Daniel snorted. “You get used to it.” Then, with his fingers glistening blue, he wrote something on the table. “Your magic is different than this, Riel. It isn’t forged in blood.”
“So how am I calling on my Fae magic if I don’t bleed?”
“You’re witch born. Things are always bound to be different,” he said with a shrug as, with flourishing curlicues, he finished his ‘spell.’
The characters he’d drawn weren’t like any other runes I’d ever seen before. In magical texts for witches, they were sharp, delineated lines. These were curvy and curly.
When he’d finished, there was a moment’s pause and then, all of the trash on the table disappeared.
“How the fuck did you do that?” I whispered dumbly, even though I knew the answer already.
His lips twitched. “By magic, of course.”
Seven
Seph
The simple example was nonetheless a powerful display of magic. Daniel was packing more power than either he realized, or more than he wanted us to know. Considering we were now a troupe that was bonded via our woman, I had a feeling it was the former rather than the latter.
Before the Virgo bond, it would undoubtedly have been something he’d have downplayed on purpose, but now? He was simply in instructor mode.
“That’s incredible,” I admitted.
Riel nodded, but she looked at the wound uneasily. “When will that close?”
He etched more figures on his arm where the wound was, and even though it looked like he was writing his signature, I frowned, awed when the wound swiftly cauterized. The clean slice in his flesh knitting together before our very eyes.
“We heal very quickly unless the wound is deep,” Dan explained, smiling a little at the awe in her eyes, “so when that happens, we can close it ourselves.”
“Wouldn’t it make sense for us to be taught that basic skill for the battlefield?” I drawled.
“Undoubtedly,” Dan agreed. “But you and I both know how many holes there are in the castes’ education.”
Evidently sensing a brewing argument, Riel changed the subject by mumbling, “You didn’t do that last time, Seph.”
“You’ve done this before in front of her?” Dan asked sharply, his surprise evident.
I shrugged. “To heal her.”
“When?”
She wiggled in her seat. “Yesterday morning, after we… you know…”
My lips twitched. “Can’t say the word?” I taunted.
Her nose crinkled. “I can. But you’re the prudes.”
“Apparently not,” I stated around a laugh, then, helpful as always, breathed the next words, “Yesterday morning. The night after we fucked?”
When her tongue peeped out and ran around the perimeter of her mouth, I groaned as she smirked at me. “Yeah, then.” To the others, she explained, “Seph coated his fingers in his blood and healed me from the inside out.”
The graphic image had the other’s eyes widening. “You used blood on her pussy?” Matthew, ever the prig, half-squeaked.
Though my cheeks burned at his shock, I mumbled, “I know it’s done.”
“How?” he demanded of me. “How do you even know that?”
I heaved a sigh. “I read it in a book. Those things with information in them? I know for a fact it was often done back when virginity was demanded of the female before she married.” I didn’t know much about Fae magic for it was considered obsolete, but I knew that.
The Fae were ruthless when it came to knowledge. Why learn a dying language if there was no benefit to it? Didn’t matter that another speaker would stop the language from dying, if there was no purpose to it, then our kind weren’t interested.
And for a male destined to be a warrior, information was kept to a narrow path, an insultingly limited path at that. I’d rebelled, of course. Political history was for the admin caste, my tutor had informed me… well, not for this warrior.
“Wait,” Riel blurted, breaking into my thoughts, “you mean it was common among Fae males to use blood the morning after their wedding night on their females?”
“Of course,” Daniel replied easily. “How else would they have sex the next night? It was their honeymoon, after all.”
“The guys were all heart,” Riel mocked, then, she shrugged and said, “It worked. I felt better soon after, and then, of course, I wasn’t exactly thinking about down there.”
Our mood turned from inquisitive to somber at that. Yesterday morning, so short a time ago and yet, it felt like a dozen days had passed, she’d been torn from our circle and brought here.
“We need to focus on our next steps,” Matthew rasped. “I’m certain we’re needed here.”
“On the premise that there’s a six-manned troupe?” Riel scoffed. “That isn’t enough to determine—"
“No. On the premise of how they were pissed that we were here. Something’s going on—”
“And they don’t need us hanging around, messing shit up. They’re here for a reason. They’re more trained than us, and have a right to be on the island, whereas we are here only on Noa vil der Luir’s word. We can’t stay indefinitely,” Daniel warned, and his lucidity in comparison to yesterday was evident in his reasoning.
That he’d discerned so much in his half-crazed state was a testament to the man’s insight. There was a reason he’d somehow risen out of the admin rank and powered into the warrior’s caste, and we’d just seen an example of it.
“I don’t want to hide from the AFata,” Riel added. “In fact, I refuse to. They might want me, but I don’t want them. If they’re going to keep on targeting me, I say we pull an offensive attack.”
“How do we do that when we don’t know where they are?” Matt asked with a frown.
“They’re everywhere,” she informed us. “According to Linford, anyway. My grandmother was tied to the Cuban group, but they’re probably even here. Sol, maybe there’s a heavy presence on the island and that’s why there’s a large troupe manning the city,” she remarked, her tone reasonable even if her point was unfounded.
“Stop trying to convince Matt with illogical logic,” I teased, squeezing her arm, amused when she winked at me.
“I’m not a weakling,” she murmured, rather than continue my joke. “I’m not afraid to fight.”
“You’re not afraid?” Matt rasped. “How can’t you be afraid? You can’t fight. These past few days have proven that you can just defend yourself. How can we go on the offensive when you’re not properly trained?”
“I have a cure for that.”
“What is it?”
“While we’re here, we initiate the Rut, then, after, I claim you, and if I come into my magic, then I’ll be able to fight with that.
“What Linford said makes sense. I was using the wind to help me fight, but I was using it my way. If my witch half can call on it the regular way, I should be able to move faster.”
“But still defensively,” Dan pointed out. “And as much as I’m game for decimating anything that’s dangerous to you, I don’t think a novice troupe is going to be able to take down a rebel group all by itself. Not one that’s been around for at least sixty years. Even if we have the granddaughter of Gabriella de Santos del Sol on our side, we’re not miracle workers.”
She blinked at him, then her shoulders crumpled. “You want us to hide out.” A statement. Not a question.
“I want you safe, until you come into your powers, can use them to attack and not just to defend, I think we’d be courting trouble unnecessarily.”
“That might never happen,” she pointed out. “So, what do we do? Hide out for the rest of our lives? You’ll hate that.
“All of you said it yourselves—this troupe was an opportunity for you to prove something to the Fae, to make names for yourselves, and instead, you’ve been lumbered with a woman who’s making it impossible for you to achieve any of your goals.” She pressed her face into her knee. “You’ll start to hate me then, and you’ll re
gret the Virgo bond. Sol, you’ll more than regret it. You’ll resent it and me, too.”
“You say that as though it will happen with an ease of night following day,” I rasped, reaching over and pulling the hair away from her nape so I could cup her there.
The simple touch made something inside me settle. It was a blessing to be able to connect with her so freely now, a blessing we’d be churlish to ignore. But I understood her reticence, even if, equally, I thought she was crazy.
At the start, we’d acted like selfish asses. We’d hauled her into our troupe, made her a part of a warrior group that she had no desire to be in. We’d forced her hand at every turn, until, the Virgo bond had forced our hands.
If she thought we’d traveled all this way to her as warriors first, then that was on us. Because we’d made her that insecure. If she couldn’t see we were three males who’d been radically changed by her presence in our lives, by the bond’s union with her, then she truly was crazy, and it was a crazy that could be healed.
With time, love, and patience.
Three watchwords that I’d never thought would cross my mind but which, for her, did.
Freely.
“We’re not the same males we were,” Matthew insisted.
“You’ve changed so quickly, have you?” she scoffed, then directed at me, “Stopped needing to impress your family?” At Matthew, “Stopped needing to restore your line’s name?” At Daniel, “Stopped trying to prove that an admin caste born can rise through the ranks to be a damn good warrior?” Then she shook her head. “Those goals aren’t exactly ‘targets,’ are they? It’s not like ‘I want to earn a hundred grand a year before I’m thirty.’” She rolled her forehead on her still-raised knee. “I hate this.”
“We all have a legacy to bear, Riel,” I rasped, squeezing her fingers gently. “You know that as well as I do. This path is yours, just as the ones you mentioned are ours.”
“But yours don’t encroach—”
I raised a hand to stall her. “Legacies are burdens that we accepted out of duty. We hauled you into our unit because we thought you were unique and would help us become a powerful troupe—for duty. You were encroached upon from the start. The Virgo bond has changed us. You have changed us, and with it, proven that good fortune is on our side. You are not a duty, you are not a burden. You’re proof that kismet is real.”
She bit her bottom lip, but her eyes were wide in the face of my surety. “There’s that word again.”
“And it will keep coming up,” Matthew reasoned. “After all, we’re on this path for a reason. Maybe we don’t know what that is yet, and that’s okay. Maybe we don’t know what the next step is, and that’s also okay, but we need to be patient. We need to look for the next sign, and when it reveals itself, we’ll be ready to act.”
“You say that so easily,” she retorted.
“Because I’m accustomed to the notion of everything happening for a reason.”
“And I thought you were so logical,” she scorned.
“I am. My logic tells me that our uncertainty as to what to do next is something that requires time. There’s no point rushing into something we can’t—”
She raised her hand. “I was being facetious. And rhetorical. You didn’t need to answer.”
His smirk was smug. “I know, but I thought I’d answer anyway.”
When she flipped him the bird, he just grinned, then turning to Daniel, stated, “Can you show us those runes?”
Daniel blinked. “Sure. Some are easier to learn than others.”
“Is there a book on them we can study from?”
He hesitated. “There is, but—”
“But what?” I queried, surprised at his pause.
“It’s more of a notebook. Each family has one in their possession.”
Matt whistled under his breath. “I can’t believe the admin caste has been holding out on us.”
He snorted. “We haven’t. I’m sure even warrior families have their own grimoires, they’re probably just lost in your huge ass houses.” To me, he retorted, “Yours is probably in your dad’s office.”
I grimaced. “Probably.”
Daniel murmured, “You guys grew dependent on something that was readily available to you. When it wasn’t for us, we just stuck with what we’d always had.” He shrugged. “Nothing has changed for us, except for the fact that instead of learning the runes in school, we learn it at home.”
“Who taught you?” Riel inquired.
He turned to Riel. “My mother. But normally, it’s a grandparent. My father’s parents pretty much wrote him off when he married my mother.”
A gasp escaped her. “Why?”
“Because she’s an orphan.”
When Matt and I grimaced, Dan grunted. But Riel scowled. “What does that have to do with anything? Isn’t that all the more reason to envelop her into the fold? To bring her into the family?”
“Juvenile orphans are considered bad luck, Riel,” Matt pointed out softly, his tone the verbal equivalent of a human stepping on a minefield and trying not to stand on a trigger.
“Why?” she demanded. “It’s not like they’re likely to have anything to do with their parents’ deaths, is it?”
Daniel shrugged. “Nope, but it’s a cultural thing.”
“A cultural thing?” She gaped at him. “You have got to be kidding me?”
“No.” He pursed his lips. “I think in India, there’s something similar. If a wife outlives her husband, she’s considered bad luck.”
“I didn’t know that,” she uttered, her expression pained at the notion.
“Well, now you do, and it was the same with my mother. She was considered bad luck, and when my father’s family found out he was going to wed her regardless, they didn’t give a damn if he loved her or not, they just didn’t want to invite the misfortune to their line.”
“That sucks.”
His lips twitched. “It does, but she’s okay. She has me and Dad, and she’s—”
“No, she has us all now, doesn’t she?” Riel pointed out. “Not just you, but Matt, Seph, and me too. Doesn’t she?” There was a warning note to her voice, one that told me it was aimed at Matt and me.
“Yeah, she’s stuck with us all,” I mocked, but my lips twisted when Daniel wriggled uncomfortably in his seat.
“Riel, it’s okay—”
“No, it isn’t,” she said firmly. “In fact, I need to meet her.”
He blinked. “O-Okay.”
“Good.” She huffed, then gave Matt a look. “Maybe that’s the next step, Matthew, rectifying a stupid wrong against my future mother-in-law.”
Matthew cleared his throat and, like a wise man, agreed, “Maybe you’re right.”
The nod she gave him was the epitome of satisfied.
❖
Riel
Hanging out with my Virgo was beyond fun. In fact, it was like hanging out with family. There was a deep connection there, one that had blossomed so swiftly, and had somehow managed to outbloom everything else.
I could feel my link with my kin, and knew it was as strong as ever, something even their distance in the recent past couldn’t counteract. But this link? It somehow went deeper, cleaved to different parts of my nature, and with it, the pain from how my parents and brothers had been ignoring me abated, and I settled into the knowledge that I was cherished.
We spent the rest of the evening just shooting the shit in Linford’s kitchen. As my grandfather worked out in the yard for hours, even deep into the night, we stayed in the kitchen, munching on snacks, and just chilling out.
Getting to know a ‘boyfriend,’ or in this case ‘boyfriends,’ had never been so much fun.
“You can’t be serious,” I rasped at Matthew. “Your grandfather told your mother that she had a spike shoved up her ass?”
“She was being particularly snooty one day,” he admitted with a laugh.
“I can’t imagine my grandfather, my dad’s dad, saying that to my
mom.”
“Ril vil der Soe isn’t like most grandfathers,” Matt replied dryly. “My mother makes yours look warm and cozy, Seph.”
Seph grimaced. “Yeah, because she’s a regular Mrs. Brady.”
“You know her?” I asked Matt.
“Barely. Met her, in the loosest sense of the word, at the tourneys Seph and I both competed in when we were kids, and then, caught another glimpse of her when we visited yesterday.”
“What do you mean?” I asked with a frown. “How can you loosely meet someone?”
“She was standing on the landing when we walked in,” Daniel explained, after swallowing a huge mouthful of a soft pretzel I’d pinged into being—even though I’d told him magical food didn’t taste as good, he’d said it was better than nothing.
Until he’d sampled it, of course.
His wrinkled nose had said it all, but he’d eaten every last crumb so that had to count for something, right?
Made up for me almost slicing off a finger when I was trying to cut through the bread for our sandwiches earlier.
“She didn’t even greet Seph,” Matt said softly.
I frowned at that. “She didn’t?”
Seph sighed. “We’re not very close.” He made a shape in the crumbs of the snack he’d requested—nachos—and when I saw it was one of the five runes Daniel had shown us how to form, I had to marvel at it.
I could barely remember any of them, at least, how to form them, but seeing the shape in the crumbs triggered the memory in myself.
As Seph explained how cold his mother was, I bit my lip and began to repeat the action. I wasn’t sure when the pink glow appeared, or why it did when it hadn’t earlier, just knew it did as I finished forming the rune.
Out of nowhere, the air around the table was turbocharged, and my Virgo fell silent.
“What was that?” Seph demanded, his eyes wide.
“Riel, what’s going on?” Daniel queried, his tone softer than Seph’s as he asked me.
“I-I don’t know,” I stuttered. “I was just drawing the rune and somehow…”
The Ascended: The Eight Wings Collection Page 34
