walking on pins and needles. I was going to puke.

Slowly I raised my head, Lukas and Tori strolled towards us. They looked...striking together. Her long legs accented by deathtrap heels, a blinding sparkly strapless little number, and Lukas in his college pretty boy swag. Lukas might look like the boy next door, but it was the bad boy next to me who made my heart sputter. I was just starting to really realize what that meant to me.

I knew that I loved Gavin. Then Lukas had come along and blurred that line. Finding what my heart truly wanted had been an unexpected struggle.

Lukas's lips spread into a crooked grin as he looked me over. "Wow. I wasn't sure I'd ever see you in a dress. Wow."

I wanted to morph under the family room rug. He looked at me like I was the only girl in the room, like Gavin wasn't sitting beside me.

Tori utterly clueless to the sudden strain, she was glued to Lukas's side. Not that he seemed to mind, he liked the attention. She laid a hand on his arm oblivious to my panic. "I take full credit. Our Brianna lacks fashion sense."

My mouth fell open. Oh no she didn't. True clothes weren't high on my priorities, but did she really need to throw me under the bus like that. What I wouldn't give for a shawl at this moment.

No introductions were necessary. From the glint in their eyes, they both knew who the other was, and I wasn't about to make an awkward situation any more awkward. The room suddenly got smaller, and the air crackled with thick tension like a radioactive experiment gone horribly wrong. I was suffocating from it. Or it could be because I stopped breathing.

Lukas's dimples twinkled. "But she makes them look good."

I choked on my own shock.

"I need a drink," Gavin grumbled in a foreign voice devoid of any emotion. He promptly stood up, and I watched him walk away. I'd been doing that a lot lately.

Austin, coming from out of nowhere plopped on the couch, putting his arm around me. The cushions sunk under his weight. "What crawled up his gorgeous b.u.t.t?" Then his eyes roamed over Lukas like a mouthwatering piece of candy. "Oh I see. You must be the other guy."

I elbowed Austin in the gut. He was totally not helping.

He grunted. "I'll pretend like that didn't happen." Looking up at Tori and the dreamboat, Austin said, "You must be Lukas. I've heard all about you." His words rolled off his tongue. Austin was in seventh heaven.

"Any friend of Brianna's is a friend of mine," Lukas stated filled with charisma.

Austin raised a brow, already under Lukas's enchanting spell.

What this party needed was time for things to simmer down before it started to boil. After what I hoped was adequate downtime, I went on the hunt for Gavin. Somehow we all needed to co-exist. The only place I had left to search in this ma.s.sive house was the kitchen, which I'd been avoiding. It was jammed packed with bodies.

Sure enough there in the corner of the kitchen was Rianne with my Gavin. Somewhere over the last few months he became mine, and I wasn't a sharing type. She was pressed up against him, his back to the counter, attached like a leech. There really were no nice words to describe the way she was throwing herself at him. Her leopard skirt was shorter and tighter than mine. I don't even know how that was possible and still be covering anything at all.

It was like a punch in the gut seeing them so close. She whispered in his ear, and all I saw was...Red. Hot. Jealousy. It stole through my veins. Her sickening sweet smile made me gag. I was surely going to embarra.s.s myself and heave right there on Tori's polished floors. Her skintight dress outlined every s.l.u.tty curve (I was one to talk, but that was beside the point).

Right then I wanted to throttle her.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Neither one of them noticed me. A million voices talked at once, but for me, the room went silent with nothing but their voices. Power swam inside my veins, and it was very hard to rein it in, but I knew now and here wasn't the place to let my secret loose.

"Where's your girlfriend tonight?" Rianne asked, walking a blood red nail up Gavin's shirt. "I didn't think I would get you alone."

I was going to break her b.l.o.o.d.y finger. Totally eavesdropping, I waited at the tipped of the doorway holding my breath.

His eyes hardened to stone. "What girlfriend."

Those words stung my heart worse than a thousand jellyfish. I couldn't be in that stuffy room another second, not with the storm that started to brew inside me. So I ran as far from the kitchen as possible. I was feeling hot and cold all at once. Needing air and distance, I turned on my heels and headed outside to the porch. There was a sea of people blocking me from my escape, and in my haste I twisted my ankle.

d.a.m.n shoes.

G.o.d what are all these people doing out here? I was about to have a magical mental breakdown and they were laughing, having fun. Hobbling on one foot, I seethed as I pushed people out of my way.

As unreasonable as it sounded, I couldn't help but be infuriated by their glee.

The crisp rush of the night air washed over me like a blanket. Millions of stars sprayed the sky above, but my mind was too bogged down to appreciate their beauty. The brisk air burned my lungs as I dragged in a ragged breath. I needed to calm down. The swirling of magic vibrated my fingertips.

I was so caught up in my rage, I never heard Lukas come up behind her. He whispered in my ear, "Careful, your eyes are starting to glow. And we know where that leads."

Whipping around, I glared at him. "Shut up," I mumbled low in no mood for anyone's grief.

His lips twitched, holding up his hands. "Hey. I'm not the enemy here, but I pity whoever p.i.s.sed you off."

My control snapped. I just could hold it in anymore.

Thunder snarled in the air behind me. Lightning split across the ma.s.sive yard striking a nearby tree. The sound was deafening as the wood split in half. Dry lightning set the sky aglow over and over again. The ground under my feet shook with violence. And there I stood in the middle of it all, sh.e.l.l-shocked.

Oops.

Lukas put a tentative hand on my shoulder examining the destruction I caused. "Let's get you something to drink. Plus I could really use one. Your friend has been smothering me all night."

Like a dead zombie, I just nodded.

One drink turned into two, two into three, and so forth. It wasn't until my fifth drink that I really started to feel numb.

And drunk as a skunk.

Like every great teenage party, someone had spiked the punch. The only difference this time was that bad girl Brianna didn't give a rat's a.s.s. Bad girl Brianna told good girl Brianna to take the night off and go to h.e.l.l.

"I'm such a light-weight," I proclaimed, flipping off Tori's boots. My feet were killing me. Lukas and I were sitting in Tori's backyard with a jug of the good stuff. Well I was having a hard time staying upright. Giggling, I fell on my back, staring at the millions of stars as they came into focus.

"That's not such a bad thing," he a.s.sured, resting beside me on the gra.s.s.

I waved my hand in the air, playing connect the dots with the stars. "I think the world is spinning."

"I think you have reached your limit." There was amus.e.m.e.nt in his tone. "Come on. I'll drive you home."

Home. That sounded nice.

Chapter 22.

LUKAS OFFERED ME A HAND up like a gentleman. Before I could even take it, a voice broke through the darkness. It was sinister and filled with promising threat.

Gavin.

"Don't touch her," he growled.

I shivered from just his tone. And maybe a little from his presence, I couldn't help it. That did not mean I forgave him. The pain was too fresh and too deep, though the special punch had helped to alleviate some those feelings.

Lukas glared over my shoulder at Gavin's overshadowing form. "Someone needs to help her. She can barely walk." He wasn't the least bit put off by his foreboding behavior. That was more than I could say for myself. It might also have to do with that I have seen Gavin in full-p.i.s.sed off mode. He was not someone I would take lightly.

A muscle in Gavin's jaw ticked. "And I am sure you had nothing to do with that," he baited.

Lukas sneered. "Sorry. That was all you."

Gavin looked to me, questions radiating from those explosive sapphire eyes. So much was going on behind the scene of those eyes. Confusion. Anger. Hurt. Pain. They were all emotions reflecting inside me.

And in my current mood, I was all too glad to enlighten him. "I saw you with Rianne," I belted out. My voice sprang through the night.

He looked out in the distance and sighed. "Then I am guessing you didn't wait around to hear me tell her she didn't have a chance in h.e.l.l with me, and she should put her efforts elsewhere."

No I hadn't.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Lukas beat me to it, probably not the smartest move. "That's neither here or there," he said with a tight smile.

Like a switch being flipped, Gavin's eyes gleamed like laser-beams. Luckily the yard was empty, and my eyes bounced between them. This was going to turn into a royal rumble, the golden witch against the dark witch. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying that when I opened them, this would all disappear, a horrible, bad dream that my wild imagination was so well known for.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

Before I knew it Lukas was gone from beside me, his body slammed up against the side of the brick house, secured by an invisible ribbon of force. Gavin. His cool eyes were tight with determined concentration. Lukas's body gave an unsettling thumped as it hit hard enough to knock the daylights out of him. I winced.

All h.e.l.l broke loose.

Hanging suspended, he raised his head, emerald eyes radiated like an alien. I was no expert in defensive or fighting magic, but I suspected things were about to get sticky and very messy. In my current condition, I wasn't certain that there was anything I could do to stop it.

With a flick of his wrist, Lukas sent a bolt of neon green light sailing straight to the heart of Gavin. My reflexes were slow and dulled by my present state, and I barely realized that I was also in the line of being struck by the nasty beam of energy. I stumbled into the line of fire, not away. Gavin lunged like a predator, tackling us both to the ground. Two heartbeats later, he pivoted in the air making sure he took the brunt of the fall. My breath expended in a whoosh as he hit the gra.s.s with me on his chest. It was jarring to say the least, but we had dodged a lethal bullet.

He rolled me off him, and I fell on my a.s.s hard, blackness momentarily blinding me. Snarling, he was on his feet again, pairing up against Lukas who had been able to break free from his stunned bond. "Are you trying to kill her?" Gavin roared.

The golden witch looked offended. "It wouldn't have touched her. My aim is accurate, you can be sure."