Darkly Sweet

by Juliann Whicker

  He smiled at me, his eyes greener the more I stared at him. “Are you worried that I grabbed you after what happened last time?”

  I ran my fingers over the white gauze bandage. “That reminds me, I need to change my bandage. So much to do.” I focused on smiling at him. “I’m sure that you’re very busy. I’ll try not to take any more of your time.” I didn’t look at him again while I carefully walked across the room with my school bag over my shoulder. My suit was on a hanger and looked better than it ever had.

  “My pleasure, Penny. If you ever need help cleaning your clothes or your sweet flesh, don’t hesitate to call.”

  I flinched then lifted the basket and the hanger, gave him a quick smile without quite looking at him, and closed the door on the weirdest if not the worst day of my life.

  Chapter 9

  Mage

  Well, that had been interesting. I sat down on the chair she’d just abandoned, running like a scared little rabbit from the big bad wolf, as though she hadn’t just been sleeping in my den.

  She’d walked right in like she didn’t notice the shield I’d put on the door to guarantee my privacy. I liked to do my laundry alone. I liked to do everything alone, but one could hardly do that while keeping up appearances. Appearances weren’t much, but they were all I had to keep the ravaging anger and darkness at bay.

  I wasn’t in the mood for company, not even someone as delicious as Penny Lane. It was difficult not to snarl at her, throw her out of the room when she insulted me with her apology, but direct assault was absolutely out of the question. She was so utterly incompetent. I couldn’t help but watch her in horror as she attempted to ‘do laundry’. A witch shouldn’t let a mage touch her personal property, but she did, blushing like a peach and having a difficult time meeting my eyes.

  After I got her laundry started, I focused on hand washing another shirt. Did we have enough Selenium for the light projection I wanted at the tourney? I would have to talk to Pewter about it. The background sound of Penny scratching on her notebook with her pencil stopped and didn’t resume for three minutes. I glanced at her and paused. I’d never seen a sleeping witch before. Her lips twitched and she murmured about flowers.

  Poppies. She sounded so sad. I stared at her for eight minutes until the washing machine buzzed loudly, startling me out of my fascinated reverie. She should have woken up from that sound, but she didn’t even stir.

  After standing there with nothing better to do, I changed her laundry, rotating her suit in the steamer before I walked back to stare at her. I stood there, seven feet away from her, four, two, until my fingers curled over the back of her chair, her strawberry blond curls covering her like a blanket.

  I sat on the desk beside her head, but she didn’t sense me on the base level of awareness every witch should have. A mage and his magic should have set off all kinds of alarms to a three-quarter Darkside witch. There was something wrong with her. I’d seen an aberration once. They’d fought a war over her, some female who was so deliciously vulnerable no mage could resist her. If that’s what she was, she ought to be under lock and key, not thrown to the slavering wolves at Rosewood, wolves like myself.

  “What are you?” Even my voice didn’t wake her up as I moved my hand above her body, two inches of space between my skin and her hair, echoing the contours and shape of her head, her back. I sensed her easily enough. I could feel the warmth she gave off, the smell of her perfume, flowers and vanilla that couldn’t hold a candle to the way she’d tasted.

  My hand paused while my mouth watered. She’d wanted to irritate the petty little witches, and I loved to torment them. It seemed like a very straightforward, even noble, mutual cause, but somehow, I’d forgotten about our audience and simply tasted her.

  She’d run away from me when I showed my interest so clearly in gobbling her up.

  Maybe she took it as a literal warning rather than a euphemism. Maybe it had been.

  Either way, I did not enjoy watching her run away from me, not if I wasn’t allowed to chase her.

  I shook my head and refocused on the white and sterile laundry room where she slept. I sent a wave of magic against her that lapped over her skin then swirled around and around until there was nothing left of it. Fascinating. I spent twenty minutes pouring magic over her, harmless magic that would do things like help her study better. What I was doing, experimenting on a sleeping witch, was clearly outside the bounds of the covenant. Using magic on a witch without her permission was as forbidden as taking her blood.

  I smiled slightly and touched her hair. It was practically its own person, a mess of shimmering red gold that would look so nice with mine. On my pillow. In my bed.

  I shook my head and stepped away. I could never let down my guard with a witch. I’d seen the results of that too many times. Of course, I wouldn’t sleep with her, not literally.

  Having her in my bed not sleeping, however…

  The dryer buzzed and I waited to see if that would wake her, but apparently she’d had an exhausting first day of classes. It wasn’t only classes. I’d seen her in the hall, tripped by a witch whose personal violence surprised me. I expected to see a full on witch battle, but Penny got up and kept walking as if she didn’t notice falling on her face in front of twenty snickering students.

  I shook my head as I got her laundry out and then, with another glance over at the pile of curls that was all I could see of her, I folded her things. It wasn’t nearly as invasive as so many of our encounters, but I felt a little bit scandalized by my own nerve as I picked up a pair of silk polka dot pink panties in my rough, large hands.

  It would make her blush when she saw how neatly I’d folded them. I shook my head and counted breaths, considered something desperately trivial like whether I should order a new green suit the exact shade of my eyes, and if so whether it should be straight or slim cut.

  There were so many things to think about besides the witch sleeping behind me and her clothes in my hands. I’d held her very close after I’d tasted her, the warmth of her body seeping into me like a warm bath.

  Another peculiarity. Awareness, desire, alarm, should all comingle. There shouldn’t be any pleasantness. Euphoria, thrill, absolutely, but comfort? I finished folding her things,

  put her suit on a hanger and stood for a long moment, staring at where she still lay folded over her math book.

  I should wake her up. My laundry was finished and it would be rude to leave her defenseless, where any witch could hurt her, or mage could take advantage of her.

  Normally, I would consider it my duty to seduce her, break her heart, and send her on her way, but it didn’t seem sporting with her sleeping like some fairy tale princess, waiting for her prince to kiss her.

  Her pink lips were slightly parted. I knew how her fingers tasted, but her lips, her mouth, it would be so easy… I shook my head and cleared my throat. She didn’t stir.

  Either I kissed her, or I did more experiments on her. I held my palms over her back until they itched with energy. Not magic, just energy that we use to focus on things like fighting, killing, maiming, bringing the body and the mind together into one perfectly destructive whole.

  I could heal a fellow mage with my energy while a witch would repel it. Oil and water, witches and mages, but when I sent the flow of energy into her, it sank like a stone in a slow river. I felt the pull of her, wanting more energy from me.

  I exhaled and put my hand on her shoulder, one of the few places besides her face not covered by her hair. I pushed more energy at her, and she took it but then I felt a return current, her energy flowing into me. My hand jerked, shaking her shoulder

  roughly in the process and she frowned as she finally opened her eyes, the sleepy softness shifting into panicked horror as she realized that she’d slept with a mage.

  Horrified panic described the rest of her behavior until she grabbed her laundry and fled to her room.

  Very interesting. Also completely nerve-wracking. I’d sunk into the cha
ir and wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. They were too casual to wear while spending time with a female of note. Penny Lane was that and more, the first and probably last witch to ever sleep with me.

  Chapter 10

  Witch

  The next day was fine even if I was more exhausted than I should have been after one day in school. I hadn’t found a trace of anything on my clothing other than a slight scent of black cherry. So annoying, also embarrassing because he’d apparently neatly folded two pairs of my silk polka dot panties while I’d been drooling on my math book.

  The classes were no worse than they had been the day before other than ballet. Who teaches a beginner Pas de Deux anyway? Apparently Madame, because there I was in my pink leotard and tights when Drake walked in wearing soft black pants and ballet slippers with his white t-shirt. I stared at him while I clung to the wooden barre. He walked over to Madame, gave her a charming bow and then they chatted in French for a bit before she led him over to me.

  She gave me a sharp look while she spoke to him. “Do you think you can manage with this flamingo?”

  He gave me a sharp smile. “I shall do my very best.”

  I tried not to hyperventilate when he took position behind me and started warming up, his turn-out perfect along with everything else about him. I stared at him in the mirror and kind of forgot what I was supposed to be doing, his muscles stretching and clenching beneath the thin fabric. He met my eyes in the mirror and raised his eyebrows.

  “You had no idea I was so versatile. You’re thinking, ‘what can’t he do? Laundry and ballet? It’s too much to believe!’ In all humility, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I can also hang a swing and clean up spilled malts.” He gave me a slow wink.

  I looked down at my hand where it gripped the bar like it was holding me up. “Why do you keep bringing that up?”

  “I think it’s funny. Don’t you?”

  I shook my head and frowned down at my ballet slippers. My toes didn’t point as well as the boy in front of me, or the girl in front of him who was glaring at me like I’d just defaced a work of art.

  I turned around and came face to face with him who instead of turning put his hands on my shoulders, pushing them back and down. I inhaled and held my breath until I realized that he was fixing my posture. I stared to the side while he adjusted my arms and then obeyed when he told me to point my foot. He had me do that a million times until I was sliding along the floor just right, and then it was drawing circles on the floor, and his hands rested on my knees, pushing slightly, his fingers gripping my heel, pulling it forward. He crouched in front of me while I tried to ignore him, but it was a little bit difficult, particularly when I kept having flashbacks, his mouth on my fingers, sucking, while his green eyes mocked me in the most seductive way imaginable. And he’d folded my underwear.

  Finally he stood up and I thought things were going to be better. Oh, no. We all moved into the center of the room, the freshman boys and girls and me and Drake. It was even more humiliating than the horse episode the day before. I was like a stork, a flamingo, completely ridiculous flopping around while this glorious graceful music

  played. Drake only laughed out loud once, but his green eyes mocked me the entire time.

  What happened was fairly straightforward. He had his hands under my armpits and we were going to do a very, very basic lift, but as he raised me up in the air, I realized that I was ticklish.

  “Put me down!” I squirmed and wiggled, but that only made his fingers tighten until I lost control. I squealed as my legs flailed and I kicked the girl next to us, and then kneed Drake in the stomach. We fell over, but I think it was from him laughing so hard instead of from me kneeing him. We came down kind of hard, but he took the force of the landing, other than my knee, the already bruised one.

  “I told you to put me down.” I scowled down at Drake while his body shook beneath me until I rolled off him. “I’m ticklish. I can’t help it. Stop laughing.” I pushed his shoulder and felt weird, like maybe I was going to cry from sheer frustration. I’d never been tickled before in my life. The idea of being helplessly ticklish was beyond humiliating.

  He stopped laughing and sat up, his lips trembling while he tried to look serious.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never tickled anyone before. Are you ticklish anywhere else I should know about?”

  I shook my head and crossed my arms, although what did I know? I’d never done anything like this before, let a boy lift me up and walk around with me.

  Madame didn’t comment on our debacle, although the girl I kicked made certain to give me enough dirty looks to grow a garden. Drake didn’t try anything hard after that, mostly led me around in a circle and had me imitate a dog at a fire hydrant, nothing more dangerous than one leg off the ground.

  After we curtsied to Madame and left the studio, I put my hand on Drake’s arm to hold him back. “What are you doing in my beginner’s class?”

  He quirked his eyebrow and gave me a look on the side of a leer. “I had to find some way to finally get my hands on you.” At my shocked look he flat-out grinned. “As if I didn’t have the chance last night. I’m joking, Penny Lane. Madame didn’t think a freshman boy could handle you and asked me to come in. I’m not sure I did much better, but I’m not afraid to wrestle with a ticklish flamingo.”

  I almost hit him, but instead I whirled around and went into the locker room where I noticed that my new lock had been tampered with. Happily it had held and my clothes were intact.

  After dressing and undoing my extremely messy bun so my long hair cascaded down my back, I pulled out a lollipop and bounced to language class. I had to flirt with Zach and that meant my real homework had been cute phrases in a multitude of languages.

  I looked around before subtly edging over to the group Zach was in. By the way, not a good idea. My cute phrases couldn’t keep up with his discussion about current affairs, politics, law, traditions and cultural symbolism. He was so good. I just sort of stared at him while he talked everyone’s socks off. In Spanish I had to abandon my drama and instead tried to speak intelligently, which I discovered wasn’t my forte.

  Halfway through the class I edged away from the Chinese circle where four students and Zach were brilliant and rejoined Barry, the guy who got my imaginary sister pregnant.

  “Buenos Dias.” He said it seriously.

  I smiled at him and used my cute phrase. It would be a shame to waste it. He looked kind of startled, but responded almost according to the possibilities I’d studied. We had a semi-flirtatious conversation which ended in me giving him a lollipop as class ended. I gathered up my books and was surprised when Zach fell in beside me.

  “How is Barry’s amnesia?”

  I glanced over at him and smiled. “He remembers me, but alas, he’s still going to marry my sister. Do you want a lollipop? Tiramisu.”

  He took one with a smile. “You should have stayed in my group. You would learn more about linguistics in five minutes with people who know what they’re doing than an hour with someone like Barry.”

  I hesitated for a minute. Was that jealousy? I studied his blue eyes but he didn’t look anything other than intent. “You really know what you’re talking about, I mean you’re really talented at languages. I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a bit boring, to be honest. You’re never dull.”

  Was that what I was going for? Weird? I gave him a wan smile and headed to my math class.

  After lunch I headed for the stables and when I got there, the instructor put his hand on my shoulder and led me over to Zach where he stood in his very flattering riding gear.

  “Mr. Stoneburrow is going to teach you how to not fall off a horse. If you have any questions or problems, ask him. He knows his way around an animal.”

  With that I was left staring at Zach, feeling awkward. I hadn’t tried to look cute and my hair was in a sensible braid over my shoulder. I couldn’t flip it or twirl my skirt. I hadn
’t even brought lollipops to suck provocatively.

  “Shall we start?” He didn’t smile, and his tone was really flat. Maybe he didn’t want to be there.

  “Of course.”

  He went slowly. That was the largest difference between him and the real instructor, the fact that he didn’t skip anything. He explained all the little stupid things I should already know but didn’t, like not walking behind a horse, and how to get a horse to like you, and how to check under the saddle for burrs or other foreign objects. I forgot that I was supposed to be flirting with him and just listened intently and learned. When he slipped into Spanish, I gave him a questioning glance, but he didn’t act like he noticed, and then when he repeated a phrase in three languages, I shook my head.

  “So you’re teaching me languages and dressage? You’re very efficient.”

  He smiled at me, the first time since I’d seen him in the stable with Henrietta. “You’ll catch on quickly. It’s satisfying to have an intelligent student.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “So, I’m your student now? I’ll have to start bringing you and Henrietta apples.”

  He shook his head. “Stick with lollipops, at least for me.” He smiled one last time and then it was time for me to mount up. I wanted to hurry up and get it over with, but he

  had me take my time, his hands over mine as I held the reins, his hands holding the stirrup for me, and then giving me a boost up to the saddle, his hands on my waist.

  I sat there on top of Henrietta feeling too high off the ground because I was almost certain she was going to start dancing around. She snorted and tossed her head once before she settled down and let Zach lead her out of the stables and onto a field. We walked around, well, he and Henrietta walked while I sat upright on the horse trying to remember how to hold my knees, my ankles, my hands and my shoulders. My stomach was aching by the time we got back to the stables, golden strands of hay floating through sunbeams in the old stone and wood building as Henrietta trotted in.