Natural Dual-Mage

by K. F. Breene

  He wanted to offer her forever. He wanted to give himself to her, in his entirety, to do with as she would.

  But each time the words surfaced on his tongue, the memories would resurface: throwing up from the pain. Blacking out. Wishing for death.

  “I can’t do that to her,” he said, emotion choking him. “I can’t, in good conscience, tie her to something that could possibly deaden her inside. I can’t protect her if I form a dual-mage pair with her.”

  “But you’ve told us that, should the worst happen, we should save her over you,” Darius said. “Very few would make that sort of pact, especially with a vampire. Correct me if I am wrong, but haven’t you already decided you’d give the ultimate sacrifice to protect her, whether she’s your dual-mage or not?”

  “I know what it’s like to lose a magical partner. If we become dual-mages, my death would give her incomprehensible pain. If she survived, which you’d likely ensure, she could very well go insane. It has happened in the mage world more times than you can count. And if she didn’t, she would walk through life with a hollowness I can’t even begin to describe.” Emery rubbed at his chest before downing the rest of his whiskey. Heat prickled his eyes as he imagined the most precious person in his world having to go through what he’d endured. He shook his head. “No. I can’t do that to her.”

  “Ah.” Darius sipped his drink. “And this is what you are really thinking about, out here in the cold, stark emptiness.”

  Emery frowned down at the ground. This was getting a little poetic for a man-to-man talk. And he didn’t even want to think about what it meant that he’d chosen to bare his soul to the soulless.

  He needed to reassess the choices he made in life.

  “It is common to think our beloved needs a better man than we are capable of being,” Darius said, looking out over the fields. “I am not a man at all, not anymore, and I have felt that same way. But the truly courageous look past their fear.”

  “Looking past my fear won’t help Penny.”

  “I wasn’t speaking of you. It is Penny who needs to decide. Who needs to weigh the risks. Just as Reagan did in bonding a creature that history has deemed the very worst sort. We can but pose the question. They must choose their path.”

  “Penny would go for it in a heartbeat.”

  “Then trust her.”

  “She doesn’t understand the risks. She has no information to pull from. She’d make the decision solely based on her feelings.”

  “She has always gone on feelings, and it has made her great. How would this be any different?” Darius was back to swirling his drink. “I will tell you what I told Reagan, because it will be just as true in your situation. I trust you will keep it to yourself.” His tone, deceptively light, hinted at a very real and dangerous warning. Shivers coated Emery’s body. “The dual-mage connection would only enhance what you already share. Your love wouldn’t deepen, but you would have another way to explore each other.” He turned and looked Emery dead in the eyes, which was extremely awkward, given the intense conversation they were having. “What if she died today? What effect would that have on you?”

  A shock of pain bled through Emery, followed by helplessness. He knew exactly how he’d feel. In his down periods, he often had nightmares of losing her. He knew that would emotionally be the end for him, and it horrified him to think of what sort of person would rise from those ashes.

  “She has loved you from the beginning. She waited for you even when it seemed hopeless, even when she had available suitors eager for her attention,” Darius went on, clearly seeing the answer on Emery’s face. “Do you honestly, in your heart, believe denying her a dual-mage connection would save her from completely unraveling should you die?”

  He was talking about hearts now. Guys didn’t talk about hearts in these things.

  Emery shifted uncomfortably, but the vampire didn’t back off. He continued to stare with that intense gaze, making things even more uncomfortable. For a creature that was excellent at reading body language, he was sure missing the mark on this one.

  “Think about this, as well,” Darius said. “If you refuse the connection, you will prevent her from reaching the next level of magic. A level you will certainly need if you take on the Mages’ Guild. In trying to protect her, you are placing her in graver danger. You fear for her, and that is commendable, but it is still your fear, not hers—and in your fear, you are taking the decision away from her.”

  Emery stood from his chair and gripped the back. He knew Darius was manipulating him. That was what elders did, after all: they moved people around like pawns. Darius had an ulterior motive for wanting Emery and Penny to become dual-mages, and he was going to try and work Emery around until it happened. But he was also right. Emery could give Penny that next level of power. And he could prove, in a magical way, that he wanted her forever.

  An image flashed through his mind: Penny drooling, her head cocked to the side and her eyes staring at nothing. His gut twisted and his heart wrenched. He knew someone who’d looked like that after losing his dual-mage partner. It had been a love pairing, too. And it had broken the surviving mage. Broken him beyond repair.

  “The ladies are back,” Darius said softly, collecting his chair and heading back to the house. “And by the sound of it, they had an adventure.”

  “What else is new?” Emery’s throat was tight and uncomfortable. Even he could hear the effect it had on his voice.

  He stared out at the field in front of him, knowing he should probably hang out until he managed to shake off the pallor. But the desire to see Penny’s blue, sparkling eyes and beautiful smile called to him.

  Filling his lungs with sweet yet biting air, he hefted his chair and followed Darius back to the humble farmhouse nestled between the green fields.

  “If you’d told me five years ago that I’d be getting love advice from a vampire one day, I would’ve laughed in your face,” Emery said, hearing shouts coming from inside the house.

  Darius stopped at the closed door. At least Reagan hadn’t angrily kicked it in. That meant they’d gotten their mark. “There are stranger things, I can assure you,” Darius said somberly. “Much stranger. I am living them.”

  Emery didn’t have time to wonder what that meant, because Darius opened the door and the yelling rushed out.

  “You’re lucky you’re in the inner circle, or I’d be forced to kill you,” Reagan said, standing by the worn kitchen cabinets with Emery’s bottle of whiskey in hand.

  “How are you going to kill me? I know how to stonewall your magic.” Penny’s face was red and laced with wary anger. She stood next to a pulled-out chair at the four-person kitchen table.

  “By strangling you with these bad boys, that’s how.” Reagan lifted her hands, the whiskey bottle still in one of them, with a dead-serious expression on her face. “Besides, you can only stonewall me half the time.”

  Penny’s eyebrows lowered slowly. Magic started collecting in an organized mass above her head.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Reagan said in a low tone. “Don’t even think about trying to blast me with something.”

  The magic continued to collect.

  His dark mood evaporating like water on the baking cement, Emery felt a cockeyed smile drift up his face as he leaned against the doorframe. Penny and Reagan were each capable of wreaking havoc in their own right, but get them together and they were a wild display of fireworks. He loved watching it.

  Reagan peeled a finger away from the whiskey bottle. “Don’t.”

  “You always say practice makes perfect.” Penny started a weave, the magic crackling strangely. Emery couldn’t make out the spell’s purpose.

  “Do you really want to go there?” Reagan asked, setting the whiskey bottle down slowly.

  “Ladies, this is not the right place for this,” Darius said in a melodic voice.

  “That is very pleasant,” Penny whispered, and sparkling new magical threads wrapped into those already establish
ed, the weave tight and graceful. The effects would be vicious. Emery knew how Penny worked. The nastier the spell, the more pleasant the counterweight she used to balance it.

  “Do not help her, Darius,” Reagan said between clenched teeth.

  Penny flung the spell forward. Immediately, Reagan’s magic started to dissolve it away, unseen to Emery’s magical eye. Except…

  Reagan gritted her teeth and furrowed her brow as Penny’s spell regenerated. Slower, but still moving, it drifted toward Reagan.

  Emery pushed off the doorframe and centered his weight, unsure of what had just happened, and why Reagan was standing there as a vicious spell drifted toward her.

  “What’s happening?” Darius said, his voice taking on a rough edge. His frame tightened, and Emery could tell the vampire was wondering if he should engage, too. This was clearly a standoff of some kind, and an extremely dangerous one. It wasn’t like their usual disagreements, which never had any teeth.

  “You better move, or that spell is going to burn off your face,” Penny said with a smug smile. She leaned back on her heels.

  Reagan’s brows lowered. Without warning, she rushed forward, charging through the spell. Heat flared, and then fire exploded in her face and ignited her hair. Not slowing, she grabbed at Penny.

  “Fizzing blackjack sand dogs!” Penny jerked right, just missing Reagan’s grabbing fingers. She sprinted for the door. But Emery was standing in the middle of it, and couldn’t get out of the way in time.

  “I still have my hands,” Reagan yelled, in hot pursuit. She must’ve launched through the air and hit Penny square in the back, because Penny barreled into Emery, knocking him out of the door.

  He grabbed Penny and maneuvered her so his body would cushion her fall.

  “Crispy donuts, Emery, you’re harder than the ground,” Penny said in grunts as she struggled to get away from him and Reagan, who’d piled on top of them.

  Reagan rolled to the right, ripping Penny with her.

  “Now do you see?” Reagan said, locking her long legs around Penny’s middle and her arm around Penny’s neck. “I don’t even need magic. Now what?”

  Penny struggled, trying to get her elbow around to do damage, but she was well and truly stuck. Magic collected again, but before it could shift into a weave, Reagan squeezed her legs and arm, squishing Penny’s middle and cutting off her air.

  “I could crack your neck right now, Ms. Natural Mage,” Reagan said, shaking Penny a little. “Crack it in two. Say uncle.”

  “No! Reagan—” Penny tried to get an elbow around, but couldn’t find any body parts to hit. She scratched at Reagan’s arms. “Uncle. Uncle! You don’t need magic!”

  “All right, then.” Reagan released her, letting Penny tumble to the side.

  Darius stood in the doorway with a straight face and keen eyes. “What is this about Penny’s magic nulling yours, Reagan?”

  5

  Emery stepped in front of me, blocking me from Reagan and Darius. He was giving me time to get back onto my feet. Magic rolled over and through his body, wild and unruly. His tall, broad body flexed, exuding raw power and strength. Electricity surged between us as our magic mingled and ignited, unfurling around us in fits and starts.

  I sighed in contentment, feeling my tight muscles relax. A graceful feeling of complete balance poured through me. I loved how it felt when our magic mingled.

  “Penny ingested a Redcap’s unheard-of ability to shift into stone,” Reagan said, getting to her feet agilely. “That ability somehow protected the Redcap from my magic. When Penny took it, I was able to kill the Redcap. Unfortunately, for some reason, the magic then tried to kill Penny.” She put her hand up, staring at Emery. “It’s fine. I sorted it out…somehow. But it appears the magic has stayed with her, and she can sometimes nullify my magic.”

  Darius shifted, the slight movement drawing Reagan’s notice.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know how, either. The filthy goblin said the magic came from the gods, but who can trust goblins?” Reagan palmed her bald head, then felt down to her eyebrow-less forehead. “Kind of a dick move, making me go to the big meeting tomorrow with no hair. I’ll be a laughingstock.”

  “You’re the one that rushed through the spell,” I said in a scratchy voice. I put my hand to my throat, wondering if it was all the yelling that had affected my vocal cords, and let Emery help me up.

  “Excuse me…” Darius paused, looking between Reagan and me. It wasn’t like him to be at a loss for words. “What is this?”

  “Let’s move this inside,” Reagan said, heading for the door. “I’m hungry. Darius, are you cooking?”

  “Are you okay?” Emery asked me, sliding his hand along the small of my back.

  “She’s not great at breaking news to people.” I closed my eyes and exhaled, savoring the warm tingles that spread through my body at Emery’s touch. Heat infused my middle. “I’m fine, really.”

  Reagan and I gave the guys details while Darius cooked up some Irish staples—sausages, beans, rashers of bacon, and some delicious potato pancake things. Midway through the story, we moved to the table and finished it up while we ate the feast, though, by silent agreement, Reagan and I skipped the part where she’d freaked out over my refusal to do another bounty hunting gig. Darius and Emery both stared at me, Darius with a blank face and Emery in confusion.

  “Since when does a goblin shape shift into stone?” Emery asked, pausing in eating a piece of sausage.

  “Good question,” Reagan said with a full mouth.

  Darius’s head shake was slight, but he didn’t comment.

  Reagan caught it, stopped eating, and narrowed her eyes. “Do not keep us in the dark on this, or Penny and I won’t give you any other details…about anything.”

  It was a bluff. I was terrible at keeping secrets, and even worse at lying.

  “I have never heard of a Redcap with that ability,” Darius said, his eyes rooted to mine. I could practically see the wheels turning in the velvety depths. “In times of great strife, I have heard of select individuals being blessed with a gift of magic or power from the gods, entities that are basically equivalent to humans’ stories about angels. The blessed individual is usually exemplary in some way, working toward the betterment of all. Working to end the strife, whatever the strife may be.” Darius turned his gaze to his hands, clasped on the table. I could just barely see the crease form between his brows. “It is a rare occurrence…” His voice drifted away.

  “He’s going through that giant memory of his,” Reagan said, leaning back and putting a hand on her stomach. “That was good. I like the food in this country. Meat!”

  “Yes.” Darius nodded slowly, still looking at his hands. “The gods’ magic is transferable in some respects. The power diminishes somewhat, but it is possible to take the magic into oneself by force, or for it to be given as a gift.”

  “There’s no way that Redcap received a gift. No way,” Reagan said with raised eyebrows. “It was a nasty little creature.”

  “By force, then.” The crease in Darius’s brow deepened. “I have not heard of someone being blessed in…years. Years upon years—”

  “That means, like…five hundred or more,” Reagan said, and finished her cup of tea. “He’s over a grand old.”

  “As soon as it was learned that the magic could be transferred,” Darius went on, locked in a recital of information and ignoring her, “those who received the boon were quickly found and destroyed for what they possessed so as to gain the magic. Anyone rumored to have the magic became a target. For this reason, the gods withdrew their generous hand, including the gift of Dream Walking, which allowed magical folk access to them. They closed their gates to outsiders, as it were. Now, as far as I know, the Dream Walker ability can only be passed down genetically. That is why it is so incredibly rare.”

  He blinked a few times, looking up at me. Studying me.

  Emery bristled and laid a warm and reassuring hand on mine.

&nbs
p; Darius’s smile was slight. “Have no fear, Mr. Westbrook. The godless do not have the ability to harness the magic of the gods. She is safe from me.”

  “Can I harness it?” Reagan asked, raising her hand. She looked at me. “I’m not saying I’m going to kill you for the magic. But in the event I kill you for some other reason, I want to know if I can reap the rewards of your magical, goblin-stolen gift.”

  “I didn’t steal it,” I muttered, uncomfortable about this whole conversation. About what it might mean.

  Reagan must’ve seen it. “We have no idea if this is true,” she said, leaning toward me. “Darius has been known to pick up information from books and pass it off as though he lived it. When it comes to things that happened that long ago, I honestly think he gets confused. And we all know people who write books just want to spout off. It’s not all true.”

  Darius studied Reagan for a moment, his eyes dulling, indicating he was back to sifting through his memories. If he’d heard her dig, he didn’t show it.

  “No, I shouldn’t think you could use the magic, Reagan,” he said. “The human myths on angels have such a strong likeness to the gods that it is almost as if the gods walked among the humans. I’m not sure why magical creatures shifted to thinking about them as gods—”

  “Stick to the topic at hand, please,” Reagan said, rubbing her temples.

  Darius’s eyes fluttered, as though he were coming out of a trance. “Yes, of course. As I said, the human myths on angels are pretty accurate, and one of those is that angels are at odds with Lucifer’s realm. That would mean you are forfeit.”

  “Okay, sure, but my mother’s lineage stems, in part, from a god.” She held up two hands. “Don’t get me wrong, I think this is all a little far-fetched”—she pointed at me—“I told Penny that earlier. But just for shits and giggles, wouldn’t I get to play with the godly power since I am…some part god?”