Magic's Love

by Alexandra Von Burg

Evan could see lines of worry bracketing T’s eyes. He waited for more. T’s mouth made a flat line of displeasure before he spoke.

  “I brought you here to give you the knowledge of how Lila’s magic came to her, but it is a burden to know in spite of the fortunate outcome.”

  Evan remained silent.

  “Lila started her life as a human, and she would have remained human if not for an unforeseen violent event. I am ashamed to tell you that I was not close enough to save her from the violence and pain that it brought. All I could do was reverse the effects and take away the pain and suffering for her.”

  Evan studied T’s turbulent green eyes for a long time before responding. Eyes that were so much like Lila’s.

  “So something terrible happened to Lila, you arrived too late to stop it, and you took her memory away so that she did not have to suffer with that memory.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why give me the memory? And why now?”

  “You are the first mate, the head of your family, and the strongest emotionally. I know that the mystery of where Lila’s magic came from weighs heavily on her and the other mages. I considered telling Lila directly, but I suppose that I am too cowardly to admit to her that I could not save her from the violence that befell her in the end. By giving the memory to you, I am asking for forgiveness.”

  Evan saw pain on T’s face, and regret. Evan didn’t particularly want to know the details of Lila’s violent attack, but he supposed it was better than her knowing, and he found himself nodding. T put one finger to the middle of Evan’s forehead, and his mind flooded with images.

  It began like a silent movie. A young human woman walking to her car in a nearly empty parking lot. It was Lila. She had the same beautiful features and attractive figure, but something was missing. Then he understood; Lila was not Magique in this vision, her magic was missing. He watched as she got into her car and tried to start it several times before giving up and getting out again. She began walking up the road that he recognized as the road that led to Sebastian’s house.

  Abruptly the point of view changed to Lila’s perspective, and he could now hear the sound of her footsteps, the rustling of tree leaves, and the far off whoosh of cars on the highway. When he heard the snap of a branch to his (her) right, Evan felt the tension of worry rise. She began to run, and behind her Evan could hear the running steps of her pursuer. He felt the tackle and slide across rough ground and Lila’s abject fear. She tried to struggle, but her arms were trapped at her sides. Her attacker hit her hard on the back of her head, enough to make her almost lose consciousness. When he turned her over and sat on her, Evan saw black eyes and white fangs. No! Evan wanted to look away, but the vision was in his head. The vampire leaned into Lila’s neck and with a predatory growl he bit into her like the starved newly made vampire that he was. Leaning over Lila the way he was, his erection was obvious, and even in her drowsy state, Lila felt the fear of rape imminent.

  The vampire was draining her fast. In three minutes she was too weak to move. The vampire didn’t bother licking the wound at her neck and got up. He picked her up and carried her further into the trees, away from the road. He laid her down in a clear spot behind a large tree trunk that had fallen long ago and began to undress her. The vampire was being gentle now, not ripping at her clothes, but taking care to unbutton her shirt even though it had torn when he had tackled her. He undid the front clasp of her bra and fondled her tenderly.

  “Stop!” Evan croaked out the word. He didn’t want to see this. “Please.” He practically whimpered the word. Evan could feel tears streaming down his face. Was Lila crying in the vision? No, her tears would be falling across her temples and into her hair. Evan’s cheeks were wet with the tears he cried for Lila.

  T must have decided to skip the worst of the vision, because the next thing Evan saw was his large dark frame pulling the vampire off of Lila’s limp body. With a violent twist, T broke the man’s neck and let the body drop to the ground. He walked a few feet away and pulled a slender branch off a young tree and staked the vampire in the neck before going to Lila. She was deathly pale. The vampire probably drained most of her blood as he raped her. T passed his hands over Lila’s body and Evan saw the tear in her neck heal instantly. The bruises also faded as his hands passed over them. When his hands reached her pelvis his touch became feather light as all traces of the violence that had been done to Lila disappeared, even the smears of dirt. Carefully, T dressed Lila, and then carried her out from behind the tree trunk. He laid her down in a spot where her white blouse would be seen from the road. He placed one hand over her heart, and the other at her temple. A cool blue light glowed inside of T’s chest before traveling down his arms and into Lila. Her whole body glowed brightly for a moment, and then faded. Evan saw Lila’s chest rising and falling with regular breaths. Then he rose and walked back to the body of the vampire and picked him up.

  Evan blinked and refocused on T’s tortured face.

  “I’m sorry that I did not arrive soon enough to stop it, but I reversed all the damage as if it had never happened. It is only a memory now, a way to explain how Lila came into her magic.”

  “If this had not happened, if there had been no need to save Lila’s life, she would have remained human?” Evan asked.

  “Yes.”

  Evan thought about how Lila had looked at the beginning of this memory. She had been an ordinary human, pretty, but not exceptional. It shamed him to think that if he had met her as human, she might not have attracted him. It was difficult to imagine what either of their lives would look like today had they never mated. Would Lila have found a human to fall in love with? Would Evan have simply carried on existing as a paid mind interrogator and assassin? Maybe this was why T had given the memory to him. How Lila had been made Magique was not important, but the ‘why’ was. In a small way it was a gift, because now Evan could see how empty his life had been before Lila came into it. He knew without a doubt that he would cherish her for as long as they lived. He looked up at the other man and again saw Lila in his green gaze.

  “We forgive you...Torin.”

  In the next moment, Evan was blinking into the darkness of Lila’s bedroom-their bedroom, and Lila stirred on top of him in her sleep. His arms automatically went around her protectively.

  “Thank you, T,” he whispered into the darkness. “For everything.”

  Chapter 23

  December

  Sebastian was pleasantly surprised to see Lila come downstairs for breakfast the next morning, and quickly added another egg to his scramble for her. She looked happy, rested, and no worse for her kidnapping.

  “Is the honeymoon over?” he asked with a smile.

  Lila just smirked and looked at Evan as she stirred sugar and cream into her coffee.

  “What’s new at the office?” Lila asked as Sebastian handed her a plate of eggs.

  “We’ve mostly been following leads. Trying to connect the South American shifters to someone or a group up north. The shifter council here has been helping. They found out that the new alpha of the Buffalo pack actually came from the west coast. Adding in your information about Lash Sawyer’s father, and we have good reason to investigate his interests in the Chosen One.”

  “But he’s a cat shifter. Isn’t the Buffalo pack wolves?”

  “Yes, but Westin is council Head in charge of all shifters on the west coast. It’s not a surprise that he would have wolves in his pocket.”

  “Are there any other kinds of shifters I should know about?”

  “I knew of a bear shifter a long time ago. Never ran across one personally, though. Evan?”

  “They’re notoriously antisocial. I would expect them to be in Alaska and Siberia, and keep to themselves. Might be a polar or two in the Arctic. I doubt we’ll ever meet any.”

  “So no rabbit or fox shifters? What about racoons? They seem too smart to be regular animals.”

  Sebastian gave her an ‘are you serious?’ look.

&n
bsp; “Only large predators. And their mass has to be close in both forms. You can’t shrink a 150 pound man down to a 20 pound rabbit, the physics doesn’t work.”

  Lila snorted.

  “Since when is science in charge of magic?”

  “A debate you can take up with Joshua Franklin some time. Most of us simply accept the non logic of magic, like how you came to us.”

  The silence that followed reminded Evan that he knew how Lila had been made. He wondered how important it was for the mages to know. Was T’s existence a secret? Would Lila want anyone else to know about him? He looked at Lila and Sebastian.

  “What?” They asked at the same time.

  “Lila, tell us about T.”

  “My invisible friend?” The look of confusion that Lila gave him was nearly comical. “How do you know about him?”

  “Remember the dream we shared?”

  Evan knew he was taking a chance that Lila had had the same dream-vision as he had when T had married them, but he couldn’t help the feeling that he was right.

  Lila studied him for a minute and then seemed to be looking for a memory.

  “I remember dreaming that he brought us together and…”

  She looked at Evan in surprise.

  “Did you dream about the woods?”

  “Aye.”

  “And the..joining? With your plaid?”

  “Aye Angel, I did.” He smiled at her. “And I don’t think it was a dream.”

  “Can someone please clue me in to what we are talking about.” Sebastian asked.

  Lila looked at her teacher, a smirk on her face.

  “Bastian, you are finally starting to sound like you live in the 21st century.”

  “Hmm, sad to think that you are rubbing off on me. Now please explain.”

  Lila thought.

  “Start from the beginning, Angel. Who is T to you?”

  “He’s my---he was my---invisible friend when I was a child.”

  “Don’t you mean imaginary?” Bastian asked.

  “No...I don’t know. When I was little, he was real. I felt him. Touched him. Smelled him. But no one else could see him. He was invisible to them.”

  “Isn’t that the definition of an imaginary friend?”

  “I guess it is, and he disappeared from my life when I was around twelve. I hadn’t even thought about him until I dreamt of him again recently.

  “When I was little, he’d be waiting for me to wake on rainy mornings. He’d help me with my cereal, play with me, read to me.”

  “What did he look like?” Evan coaxed. He wanted Lila to make the connections that he had on her own.

  “He’s tall, he has long, straight, dark hair, a long nose, pointed chin, kind of like mine, his eyes are like mine, same color... He has a whole bunch of earrings in each ear-they’re pointed...He used to let me put braids in his hair…”

  Lila got lost in the memory of the man sitting next to her in the canvas covered truck. He’d had a braid, messy, like one a child might make. Could he be...real? If so, where had he been all these years?

  “Lila.” Evan’s voice brought her back to the present. “His mouth is the same shape as yours as well.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Aye, Angel. T looks like you.”

  Sebastian looked sharply at Evan with understanding, but remained silent. He watched Lila for understanding to dawn.

  Lila looked at Evan, trying to catch what he was driving at. A long minute passed as she thought about Tee, past and present, and the fact that the dream with the three of them in the woods had somehow been real.

  “Tee is a real person, not imaginary.”

  “Aye. I’m sure of it.”

  “I thought he looked like me because I made him up---even though he was real. I thought that I made him real.”

  “No, Angel. He was always real. Pointy ears and all.”

  Lila looked between Evan and Sebastian.

  “Are you saying that elves are real?”

  “No one I know can say for sure. The Fey are known to us, but only as stories. Even I can only say that I feel he’s real. I can’t give any proof.”

  Lila looked at Sebastian who shook his head.

  Lila swallowed the lump in her throat and faced the fact that Evan wanted her to see for herself.

  “I called him Tee. T, for Torin,” she said faintly.

  Evan tightened his arms around Lila as she went a bit pale.

  “I’ve got you, Angel,” he whispered.

  “He didn’t leave me. He was with me as far back as I can remember,” Lila said with wonder. “Why do you think he left Lily?”

  Neither man had an answer for that question. They sat in silence while Lila digested her new found knowledge: Tee was her father.

  After a while, Sebastian asked,”How long have you known, Evan?”

  “Not very long. I had another visit from him last night.”

  “He was here?” Sebastian looked alarmed.

  “He seems to only come in visions when we’re resting or sleeping.”

  “Why did he visit you last night?” Lila asked.

  “He gave me the knowledge of your magic’s making, Angel.”

  Both Lila and Sebastian straightened, alert and waiting for his next words.

  “He showed you to me on the night of your attack. It was a newly made vampire looking for food. You would not have survived if not for Torin...He came in time to save your life, but not to stop the violence that was done to you, so he took your memory of it as well.”

  Evan turned and looked at Sebastian.

  “Torin put his own magic into Lila, the way that she did to me. Lila is more than mage, she’s…”

  “Fey,” Sebastian whispered.

  “What does that mean in terms of the prophecy?” Lila asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Sebastian admitted, ”except that there might be more players on the board. Ones we never knew existed.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Sebastian said, “I wonder if Torin would speak to us.”

  Evan shook his head.

  “He operates on his own time, and the two times I met him, I was not fully conscious. I have the impression that he cannot physically come to our world.”

  “But he was here once,” Sebastian insisted.

  “And he left without a trace,” Lila reminded the men of her mother’s heart break. “Sebastian, we can’t tell anyone else about Torin. It would hurt my Mom too much.”

  “What if you need his help?”

  “He’ll come to me if I really need him. He did when I was kidnapped.”

  That surprised Sebastian.

  “What did he do?”

  Lila thought about the comfort he gave her during her captivity. The reassurances that she would be safe and reunited with Evan. His request for her to give Lash a chance.

  “Mostly he comforted me, and…”

  “And?”

  Lila looked at Evan and tried to hold her tears back. Evan felt her regret through their bond, and he squeezed her hand.

  “And I think he brought me my second mate. To make sure that I would be safe.”

  “The shifter, Sawyer?”

  Lila could only nod and swallow the guilt she continued to carry as the tear rolled down her cheek. Only now she felt guilty over Lash as well as Evan. Where was he now? Was he all right? Did he miss her? She put her head on Evan’s shoulder and he kissed her forehead comfortingly.

  “Lila, I think we need to share some of this with the team,” Sebastian said. “If the shifter is your fated mate, if that part of the prophecy is unfolding, he may need protection. If Westin is after you, he can use his son as leverage.”

  “How would he know that Lash is my mate? He hasn’t marked me, and I never bound him.”

  “But you are sure that he is to be your mate.” It was a statement.

  “Yes.”

  “And he knows that he is your mate? He accepts it?”

  “Yes. Mor
e readily than I do---did, at first.”

  Sebastian looked at his student with sympathy. He could not imagine how hard it was for her to accept the idea of having more than one mate.

  Evan felt Lila’s guilt and her worry for Lash.

  “Angel, it’s all right to worry for him. I agree with Bastian. Lash is safer with us than on his own, and you need fewer worries, not more.”

  “So what, you want to go back into the jungle to find him?”

  “You said that he was ISF,” Sebastian offered. “We can start by finding out what his mission was before you were kidnapped. We need to find his handler. He may already be on his way in.”

  “In? From the jungle? From the mission?”

  “Both.”

  “Okay. I’m willing to tell the team about Lash, but we keep Torin to ourselves for now.”

  “Of course, Chosen One.”

  Lila groaned at Sebastian’s use of her title, but he gave her a sharp look.

  “The prophecy has been set in motion, Student. You are the Chosen One. The sooner you accept that, and everything that comes with it,...”

  “Like three mates?”

  “Yes. Then the sooner you will come into your full power, and full control.”

  Lila sighed. There were still so many questions she had about the prophecy and her power, but Sebastian and Evan did not have the answers for her.

  “Okay, Teacher, I accept that I am the Chosen One. Now let’s get our workout done so we can share with the whole team.”

  They took two cars into town just in case Lila wanted to leave before Sebastian was done at the office. There was no food in the house, so they called an order in to the diner, enough for everyone. The first twenty five minutes in the conference room was full of eating and an update from Guerra about Ramirez via phone call.

  The Southys had tracked Ramirez to a villa outside Mexico city and were in the process of bugging his car, phone, office, anything they could, in the hope of connecting him to Lila’s kidnapping, and a North American contact. So far they’d managed to put a bug in his car, and were planning to use a mini drone to place bugs in his office as soon as an opportunity arose.

  Guerra’s IT guy had hacked into accounts, and was following money trails and exports both on land and sea. He would be able to warn US customs to pay particular attention to certain imports coming from Ramirez’s operation. He was going to get squeezed at the very least, if not caught.