Crimson Cove

by Eden Butler

  He wasn’t wrong. I felt a little punch drunk, still high from the wild hex that flew from my fingers. Moving away from him, I let the sound and scents of the forest move through me. It was volatile—all this sensation, all this energy. Couple that with the heat coming off the shifters and what the raw lines were doing to all of us and you had the makings of an impossible mission. Of all of us, Bane was the only one not cracking at the seams. He remained cool, guarded and in control. But he would. He’d trained for years to hone his abilities and alleviate any weaknesses.

  “You can spell me,” I told him, spinning around when the idea came to me.

  “No.”

  “Bane, come on. I can take it.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Will it hinder my awareness? Will it block the Elam’s signature from me?”

  “No. Not as such.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Jani, it requires more than you’re likely willing to give.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bane ran his fingers through his hair, grunting as though the thoughts spinning in his head were too much. “If I spell you to mute the lines then you’ll be vulnerable.”

  “Okay.”

  “It means that I’ll have to watch over you. It means that you’ll have to willingly submit to my protection.”

  “Submit?”

  “Your magic, your energy, you have to let me hold it, corral it if the lines begin to overwhelm you again.” He stepped forward. “I’ll be able to see inside your thoughts, your emotions.”

  That was a hurdle I hadn’t expected. Let Bane inside my head? Give him access to my thoughts, to what I felt?

  “Will…will you know my memories?”

  “No. Those don’t have anything to do with your magical signature. But Jani, you’ll be vulnerable…to me. Everything will be there for me to sense.”

  “I can’t have lines overwhelm me, Bane.” I reached out for him instinctually. Holding his large hands, feeling his warm skin under my fingers, it’s what I wanted. But in that motion, I realized that maybe whoever took the Elam knew exactly what they were doing, so much better than we expected. Maybe they understood something about Bane, about me that no one else did—that eventually, the lines would pull us back together. And they were using that to their advantage.

  No one knew what had happened that day in Matthews’ class. Rumors had flooded the town; yes, and lots of speculations on what I’d done, why it was that Bane Iles had stumbled after me as I took off. But no one knew what really had happened.

  And just then I realized that the Elam, the amulet, the buffer had been securely in place back then. It had allowed us the control to keep the lines from overrunning us all. All of us, yes, but me and Bane especially. Me and Bane, together. Without that control, how the hell did anyone know what me coming back to the Cove might do?

  The lines exploited like this would destroy us all. Not just me and Bane, but all of us. I wasn’t strong enough by myself to keep from lashing out without the Elam’s help. I could be used to bring us all down. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “I can’t let them take control like that again. I need you the temper them. I can’t risk it, not again.”

  Several minutes passed without him looking away, without him uttering a sound or doing anything but pinching his eyebrows together as though he needed to figure out my angle. There were arguments, objections working in his mind, I could see the result of them in his expression until finally Bane dipped his head, barely an agreement, more an acquiescence. “Alright. I’ll do it, but Jani, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “You think I should worry about you knowing how I feel?” He didn’t say anything. So I tried the only thing I could think to do—teasing. “Mr. Iles, you think a lot of yourself don’t you?” Just then I realized I loved his grin. It made him look so unencumbered by the life he’d been handed. “That kiss was ten years ago.”

  Bane nodded, nudging his foot against the rocks at his feet and his attention on that small task. “It was a damn fine kiss.”

  “It was.” I stepped closer, my feet shuffling the rocks, my presence bringing his gaze back at me. “But I never said it was the best.”

  Chapter Eight

  Darkness creates its own kind of magic.

  There are spells working in the twitching calls of insects and the low, close cry of the owls warming the night with their songs. This night was different. It seemed darker, denser somehow and as I sat in the clearing, shivering from the campfire’s absence with Bane on his haunches in front of me, I thought the magic I felt just then had nothing to do with the whispers of nature around us and the low, quieted call of the lines.

  “You can change your mind.” His voice was low, maybe a hint uncertain, but Bane’s comment came off as bland, point of fact.

  I doubted his concern was from any inability he thought he might have at working the spell. Maybe he was worried what he’d see inside my head. Maybe he didn’t want the burden of taming my magic. Whatever his worry, the wizard pushed it down, shifted closer as though he didn’t expect me to heed the warning he gave.

  Eyes closed tight, I fought off the shiver that threatened to move across my skin as Bane’s scent got closer. “Just do it already. I’m damn cold.”

  “You won’t be for long.”

  There was a lot of threat, a good deal more challenge in that statement, but Bane couldn’t frazzle me. Not then. Not when the risk of losing control was just a mile away, near the camp, near the spring and group of sleeping shifters giving us space to perform the spell. This was too important to read much into. Besides, the one-sided connection to Bane was something that settled inside me ten years ago. I had gotten good at pushing it aside when I needed to.

  “I’ll need to touch you.” The flash of my lids opening, almost pulled the small frown from Bane’s expression, but he let my reaction pass. “Just your wrist. I’ll need to feel your skin.”

  He’d touched me before, a handful of times, incidental, but still had set something off in Bane that had me worried. What would this spell do? Would it somehow loosen the block on his memories?

  “Jani?”

  “It’s fine. Just get it over with.”

  And he did. Those warm, wide fingers curling around my wrist, his scent, the heat from his large form all crowding around me and then…that touch tightened.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he promised just as that grip clamped on my wrist, pulling, until Bane held my left arm off my lap and my open palm close to his mouth.

  The words that passed Bane’s lips were ancient, like the sound the sea would make if its crashing had voice or reason. The sound of his voice in that language was something that warmed my stomach, edged around my nexus as if just those words, the lyric and melody in their cadence, could somehow cradle it, keep it safe.

  I didn’t recall just when it was that I’d shut my eyes again, or why the sensation of floating came to me. There was only a liquid warm bliss of being held as though I was precious, as though the heat of his breath against my palm meant more than a spell, more than protection from the insistent pull of the lines. The way Bane touched me felt possessive, assured, and though I was certain I was reading a bit too much into it, I still enjoyed the sensation it gave me.

  “Bane.” The whispered word slipped from me like a plea that held no fear, and the moment I’d spoken his name, I understood where my embarrassment and regret came from. That grip, at least, grew tighter.

  “Stay quiet.” For once, I listened. “The spell will take me around your blocks, those damn walls you’ve constructed to keep everyone away.” I opened my mouth, thought of dozens of excuses that would challenge Bane’s assumption, but he’d know. Somehow he was beginning to know the truth of me already. “Don’t bother,” he told me with the smallest laugh in his words. “I see them plain, Jani. They’re there for anyone you don’t share blood with. You trust no one but your kin. Not even your coven.” A few m
ore whispered words and those excuses became weak. “That’s sad, Jani, but I understand the point.”

  Bane didn’t need to be in my head. The thought of him there, aware of things I didn’t want anyone to know, made my chest tighten. Instead, I pushed forward the thought of the beach and the small house that met the white sand of Biloxi. There was a cobbled stone walkway from the front porch and the green, tidy grass that met an azalea and crape myrtle-lined white picket fence and dipped down to the sandy beach below. It was my dream house. I wanted to call it L’Abri Reach and rent out two of the four rooms on the second floor.

  “The beach?” Bane asked, distracted by the image. My only reply was a small hum, happy, content. “It’s…nice, Jani.”

  It was. It was my dream, living on that beach, away from the Cove, away from the covens and the city and the sleight of hand I had to use living in New York just to do my job well.

  Writers were a strange group, wanting a certain look, a unique vibe for their covers, their promotions. For the most part, I could create something that satisfied, but lately, the pull of the Cove, the worry over my family, had me losing focus, relying too much on my abilities just to pull off the design jobs for my clients’ book covers.

  “How do you do it?” Bane asked and I didn’t hesitate answering, something that should have warned me how easily it had been for him to tame my magic.

  “Dream…dreamwalking.”

  “Without their permission?”

  “Yes.”

  The tension from his body flooded into my skin and when I moaned, uncomfortable, Bane pulled it back. “How do you manage that?”

  “Take…take something from them. Their napkins from business lunches, the sketches they send me to show me what they want.” I took a breath. “It has to be something they’ve touched or created. I get that easily and slip right into their imagination.”

  “And it works.”

  A quick nod and I spoke dispassionately, as though the words were pulled from my mouth with little effort. “Last month I cleared enough money to pay off my credit cards.”

  “Whatever it takes, right?”

  He sounded disappointed, preoccupied, and then I felt the whisper of something from behind the tallest wall, the one with the highest safeguard. The one that shielded who I’d claimed that day in Matthews’ classroom. Even if I allowed that wall to crumble with Bane’s influence, he’d never know it was him. He might sense familiarity, maybe even recognize my age, my train of thought from that time, but he couldn’t latch on to those memories—the where, the who. Still, even the smallest hint of recognition could weaken the block I’d placed on him all those years ago.

  He couldn’t have that one.

  Bane inched around that wall—I could sense the old spell brushing against it as the other walls protecting my subconscious came down and I quickly learned that this little push and pull wasn’t one-sided. Bane forced that spell toward that mammoth wall and I pushed back literally and metaphorically, blocking the intrusion in my mind and shifting my arm, fighting him as he held my wrist.

  “Easy, Jani. Be still.” He did not pursue that one as aggressively as before, but that push remained, like a curious horse eager to bust away from the gate keeping him corralled. “What are you hiding…” he whispered, a thought voiced unchecked.

  “The spell, Bane. Finish it.”

  He hesitated only for a moment, touching my forehead with the tip of his fingers, resting them there as the chant he uttered rushed up, pulsing at first, like a heartbeat and then, as he spoke louder, faster, those words bent and mended together until the chant became a beacon, a thriving element that fused and spoke into the darkness. Inside my mind there were flashes of thoughts made real, vivid, the emotions that drove my magic, markers that would set me off and then, with the whip of heat searing inside me, through me, Bane stopped speaking, held tighter and tighter to me until all was still and silent and the only thing I heard was my speeding pulse and the sounds of the forest around me.

  God how I wanted him, just then. He leaned so close to me that his breath dampened my bottom lip. “Something is there,” he told me, shifted my body so that my cheek was in one of his hands and the other held the back of my neck. “I used to daydream, as a kid, especially that senior year. Just then, pushing against that wall, I remembered that daydream…nails…your nails on my neck, over my chest, your teeth…skimming.” He frowned, head shaking.

  I remembered it too. How could I forget?

  My fingertips against his hard nipples and my lips and tongue wetting down the center of his throat. There’d been heat, some sort of spell cast between our bodies, a hum that mirrored the heartbeat of the earth, the faint, but constant hum of the ley lines pulsing through the Cove. That’s what had zipped around the room, the sensation foreign to anyone mortal. Bane had tilted me back, his large, strong hands holding my head as he’d smoothed his mouth and nose down my neck, in the valley of my breasts, and my hips had moved, grinding against him, making our centers touch and just then I’d felt it, him, long and hard and gloriously hot through my thin shorts.

  We had let ourselves go too far. There’d been too much touching, too many months of pent up attraction, that we could not see the light flickering through our limbs or hear the slow thump of each other’s hearts beating beneath our skin. Bane’s low, hurried groan of pleasure, my eager, needy moans had grown louder, stronger until that great whip of electricity between us moved hard, easy through our touching bodies.

  And then, the break of my exhale fashioned a thicker, strong wall in front of the only one barrier left. He couldn’t see it, not just then, but the memory of that day, the emotions it had stirred inside me—the moment Bane felt what I felt, the recall so similar, I supposed to him, that he jerked away from me, stunned, looking more frustrated than he had a moment before. But Bane—cool, calm, never flustered Bane Iles—brought back in the calm that was never far from his reach as he watched my face, his gaze working over my features, as though he was trying to catch a flicker of movement, some small tell that would clue him in on who had conjured those emotions from me.

  There was a small distance between us then, him guarded, me on watch, making sure he could not get more from my thoughts than I’d already given. When I only returned the stare he gave me, Bane moved away from me, eyes still focused, consumed, confident.

  “Your secrets are your own,” he finally said, a little of his confidence dimmed, but his resolve stronger than ever.

  Good, I thought. He’ll need it.

  “They are.”

  One step forward and Bane stared down at me. “Then why do I get the feeling that what’s behind that wall isn’t just for you?”

  Beyond us, I sensed the weight of the lines trying to breech across the safeguard Bane had placed inside me. He sensed it too, even nodded toward it when I looked at him, expecting confirmation. But he wanted an answer, didn’t seem to care that his spell had worked on me.

  “Don’t go poking, Bane. Not all secrets need telling.”

  Bane was only a foot away from me, his mind likely lingering around the confusion of that day, ten years ago, and the heat he thought he’d imagined. But it had been real. Hell, it was still so damn real and even with him tempering the lines from me, Bane seemed to know it too.

  “A warning,” he started looking as though he wasn’t sure if he wanted me or wanted to be angry with me. “I may not be able to have complete awareness of your thoughts, but I can tell what direction they’re heading toward.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning if I piss you off, I’m gonna know.” I shook my head, not caring if Bane knew how often he pissed me off. “Meaning that if I do something you like,” he moved his gaze down my body, then back up, “Well, I’ll know just how much you like what I do.”

  “And if someone else does something I like?” He grunted, but remained silent. “I mean, if say, one of those primal, alpha shifters do something I really, really like…”

 
“I’ll damn well know.” The clip of his voice was a warning I took to heart.

  “I see.”

  There was little time left now for us to squabble or argue over what I kept from him so when I turned away, needing the distance, and he grabbed my arm, stopping me, and the shock was quick and, despite knowing him as I did, unexpected. “That daydream…” He pressed his lips together. “Felt damn real.”

  My eyes kept steady on my wrist in his grip, as though on their own, they’d decided looking at Bane wouldn’t be smart. “Why are you touching me again?” Finally able to control myself, I looked up. “The spell is over.”

  “Is it?”

  There was something new, something strange to how Bane pulled me in. The lines weren’t calling me, insisting that I take him, claim him once again. They were, in fact, nothing more than a quiet whisper I could barely make out, begging now instead of insisting. The sensation had no bite, not as it did before Bane’s spell, but there was still a heat between us, that constant energy that no block could keep from us. We were drawn to each other even without the lines’ interference.

  “Bane…” He inched closer and I held my breath as that pull—our pull—between us drew us closer. “What am I thinking now?”

  He growled, rushing toward my mouth, warming it with just a brush of his lips. “The same damn thing I am.” He gripped my face between his fingers and kissed me hard, scorching against my mouth like he wanted to claim it. God, how I wish he would, and just that thought made that low, deep groan in Bane’s throat transform into a growl of pleasure.

  The air around us dropped, the temperatures cooling the wind, bringing brittle leaves and small twigs from the trees around us. Nothing slipped into my thoughts as we came closer, as I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to touch Bane, that he belonged to someone else, that he was meant for something else in which I played no part. But just for that moment, I wanted to take him. I wanted his touch and taste all over me.

  At the thought, Bane broke away, his hot, hurried breath fanning down my nose as he rested his forehead against mine. “This spell was an insanely bad idea.”