Catalyst (A Tethered Novel)

by Jennifer Snyder

  Kace helped me drag Vera home. We even made it all the way up the stairs carrying her dead weight and dropped her onto her bed.

  “Wow, I haven’t been in this house in years,” Kace said as we descended the stairs, heading back down to the first floor. “It still looks exactly the same.”

  “The lawyer said that no one has lived here since my grandma passed.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. My skin tingled with the realization that Kace and I were incredibly alone. “I guess my mom never came back when she inherited it.”

  He put his hands in his front pockets. “No, no one did. It’s been empty for a while.”

  We stepped into the living room, and I walked to the couch and sat. “Did you know my grandma well?”

  I couldn’t help asking. Being here opened my mind to questions about my family, my real family. Guilt spread through my mind as I thought this. I’d had a good childhood, a great one. I loved my adoptive parents, but there had always been something missing from my life. It was them. My biological family. There were questions that had always haunted the deepest parts of my mind, but now that I was here and had found someone who knew them even the tiniest bit, it made those questions arise in my mind and enter my every thought. Ones like: Why didn’t they want me? How could they have just given me away? What would my life have been like if I had grown up here?

  “I did.” Kace smiled. “Like I said, she made the best peanut butter cookies. She was a really sweet lady. I always thought she seemed kind of sad though. My mom told me it was because Angela, your mom, had run away. They were friends, my mom and yours, best friends actually.”

  “Angela… I never even knew her name.”

  The name vibrated through me. I repeated it in my mind.

  Kace looked taken aback. “Really? Didn’t your adoptive parents tell you anything about her, or anyone for that matter in your biological family?”

  I shook my head. “Not really, no. I think it upset my adoptive mom too much. She couldn’t have kids of her own. Telling me I was adopted was as far as she went, like to her that was all I needed to know because she was now my mother.”

  “Seems kind of selfish to me,” Kace muttered as he reached up to scratch his eyebrow.

  I shrugged a shoulder. “Eh, I always thought it was just too hard for her to talk about it and I respected that.” I wasn’t so sure now, though. Kace’s viewpoint was twisting my thoughts, making me see things in new ways I hadn’t before.

  “I can understand that,” he said with a slight nod, flashing me a small smile. “Listen, I have to say that I really am sorry about Adam. I didn’t realize he was going to say all of that. If I had, I would never have taken you over to meet him. I’m sure he didn’t really mean anything by it. He’s got one of those personalities that you either love or hate; there’s really no in-between.”

  I grabbed the throw pillow from behind me and placed it in my lap, snuggling back into the couch. “It’s all right, I can handle it. It’s not like it was the first time I’ve had to deal with someone being an insensitive ass to me about something.” I smiled, hoping to lighten the mood.

  This was not what I’d envisioned us talking about while we were alone together in my house. In fact, I hadn’t envisioned us talking at all.

  Silence bloomed between us. It wasn’t awkward, just noticeable. Kace shifted on the couch, extending his legs out in front of him farther, getting comfortable. His knee was only an inch away from touching mine. One single, scorching inch of air rested between us. I focused on this maybe more than I should.

  Licking my lips, I shifted my gaze away from our knees. “Do you want anything to drink?”

  “Sure, I’ll take some water.”

  I tossed the pillow to the side and stood, eager to do something, to get up and move. The intense energy that seemed to swell up inside of me when around Kace was getting to me now. We were too close. Too alone. And I wanted to take advantage of the situation a little too much.

  “I think I can manage that,” I said, enjoying the space that was now between us. The heat that had built across my skin from his nearness began to subside some as I walked toward the kitchen.

  Binks was curled into a ball, resting on the countertop, when I walked into the room. I hated that. It was gross, but dang it if he didn’t look cute doing it. I scooped him off the counter and onto the floor gently.

  “Sorry, buddy, but you can’t sleep on the counters,” I scolded. “It’s just nasty.”

  “You have a cat.” It wasn’t a question, but more of a statement. There was something off about Kace’s tone, and I couldn’t decide if it was because he wasn’t a cat person or something more.

  “I do.”

  “Your grandma had a cat too,” he said simply.

  “I know.”

  Kace raised an eyebrow at me like I’d surprised him somehow. “You do?”

  “Well, yeah… I mean I found all the old cans of cat food in the pantry and a bowl beneath the sink. I think this little guy was one of her cat’s kittens or something.” I bent down to scratch behind Binks’s ears the way that he liked. “I found him in a bedroom in the basement. He’d been coming in through an open window.”

  Kace chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t think it was one of her cat’s kittens. She only had one cat, and if I remember correctly, he was a boy. His name was Binks.”

  My jaw dropped and I swore my heart skipped a beat or two. She only had one cat and it was a boy…named Binks. Hearing someone else say it all out loud made goose bumps prickle across my skin.

  “Are you messing with me or something, because that’s just too weird,” I said, brushing my hands off and standing.

  “What is?”

  “What you just said. See, I named him Binks when I first found him, and then yesterday I was restocking the cleaning cabinet and found a ceramic bowl with the name Binks painted on it. Now you’re telling me that my grandma only had one cat, and it was a boy who was named Binks.” I snapped my mouth shut so I wouldn’t be able to babble on any further. I liked Kace and I damn sure didn’t want the one person who’d been nice to me since I’d arrived to think I was crazy. Because I wasn’t. Was I?

  Kace chuckled. “Slow down.” He reached out and gripped my arm lightly. The same soft sigh of something unfurling within us both coursed through me again. “You mean to tell me you don’t know about the cat? Didn’t your mom leave you a note or a journal—anything that would explain everything to you when she died? I mean, she didn’t just give you the keys to this house without telling you anything, right?”

  “I don’t understand.” They were the only words I could form with him touching me.

  The warmth coursed through me from his touch, sparking up my arm, and I wondered if I’d been wrong about him feeling it too. He didn’t seem to be right now.

  His eyes widened. “Oh, wow. You don’t even know who you are, do you?”

  I winced and jerked my arm free from his grasp. His words were like a slap to the face. They resonated somewhere deep inside of me, hitting me in a tender place I didn’t like. “I know exactly who I am,” I fumed.

  Who was he to say such a thing to me? So what, he knew my grandmother. That didn’t mean he knew who I was.

  Kace shook his head. “No, you think you do…but you don’t. You don’t know who you are at all.” His voice was sad, as if it were the most depressing thing he’d ever heard.

  I closed my eyes, shocked by his choice of words and how they made my eyes swell with tears I didn’t want to shed. You don’t know who you are at all. The words continued to ripple through my mind. It was a childhood fear spoken aloud by a stranger, but it held so much power over me.

  I felt the air shift between us before I even felt him touch me again. I opened my eyes at the feel of his hands against my hips. My skin heated as though it were ignited by something within him. Kace stared at me for a drawn-out moment. A look of uncertainty passed across his face, and I knew in an instant he was going to kiss me.
r />   “Let me show you.” His mouth descended upon mine then and everything that he’d just said floated from my mind to be forgotten as I responded to his kiss.

  Kace’s mouth slanted across mine, his soft lips tasting sweeter than I’d even imagined. My hands ran up the length of his torso, feeling the ridged muscles beneath. Whatever it was that seemed to be unfurling every time we touched had centered itself in my chest now. It grew and pulsated with each brush of his lips, each flick of his tongue, against mine.

  Something was inside of me… Something was awakening.

  But it wasn’t just me. The same was happening inside of him too. I’d been right before. I could sense it now somehow. As our kisses deepened, so did the sensation I was feeling. Whatever it was had long grown warm, heated by his nearness. It simmered in the center of my chest, powerful and still in waiting. Kace’s hand slipped beneath my shirt and pressed against the skin of my lower back, causing the sensation to spread rapidly through me. The more skin he touched, the faster it spread. Just as abruptly as Kace had initiated the kiss, he ended it.

  He pulled back and leaned his forehead against mine. Keeping his eyes closed, he struggled to catch his breath the same as I was. “There…I know you had to have felt that. Do you have any idea who—what—you are now?”

  “What was that?” I whispered, breathless and afraid to speak too loud, because it would crush the moment I was still trying to savor.

  “Magick,” he answered simply as though it were the most natural response.

  I pulled back from Kace and grimaced. Partly because of his answer and partly because whatever he had released during our kiss was now receding once again. It was tucking itself back into an unknown area, back to where I couldn’t reach it on my own. This I was sure of.

  “Magick?” I repeated, dumbfounded.

  Magick wasn’t real. It was something magicians claimed to use to create illusions and tricks of the eye, but not something I would have inside of me. No, what I’d felt was lust. Passion. God, Vera was right. I really needed to find a rebound guy. I glanced at Kace, meeting his eyes and basking in their incredible shade of blue.

  Unfortunately, my rebound guy wasn’t going to be him. He was crazier than me.

  Kace nodded. “Yes. It’s something I’ve never actually felt until last night, when I touched you on the beach. I’ve always heard of it though—from my parents, from their friends, from my grandparents. It’s something that even they haven’t felt in a long time.”

  He was serious. Staring into his light blue eyes widened by excitement, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was serious. He actually believed what he was telling me.

  I pursed my lips together and raised my eyebrows at him. “Huh.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “You don’t believe me.” He grinned wickedly, amused by my reaction. “Do I need to kiss you again for you to believe? Because I have no problem with that, you know.” He cocked an eyebrow at me.

  Why did he have to be crazy? He was too gorgeous for this.

  “I just find it…far-fetched is all.” That was putting it mildly. Real mildly.

  He nodded in agreement. “I can easily see where you, not being raised around magick, would think that. But, I know you felt what I did. We were meant for each other. Air and Fire.” He pointed from himself to me, the excitement in his features never wavering.

  I took in a deep breath—readying myself to tell him I thought it would be best if he left, because what he was talking about was just plain crazy—when he kissed me again. The warmth that had coiled back in on itself and nestled in the same place within me that it must have always been hiding released again. This time though, it was more immediate, like it had been lingering, waiting, for the feel of his touch…the feel of his whatever, to call it out again.

  “You know I’m right,” Kace whispered between kisses in a sexy-sweet rasp. “You can’t deny what you’re feeling right now.”

  I didn’t respond to his words, only to his kiss. The guy may be crazy, but he sure as hell knew how to kiss.

  “What would you call what you feel sparking to life inside of you right now?” he questioned, his lips leaving my mouth to drag along my throat. “What would you label it as?”

  This was on purpose. His kisses were clouding my mind, encompassing my every thought. They pulled the warmth from the center of my chest outward, so that it could travel freely through my bloodstream.

  “Lust,” I whispered, my mouth betraying me completely by releasing such an embarrassing truth.

  Kace chuckled against the sensitive skin at the hollow of my throat. His lips hardened slightly as they twisted into a smirk. “I like that word, but it’s not the one I’m searching for.”

  Searching…

  The warmth within me expanded until it was all-consuming, as though it were searching within me for something more. Some sort of release. I could feel it attach itself to the pounding of my heart. Kace’s lips found mine again, working as though they were attempting to pull what was lingering just beneath the surface of my lips out.

  “Next label,” he demanded in that sexy-sweet rasp of his again.

  “Passion,” I answered, feeling every syllable of the word as it left my lips.

  “Not the right label.” His lips slid up to my earlobe. “Try again,” he whispered.

  The next word stirred within my mind, floating along the current of my hormones and stroking against the warmth that Kace’s touch had ignited within me. When it finally came into my grasp, I couldn’t deny the truth of it.

  “Magick,” I breathed. My eyes snapped fully opened from their hooded, desire-filled state at the sound of the word.

  “Exactly,” Kace said. He pulled away just enough to look me in the eyes as a wickedly sexy grin twisted into place on his face. “Believe me now?”

  “Oh shit…I have magick?” Real magick.

  I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. My entire body had begun to tremble with this sudden epiphany, this sudden realization of what was inside of me, of what he had sparked to life.

  Kace released me and crossed the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he reached in and grabbed one of Vera’s Mountain Dew’s. “Here, sugar is good to have when you’re in a state of shock,” he said, twisting off the cap before handing it to me.

  I took it and put it to my lips, letting the too-sweet syrupiness de-numb my mind. I had magick. What the hell did that mean? Where the hell had it come from? And how did he have it too?

  “I think you should go. I need some time to think,” I heard myself say without really having a grip on what exactly I was saying.

  It was true though; he should go. I needed to analyze what had just happened. The way I’d felt. How this changed things. I needed to understand. But I had to do it alone, away from him, because he clogged my head too much with feelings and desires. I couldn’t think clearly with him around.

  Kace frowned, but nodded his head. “All right.” He headed back to the fridge and unclipped the black marker from the dry erase board Vera had bought for the fridge on our trip to the grocery store. I couldn’t see what he was writing, but I did notice the muscles of his back rippling beneath his T-shirt with his every move.

  Yep, he definitely needed to leave.

  “My number,” he said, shifting to the side so I could see the bold numbers he’d written. “Call me.” He turned and left the kitchen out the back door.

  I sunk back against the counter as soon as the door had closed behind him. Holy hell, I had magick?

  I couldn’t be sure how long I spent standing in the kitchen, sipping the neon sugar Kace had given me, while thinking about things that had unfurled moments before, but streaks of pink and purple had spilled though the windows before I forced myself up the stairs and into bed. I lay there, unable to fall asleep, listening to the noises of the house, while I remembered the warmth that had consumed me upon our touching. The feel of Kace’s lips pressed against mine slid through me next. There was a
n undeniable attraction between us, and I wasn’t sure if it had to do with the magick that coursed through us, calling to one another, or if it simply was something that would have been there all along.

  I remembered how he had mentioned two elements found in nature and thought about all I knew of the elements: Air, Fire, Water, Earth. How were Air and Fire connected? And then it hit me: Air ignited Fire. It fueled it. Was this what we were to each other? Why we were attracted to one another so intensely? Even realizing all of this didn’t make anything seem more believable, more acceptable. Everything still seemed so incredibly far-fetched.

  Binks came into my bedroom then. He hopped up onto the foot of my bed and curled into a ball, like the one he’d been in on the kitchen counter earlier. I sat up and began stroking his back, listening to him respond to my touch with a rumbling purr.

  “How is it possible you’re my grandmother’s cat? You don’t seem ancient to me,” I whispered.

  Binks looked up at me. His head cocked to the side as he continued to glare at me as though he were trying to figure out what I was yapping about. He yawned and his eyes fluttered closed again as he laid his head back down against my comforter.

  “I just don’t understand any of this,” I admitted as I fell back against my pillow with a soft thud.

  I woke to the sound of my cell phone chiming loudly through my room.

  “Jesus, will you answer that,” Vera yelled from somewhere in the house, startling me worse than waking to my phone. “It’s rung like twenty times already.”

  “Wow, someone’s a little snippy,” I shouted back as I slid out of bed and padded across the floor to where my phone was going crazy on my dresser.

  “You would be too if you had a headache as killer as mine right now,” Vera replied, walking past my room toward the stairs with her hands pressed to her temples.

  I frowned after her. Hungover Vera was no fun. Ever.

  My cell stopped ringing as soon as I picked it up. Glancing at the screen, I realized it had been my mom calling. I clicked call and waited, heart pounding, for her to answer. It was strange talking to her after everything I’d learned last night. After everything I’d come to find out about my grandmother in the last couple of days. Did she and Dad know any of this?