by CD Coffelt
Enough. I need to leave before I start patting his head, she thought sourly. She pulled the door closed, activated the fixed magic on the knob, and left the shop.
A blue Accord sat in her parking space in front of the McIntyres’ house. When Sable entered, voices from the kitchen led her to investigate. There was nothing slithering over her skin, so it was not another adept. Unless there was another ward stone involved, she thought, grimacing.
Three faces turned to her when she stepped through the kitchen door—Maggie with a happy smile on her face, and Emmett wore an irritated expression that cleared when he saw her. And the stranger, a smiling man who looked up, surprised.
“Sable,” Emmett said and he held out one hand to draw her in. “I didn’t know you were home. This is Wesley, our nephew. He just got in.”
Wesley stepped forward and took her hand, his eyes warm as he chuckled. “Nice to meet you, Sable,” he said. Some emotion flickered across his face, but then it cleared.
Sable released his hand and flushed now that his attention was on her. He had wavy dark hair and deep blue eyes that sharpened as he looked at her.
He turned to Maggie and frowned. “I don’t want to be an imposition. But Auntie, can I bum a room here for a while, until I can pick up some work, that is?”
“Of course. Sable has the apartment over the garage, but we have plenty of bedrooms on this side, and you are welcome to stay in one of those. It isn’t like we bump into each other in this house.” Maggie nodded to the stairway leading to the other side of the house. “Let’s go pick out a bedroom,” she said and stood slowly.
Sable wanted to soothe away some of the arthritic pain she could see Maggie felt this morning, but with Wesley holding Maggie’s arm and helping her to the stairs, she decided it could wait. Wesley looked back as they left the kitchen. His eyes flicked down her figure, and he grinned wider as they left the room.
Emmett muttered under his breath, and Sable looked back at him, surprised. He shook his head and gave her a wry grin.
“Eh, maybe I shouldn’t worry. Maybe he’s changed,” he said with a shrug.
“He seems okay, like he really cares about Maggie,” Sable said. “And he’s family, your nephew.”
“Yeah, the worst kind of family. The burr kind of relation.”
She looked confused.
Emmett rolled his eyes. “The kind that won’t let go,” he said.
He took his coffee cup to the enameled kitchen sink and dumped the remains of a salad into the trash can. “You’re like Maggie, seeing the best of everyone. Only the charming parts. Not the crap.”
“But,” Sable sputtered. “He’s your nephew too.”
“Yeah, well, that don’t blind me to the reality.”
“Hey, uh, Justus left me kinda in charge of the shop,” she said hesitantly. “He told me to take care of the shop while he was gone.”
Distracted, Emmett nodded. “Sounds great.”
She started to walk outside past Emmett, when he grabbed her arm, startling her. “Look, be careful around Wesley, okay? He isn’t a very nice person.”
With his eyes so stern, Sable could do no more than nod, and he released her with a sigh. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just…” He ran his callused fingers through his cropped grizzled hair. “I just don’t trust him. And neither should you.”
“Okay, Emmett. No problem.”
She fled to her apartment, a yawn nearly splitting her jaw. After the eventful night, the bed invited her to join it in a quick nap. Just as she settled under the blankets, her cell rang. With a groan, she struggled up.
“Hello.”
“Sable, where is my son?”
Now fully awake, Sable hesitated. Carefully, she said, “Raissa, he left to go to several auctions in the Northwest.”
“Yes, yes,” his mother said, irritably, her dentures clinking as she talked. “But he usually calls just before he leaves, and he hasn’t done that today. Do you know where he is?”
Sable opened her mouth and then closed it again. Time to lie like there was no tomorrow.
“Justus called last night,” she said. “He had to use a pay phone because he forgot to take his power cord and his cell went dead. That’s why he hasn’t called. No bars.”
Crap, it sounded lame even to her, and the silence on the other end of the phone said Raissa thought the same thing.
“So, Justus is okay and on the road. Well, good enough,” his mother said suddenly. “As long as he is well, that is good enough. But dear,” Raissa said, her voice hard. “Please tell me whatever you are hiding from me. I need him to be safe, to always be safe.”
“Of course, Raissa,” Sable said faintly. “In fact, next time I talk to him, I’ll tell him that he has orders to call you as soon as he can.”
Boy, will I ever.
Chapter Fifteen
He dreamed of water—cascading waterfalls, the roar of rapids, a sky-blue swimming pool, and warm ocean currents.
Water; warm, overflowing, and…
Shit.
Justus stumbled from the bed and made it to the bathroom just in time, swaying like a thistle in a stiff breeze, more or less hitting where he was aiming. Business done, he stumbled back to the rumpled bed and sunk into the folds of a dreamless time, unknowing, uncaring about the world. Drifting into and out of slivers of consciousness, he did not have knowledge of time and he was satisfied.
Magic has its own agenda, however. It awakened while his will slept, surrounding him. Hell found him and pulled him into the memory.
Why not?
He didn’t speak the words aloud. He whispered them to himself before he stretched his hand to what he shouldn’t. The cool fingers of a memory touched him in his dreams, and his neck burned like a flow of lava across a field. Hands caressed him, tender and now eager, and he was clumsy in his impatience, fumbling. It was what he thought he wanted. The day was snowy and he was cold, but the bodies entwined smelled of heat and sweat; a combination of desire and fear drew him. She pulled him closer and whispered words of encouragement. He cried out in his release and shuddered. Emotions flooded his senses and whirled him into another reality, one of warmth, touch, and skin.
And the Power.
“Don’t you know what you can do?”
The dream came to him several times, waking him each time in heart-thumping panic. But unconsciousness pulled him back. And he slept again.
Justus came out of the lower realms of that endless night and lay with his eyes closed, trying to determine where he was. Out of caution, he didn’t use his magic, not even his ward stone, but slowly came back into self-awareness when sounds he could not immediately identify made the awakening necessary. He opened his eyes and knew he had recovered his senses.
He was lying on his back in a bed. That he knew. The cloth of a pillowcase was in front of his eyes, the pillow over his face. He identified the slow tick of a clock and the sound of traffic.
Ah. His apartment.
He didn’t have time to be thankful. He heard a door open, footsteps on stairs, and he froze, fought to control his breathing, waiting. He heard movement and then a feminine sigh. His guardian angel…and lately, the cause of all his problems.
Slow footsteps came to his side, and he felt her breath on his bare chest and then a cool finger running down his arm. In a flash of irritation, he caught her hand and jerked her down on top of him. Her surprised squawk turned into anger as the pillow slid from between them and they were face to face. Sable, wide-eyed, didn’t move as she stared down at him. Her breath came in gasps, brushing against him. He felt the weight of her on his chest, smelled the sweetness of the sun on her skin. For that brief time, she didn’t move, and he felt the start of strange warmth in his belly. The softness of her skin and her wide eyes combined to make him forget for a moment that she was to blame for his present situation.
But that ended when her mouth turned stubborn and he felt her reach for Fire. It snapped on his forearm and hand like a rubber band.
He pushed her away.
“Damn it, Sable,” he yelled. “That hurt.” He rubbed the red spot on his arm and warily kept an eye on her. He sat up as she stepped back.
“I was just looking at that spot on your chest. You didn’t have to make a grab for me.”
Sable backed against the small counter in front of the sink, her hands gripping the edge behind her, as if suddenly exhausted.
“I didn’t know what you were doing, sneaking up on me like that.”
“Sneaking,” she exploded. “Well, I like that. Who’s been checking up on you for the past five days making sure you were okay, telling lies to Maggie and Emmett. And your mom.” She clenched her teeth.
“What about my mom?”
Sable stood away from the counter and gestured with her hands toward the direction of the street. “Every day, she wants to know how you are doing, why you don’t call. And I am running out of excuses. She always seemed so calm before, unhurried, as if nothing ever bothers her. But then you didn’t call her before you ‘left,’ and she has been, well, not frantic.” She bit her lip. “Persistent. Wanting to find you. Majorly pissed off, in other words.”
Justus grunted. That didn’t sound like his mom. “I’ll call her right away. Probably today. Er, when is today?”
“Today is Thursday morning.” She pointed at his chest. “I was just wondering about those marks. That’s why I was sneaking around.”
He looked down on his chest and saw two crescent shaped spots, each forming what looked like parenthesis. Justus looked up at her and used one finger to point at the mark above his left nipple. “Oh, you mean this?” he asked innocently. “This here little thingy that looks remarkably like teeth marks?”
She started to nod. Then her eyes came up to his and widened. He was sarcastically pleased to see her mouth drop open.
“That’s not…that’s not…” She gulped. “Did I do that?”
“What? You want to do a CSI on it? Do a tooth-imprint to check? See if it fits? In my cellar, that night they came to get you, you were trying to get away. Remember? You damn well bit me. Twice.”
He pointed at the other little parenthesis.
Her mouth opened, but then firmed into a stubborn line. She turned and plopped on one of the two kitchen chairs. An old golden-honey oak table he had salvaged from an appointment with the garbage truck was the centerpiece of his rooms, giving the apartment a feeling of the antiques he sold. Sable crossed her legs, swinging her foot to the beat of music only she could hear. She glanced at him when he groaned and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. She averted her eyes so fast, he checked to see if he was still wearing pants. He sighed when he saw his jeans. Yep, all decent.
Justus scrubbed one hand across his chest and tried to think. “Five days, huh?” he said. Her eyes flicked to him and away again. “All this time, Bert or you have been around?”
“Yes,” she said shortly. “But really there wasn’t much to do, other than checking on you for peace of mind.” She gestured to the shower. “You took care of yourself. Showered, ate, whatever. Kinda zombie-like.”
Night of the living dead, no doubt. But then he remembered the dreams about running water and huffed softly. And the other dreams.
She looked at him now, her face pale. “Well, it is kinda obvious that you are a wizard. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Not a wizard,” he mumbled. “And I didn’t tell you because it might lead the Imperium right to me.”
“The Imperium doesn’t know about you?”
He sighed and scratched the bites again, drawing her attention to his chest. She immediately looked away, and he figured she must be sorry she bit him. “Oh, they know about me. The head of the Imperium, Tiarra, knows.”
“But she didn’t…bond…with you?”
“Long story, but no, she didn’t manage to bond me to her. I was the, um, fish that got away, in this case. But I’m thinking she hasn’t given up looking for me.”
He just managed to stop another shudder.
“Wilder. You are a wilder,” she said.
“Using the wild streams of magic, yep, that would be my designation to one belonging to the Imperium. But I define it as a person with magic skills who won’t succumb to the guild of wizards. A wilder is free.”
Sable seemed lost in thought. Absently, she said, “This Tiarra, she’s a tall slender woman, like in her thirties or so? And beautiful, right?”
“Yes, that would be Tiarra,” he said. He felt his jaw muscles flex.
“She touched my neck when I was a kid. Worst day of my life,” she said quietly. “That was the day my parents proudly gave me to her.” Sable shook her head, and her brown hair fell in waves around her downturned face.
“So, you are bonded to her,” he said softly. As he had in the clearing, Justus wanted to slide his fingers under the soft fall of hair, let his touch trail over her cheek and curl around the back of her head.
Justus steeled his will, throttled his desire back. He couldn’t allow the magical effect of the tener unus to break through his control.
Not here, not in these rooms with her so close.
Young one; just the words of the translation caressed his mind, spurring his thoughts into places he could not travel.
He made no sound during his inner struggle.
She didn’t look up. “Whenever I checked on you, it was like your mind was on autopilot, not conscious, not awake, but functioning.”
“Yeah, well. That is the nature of the device of the Imperium, a combination of worked magic in all four of the elements, except Fire. Spirit is the biggest portion. Zombie is a good description—functional, but not really alive.”
“Bert told me something of it, of the device and how it works.”
He shook his head and looked away. “I doubt if Tiarra was looking for me,” he said softly.
“You have come into your full potential,” she said suddenly, as if expecting his next question.
He hesitated and then nodded.
She shook her head and looked away again. “Well, I haven’t, so don’t even ask. It’s the last thing I want, to be put under her control.”
She clenched her teeth, fisted her hands on her lap. “And I won’t be. Ever,” she said harshly. Sable stood abruptly and started to pace.
His stomach made a snarling sound, saving him from asking any questions. He stood, avoided her path, and wobbled to the small refrigerator. A small carton of juice was a welcome sight, and he blessed whoever put it there, possibly the whirling dervish ignoring him as he searched the foodstuffs. He saw a plate of sandwiches on the top shelf and pulled those out too.
Ah, one bite and all was right with the world. He sucked a long swallow from the carton and sighed. Life was good. Looking at Sable, he was willing to forgive her for creating such havoc in his uncomplicated life. Her march had stopped in the middle of the room. She was staring at him with narrowed eyes, and he began to feel uncomfortable.
“Hungry?” he asked around a mouthful of sandwich, offering her a nearly empty plate. She didn’t reply and, if anything, seemed to grit her teeth.
Justus swallowed and cleared his throat. “You set them off, you know. Brought the Imperium back to the shop.”
“What?”
“I had you shielded so the hunters couldn’t feel your signature, and I guess they weren’t going by a photo or description since they left after a few days. But they must have been watching for you, waiting for you to light up.” He put the now-empty plate into the sink and dropped the carton into the trash by the stove, wiped his mouth, and sighed. Yep, he was almost human now. Or as much as he ever was.
Sable’s patience seemed to give out waiting for him to continue his analysis. She crossed her arms over her waist and glared.
“They were watching for you, waiting for some big emotion,” Justus said. “Then, that night we fed the horses after dark—”
“You kissed me,” she growled. “You. Kissed. Me. Not the other way around.”
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“And whose fault was that?”
Sable sputtered and turned bright red. “What? I led you on, threw myself at you?”
Justus looked at her, his mouth turned up sourly. “You might as well have, what with your tener unus effect. It ought to be bottled, used instead of that little blue pill.”
She looked at him, sputtering, eyes angry. For a moment, he thought he saw a glimmer of tears, then decided he must have been mistaken. She faced him, her back to the disheveled bed, and her eyes snapped with rage.
“Tener unus,” she repeated, her voice low and dangerous.
“Yes, Latin for ‘young one’ or ‘tender,’ it means—”
“I know what it means,” she yelled. A shimmer gathered around her.
“Yeah, your fault, your damn tener unus.”
“Oh, I get it. So I can’t attract anyone unless it’s the tener unus talking, right? That I’m exuding allure, siren-like. It can’t just be me; it has to be something else. Not just me, right?”
With every word, she shook her fist at him, furious. And the shimmering cloud became a corporeal beast, coiling its tentacles and writhing as if alive. Now, Justus saw it and gasped, thoroughly alarmed.
“Sable.” His voice was low, soothing. He held the panic out of his voice and slowed his movements, as if he might frighten her. “Sable, take it easy.”
“Easy? Easy? You just insult me, and then I’m the one out of control?” She slashed one hand through the air in her wrath, and the energies around her swirled into comet trails of Fire.
He stepped to her and her eyes widened. His intention was to touch her shoulder or arms and try to soothe her, take away the gathering of magical elements around her. But she backed away from him, caught her feet in the tangled bedspread on the floor, and fell back onto the bed. Justus grasped one of her flailing arms to keep her from falling, but gravity took over and pulled him forward. He twisted his shoulders and took the brunt of their combined weight on his arm when they hit the mattress together. Instantly, she began struggling against his body, and he felt the snap, snap, snap of Fire popping on his arm again. The first pop of magic hurt bad enough that he almost released her, but after each successive pop, it weakened until it was less than static electricity.
