Kiss of Fire by Deborah Cooke

eclipses bring it on, so I keep an astronomical calendar. Even if I can’t see the eclipse, I feel its effects.”
    â€œI didn’t think there was a lunar eclipse today.”
    â€œThere wasn’t.” Quinn looked grim. “You have to understand that it’s a fighting form, triggered by the need to protect something or someone.”
    â€œLike someone you like?” Sara asked, the words sounding silly as soon as she uttered them.
    â€œA treasure.” Quinn fired a hot glance her way. “Like my destined mate.”
    She stared at him in astonishment, but he gave no signs of being crazy or having meant to say something else.
    His destined mate.
    A prophesied child.
    â€œYou could, you know, just tell me that you practiced magical tricks,” Sara said, trying to return to a semblance of normal conversation.
    â€œBut that would be a lie,” Quinn said flatly. His eyes blazed. “I’m not going to lie to you about what I am, Sara. It’s a bad precedent.”
    She had to agree with that. “Maybe I didn’t see what I thought I saw.” As she spoke, Sara realized how much she wanted this to be true. Quinn was the most attractive man she’d met in a long time and it would have been nice to have everything be uncomplicated between them. She was ready to fall in love, ready to make a lifetime commitment, ready maybe even to find her future with a man like Quinn.
    She’d really prefer that the man in question not be nuts. Or weird. Or a stalker.
    She was fussy like that.
    â€œThen let’s review,” Quinn said softly. He put his left hand on the cash desk. He glanced around them but the bookstore was empty. He closed his eyes briefly and straightened slightly. He seemed to become radiant before Sara’s own eyes. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
    They glittered like blue ice.
    She sat back in alarm, then looked down at his hand. The nail on his thumb had changed to a long talon. He let her look at it, turning his hand so she could see the talon from all angles.
    It looked awfully real. Sara had to be sure.
    She reached across the cash desk and grasped his thumb. Quinn seemed startled; he caught his breath but he didn’t pull away. He was warm, as usual, and she felt a pulse of heat at their point of contact. His skin seemed to be getting warmer where she touched him, and sparks danced from that point of contact.
    She looked at Quinn and he smiled. He seemed content to let her examine his talon with her touch. Sara fingered its sharpness and felt the length of its point.
    It was real and it was part of him.
    â€œChange it back,” she challenged, knowing there could be no trick while his hand was within hers.
    â€œAre you sure?”
    Sara nodded. “I want to feel it, to know that it’s not an illusion.”
    Quinn nodded agreement.
    She held Quinn’s gaze and his thumb, sensing that he was mustering his strength for something. His eyes narrowed, he exhaled, and Sara felt the nail change shape beneath her grip. His eyes glittered for a moment, then returned to normal.
    Sara lifted her hand from his, and his thumb nail was just as it should be. “How did you do that?”
    â€œI decided to.” He shrugged, as if shaking something off, then pushed a hand through his hair.
    â€œIt’s not logical,” Sara protested. She was fascinated despite herself. She supposed she should have been afraid, but she was intrigued. Quinn seemed exotic and mysterious, but honest all the same. Sara felt even more attracted to him than she had before.
    Maybe she was the one who was nuts.
    Magda had often said that it was good for a person to believe ten impossible things before breakfast. It was only just past lunch, so Sara was running late, but she had to think that this day was setting some kind of record on her Impossible Things Scale.
    It said something that reading Sigmund Guthrie’s book about slaying dragons was