Quinn was getting tired and grumpy. She had woken to an empty bed, and even though Corbin had left her a note, she still wished she could have woken up in his arms. There was something about waking up alone after losing her virginity the night before that made her feel a little uncertain and vulnerable. Plus she had been rounded up by old Gus for some good old fashioned “power training” he called it. It felt more like mental CrossFit to Quinn, and she was seriously considering throwing in the towel and running back to the cabin for a long hot shower. Well, she would have considered it if she knew where in the hell in the forest she was at the moment. The old man, she found, had a way of sweeping her sense of direction away from her, and she was debating restructuring her “no cuss words spoken” policy right about now -frigg!
The old man chuckled as if he could read her thoughts, he probably could, and motioned for her to try the exercise again.
“Make like Peter Pan girl, and think of your happy thought,” the old man cackled. “It shouldn’t be that difficult for you. After all, this morning, the area for two square miles around the Happ House was covered in the prettiest pi –“
“That topic is not on the table for discussion,” Quinn interrupted him before he could finish. She said the words very primly, but there was no mistaking the healthy dose of embarrassment the old man’s words caused her, evident by the rose color staining her cheeks. This was pointless. Quinn was beyond exhausted, and she hadn’t been able to control so much as a single blade of grass. She was thinking her happiest of thoughts, but nothing was happening, besides her head hurting from all the concentration and her mood darkening by the minute. She needed a break and threw herself back into a soft cushy chair.
The old man’s eyes lit up like Christmas, and a wide grin cracked his face.
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises! Here you were, bitching and moaning all morning, and then you go and do something like that!”
“What are you talking about?” Quinn was past conversation now; she only wanted to rest and go back to the cabin to see Corbin. Her head was throbbing, and she was so exhausted, but the chair she was sitting in was super comfortable and…wait, what chair? They were in the middle of some part of the forest that the old man had blinked them to, who knew where exactly. Superior National Forest was almost 700 square miles of wilderness, and it seemed like the green man had charge of the whole of it, so truly they could be anywhere. One thing Quinn knew for certain though, there had been no chairs sitting out in this section of the woods.
The old man was laughing openly now, his big booming guffaws bouncing off tall trees around them, scattering birds and small fuzzy animals that were scared by the sudden noise. Quinn looked down to see that the chair she had thought she had flung herself into was actually a complicated series of vines that had sprung forth from the ground, weaving across the hanging boughs of two nearby trees to make a woven hammock for her to sink into. The sling-like seat fabricated from greenery was molded to her body, holding her a foot or so off the ground with her legs hanging down, just like she was sitting in a very comfortable chair.
“I watched you do it, you know,” the old man said thoughtfully. “You didn’t even know, you didn’t even think about it. You just projected what you were feeling, what you needed, and your power responded.” He scratched his chin for a minute before adding, “You know, I think we had this all wrong. I was trying to get you to control the plants that already existed here in the forest, but here you are, manifesting your own. I should have known by the flower petals on the ground. Orchids, lilies, and cherry blossoms don’t just rain down in the middle of the forest. They don’t grow here, so they had to come from somewhere or someone. That is old magic, girl.” He stroked his chin for a moment, deep in thought. His eyes widened as another thought occurred to him. “Ljósálfar?” He whispered the question to himself quietly, almost but not quite too softly for Quinn to hear.
“What’s a jus al far?” Quinn asked haltingly, not sure of the pronunciation. The word felt foreign on her tongue, yet her blood fairly sang in her veins at the mention.
“Ljósálfar,” the word was a jumble of consonants, and Quinn got the distinct impression of an accent from a language long unspoken, “is an elf. A creature of the light from the Norse lands, from my home.” He looked at her with awe and wonder apparent in his face, and the expression made Quinn feel like a science experiment. She much preferred his cantankerous attitude over one of reverence any day.
“It would make sense,” he continued, “especially with how you managed to snare our young raven at such a young age. He sacrificed the freedom of his wings for you, you know? It must have taken pretty strong magic for that.”
Quinn was appalled. Was he telling her that her own magic that had drawn Corbin to her all those years ago?
The green man continued his speech. He barely even registered Quinn in front of him anymore. It seemed like he was comparing notes in his head, and he reminded her of a professor giving a speech on something that was more than likely a lifelong passion and not just a class.
“They say that Ljósálfar shine so brightly that they attract all to them. That would explain his infatuation, but not the bond. Hmm, the bond was formed by blood. I was there; I saw it. Hmm, there has to be something else here, not just elven. A bond formed by blood. By blood…”
His voice trailed off as he was thinking, and Quinn left him to it, not even listening anymore. She felt sick to her stomach, and thoughts of how Corbin had spent the last ten years ripped her apart inside. She had stolen his freedom and his will just by being near him. When she thought of how he had touched her last night and the things he had said to her, she felt like she was going to vomit. Those feelings he had for her weren’t real; she had fabricated them, just like she had fabricated the chair she sat on. Her beautiful raven friend, she had lured him in with some sort of magic that she didn’t even know she had. It had cost him his wings, and now he was feeling an infatuation with her that was baseless and built on a lie.
Quinn felt her throat closing and fought to control the panic welling up inside her. She didn’t like this. She wanted to go back to her apartment, back to before she knew the truth, back to before she had connected with someone who could actually destroy her simply by finding out what a fraud she was. She felt ill knowing that she was responsible for all of it, everything that had happened in the forest that day. She was sure she had probably lured in the familiar as well or whatever creature controlled it.
Everyone wants to have a piece of the light, right? The hysteria threatened to bubble over Quinn, and she was as close to the edge of madness as she had ever been. She vaguely noticed that the old man had stopped talking to himself and was looking at her, eyes narrowed in curiosity or suspicion. She didn’t really care which, she just wanted to leave. First, she had to get back to the cabin, and she needed the old man to do so.
“I’ve had enough for today. I would like to go back please.” He looked disappointed, but he waved his hand, and the wall of trees to her left was replaced by the path that led up to the circle of cabins where she had been staying.
“We will continue tomorrow,” he said. Quinn turned to tell him that she most certainly would not, but there was no one there anymore, just his weightless words floating on the wind.
Quinn bypassed her cabin and kept walking, knowing from dinner conversation the night before that the path continued past the guest cabins, around the lodge, and around the other side of the lake, where the employee cabins were housed. There was something Quinn needed to do first before she could go back, and that was to sever this unhealthy relationship she had with Corbin. She would cut herself away from him so that he could at least live a life that he deserved. He could find a woman and have a family, maybe even someone like Mara. Her heart stuttered violently at the thought, but in reality, Corbin deserved someone sweet like her, someone human and deserving of the fierce loyalty that he had misplaced in her. She would come clean and tell him and face
whatever anger he threw at her. Quinn deserved it for deceiving him all this time. She felt lower than dirt but steadfast in her resolve, and with each footstep on the packed dirt path that ran around Happ Lake, the tears fell.
Corbin didn’t know what kind of expression he had expected to see on Quinn’s face when he saw her next, but he was pretty damn sure he never imagined it would be her stomping up the path to his cabin with tears running down her face, dark hair wild and streaming out behind her. She was a sobbing mess by the time he got to her, and for some reason, she didn’t want him within hugging distance.
“No touching!” she screamed, waving her arms frantically to fend him off.
He was at a complete loss. “Quinn, what can I do? How can I help you?”
Why couldn’t he touch her? Fuck that! None of it made any sense, and he couldn’t understand a word she was trying to say. Clearly, in the grips of an anxiety attack, her words were completely obscured by gulping sobs and hitching breaths. His fingernails bit into the meat of his hands, the effort of not touching her causing him to ball them tightly into fists. There was not a thing he could do until she calmed down, and never before had a hysterical person ever calmed down by someone telling them to do so. He couldn’t even put his arms around her and pull her to him for comfort. Whatever her problem was, it was killing him to not be able to fix it for her. Something was causing her to distance herself from him, and after what they had shared last night, that was simply not acceptable. Everything was as clear as mud, so Corbin had no choice but to be patient until she calmed down enough to talk to him properly.
He waited while she ugly cried not two feet in front of him with her hand lifted to keep him away. Not more than twelve hours ago, he had been as close to her skin as two people could be while still existing as separate entities, but now he was not to violate her personal space?
Corbin would never force himself on another human being, especially not someone he cared for like Quinn. He couldn’t even say he loved her because love was such a small word compared to the all-encompassing feelings he had for her. She was his air, she was his motivation, and right now, she was the reason why his right eye was twitching. The boundaries of his patience were seriously being tested, having to stand there and watch the woman he cared for more than his own life completely fall to pieces in front of him. Quinn was suffering, and she thought so little of him that he couldn’t even offer her a comforting touch.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Quinn stood shaking in front of him with her face bright red and mottled, the tears dried into inflamed red patches on her face and neck. The whites of her dove gray eyes were crisscrossed with scarlet map lines, and there were tiny red dots all over her face, blood vessels broken by the force of her crying. She wiped her wet and swollen face with the hem of her shirt, giving Corbin a glimpse of the light swell of her porcelain skin, denim waistband dipping right below her belly button. He had his tongue there last night, and now she wouldn’t even let him near her.
What. The. Shit.
Still, he waited. He stood there, calm and unmoving, while Quinn told him about her morning with the old man. He held his clenched fists behind his back so she wouldn’t see his absolute fury as she explained to him about her possible lineage and how their blood bond was something forged with her magic and not based on reality at all. He was pretty proud of himself for keeping his shit together as well as he did while she worked herself into a frenzy and he waited for her to stop and take a breath. He was calm and collected. He was an absolute pillar of stoicism until she said the words,
“I’m leaving.”
“Fuck, no.”
Her head reared back as if he had slapped her, but Corbin didn’t take the words back. Instead, he added to them,
“The hell you say.”
Even that wasn’t enough to get out the boiling rage inside of him at the words she was spitting out. He would take a hard pass on that pile of bullshit; he wouldn’t accept it. She had been here two days, and he had waited ten Goddamn years for those two days.
He was exhausted from watching her worry herself in circles. For someone who internalized everything, she was the most impulsive person he had ever met. Not the type of man who would ever tell another person their own mind, Corbin would be damned if he would let her tell him his.
So what if she had some sort of charisma that drew him to her ten years ago? To Corbin, that was no different than love at first sight. Men get lured in all the time by a nice round ass and a healthy pair of tits, so would she have preferred that? Dammit, he had picked her before sexual desire was even a thought in his mind. He wouldn’t fight it if she didn’t pick him back. It would break him into a thousand pieces, but he wouldn’t fight her on her choice.
He sure as shit would not accept her making a snap decision about what she thought his feelings should be on that matter though. It didn’t matter how they found each other the first time. What mattered is how they felt now that they had found each other again, and Corbin didn’t know if he was a strong enough man to accept her leaving based on an idle thought placed there by an old man who probably didn’t realize their effect.
Well, this wasn’t just about her anymore, and she didn’t get to make decisions for him. He was his own man, and he had wasted just about enough effort trying to say the right things and being courteous of her fragile feelings. She was a grown ass woman, and he was a fully grown man. Seems like it was time she needed reminding of that fact. It looked like Miss Quinn Reynolds was a visual learner.
She wanted a visual? Well, he would damn well give her one.
Quinn didn’t know at what point she lost control of the situation, but it had probably happened immediately after she told Corbin she was leaving from the thunderous expression on his handsome face. God, even brooding looked good on him, and Quinn’s heart bled a little more when she thought of never kissing him again. She had to be strong though; this was for him as well. He deserved a future with someone whom he really fell for. He deserved something real. He looked just as pissed as she thought he would when Quinn told him about how she had accidentally ensnared him, but the next words out of her mouth were not what she expected to hear, at all.
“I don’t know what I have to say to make you understand how important you are to me. I waited ten years. Ten years, Quinn. A decade of loneliness and anger, feeling so bad I thought I would die from it, but still, I waited for you.” Corbin looked thoughtfully at the pocket knife in his hands; the one he had been using cut herbs with and stood up slowly.
“You could cut me with this knife right now, and I wouldn’t run away. Is that what it would take Quinn? Do you need to see me bleed for you to understand? Because here’s the knife, Babe, and I’ll even stand real still for you.”
Oh, he was so furious, but it was one hundred percent a different kind of anger than Quinn had assumed he would have. She started to get the sinking feeling that she had screwed up. Again. He stalked towards her with the closed knife in his hands, but when she put her hands behind her back to refuse, he gently but firmly grabbed her wrist and pried her fingers open so that her palm lay flat in his. He placed the knife in her open hand and curled her fingers around it, then waited expectantly.
“Feelings aren’t right or wrong, Quinn. They just are. Who do you think you are to tell me how I should feel?” He stepped even closer to Quinn, and she fought to stand her ground and not pull away. She was doing this for him; why couldn’t he see that? Why was he trying to get her to second guess her decision?
“Why are you so concerned about being normal?” he continued. “Exactly what part of either of our situations is normal anyway? What does that even mean? I hatched from an egg, Quinn. Think about that for a minute. I was born a bird and then was born again in the light of your magic. You magic changed me, Quinn, but it was my choice, you get that? It was my choice to change and my choice to help you and my fucking choice to spend the last ten years waiting for you to get your shit together so I co
uld finally feel like I wasn’t alone. Damn it, Quinn, I would bleed for you.” He closed his hand around Quinn’s hand, the one that held the knife and punched out the words again.
“I. Would. Bleed. For. You.”
He wasn’t going to take it back, that was clear to her. In an effort to not be holding the knife anymore she shoved it into her back pocket, where it lay like an awkward lead weight.
“I just wish I knew for real that when you were touching me, it was because you wanted to and not because you were compelled by a magic trick I didn’t even do on purpose.” Immediately after she said the words Quinn regretted them, and she slapped both hands over her mouth but it was too late. By the look on Corbin’s face, she knew that she had just messed up.
His eyes were black pools rimmed with molten metal and they spoke volumes to her without him saying a word. There was anger there, hot and burning, but there was also frustration, hurt, and beneath all that, exhaustion. Would she ever stop siphoning energy from him? Why was she always so much work?
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, ok!” Quinn cried. “I’m trying too hard; I’m not trying hard enough. I’m questioning you, I’m questioning myself, and I'm self-destructive, but I don’t want to be like this! I want to be better, I’m trying.” Her breath hitched on the last of her words, and her voice came out as a whisper. “Please,” she begged, not knowing what she was actually pleading for, but desperately needing him to stop looking at her like she had carved his heart out and ate a piece of it in front of him.
“Quinn, I get it.” His shoulders sagged a little, and Quinn could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “I see you trying, and I am proud of you, I really am. I’m willing to meet you halfway, but I’m three-quarters of the way, and you keep walking backward, so I’m stopping right here. I meant what I said, woman. I want you and only you, for as many days or years that I can make that happen, but I won’t force you, even if that’s what you want. I waited ten years for you to come to me, and you did. You took your sweet ass time, but you made it here, and you did it alone. You aren’t the same timid thing you think you are, Quinn. It might be easier to allow yourself to believe that, but I have all the faith in the world that you can come to me again.
Northwoods Magic (Northwoods Fairy Tales Book 1) Page 13
