Forgotten Magic

by Eden Butler

  With a kiss, small and gentle, I squeezed tight around him, desperate to feel him slip out of control and Bane jerked, roaring as his head fell back and I watched him shudder under me. He held firm to my body, pushing down on my shoulders. His body tensed and convulsed as he filled me up, straining, shuddering to completion. Slowly he relaxed and, staring back at me, that fierce, red light faded as Bane’s breath slowed, fanning along my skin to kiss me.

  “Better,” he said, his face buried in my neck. “So much better than the daydream.”

  Seventeen

  There in the lull of buzzing, naked skin and the cool comfort of Bane’s arm heavy against my back, the cabin grew quiet. We were inside a bubble of our own making—one that protected us from what lay beyond those walls. As long as we did not move, as long as we kept to the silence and the soothing hum of our limbs tangled together, then nothing would dissolve that bubble.

  I had wanted him, it seemed, always. Just then, I had him. My hips still ached. My womb was full and swollen and deliciously used. Bane had cornered and caught every available sensation I tried to hold back; he’d shaken loose the hold I had on my own control. Letting him know my thoughts, the raw emotions, had not been my plan, and still he took them, wrangled them loose until he caught sense of what I’d felt wrapped around his body.

  We weren’t sleeping. Breaths too labored, too cautious came and went as I rested on top of him, his palm firm and steady on my lower back. For a moment I thought pretending would suffice. Not speaking, not breathing too quickly might make Bane believe I’d drifted off, that our time in the cabin could be prolonged.

  I didn’t want the spell to weaken. I didn’t want the bubble to burst.

  “All things end, Jani.”

  He curled that large arm tighter around my waist, a possessive, comforting movement that I wanted to resent. I couldn’t. It felt too good.

  “Stop reading my mind.” My body still hummed, was still stretched and languid. I wanted the moment, to live inside it, keep it between my fingers.

  “Not your mind,” he said. “Emotions.” Bane moved his fingers up my back, brushing the ends of my hair between his knuckles. “I can’t read your mind.”

  “I disagree.” When Bane looked down, eyebrows pinched together, I smiled. “Anyone that touches me like the way you did has to be a mind reader.” The crystal glint in his eyes and the brilliant blue flecks danced in the firelight.

  “Emotion, little witch. It’s the best compass.” He sighed, kissing my shoulder.

  We’d leave soon and the thought wrenched my insides, coiled knots in the center, making a dull ache spread into my chest. To be, just there, comfortable, as though it was usual for Bane to hold me, as though it wasn’t some disruption of our reality, was a kind of bliss I’d only daydreamed about. And so, apparently, did he—or thought he had.

  The quiet room, the warm, sweet scent of our bodies all stirred something elemental, something that could match the lines’ power. Something that could level its reach.

  I’ll always want you. He’d sworn that ten years ago. It’d been a vow I imagined he’d forgotten and laying there, thinking of that day, I wondered if some part of him remembered making that promise.

  Whatever Bane thought, whatever he remembered about the past got cast aside by the slow movement of his fingers over my skin, by the long, liquid feel of his tongue against my shoulder, down the slope of my breasts when he kissed me there.

  “You taste like jasmine,” he said, moving over me, mouth open against my hip, hand gripping, fingers sliding inside me.

  Bane tasted me again, his body strong over me, his slow, soft words reminding me that he wove spells with a touch, that he could shift the tides with a kiss timed perfectly. And when he lifted me, settled me over his lap again, urged me on top of him to take and take and take, that sweet, quiet fragile bubble protecting us expanded. We clamored for taste and touch, swimming in sensation—Bane sitting up, guiding me, my fingers tugging on the wavy strands of his hair, him thick and large, pulsing and deep inside me until I could only cry out. Then Bane atop me, arms shaking as he stared down, his body massive, his breath heavy, was all the sensation that mattered in the world.

  But time spun quickly; it sped us toward an end we knew we couldn’t avoid. No matter how long we stayed there—Bane still inside me, me clinging to his shoulders—reality would come knocking, insisting, reminding us that our obligations had already been set.

  Still he held me like I was precious, like just moving away from me meant a goodbye he didn’t want to speak, and I could only inhale, etch the smell and feel of him right in that moment to the sharper points in my memory. “We could run away,” I said, knowing that would never be an option.

  “Where would we run?” Bane would play a while, humor me while we fantasized.

  “The beach. Some place remote.” I smiled against his chest when he pulled me close. “Some place where I can walk around naked, roll around in the sand with nothing on.”

  “Wouldn’t mind that.” He moved his fingers down to cup my ass. “You with white sand dusting all over your plump nipples.” He demonstrated, holding my breasts in his hand, testing the weight. “I could invent other things…things I’ve imagined for years.”

  “Like what?” I asked, sliding up his body.

  Bane pulled on my waist, gliding his hands up my ribs. “You on my mouth, wrapped around me, holding me, gripping me… Gods, Jani, do you know how you looked to me back then?” When I shook my head, Bane got a little lost in the memory. That small unfocused stare of his shifted, and his voice took on something akin to wonder. “You nodding off in class, you staring at me like you were both scared and turned on and utterly at a loss how to deal with any of that? All of those months came to a head in that classroom when you kissed me.” He snapped his fingers. “One minute I’m thinking about what you’d taste like, the next there you are, answering a call I didn’t make and I’d never felt anything like it. I’d never wanted something so much and then wanted it even more after I’d had it. I want it again, Jani. Fuck, how I want it again.”

  “Bane…”

  “No, don’t make excuses. I know what’s in your head.” He followed when I shuffled to my feet, reaching for me as I disengaged. “Why is it you? Why is it always you, Jani? What is it about you that keeps me wanting you?”

  “I don’t…it doesn’t matter.” My shirt caught on my elbow when I lifted it over my head and Bane held me still, trapping me against the wall when I refused to look at him. “Your coven…they won’t care about anything between us. Your uncle…”

  He silenced me then, large hands covering my face, his forehead against mine. “I don’t care what they want.”

  He smelled so good, his skin was so hot, all that delicious sensation distracted me, tempted me not to walk away. “Bane, I’m not going to let you sacrifice the future of your coven, of the Cove, for me.”

  “Why?” he said, looking down at me with one hand pressed against the wall. “I didn’t ask for this. None of it. I never wanted for any of this to be my responsibility.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you wanted it or not. It’s here. You can’t walk away.” I hated the truth of the moment, how he closed his eyes, how he looked so eager to ignore the reality of our lives. The Elam was still missing. The Cove was still threatened, and Bane and I had spent the better part of the night forgetting about our mission. It wasn’t fair, but then what the hell is?

  “I would,” he said, voice still soft. “I’d walk away in a second if I could have you.”

  “You can’t…”

  The quick rap of knuckles on the door interrupted me, and I frowned when Bane walked away. He moved his head toward the handle, then worked his jaw again, his shoulders falling.

  “It’s my uncle,” he told me, nodding for me to finish dressing.

  “Wonderful.” The bubble disintegrated in my hurry to shimmy into my jeans and the disappearance of all of Bane’s lovely inked skin when he covered
it with his shirt.

  “He isn’t alone.” Bane tilted his head, seeming to pick up another signature on the other side of the rattling door.

  “What?” But I didn’t need to ask who Mr. Grant had with him. I’d know that energy anywhere and grunted as Bane swung open the door, my shoulders falling when his uncle and my father walked inside.

  “Nice sleep over?” Mr. Grant asked, moving his gaze around the room as though he looked for some evidence of our activities.

  “Is there a problem?” Bane said, fastening his belt as his uncle and Papa walked further into the tiny cabin.

  “Change in plans,” my father said, casting a side-long glance at how close Bane stood next to me. I hadn’t even picked up on it but didn’t let my father’s judgmental look make me self-conscious.

  “Beckerman is calling in higher ranks. He caught wind of Cari’s attack.” Grant spoke to Bane, barely glancing my way when I folded my arms to combat the chill in the air. The wizard managed one long, slow look over at me before he returned his attention to Bane. “We need you in the Cove to help distract the mortals before the state troopers and feds are called in.”

  “Papa, can’t you—”

  “No, mon petit. I’m over my head with this one,” my father said, interrupting me. “Ivy wants answers and is beginning to resist the compulsion charms. We can’t manage to convince him that things aren’t as they seem. Whoever stole the Elam is leveling up.” Papa paused, squinting as he watched the way Bane moved his hand to my lower back. “Someone set Batty’s bar on fire last night and it spread through the town. They’re targeting our family, Jani, and the Grant’s.”

  That hand on my back smoothed over my exposed skin and I swear I there was the smallest buzz of energy moving from Bane’s fingertips, but then Mr. Grant spoke, giving Bane a look that seemed baiting, possibly a bit judgmental, and he crossed his arms, taking that small warmth from me.

  “You’re to come with me and help with the mortals,” Grant said, slapping Bane on the shoulder. “Lundi will go with Jani toward the Elam on the trail.”

  How did this happen? Two minutes before he was inside me. Three minutes before that we were in our own world free from obligation and responsibility and the people who loved to control us. We had spent the night forgetting, just for a little while, about who we were and what we wanted. It was a small reprieve from the expectations that clouded our lives, not something to repeat, but as Bane dressed and we busied ourselves with preparing to leave, and his stare lingered on me, the trace of heat that always followed it warmed the longer he watched me.

  “Your fiancée is worried about you,” Grant said, and I caught Bane’s low grunt as they moved toward the door. “And she is still recovering from her injuries, though you haven’t asked as to her well-being.” Then Bane stopped to look at me and there was something in that expression that told me goodbye was the last thing on his mind. It lasted only a second, but it seemed significant, something I’d store away like all my frayed memories.

  Behind the closing door, Bane and Grant’s voices trailed off into the distance as Papa and I prepared to leave. “What were you thinking?” my father asked me.

  For a few seconds, my gaze unfocused at that closed door, another small reprieve I wanted to keep before reality crashed back on my shoulders. “Don’t start with the interrogations. It’s not the time.”

  When I shuffled my bag over my shoulder and headed toward the exit, my father stopped me, grabbing my arm. “Does he know?”

  “What?”

  The pressure on my arm wasn’t tight, but was constrictive as Papa stared down at me. “By the Gods, Janiver, you didn’t tell him, did you? About the block? Did you remove it?”

  He thought I was careless. My father thought I was selfish and irresponsible, and that little stunt at eighteen had haunted me for ten years. Removing the block would have been a mistake, no matter how badly I wanted to do it. But it wouldn’t remove the danger from the situation. It wouldn’t restore the Elam and it would only make Bane hate me sooner. That was coming, but I wouldn’t hurry it along. “Don’t be stupid. Of course I didn’t.”

  Something in my father’s gaze eased the tension in my chest. Papa would never understand wanting to let the old ways go. He’d never understand that we still had to hide from the mortals. But even I knew what was at stake. We were all in danger, and I saw that emotion shifting my father’s expression, making that hard frown dim.

  Sometimes we see outside of ourselves. Sometimes there are moments so profound that it’s like we’re watching them from another vantage point, from someone else’s body. That’s how the next few minutes played out to me.

  There was no forethought to what happened next. There was no preparation.

  Papa stood in front of me, blocking my view of the door. He stared down at me. The cabin itself was small, the area around it filling with the noises of the woods and the animals and insects that went on living and being without any commentary from us. And the lines, the taunting, loud lines that Bane had managed to block from me somewhat still sung low and sweet, teasing, taunting so that it became part of the environmental elements that kept my attention distracted.

  “You are my daughter and I love you. It is wholly unfair what you’ve been forced into, but we are to remain loyal to the Cove, always. Especially now, and it simply isn’t time for you to make confessions.”

  “Which is why I didn’t open my mouth.” Papa released me and I stepped back, ready to get on the trail and forget everything that had happened in this cabin. “I told you that.”

  “You know I would never…”

  Our words kept us distracted from the rustle of feet outside of the cabin.

  “Papa, leave it.” I glared at him, closing my eyes before the practiced monologue came out. It’s the same one I gave him time and again over the years.

  Distracted from the creak of the door opening.

  “I didn’t tell Bane about spelling his memory ten years ago. I didn’t tell him a damn thing about us melding.”

  Distracted from Bane walking through that door, and not prepared for that rough, heavy wave of anger that shot across the cabin and landed straight in the center of my chest.

  “What did you say?” Bane’s question came out like the crack of a whip—disbelieving, mimicking the anger and pain that brightened his face as he stood in front of me.

  “Listen, Iles…” Papa started, but Bane shook his head, silencing my father immediately. One nod toward the door and Bane dismissed him—a silent demand that he leave us alone. Papa was honor bound. We all were. He’d protect me, but he’d obey Bane for who he’d become. But he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me.

  “I will not have you harm my daughter.”

  Bane blinked, seeming astounded that Papa wouldn’t cave to him.

  “Papa, it’s okay.” When I shook my head, my father finally stepped back, watching the wizard as he stared at me, seeing, like me, that quiet fury reddening his skin.

  It took several moments for my father to leave the cabin, a few more for me to work up the nerve to turn and face Bane, and when I did, his raw fury threatened to topple me.

  “We melded?” His voice was calm. Too calm, and that rush of energy from his body rose, threatening to slam into me as I stepped back. “And you blocked my memory of it?” When I didn’t answer, Bane took a step, one slow tap of his boot along the floor before he pinned me against the wall with his large hands on either side of my face. “The truth. Now.”

  “We don’t have time for this.”

  My distraction didn’t work. Nothing would. Bane had been lied to. Bane had been betrayed. It had been necessary, but the look in his eyes, that wide astonishment, the disgust I saw there hurt worse than walking away from him had.

  “We claimed each other,” he said, his voice small and bullet hard. Next to my head, Bane curled one hand into a fist and the small pulse of energy from it crackled against the wall. “All this time it was us.”

  �
��I didn’t have a choice, Bane. It’s not how things should have played out.”

  He didn’t buy it, not if that frown meant anything. Bane shook his head as he watched me, but his eyes had gone dull, dispassionate. “You let them convince you to change my memories? You’d do that? To me?”

  “It was for the good of the Cove.”

  He slammed his fist against the wall and small bits of wood splintered into my hair. “Bullshit, Jani. That’s…that’s bullshit.”

  I wished I could erase that expression from his face. I wished I could have seeped into his mind and laid another block, layered something sweet, something real over the truth. But I couldn’t. Even if I had the power, Bane would have never let me inside his head. Not anymore.

  “Show me,” he said, his expression severe. “Show me now.”

  “I…can’t…the block…”

  “To hell with the block.” He grabbed my hand, digging his fingers into my palm, ignoring the yelp of pain I released as he stripped the mental block away. My head pounded, my vision clouded as though I’d been momentarily blinded. Weight and agony converged into my mind as he pushed apart the barrier with no finesse, no ease at all, and then I slumped against the wall, crying out, my neck and head splitting from the pain. Bane frowned, his anger and guilt glinting in his eyes like tears.

  Now there was no barrier between me and the lines. There was no hindrance protecting me from its raw power.

  Now I could show Bane everything.

  “Show me,” he said again, dropping my hand, his lips shaking like he was on the verge of screaming or crying and could not decide which he preferred.

  My hands shook when I reached for him, but I inhaled, praying for strength I wasn’t sure I had before I touched Bane’s temples, retracing that day, shifting through his mind to find the old block I’d planted ten years before. It was locked behind decades of runes and incantations. There were wards and protections I skirted, lyric and spells I’d never heard of, and disregarded in my effort to find the complicated knot of hidden memory I fastened deep in his subconscious. Bane shuddered, releasing a low moan when I found it and tugged at the gossamer strands to fracture it apart.