Smoke and Magic: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Touched By Magic: Dragon Book 2)

by Ashley Meira

  “Do they have magic?” Ollie asked, completely engrossed with the marine biology lesson. I hoped Symeon could entertain him for the rest of the trip. What was I thinking? Of course he could. He’s Symeon.

  He shook his head. “They usually have spears. The charybdis’ strength allows them to throw those spears with quite a great deal of force. It’d be like getting hit by a spear gun. So try to move out of the way, hm? They might hit the Teeth.”

  We were wearing his very important artifacts that he didn’t have to let us borrow, so I held back my glare — and the finger I had half up. “Can we use magic underwater?”

  “Mhm. Ice and water only. Unless you have a penchant for electrocuting yourself or summoning whirlpools. Fire won’t work at all. Fairy magic is fine, but expect to be battered by water currents if you shrink down. Now—” Symeon gave us a dramatic bow as if he’d just finished performing a stunning aria “—my part is done. I shall go steer the ship while you all ruin poor Oliver’s day with news of Armageddon.”

  “Cool.” Ollie nodded. “Wait, what?”

  Fiona put a hand on his shoulder and turned to us. “I’ll tell him if you promise to do my laundry this month.”

  “You’re talking to him, right?” I said, jutting a thumb at Adam.

  “Careful.” He nipped the tip of my thumb. “I bite.”

  My hand fell as heat spread across my face. Yes, he did. “I’ll do your laundry, but first I really need some air.”

  This floating mansion posing as a yacht ran smoothly. We glided across the waves like they were butter, and I lost myself staring at the clear blue water. The ocean had always been beautiful to me — and terrifying, with all its secrets. There was an entire world down there. One we didn’t know about and probably never would. If Symeon was telling the truth about what lived in the darker depths, however, I was fine with that. I liked the ocean better when the Kraken was just a myth.

  Before she grabbed Ollie, I’d asked Fiona to drop by Adam’s to get us some new clothes. I felt bad making her waste magic on the trip, but it wasn’t until we were halfway down the dock that we realized jeans, tank tops, and leather boots weren’t dive-friendly.

  Fiona and I were now in leggings and a sweater. I’d be fine, but I was worried about how she’d handle the dipping temperature. She said her clothes were thermal, which I hope meant warm and lightweight. Adam had refused my leggings, much to my chagrin, and went with her to pick out his own clothes. Just as well — I’d have died from laughter if he came out looking like Baryshnikov.

  I unzipped my pocket, brushing my fingers against the Gem of Anathasia. Fear of getting caught kept me from pulling it out, but I knew what it looked like. It was a giant ruby surrounded by a platinum band inscribed with ancient words, just like my ring. Which was currently in Adam’s guest room. I wasn’t risking losing that underwater.

  I made sure to bring the Gem, though. Just in case things went south, and I had to teleport us to, say, Africa. Not that I had any intentions of letting a tidal wave destroy cities and kills hundreds of thousands of people. But these guys were my family, and I wasn’t going to let them die. Satisfied the Gem wasn’t going anywhere, I zipped my pocket back up and tried not to imagine every possible thing that could go wrong.

  “Beautiful,” a deep voice said from over my shoulder.

  “I love the water,” I told Adam, automatically reaching for his hand. “Though I feel like that might change soon.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the water.” He chuckled, his fingers warm as they intertwined in mine. “We can always stay in the marina next time.”

  “Why’d you even buy a house?” I asked. “This place is enough for a king.”

  “Seagulls,” he said simply.

  I snorted. “If that’s the price I had to pay to live here, I would.”

  “You want to?”

  “Who wouldn’t want to live here?”

  “No, really.” He tugged on my hand, turning me toward him. “Do you want to live here? You and Fiona can stay.”

  I blinked — once, twice, then a dozen more times — but his words still hadn’t sunk in. “Huh?”

  “I bought this when I graduated high school,” he said, ducking his head. “It was an impulse buy. Damien wanted to get one when he graduated, but he’d pissed me off the day before. I knew if I bought a yacht, he couldn’t without feeling like second place.”

  Great. Now I had more stuff to process. Who bought a yacht-mansion on impulse? It was baffling. “Huh?”

  “It was dumb,” he said, his cheeks tinged red. “My dad threw a fit. First time I ever saw his magic go off like that. My mother calmed him down — eventually — and I got to keep it. Damien sulked for a month. If he hadn’t, I probably would have sold it.”

  “You’d let me live in your aqua palace?” I stammered out, mouth ajar.

  “I won’t be here,” he said. Yeah, like that was my problem. “If you’re worried, I’ll give you all the spare keys too.”

  “That’s not it.” I gestured around, trying to let the vessel speak for itself. “It’s freakin’ huge! And you’re offering it to me?”

  “You don’t have a home,” he said. “And I think it’s too soon for us to live together.”

  My face went red. “I didn’t mean we should live together!”

  Adam pulled me against his chest, the soft fabric of his sweater making everything feel twice as wonderful. “Relax. I apologize if I came on too strongly. You’re not obligated to accept anything I offer, and you’re both welcome to stay with me until your home is repaired. But if you’d rather not go through the trouble—”

  “We have to,” I said. “It’s not just going to stay a hole in the ground.”

  “Fair enough.” He held me tight as I recovered from my shock. He offered to let me live here like it was no big deal. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

  I shook my head. “Not at all. It was just so generous. Caught me off guard. Not that you aren’t usually generous. I mean—”

  Adam chuckled and dipped my head back, crashing his lips against mine. His kiss was slow and deep, enough to take my breath away twice over and curl my toes until I thought I would fall.

  “Thank you,” I whispered against his lips.

  “We’re here!” Symeon called.

  I groaned and pulled away from Adam. He led me down to the helm, his hand engulfing mine. Fiona and Ollie were already there, and I couldn’t help noticing how much paler the green witch looked.

  Symeon stopped the yacht and walked to the edge. “The tribe’s domicile is to the southeast of here. Not too far away, which isn’t saying much if you consider how large the ocean is. Still, you should make it within an hour if you’re lucky. Don’t go too deep. Those Teeth won’t prevent the pressure from affecting you.”

  Ollie kept shooting concerned glances over his shoulder. Toward Santa Fae, I realized. We’d gone out pretty far, but I could still see it in the distance. Other cities surrounded it, lining the coast. They looked like tiny dominos. It was hard to imagine hundreds of thousands of people lived there.

  It was even harder to imagine they could all be dead before the day passed.

  “Depending on how far we go, I should be able to portal us back to the boat,” Fiona said. “Hopefully. If not, it’ll be because someone had to have her fancy zipper leggings.”

  “Hey,” I said dangerously, “it’s a big ocean. Accidents happen.”

  Symeon rolled his eyes and shooed us to the edge. “Bicker underwater. Oliver and I are sick of it. We’ll be here, drinking tea and complaining about what handfuls you two are.”

  “He’s got a point,” Ollie said. “About being handfuls, I mean.”

  “We’ll be back soon,” Adam said before leaping off the edge.

  I was about to dive when Fiona spoke up. “Wait, what do the charybdis look like?”

  “Oh, you’ll know when you see them.” With that, Symeon stepped forward and shoved us both overboard
.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I’d been in the water less than a minute before something grabbed me. One hand gripped my hip while the other cupped the back of my head. The pressure against my mouth was muted, but that just made Adam kiss me harder.

  I kissed him back, tangling my fingers in his hair. My legs wound around his waist as I pulled him closer, running my tongue against his teeth. He grinned before letting me in, pulling a moan from my mouth.

  “Gross.” Fiona’s voice brought me to my senses. I pulled away, though Adam did his best to stop me. “Your moaning probably attracted every shark in the vicinity.”

  “There are no sharks,” Adam said, peppering kisses along my jaw.

  I pushed him away, giving me the chance to see how gorgeous he looked underwater. His hair floated around him like a halo, and the sunlight piercing through the water provided him with a golden glow. With half his face in shadow and the other in light, he looked like the perfect mix of devil and angel.

  “We share a wall,” I told Fiona, forcing myself to look at her instead of Adam. “For the past three years, I’ve had to put up with you and your boyfriends.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Fine, your moaning wasn’t that bad.”

  “Don’t even get me started on that guy who hummed whenever—”

  She shoved me. The water’s density prevented her from moving me very far, and I gave her a smug grin.

  Narrowing her eyes, she said, “I’ll stop if you will.”

  “Deal.” After a beat, I opened my mouth. “Water isn’t rushing down my throat.”

  “Part of the Teeth’s power?” Fiona thumbed her necklace. The pearl fang was glowing softly in her hand, serving as a source of light. “Everything seems to be working well so far.”

  “Hopefully they’ll let us communicate with the nereids,” Adam said, pointing past a large cliff face. “Southeast is that way. Let’s go.”

  Fiona nodded. “Okay. Lead on.”

  “Sure. Also—” Adam brushed his lips against mine “—I like the way she moans.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet you do.”

  “It’s the carrot,” he said. “Keeps me motivated.”

  I groaned, scaring off a passing school of fish. “Can my sister and my… Adam not discuss the way I moan? I’m willing to electrocute this water.” Hey, not like it’d kill me. Probably.

  Adam pulled back, the water making his face look slightly blurry. “Your Adam?”

  I blinked. Oh. Oh. I’d been using that as a placeholder for so long — I didn’t realize he’d never heard me say it. I also didn’t realize it’d taken on a new meaning since then.

  “Yeah,” I finally said.

  He grinned, but before he could speak, a burst of red split us up.

  Fiona’s puffed up cheeks floated into my line of sight. “Look, I’m the first person to support you two canoodling, but I wasn’t joking about sharks.”

  I frowned. “You’ve never been afraid of sharks before.”

  “I’ve never been in the middle of the ocean before,” she huffed. “Let’s go. You can talk about making it Magicbook official when we’re safe inside the nereids’ barrier.”

  She swam away in a huff, and Adam took off after her. I rolled my eyes, still unused to the lack of water seeping in. Would Symeon notice if I kept this Tooth? He had seven more. With plans on how to hide this necklace forming in my mind, I followed them into the depths.

  Another school of fish swam by, scattering to let us pass before regrouping behind me. I twisted around, swimming on my back so I could watch them fade away. The cliff face to my left was jam-packed with coral of various colors, making the entire wall look like a field of flowers. I ran my fingers over them, waving at the little fishies who poked their heads out.

  My sword knocked against my leg, and I readjusted it. Given how ineffective Fiona’s shove had been, I doubted the blade would be much use here. I had to use magic, which wasn’t a big deal when my only witnesses were these two. Hopefully, I’d improved enough to be of help.

  Wide eyes stopped me in my tracks. I kicked back, watching the giant fish that had cut me off swim away, its large eyes seemingly staring me down. So cool. I continued, making sure to keep up with my friends while still enjoying the moment.

  What was it about the water? It had always soothed me. Maybe it was a “back to the womb” thing. Closing my eyes, I let myself sink lower, stopping when Fiona and Adam’s magic felt close. As long as they were near, it was fine.

  Something tickled my nose, and I opened my eyes to see a swarm of silver tails swimming right past my face. Yeah, I was definitely keeping this necklace. Living on Adam’s yacht may not be so bad if it meant I could go diving every day. Not that I was seriously considering his offer. That would be wildly inappropriate, though it was hard to remember why at the moment.

  We left the wall behind and went toward darker waters. The coral here was muted shades of green instead of the bright pinks and yellows of the cliff face. I swam closer anyway, grinning when I saw the fish here popped their heads out from the reefs as much as their coral-dwelling cousins.

  The back of my neck prickled. I let ice crystals form around my nails as I whipped around, ready to attack. Adam was there, staring at me with a content smile on his face.

  Ollie’s word came back to me: smitten.

  “What?” I huffed. “Do I have coral on my face?”

  “Just a smile.” He took my hand and pulled me closer, making sure we kept swimming after Fiona. “A very peaceful, happy smile. Keep doing it.”

  I frowned on principle, but my muscles fought against me. “We need to find the village.”

  “It’s too bright here,” he said. “Too open. We need to go deeper.” His lips grazed mine. “I should take you swimming more often if it makes you this happy.”

  Even under the water’s cool touch, I felt my cheeks heat up. “Focus.”

  “I am. You’re very beautiful when you’re like this. Well, you’re always beautiful, but I digress.”

  “I like the water,” I said, trying not to let his words distract me. Tiny fishies swam by, and I let them take my attention. But they didn’t make my heart flutter.

  “That’s why we should do this more often.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” Fiona interrupted, shooting us a glare. “Sharks. Keep my big sister away from the ocean.”

  “You have no proof I’m older,” I said. “And you’ve never had a problem going to the beach.”

  “This is not the beach. This is where the Kraken would rise from.”

  “I have a pool at home,” Adam said. “Swimming is swimming. Though if being near the ocean is what does it, there’s also a pool on the yacht.”

  Fiona and I stopped to stare at him.

  She pursed her lips. “I never thought I’d say this, but you might have too much money.”

  He shrugged, but the movement was stiff. “It was there when I bought it.”

  “Guys,” I said. “We have a problem.”

  Schools of fish had been swimming around us like it was underwater rush hour. Now, there were only a few stragglers quickly darting away. Everything was still. Even the kelp looked frozen.

  We were alone.

  But not for long. Dark shadows were approaching us, too large and too fast to be regular fish.

  “We should go,” Fiona said. “Now. While we have a head start.”

  “We don’t,” Adam said, nodding to a gathering of dark figures on our other side. “More incoming.”

  We swam down, hoping to put more distance between us and whatever was coming. They were still too far to identify, but the vanishing fish told me they weren’t dolphins.

  I didn’t have to wonder long. The water to my left distorted, a rush of pressure pulling me down. A spear slammed into the boulder below me, cracking the rock in two. An inch to the right, and I’d have been harpooned.

  The three of us turned, magic gathering in our hands. What we saw soured my
fondness for sea life. They looked more like lizards than fish, with rough, pale scales covering their entire bodies. They even had arms and legs, ending in claws as sharp as their teeth. Their backs were curved, giving them a humpbacked appearance. But it was their faces that nightmares were made of. My nightmares, anyway. They looked like swollen angler fish, their lower jaws jutting out with a mouthful of ugly, misshapen fangs as long as my forearm.

  Symeon was right about knowing the charybdis when we saw them.

  “I’d have preferred a shark,” I said, shivering. Angler fish were high on my list of things I could not handle, right up there with olives and my feelings for Adam.

  “Maybe they’re friendly,” Fiona said, eyeing the six horror stories warily.

  “They threw a spear at me,” I said. “Plus, they don’t look friendly.”

  “That’s rude. What if they always look angry because everyone judges—”

  A spear flew at her. It’d have hit if she hadn’t shrunk down. When she grew back, she was a few feet away with a dazed look on her face.

  “Wow. Screw currents,” she slurred. “Screw spears that create currents. And screw fish monsters that throw spears!”

  Fiona ended her rant with a Fairy Blast. Water didn’t slow magic, and I watched as the charybdis scattered with alarming speed. Definitely would have preferred a shark.

  I dodged a spear, but the currents from the impact pushed me toward another one. It grazed my side, causing blood to flow into the water. The spear tip was jagged, and I winced at the nasty-looking gash on my stomach.

  “At least they can’t reuse spears,” Fiona said before screaming as an unarmed charybdis barreled toward her, unhinging its horrific maw. Suddenly, the spears didn’t sound so bad.

  Taking inspiration from them, I hurled a spear of my own. The icicle flew into the charybdis’ eye. It reeled back and let out an ear-shattering screech.