Steam

by Lynn Tyler

  He listened for a few minutes before hanging up the phone. He didn’t turn around when he spoke again. “I’m going to the back office to get some work done. Try not to set the plane on fire, lass. Matthew, if you need anything, just shout.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply, nor did he actually face them. He simply rushed to the back of the plane and shut himself away.

  Wow. Weird. Sunny turned to Matthew, only to find the man staring at the closed door of the office with a sad look on his face. “What?” she asked. “Who’s Elizabeth?”

  Matthew cleared his throat a couple of times before looking at her. She could have sworn she saw the shimmer of tears filming over his blue eyes. “His daughter,” he said huskily.

  She had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t be meeting this Elizabeth any time soon. “He doesn’t look old enough to have a child,” she said instead.

  Matthew’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “He’s the oldest witch in our clan. He once told me he was born in the same year Columbus set sail for the new world.”

  Sunny could only blink. “That would make him more than five hundred years old.”

  Nodding, Matthew cleared his throat again. “Yeah. Witches live for a really long time. We age slowly after our twenty-fifth birthday. Most of us live well past our nine hundredth birthday before we start to age again. Then, the process is relatively quick from there.”

  Sunny chewed on the information for a few minutes, until the engines on the plane started. Buckling her seatbelt, she turned again to Matthew. “What happened to his daughter?”

  “Ah, picked up on that, did you? I don’t really know what happened, but Leith’s entire family was slaughtered three hundred years ago. He’s never told anyone more than that. I suspect our clan leader, Raven, knows but I don’t think anyone else does.”

  Sunny suddenly felt like crying over people she hadn’t even met. At least she had no memories of her parents. Some would say not having those memories was horrible, but she felt like knowing them would have made the pain of their loss even more acute. What must Leith be going through right now, having experienced love and then having it ripped away from him?

  Matthew sniffled a little and handed her a tissue. “It’s sad, I know. But, if you remind him of his daughter, than you’re definitely in his good books. You might find yourself with a new father figure, actually.”

  She leaned her head back against the seat as the plane started taxiing down the runway. It might be nice to have some sort of father figure in her life for once. She’d never had someone care for her like that.

  She turned her head to speak to Matthew again but stopped when she saw he’d glanced behind them at the office door. Understanding suddenly dawned on her. “You like him, don’t you?” she said softly.

  Matthew smiled again, a slow, sad smile. “Probably more than I should,” he admitted. “But it won’t amount to anything. He’s never been anything but friendly to me, and sometimes I wonder about that. Besides, even if he was into men, I’m far too young for him. He’d never seen me as anything other than a kid.”

  Sunny frowned. Now that she knew witches aged slower, she had no idea how she would judge someone’s age. Matthew seemed very mature though, so he was probably older than he looked. “How old are you? One hundred? One hundred and fifty?”

  Laughing merrily, Matthew threw his head back and gasped for breath. “I’m only twenty-seven.”

  Oh. Well. That was sort of embarrassing. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Matthew said, slinging an arm around her shoulders and giving her a little squeeze.

  They were quiet until the flight attendant came around with drinks. Clearly, Matthew took this plane often because the attendant handed him a cup of coffee without even asking him what he wanted. The woman looked at Sunny expectantly. “Um, do you have some kind of cola available?” she asked.

  “Not a good idea,” Matthew said. “Caffeine tends to intensify the effects of your magic. Until you learn how to manipulate your power to your will, you might want to avoid it.”

  Nodding, Sunny pointed to a bottle of orange juice. “I’ll have the juice, thanks.”

  The flight attendant looked relieved and poured her the juice. “Dinner will be served in a few hours. Just call for me if you need anything else.”

  Sunny turned to Matthew as she took a sip of juice. “Can I ask you some questions?”

  Putting his papers in a briefcase, Matthew turned to her and smiled. He seemed happy to have something other than Leith to talk about. “Sure.”

  She fiddled with her glass for a few seconds while Matthew patiently waited for her to speak. “Can you tell me about my parents?”

  Sighing, Matthew linked his fingers and stretched his arms over his head as if he was searching for the right words. “Twenty-five years ago, there was a very bloody battle between the three witch clans. It was the same battle we lost our previous fire handler in. We also lost our earth handler. Anyway, we took heavy casualties and Raven decided it would be best if the members of our clan scattered for a few decades. He was trying to make sure the whole clan wasn’t together in case there was another massacre.”

  She could see the wisdom behind the leader’s thinking. It would have made protecting them harder but would also have made killing the entire clan harder for the enemy. She wasn’t sure what it had to do with her parents though.

  As if he could read her mind, Matthew continued with his explanation. “Anyway, your parents relocated to Canada. For whatever reason, they never reported your birth to Raven. I suspect they were killed by members of another clan but can’t confirm it. Obviously, whoever killed your parents didn’t know they’d had you, since you would have been killed too. If Raven had known about your birth, he would have brought you to MacAlister castle and raised you himself instead of you being raised in foster homes.”

  Sunny always expected that when she found out what really happened to her parents, she would feel something. Anger, sadness, rage or even relief. Instead, she felt numb.

  A little disturbed she didn’t feel anything at all, Sunny shook her head and changed the subject. “Will I be able to do the cool healing thing once I learn to control my magic?”

  Matthew shook his head. “Sorry, you’ll probably be able to do basic spells, but your magic is pretty much contained to creating and manipulating fire. By the way, Leith’s healing magic only works on people who aren’t part of the MacAlister clan. Which sucks, but it is what it is.”

  Sunny pouted for a couple of seconds before she thought of another question. “So, if I’m the fire handler, and you’re still missing the earth handler, it means you have a water handler?”

  “Yes. The water handler’s name is Sloan Shirer. And we have an air handler too, Anna Carrow.”

  “You said every witch knows when a handler comes into their magic. How?” Sunny was fascinated.

  “There’s a kind of shock that runs through a witch’s body when there’s a big surge of magic, I guess. The clan’s seeker, that’s Leith, can use the energy as sort of a homing beacon. The rest of the clans send out scouts to try to beat the seeker to the new handler,” Matthew answered.

  “So, I’ll know when the earth handler comes into her powers?”

  “Yes. And the handler might be a guy.” Matthew rubbed the back of his neck and glanced out the window as if he was uncomfortable with something.

  Sunny gulped, afraid Matthew was reliving some kind of painful event. “What does it feel like?”

  Matthew rubbed his neck again and sighed. “I don’t know. I was born without magic. That’s why I became a lawyer.”

  No wonder Matthew suddenly looked so uncomfortable. She didn’t know quite what to do to make him feel better.

  Leith rushed over and leaned across Sunny to look Matthew in the face. “I came out of the office and saw you were distressed. Are you all right, son?”

  Matthew rubbed the back of his neck for a third time. “Yeah. Thanks,
Leith.”

  “Mmm. Okay. Do you have those papers ready for Raven?” Leith asked.

  “I do.”

  “Good.”

  “Right.” Matthew’s voice was cheerful but Sunny could hear right through it.

  They both watched the blond man collect his coffee and strut back to the office, once again shutting himself in.

  Sunny gazed at Matthew, her heart breaking for him.

  Matthew blinked once and focused on her again. He gestured to her cup and raised his own. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” As she clinked her cup to Matthew’s, Sunny couldn’t help but wonder what there was to cheer over.

  Chapter 6

  The flight seemed to take forever and Sunny yawned. All the sleepless nights had caught up with her, and she was having trouble staying up.

  There was only one problem.

  Every time she started to drift off, Matthew, who was bent over his work next to her, would yelp at her to wake up, yelling about how she was about to blow up the plane. Apparently, the closer she got to the clan headquarters, the stronger her magic became, which resulted in small sparks flying from the tips of her fingers.

  She started to rethink her decision about not having caffeine, but Matthew’s horrified expression when she’d asked the flight attendant for a Red Bull convinced her not to risk it.

  Leith’s reaction was not much better. He kept rushing in, looking more and more worried each time.

  Finally, it seemed Leith had had enough. “Sunny,” he said with a thin, somewhat stressed smile. “Why don’t you come to the back? There’s a bed you can lie down on. I can help control your magic if we’re in the same room, but I really can’t work at these dreadful trays.”

  She wanted to say no, if only to show these men, who’d kidnapped her for all intents and purposes, she wasn’t a pushover. The thought of a soft mattress and the idea that she could let go of some of her rigid control on her magic, however ineffective it had been so far, was too much to deny.

  Dragging her tired body out of the chair, she shuffled down the hall a little, only to stop when she heard Leith talking again.

  He wasn’t speaking to her though. “Matthew,” the blond giant said sternly. “Where are your glasses? You know you get headaches if you read without them. And you’re all hunched over. Why don’t you come in the back with us and work at the desk. There’s more than enough space for both of us.”

  She heard Matthew agree, and both men asked the flight attendant for more coffee, just as she pushed open the door to the back room and froze in amazement. If she’d thought the plane was luxurious before, this room upped the ante.

  The bed turned out to be a queen-sized mattress with what looked like silk sheets and a sumptuous, blood red bedspread.

  The desk Leith had talked about was actually a long counter jutting out from one of the walls with enough space for three people to work comfortably without bumping elbows. The work surface had indentations on it where papers could be placed so they didn’t slide around if the plane it turbulence. There were even recessed penholders built into the desk.

  The chairs that were lined up at the desk, including the one Leith had obviously been sitting in and pushed back when he’d rushed to the front of the plane, were cushy and made of leather, clearly meant for the user’s comfort.

  On the other side of the room was a bathroom, just visible through a half-opened door, complete with a shower stall.

  A warm hand landed on her shoulder and urged her forward. “Lay down, lass,” Leith said. “Just rest for a little while. Matthew and I will be here, and I’ll help mute your magic until we land.”

  More than a little stunned, because honestly, how rich were these people, Sunny allowed herself to be pushed gently down onto the mattress. Leith even drew the blankets up to her chin and smoothed back her hair as if she was a small child.

  She lifted her head a few inches off the pillow, in time to see Matthew sit down at the desk and shuffle his papers around. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said to Leith.

  “You shouldn’t be so silly, lad,” Leith replied. “We’ve worked together at this desk plenty of times.”

  Matthew muttered some response she couldn’t quite make out, but she was much more interested in Leith at the moment. The way he talked fascinated her. One second, he sounded like an ancient Scottish warrior, and the next, he sounded like he’d lived all his life rocking the twenty-first century.

  She supposed he’d gotten used to changing the way he spoke as language evolved. He probably only reverted back to the Old English with the exceedingly heavy brogue when he was stressed or in some highly emotional state.

  Her fatigue was far too intense for her to dwell on his changing accent much, however, and she floated on the edge of consciousness, aware of the occasional muttering from the desk but not actually awake enough to add to their conversation.

  Still, what she heard was fairly illuminating. And eventually interesting enough to wake her up when the talk turned to clan business.

  She was about to join this MacAlister clan thing whether she wanted to or not, so she figured she had a right to know what was going on.

  “What are you working on?” Leith asked after they’d been in the back room for about ten minutes.

  “It’s a contract for the new start-up company he’s interested in investing in,” Matthew replied.

  Through half-closed eyes, Sunny saw Leith’s head kick up. “He’s never invested in something so risky before.”

  “Mmm, you’re right,” Matthew agreed. “It’s about time he did. He’s not investing everything he has, not even close. Besides, he has lots of time to recover if it goes belly up. He’s only one hundred and fifty years old and the technology he’s looking at investing at has proved to be pretty stable so far.”

  Leith picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. “That’s true. Are the contracts to your liking?”

  Matthew shrugged. “It’s pretty standard. There are some things I’m going to insist be changed and other things I’m going to ask for which I don’t think they’ll give me.”

  “You’re a shark,” Leith said.

  Matthew gestured to Leith’s papers. “What about you? We’ve found Sunny, so you’re free, right? Well, until Raven decides to send me somewhere. Then you get to play chaperone.”

  Sunny wondered if Matthew resented the need for someone to accompany him but she was far too interested in what they were discussing to interrupt. Besides, they seemed to have forgotten she was in the room. Or at least, they thought she was sleeping.

  Leith put his cup down and pointed at his own papers. “Tracking the dragons.”

  “The dragons? I thought you told Raven you couldn’t sense them?”

  “I can’t sense them or seek for them in the traditional way of a seeker. But I can make some deductions based on where they were last seen.” The giant sounded amused.

  Leith reached forward and unrolled a huge roll of paper. Sunny could tell he was using his pen to point out certain locations. “The last known whereabouts of the dragon queen was here,” he jabbed at what Sunny supposed was a map.

  “Prince Gareth was spotted ten years ago here,” he pointed to another spot. “And the humans have been reporting sightings of winged creatures here, here and here, all within the last few years.”

  Matthew got up and stood next to him as Leith picked up his coffee cup again. “You know, all of these locations are within easy commuting distance to the cliffs here. Do you think they could be holed up there in dragon form?”

  Sunny shifted around in the bed, trying to get a better view of what was going on. Neither of the men noticed her moving around but she wasn’t surprised. The amount of sexual energy flickering between them made for better entertainment than the best romance novel. She wriggled around until she could clearly see what was going on.

  Matthew leaned forward and pointed to the map. His arm brushed against Leith’s on the way, causing the other man to
spill his coffee down the front of his shirt.

  “Oh, shit,” Matthew exclaimed. He grabbed a couple of tissues and tried to mop the mess up. “I’m so sorry.”

  Leith cleared his throat and grabbed Matthew’s hands. “It’s all right, Matthew.”

  Matthew had frozen with both of his hands pressed flat against Leith’s belly. Sunny could practically see the waves of heat rising from the two men and she had to keep her hand tucked under her cheek to stop from fanning herself.

  Matthew stepped back and cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he said again, lowering his eyes.

  Leith tipped his chin up with two fingers. “Doona worry about it,” he said, his accent back, stronger than ever. “I’ll borrow one of Raven’s shirts.”

  The leader kept a stocked closet on a plane? She couldn’t even imagine how much the clan used this plane if they needed to keep fresh clothes on board.

  “Okay. I’ll pay for the dry cleaning,” Matthew mumbled.

  Leith cleared his throat and started unbuttoning his shirt. “I said not to worry about it.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Sunny pretended to sleep as she watched Leith stripped the shirt off.

  The man was positively ripped. He was simply gorgeous.

  Moving her head a fraction of an inch, she glanced at Matthew. The lawyer’s gaze was fastened on the other man, and the slight bulge in the front of his pants hinted at his real thoughts. She wondered, for a second, if Matthew would question Leith about their interaction, but Leith turned around and Matthew’s face fell into a mask of abject misery.

  Wondering what had affected Matthew so much, Sunny turned her gaze back to Leith. Winding down the man’s spine was an intricate tattoo spelling a woman’s name in Old English letters.

  She was supposed to be sleeping, so she couldn’t ask about the name, but she guessed it was the man’s dead wife.

  She swallowed sympathetic tears, only able to guess at how Matthew felt. She felt a sudden need to get out of the bed and wrap her arms around the young man. There seemed to be a connection between her and Matthew and, for the first time in her life, she ached to foster that connection.