Life's a Witch

by Val St. Crowe

  “Are you… okay?”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “No. I’m not. I just found out that my boyfriend and my best friend violated my body and then lied to me about it.”

  “Oh, come on, violated?”

  Her nostrils flared. “If you’re leaving, just go.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t realize it was such a big deal to you.”

  “Well, it was,” she said. “I don’t want that in my body. I don’t want to take a life in order to live. I’m not that kind of person. Now you tell me that I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for this dragon blood—”

  “You’ve drunk dragon blood willingly before,” I said.

  “Yes, and I felt awful about it, so I told you I never wanted to do it again.”

  “I know, but it wasn’t you. We made you do it. So, just blame us, and you don’t have to feel guilty or anything.”

  “I do blame you,” she said. “When I look at you, it makes me feel… I don’t know. Helpless and angry and hurt. And like there’s some part of me that you’ve tainted. Like I don’t even know who I am.”

  My first inclination was to say that she was overreacting. But I bit my tongue. That wouldn’t go over real well right now. She was obviously really upset. A lot more upset than I had thought she would be. I didn’t know what to say. All I could say was, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Well, that’s great,” she said. “But it doesn’t change anything.” And then she shut the door to her room in my face.

  I rubbed my forehead. That had gone well.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Logan opened the door to let me into his apartment. He had a studio apartment. The kitchen was tucked into the corner across from the front door. Then there was a living room area with a couch and a rug. Beyond that, on the far wall, was his bed. It was unmade, covers askew. Logan was barefoot, and he hadn’t shaved, so there was a shadow of whiskers against his chin and cheeks.

  When he saw me, he pulled me into a big hug, wrapping his arms around me.

  I was stunned, because it was not the welcome I was expecting.

  His voice was soft against my ear. “I’m sorry for the way I was on the phone.”

  I hugged him back. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m sorry too.”

  He released me and shut the door. “I know nothing happened with you and Reid.”

  I took a deep breath. “Good. Because nothing did.”

  “Honestly, I think that’s more about me than it is about you,” he said. “You know, the whole thing with Clarke, I was jealous all the time, and it made me question whether any woman would ever want me, just me.”

  “I know.” I put my hand against his cheek, feeling the prickle of his stubble. “But I do. Only you. All of you. All the time.”

  He smiled. And then he kissed me.

  We kissed for several long moments, and with each moment, the kiss deepened. And then his hands were inside my shirt and mine were inside his, and he was pulling me across the apartment, our mouths still locked.

  We ended up on his unmade bed, and we fell back onto his pillows, still kissing.

  We undressed each other, running our fingers over each other’s bodies. I loved to explore every inch of him. He was so solid and warm and firm. He was living stone, so smooth.

  He touched me, his fingers expertly awakening me as he found all my secret places. He made me gasp and moan and buck against him.

  And then he pinned me down and filled me up and he was stiff and urgent and perfect.

  Sometime later, we collapsed back against the pillows, both out of breath.

  “Mmm,” I said, snuggling against his shoulder. “That’s the best thing for a hangover.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, you have whiskey coming out of your pores, you know.”

  I cringed. “Sorry. I bet that’s not sexy.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “You are always sexy. Even when you’re hungover.”

  I clung to him. I felt good. This was at least one thing that had gone well today. Everything else was shit, but this—what I had with Logan—it was my oasis.

  His finger traced idle patterns on my shoulder. “Besides, it’s my fault that you got so drunk in the first place. I shouldn’t have run off on you last night. If I’d let you come home with me instead, we could have done this last night, and then woken up and done it again and then—”

  I cut him off with a kiss.

  We kissed hungrily for several more moments.

  “Let’s do that tonight,” I said breathlessly.

  “Don’t you start classes tomorrow?” he said.

  “So?” I said. “I don’t have anything before 11:00.”

  He grinned. “Well, okay, then. Twist my arm.”

  I giggled.

  He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I really am sorry that I reacted like that.”

  “Reacted like what? What are you talking about?”

  “Last night, when I ran off,” he said. “Sometimes, I get overwhelmed by things, and I need to be alone to figure them out. I think my first instinct is always to run. I keep thinking I’ve moved beyond that, but then I find myself doing it again.” Logan told me he used to feel the need to run away all the time, that he couldn’t stay settled in one place. He lived on the road for most of his life.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re still here. You didn’t run.”

  He kissed my forehead.

  I shut my eyes. But now I was thinking about what he’d reacted to last night, and I wasn’t feeling as happy as I had been earlier. We still hadn’t really addressed all of that, had we? I blew out a long, slow breath. “So, um, we’re going to have to talk about this, aren’t we?”

  He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “This thing happened with Clarke.”

  “It’s always Clarke,” I muttered.

  He propped himself up on an elbow and gazed down at me. “Don’t be like that. Let’s not be jealous of each other’s pasts, please?”

  “I’m not jealous,” I said. “I just…” I shrugged. “Sometimes, I really want to strangle her for all the screwed-up stuff she did to your head.”

  “This wasn’t her fault,” he said. “When we were compelled by that vampire, her, me, and Naelen, something maybe happened.” The relationship with Clarke and Logan and the other guy had happened partly because they’d been compelled by a vampire to have sex together for his amusement. It was all really disturbing.

  “What kind of something?”

  “Like… maybe she was pregnant, and maybe the vampire… did something… and then she wasn’t.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  He flopped back onto his back again. “He said it didn’t happen. She believes him.”

  “He?”

  “The vampire. Cunningham.” Logan was quiet. “But it doesn’t matter. That’s not the point. The point is that, when I found out about it, that was what gave me the strength to leave that whole situation. To leave her.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “How does hearing something like that make you strong?”

  He took a deep breath. “I guess… I realized it was something I wanted.”

  “What was?”

  “A family. And I knew that I didn’t want it with Clarke and another man. I didn’t want to raise a kid that way.”

  “Because you wouldn’t know if it was yours,” I murmured.

  “No, it would have been obvious,” he said. “I’m a gargoyle. Half gargoyles are, you know, distinctive.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I just… it wasn’t about that. It was about understanding that I didn’t want to share a woman. That I wasn’t built like that. And that I wanted to be the only father that my children had. I don’t know. It was clarity, I guess. And it’s something I’ve had in the back of my mind ever since.”

  I nodded slowly. “You never told me this before.”

  “It never came up,” he said
. “But I guess all this stuff with the primal babies, it got me thinking about it again. You’re always googling stuff about colic and how much babies should eat and stuff to tell the mothers who are contacting you. It brought this to the surface. So, when I was talking to Fox, it seemed natural to share.”

  I rolled over onto my side. “I talked to Estelle this morning. She doesn’t think I could ever… I mean, I can’t have children.”

  He rolled over onto his side too. We faced each other. “That’s okay.”

  “How can it be okay? You just told me it was this big, important thing to you. It was a defining moment in leaving Clarke.”

  “Well…” He reached out and ran his knuckles over my cheekbone. “For one thing, we don’t need to get ahead of ourselves. It hasn’t even been a year.”

  “I know that, but we… fit together, Logan. We’re good together. What’s between us, it’s not some casual college romance—”

  “I know,” he said. “I feel that too.”

  “So…” I swallowed. “So, someday, it’s going to matter.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, someday, I guess so.”

  “And we simply shouldn’t think about that? Because now that we have, I can’t stop thinking about it. Shouldn’t we have talked about whether we wanted kids before we got this serious?”

  “Well, in our defense, we were kind of busy with being attacked and nearly dying a lot of the time back then.”

  “Yeah, but still.”

  “Do you want kids?”

  “I can’t.”

  “We could adopt.”

  I felt like an idiot all of the sudden. “Oh,” I said in a tiny voice. Duh. Sure, the reason I was unable to conceive was this big, magic problem, but that didn’t mean that the solution couldn’t be mundane.

  He reached down and linked his fingers with mine. “You know, I was raised in foster homes, so if we did, that would be… I mean, that would be good.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, that would be good.” I kissed him.

  And then we didn’t talk about it. We got dressed and we ordered in lunch, and we watched some television. I got on the website and sent back some messages to hysterical mothers that their babies were just fine.

  Later, we made love softly and slowly before falling asleep.

  Well, neither of us fell asleep, actually. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep, and then Logan turned to stone.

  And then I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling and stayed awake for a long time.

  Because adopting didn’t solve everything, not really. I was completely screwed up, being dead. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Since I was invulnerable, was I going to age?

  Some magical creatures had extended lifespans, but not gargoyles. Creatures who were technically dead but kept alive through magic, like vampires and drakes, they stayed alive forever unless someone cut off their heads or burned them to death.

  If I lived forever, then I would have to watch Logan die, and I didn’t think I could do that. And if we adopted kids, I would have to watch them—

  No.

  There were things I could do, magical spells I could use to keep them all alive with me, but that seemed unnatural and greedy in some ways. And it didn’t even take into account everyone else that I loved—my friends and my gran and my mother and family. I couldn’t keep them all alive.

  And anyway, maybe it was selfish, but some part of me wanted the whole nine yards. I wanted to be pregnant, to feel tiny kicks against my swollen belly, and I wanted to eat pickles and ice cream. I wanted to look down at our baby and know it was partly me and partly Logan and that we had made it together.

  But I couldn’t have that.

  Didn’t stop me lying awake for hours wanting it. Mourning it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Estelle

  It was evening, and Estelle was at Ravenridge. She’d been in a meeting with Dean Norwood to talk about how the website was going and how the interventions they were making with the mothers of the primal babies were coming along. She could have had everyone come along, but she found it easier to talk to Norwood herself. She was happy enough to take care of that aspect of everything. She was an organizer, and she kept things tidy. The others were… well, they simply weren’t as responsible.

  Norwood hadn’t seemed all that interested in the details, but then he never did. The meeting was over, and Estelle was happy to get back to thinking about classes the next day. Sometimes, it felt like she had so much on her plate.

  When Estelle had first discovered that she was a primal, she had simply accepted it as par for the course. As long as she could remember, she had borne extra responsibilities. She and Reid were twins, but she was always treated like an older sister who had to look out for him. Everyone expected a lot from her. So, of course, she would be the one to close the breaches. It was only natural.

  But then Petra had come along, and Petra was more powerful than all of them put together, and she had a completely different attitude toward all of it. Petra was more like Reid in that way. Neither Reid nor Petra seemed capable of taking anything very seriously.

  Hell, maybe they were right. Maybe Estelle took things too seriously. Sometimes, she wished she could enjoy the things that they enjoyed, because they did seem to have a lot of fun. But she didn’t like the noise of parties, and she didn’t like the consequences of getting too drunk, and she didn’t expect she’d ever really fit in with them.

  She didn’t admit to herself very often that she was bothered by not fitting in, but sometimes, she had to acknowledge it. After all, she didn’t fit in anywhere. She wasn’t like the other mage students since she was a primal. And she didn’t fit in with other primals, because she was always separate from them, always the responsible one.

  Estelle was so caught up in those thoughts that she wasn’t really paying attention as she walked through the halls of the college. She had spent a lot of time here, after all, and she knew the place like the back of her hand, so when lost in thought, she tended to switch off.

  So, she rounded a corner and ran into someone.

  That someone was carrying a stack of books, and they all went flying.

  “Oh!” said Estelle. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She immediately went down on her knees, gathering up the books.

  The other person was down on the floor too. “I’m sure it’s my fault,” he said. He had a deep voice, a sort of chocolate-y voice.

  Chocolate-y? Estelle looked up at the owner of the voice in alarm. She never associated voices with sweet things.

  He was crouched on the floor, arms full of books, smiling at her. “I’m sorry. I should have been looking where I was going.” He had dark hair and dark eyes and a square jaw. He was wearing a pair of wire-rim glasses. He definitely had that hot nerd thing going on for him.

  Estelle had to admit that hot nerd was kind of her favorite flavor of men. Not that she thought of men as flavors. She didn’t think like this at all, usually. She wasn’t a virgin or anything, but she’d never bothered with anything that could really be called a relationship, exactly. Nothing that lasted longer than a few weeks before it intruded on her carefully ordered life. She was always concentrating on her studies or on saving the world or something. She didn’t have time for men. Even hot nerds.

  “You all right?” said the hot nerd.

  Estelle realized she was staring at him, lips parted, like she was dazed or stupid or something. She closed her mouth and busied herself with retrieving the rest of the books. “Fine, fine.”

  “You don’t seem fine,” said the hot nerd. “I’m terribly sorry I ran into you like that. I’m Fox.” He adjusted the books in his arms and stuck out a hand.

  She shook with him. “Estelle.” She handed the rest of his stuff over. “And it wasn’t your fault. I think I ran into you.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I really wasn’t paying attention. I think you should let me take you somewhere and buy you a drink as an apology.”

  Est
elle felt herself flushing. Was he asking her out? “You don’t need to apologize.”

  “I definitely do,” he said, getting to his feet. He offered her a hand to help her up too. “I have to admit I’m not totally sure where the best place around here is to get a drink, though. Assuming you’ll accept my apology and my offer.”

  She took his hand. “Are you new here?”

  “First day in the school,” he said.

  “You live on campus?”

  “Nope, got an apartment,” he said. “You?”

  “I have an apartment too,” she said. “Um, there’s a little place around the corner called Barley and Bells. All the students go there.” She touched her chest. “I don’t go very often, but if you want to get a drink, it’s as good a place as any.”

  He grinned. “Sounds perfect. Can we walk there?”

  She nodded.

  “All right, I just need to drop these books off in my car,” he said.

  She beamed. “All right.”

  He was still grinning.

  They gazed at each other for several moments. The air seemed electric somehow. This was new. Estelle hadn’t ever known a feeling like this.

  She liked it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I fell into step with Estelle as I was heading to my first class the next morning. “Hey,” I said. “I thought you’d be the first person into the classroom. You’re practically running late.”

  She gave me an almost embarrassed laugh. “I’m not late. Class starts at 11:10. It’s barely past 11:00.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, grinning at her. “Sorry, just teasing. I guess I shouldn’t.” Estelle wasn’t the kind of person you teased.

  “No, it’s fine,” she said, sighing. “I… I actually was up late last night at Barley and Bells.”

  We had reached the doorway to our classroom, and so we stepped inside. I let Estelle go first and I followed. The classroom wasn’t that big. None of them were here at Ravenridge. Class sizes were small. Never more than ten students. Usually more like four to six. Other than being smallish, however, it was a fairly typical-looking classroom. There was a chalkboard at the front of the room and four long tables set up in front of it, each with three chairs.