She replied, “But it’s me who should thank you. I’ve not had that much fun dancing in a while.” Even her first love—dancing—had started to feel like a chore, something she did for her coven.
Aaron said, “I used to love the club scene, but just don’t have much time for dancing these days.”
“That’s a shame,” she chastised him. “You should really make time.”
“I might be tempted to, if you’d promise to be my regular dance partner.” He put his hand on her leg. “JD and Lucas insisted we come out tonight. They dragged me off my couch and away from my book, completely deaf to my objections.”
“Well, your book’s loss is my gain. I’m glad they dragged you out.”
“Me too,” he muttered as Maeve lifted his arm and placed it around her bare shoulders.
Lucas, Elle and Sara bounded up the stairs over to the bar right next to Maeve’s couch.
“What are we drinking tonight?” Lucas asked the hotties that flanked him.
Maeve answered him. “Water,” she called over her shoulder without even consulting Sara and Elle. “Juice or soda’s okay too, but absolutely no alcohol for us girls.”
“Not you too!” Lucas complained. “My world’s filled with teetotalers!” He ordered two waters and a whiskey sour.
Maeve warned him, “Careful you don’t get whiskey dick—I’m pretty sure you’re gonna get lucky tonight, if you play your cards right.” Behind her, Lucas quietly changed his drink order and paid for three waters.
Aaron looked intrigued. “So you don’t drink?”
Maeve answered quite candidly, “Never. We need to keep our heads about us when we’re away from home.”
“But you sent that champagne to JD and Pinky over there, so you’re not totally against alcohol,” Aaron reasoned.
“I never drink. We’re not opposed to it, but only partake sparingly.” Maeve gestured to the couple in question. “With JD and Jolie, it’s a little different. There’s cause for celebration for them.” Plus Maeve knew they weren’t thinking straight right now anyway. Finding a mate was a strong intoxicant all its own.
Aaron raised one thick eyebrow. “What exactly are they celebrating?”
“They found the one they’re meant for.” Maeve turned her head to examine her handiwork. “Just look at them, they’re clearly falling in love.” The new couple was intertwined and speaking intimately. “We like to mark a couple’s first meeting after a matchmaking.”
Aaron looked. Turning back to the beauty in his lap, he asked, “Why do you keep referring to yourself as ‘we’ and ‘our?’”
“Sorry,” Maeve said, “it’s habit. Jolie, the two girls with Lucas, and I all belong to a sorority of sorts.” She turned him from the follow-up subjects she knew were coming. “So are you one of the teetotalers Lucas was talking about?”
“I never drink if I am gonna be driving. I’m the self assigned designated driver. I do enjoy the occasional beer, but only at home and only in moderation. My body lets me know in no uncertain terms when I’ve abused it. I was already cutting back, when my father died. After…” He swallowed the emotion Maeve could read in his face and answered her unspoken query, “His blood alcohol was under the legal limit, but he still managed to wrap his car around a tree on the way home from the bar.”
“I’m so sorry, Aaron. Is your mother still alive?”
“Sort of. She had a stroke a few years back and lives in a home now that Dad’s not around. She can’t communicate at all.”
They sat in silence for a moment and Maeve thought about what it would be like to be trapped inside a body that cannot be made to obey you. She hoped that the Capacitors did not feel that way about their petrified existence. Elle seemed sure about their positive mental status, but there were many Daughters who doubted it. Camilla, their healer, tended them every day, ensuring their health.
Maeve forced her thoughts back to the conversation at hand. “I’m sorry for your loss. My parents are alive, but they’re lost to me too.” It wasn’t the same. Maeve didn’t know which would be worse: having dead/brain-dead parents who had loved her or parents who were alive but chose to shun her.
Aaron pushed a strand of hair off her face and back over her shoulder. “Wow, sorry about that.” He smiled when she looked at him. “Talk about a buzz-kill. Club rule number one, broken. I shouldn’t be so serious.”
“It’s fine. I like serious people.” Maeve looked into his dark eyes and saw the depth of this man. He didn’t look like a shallow club kid because he wasn’t. She wanted to get to know him but knew if she did, she would easily fall for him. This was the kind of man who could destroy her coven by taking her from them.
The mood abruptly changed when Sara skipped over, her pale pink skirt flouncing, and sat on the coffee table in front of them. “Lucas asked if we want to go back to his place tonight. I told him we’d have to ask you.”
Maeve thought of the treat in store for Lucas once he got those two girls to his house. “Tell Lucas that was exactly what I had in mind. Where’s Jolie?”
“JD and Jolie are already headed that way. They walked since they drank that champagne. And it’s not far—just over on Webster Street around the corner.” She clasped her hands in front of her and wore her best begging face. “Can we walk too? It’s so nice out.”
“No,” Maeve said. “I’m sorry. It’s just too dangerous to be walking out this late. Jolie shouldn’t have done it either; she isn’t thinking clearly tonight. You’ll have to ride with me.”
Sara pouted a little but did not protest. She ran off, to tell Lucas the good news Maeve supposed. “You’re coming too?” Maeve asked Aaron.
“At least for a little while,” Aaron replied.
Maeve could tell he was trying to sound nonchalant, but was more than eager to stay with her. “Good. I’ll need something to do while they’re having their threesome.”
NEARLY INVISIBLE in the busy coffee shop, the sorcerer in the back corner typed the web address into the communal computer. He hadn’t brought anything with him to Austin aside from the grimoire and his knives, of course. He patiently waited for the intro page to load and reveal pictures and names.
“Can I warm you up, honey?” the waitress offered. When he did not answer she bent over him, looking over at the website. “Such a cute couple,” she commented. “You want anything, sweetie?”
He could smell her breath. She stank of stale cigarettes, bologna and overworked deodorant. Spinning his head around to look at the ill-smelling intruder, he got an eyeful of tan wrinkly cleavage. He thought, Curiosity killed the cat, you nosy reeking bitch. But he smiled and said, “No thanks. Just checking one thing and then I’m leaving.” He looked at the nametag dangling close to his face. “I got somebody waiting on me, Barb.”
She returned the smile. “Just let me know if you change your mind,” she said as she moved to the next table with her coffee decanters, her backside sashaying side to side. When she leaned over to fill up the next customer’s cup, he caught a peek of her pink panties.
His mind drifted off to the wonderfully exquisite pain he could cause her. He could not help it; the thought of her tears aroused him. He changed his mind; he did want something. He wanted to see the fear in her eyes and smell the salty rusted copper and iron of her blood. Surely that would get her unholy bodily stench from his nostrils. Her insides had to smell better than her outsides. His pants tightened uncomfortably and he felt a pang of guilt. Hers were not the tears and fear he craved. He felt unclean. How could he have betrayed his love with lust for the blood and pain of one so undeserving?
He needed to get back to business. For the next ritual he needed the blood of a virgin and that was hard to come by these days. He looked back at the screen and the site had loaded. John and Mary were getting married in a few days, or so they thought, and she had saved herself for their wedding night. He entered the password she had given him and their whole world opened up for him to access. Conveniently for him, they had poste
d pictures of themselves in their favorite places. How nice that they felt so safe. He studied their hangouts and memorized their faces. They were perfect, just what he was looking for.
She had been wrong. Maeve had told Margaux and Nathalia that she thought Sara might be ready to fly solo. After last night, if either got wind of this, it would be months before they let her try again. It was a shame that Sara did not have the confidence or courage to succeed, but no good would come now of harshing her roll.
Sara was high. Worse than that, she had attempted a matchmaking while intoxicated. She’d botched it. Only time would tell what effects Lucas would suffer. Right now Maeve needed to take care of her apprentice.
Maeve had decided on the drive home that she would try to keep this between the three of them. Elle had agreed not to talk about it, but if the Abbess asked her directly she would not tell a lie. Maeve was going to do the official report herself so that her companions would not have to face Nathalia. Maeve didn’t want Sara to suffer demotion or, worse, expulsion.
Elle had gone to her room and gone to bed. Maeve took Sara to the one place on the compound Nathalia would never accidentally find her. The boys’ annex. The Abbess insisted they have their own wing, separated from the main building and the majority of the women. Nathalia often spoke of men as second-class citizens. “They are rapists and murderers and we have no place for them in our utopia,” she would often say. Men were the one thing she and Maeve fought about. Maeve gave in and kept herself quiet on the issue. She knew, better than most, what reasons Nathalia had to hate men.
But someone needed to look after Sara while she came down, and Israel was just the man for the job. As a deejay, he was very familiar with the ways of the raver. She knew he would be just getting in; after all, he worked last night. She had called him from the car, but had not explained why she needed him, just that she did.
His studio apartment had been unlocked, just like he said it would be. It was a mess, also just like he said. She helped herself to the cleanest tee shirt she could find, finally able to safely remove her corset. Everyone on the compound was aware of her vows. Being in such close proximity to the Capacitors was reminder enough of her sacred duties. She rolled the corset into a long flat tube and tucked it into one of the many pockets in her purse. It wasn’t fair that the coven demanded so much from her, to be so close to love with every matchmaking and not be allowed that for herself. But she had taken her vows willingly and in full knowledge of what they mean. She had done it so that her mentor might have peace from the emotional torture that was the life of a Vinculum. So much for Sara being that for her, at least not for a while. Maeve twisted her hair up and lay on the couch, planning out her report in her head, when Israel came in.
He carefully laid down his case full of vinyls and locked the door behind him. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together with a big grin on his face. Maeve sat up and he threw his leg behind her, sliding in so that he was seated in arrears of her on the couch. He started to massage her neck, firmly, just the way she liked it.
“Izzy...” She hesitated because it felt so good. “You need to save those magic hands. I hate to stop you.” She rolled her head forward and he found the painful lump in her neck and began to work the tension out of it. “But don’t waste your energy.”
Just then Israel heard the shower. He leaned to the side so he could look at her. “You didn’t call me for you?”
Maeve shook her head. Israel was her friend and they had fooled around plenty in the past. One of the few people she could have a casual relationship with, he was an anomaly, immune to her magic. He said it was because there was no perfect match out there for him. No one person could provide everything he needed.
“Disappointing,” he admitted. Maeve never tore him from his after party unless she needed something. He might not have come home if she hadn’t let him believe it was herself that needed his sexual healing. He showed no outrage at being led on. “So what’s up and who’s in my bathroom?”
They were alone, so Maeve just spilled the beans. “Sara, my Sophomore Vinculum, took something. She was trying to do her first solo matchmaking and was worried she wouldn’t climax.“ Vinculum power couldn’t be pulled from the communal pool, but had to be built and fashioned in the moment. It came from orgasm. “I guess we’re not as close as I thought.”
“Why?”
“I could have told her that the drug wouldn’t help if she’d just told me what she had planned. She could have come to me as my protégé or my friend, but she did neither.”
Izzy slid down, wrapped his legs around her waist and held her with them. His hand snaked out and grabbed the back her neck, pulling her ear close. “Maybe she just didn’t think someone like you could understand her difficulties.” His other hand spanned her throat for a moment before sliding down to caress her breasts. He kissed her ear as he said, “Not everyone can cum just from this.”
Maeve quivered. She closed her eyes for a second as her breath whooshed out. He knew her. They often joked about her eargasms. Maeve had a dozen hot spots that could activate quick arousal. Some were capable of activating spontaneous orgasms. “Izzy…please…”
“I do love it when a pretty girl begs me.”
“No, seriously.” Tempted to stay, she denied him, weakly. She knew Israel could handle pleasing both Sara and herself, but found her mind drifting to what Aaron would think if he found out she’d been in a threesome immediately after meeting him. “You have a long day ahead of you and I have to figure out who gave Sara the unauthorized dose and how to keep her out of trouble.”
Israel leaned back, putting space between them. He clasped his hands behind his head. Looking smug, he said, “The who is easy, sweetheart. Sara rooms with Tara Kay.”
That was worse than a Daughter squirreling away a legitimate dose and giving it to Sara. A Sophomore had produced and distributed the drug without permission. Maeve had always felt the coven was too restrictive on the less-experienced girls but this gave validity to Nathalia’s rules. There was no way everyone was going to come out of this unscathed. “You knew?” she asked.
“We went to the same high school. She had some kind of breakdown when the trailer she lived in got repossessed. After that she was known to be the go-to girl if you had an itch needed scratchin’. She could always get anything that grows and could make things that felt the same as ecstasy, acid or Ketamine. They don’t call her Special K for nothing. I thought she’d quit, but I’ve seen her dealing. It’s hard not to see everything that happens on the floor of Heaven from the deejay booth.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I thought she might be following orders.”
“Not that I know of.” Nathalia would never approve of that. She barely let the Ingenium make more than strong tea. Hopefully Nathalia would never find out, for Maeve’s, Sara’s and Tara’s sakes. “I don’t have to tell you that you can’t tell anyone.”
“Loud and clear, sweetheart. My lips are sealed. Don’t worry about this loose end. I’ll take care of Sara and keep her out of trouble while she comes down. Do you know when she took it?”
Maeve said, “I’m not sure, probably around four. I don’t think she’s peaking anymore, but it’s hard for me to tell.
“Music, dim lights…” Izzy muttered to himself. He got up and pulled the light blocking shades and turned on his laptop.
“I’ll issue her punishment later. Keep her from worrying about it right now, though.”
Izzy walked into his kitchenette to pour two orange juices. “You brought her to the right man. She can stay here for today and maybe tonight if she wants to. I don’t have any plans and she’ll have to rest sometime. We’ll sleep it off together.”
He came over and hugged Maeve as she got up to leave. “You’re a good friend,” she said. “Thanks.”
He followed her to the door. “You’re welcome. You owe me one.” He smiled and blew her a kiss and then locked her and everyone else out.
MAEVE KNEW where she could find almost
everyone: the sacred ficus grove. Even the Abbess was there, helping to harvest a crop of figs. These fruit were especially holy as they had matured under the convergence of celestial bodies of power. They must be harvested as soon as possible, since their ripening in December was impossible to explain to outsiders.
The secret to year-round fig crops was in the soil. This was their cemetery, the main reason a place like this had been chosen for the coven’s compound. The grounds had already been consecrated by the Catholic Church. No sister believed men made the earth holy, but sometimes it was easiest to go around the paperwork by traveling the path of least resistance.
Everyone worked quickly and quietly, each filling her own basket with the sacred fruit. Being without a basket, Maeve pulled a grocery bag from her purse. Tara Kay worked alone at one end of the grove. Maeve sidled up and started working alongside her, dropping figs into the sack. Nathalia immediately left her own post and approached the two of them. Maeve waved over the Ingenium Primo, Tara Kay’s mentor, and said to Tara in a low voice, “Go along with what I say and don’t let on anything about what you already gave Sara. It’s the only way to keep you both from getting into serious trouble.”
Tara pursed her lips, shrugged, and then went right back to work. She barely acknowledged the matchmaker’s command, but Maeve knew she heard.
Nathalia and Ingrid got there about the same time, all dressed for the weather. Maeve wished she had grabbed her sweater before coming out. The morning sun warmed the places where it shone, but tall surrounding trees shaded the fig grove.
For the Love of Magic Page 3
