by SM Reine
“You clean with magic,” Ariane pointed out. “It is also a woman’s duty to care for the home, and anyone inside it, including a cat if that’s what the man desires.”
“Gross, Mom,” Dana said.
“Well, not women like you; you’re clearly the male in your relationship.”
“Mother!” Marion cried.
Ariane shrugged shamelessly. “If you’d prefer that I don’t speak the truth…”
Penny giggled louder at how hard Dana rolled her eyes. There was nothing quite like having one’s mother around to reduce a vampire hunter to adolescent behavior. Even Dana, in all her studded leather and dog collars, tended to revert to sullen preteen levels of maturity around Ariane.
“You can’t even pull that gender-essentialist stuff until they’re married,” Penny said. “At the moment, there’s not enough of a commitment for a woman to be mopping up after her man. Or her woman.” She bumped Dana with her hip. Penny was so tall that her hip came roughly level with Dana’s waist.
“Your emphasis on ‘at the moment’ did not fail to escape my attention,” Marion said. “Don’t start picking my next wedding cake.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Penny asked.
No, there was no trouble. And the house wasn’t paradise, either.
Marion wasn’t certain how she would envision a true paradise if prompted to do so. She thought she might have sketched out something like the Middle Worlds, with all its magical gardens and deadly forests, but she’d seen firsthand exactly how un-paradise-like it was.
Whatever was happening with Seth, it was certainly not paradise.
They fought a lot, as it turned out. How could they not? Seth squeezed the toothpaste tube from the center, like a heathen.
In addition, they frequently debated over who needed to do the dry cleaning because, apparently, Seth was not one of Marion’s servants. They also debated over whether dry cleaning was even necessary for Marion’s wardrobe (yes, it was).
But the fighting was a little thing. There were also long, quiet mornings where they never left bed, and lots of frozen dinners shared out on the porch.
Seth was showing Marion how to shoot, and forging special iron bullets for her to carry.
Marion was showing Seth how to dress like an adult human being who didn’t rely exclusively on Carhartts. And then magically burning the clothes off of his body when he insisted on wearing flannel from Costco anyway.
That sort of thing was how eighty percent of their time had been spent for the last several months.
If the Godslayer had been showing Marion how to be a useful human being, Seth was showing Marion how to be an ordinary, sweater-stealing girlfriend. Not every moment was delightful, or even interesting. So definitely neither trouble nor paradise. It was much better than both of those things.
“I don’t see why I should change something that is sufficient in its current state,” Marion said.
Dana lifted her eyebrows. “Sufficient?”
“Terribly romantic,” said Ariane, the woman who couldn’t keep a husband.
Marion didn’t rise to the argument. She didn’t really care. It was so much easier not to care about anything at all when her life was so happy. Only one thing really seemed to bother her anymore, toothpaste and dry cleaning aside. “So work,” Marion said delicately. “How’s that going?”
Dana’s expression was unimpressed. She knew that Marion didn’t care about the Hunting Club.
Penny answered for her. “It’s good! Not too much work lately, which is great news for us.”
“That’s good. Yes.” Marion struggled to keep the words inside her clenched teeth, but she couldn’t keep the thoughts off her face.
“Spit it out,” Dana said.
“Benjamin. Has he been found?” Marion asked.
Her sister shook her head. “Eyes are open, though.”
“We’ve got feelers out everywhere feelers can be put,” Penny said. “Every organization on every plane, and on every part of the internet, darknet, and magical networks. No sign of him.”
“Have you heard from the sanctuary? Are they okay?” Marion actually meant “Rylie” by “the sanctuary,” but as they were currently not on speaking terms, it was easier to just dance around the specific name.
“Abel’s confident that Benjamin’s going to get back safely, so he’s holding everything together as much as he can.”
Seth banged through the kitchen door again, followed by billows of smoke. “Where’d you put the fire extinguisher this time?”
“Oh, gods.” Marion shot to her feet and bolted into the kitchen. The oven was indeed on fire. A quick blast of magical ice was enough to fix that, but nothing could help the duck that had been scorched to jerky within.
He dropped the pan on the counter and the duck crumbled from the impact. “Damn.” He shrugged. “Oh well.” He took a bottle of beer out of the fridge, opened it on the edge of the counter, and took a swig. “Sorry, Marion.”
“Why apologize? The result would have been the same if I’d been trying to cook.” Although she’d have probably tried to magically cook it, and that would have ended with the cabin burned to the ground.
“I’m sure the Alpha never has to eat duck burned by an incompetent Wilder,” Seth said with a wry smile.
“You know as well as I do that Abel does not cook, so even your burned duck is superior to the absolute nothing he tries to make for Rylie. The Alpha has staff for that.”
“You could have staff.”
“I don’t want staff. I am very much perfectly happy the way things are now.” She plucked the beer out of his hand and sipped it. She pulled a face. “Except for this.”
“You know you don’t like Bud, so stop trying to drink it.” He took the bottle away. Seth glanced through the living room door and lowered his voice. “You’re not going to tell them about…the thing. Right?”
Marion kissed him, biting his bottom lip hard. “Of course not.”
“Just making sure,” he said, fingers raking through her curls. “Because I like it a lot, and I don’t want it to turn into more of a thing.”
“Oh, it would never turn into a thing.”
Which was when something glass shattered in the living room, and then their guests started screaming. Marion and Seth exchanged looks.
“I think they found us,” he said. “Sounds like we’ll have to tell your family about that thing after all.”
Weeks earlier, Seth had found a small nest of demons further up the shore. Very angry demons. They had been wreaking havoc in one of the neighboring towns, and Marion hadn’t been able to resist getting involved.
This current attack couldn’t be from those demons because they were dead. But there were other demons in the region, along with a few vampires, and even some sidhe. Seth and Marion couldn’t seem to resist taking up the fight wherever it arrived.
It turned out that the two of them were very good at saving lives when they cooperated and kept their goals small. No more messing around with Genesis, kingdoms, politics, or other big-scale fights. Just good old-fashioned bloodshed. Dana would surely approve of it, judging by her laughter in the living room as she took up the fight.
Seth drained his beer and grabbed a shotgun off the wall. “Ready?” he asked.
Marion grabbed the Beretta out of a drawer in the kitchen. “Always.” And the two of them burst into the living room to join the fight.
As she had said…their life wasn’t paradise.
Just very close to it.
This is the end of the Mage Craft series—the last book where Seth and Marion headline. Their story has been WONDERFUL for me to write. I first conceived of it while I was pregnant with my second son, and Seth and Marion’s strange, cathartic journey toward love kept me company on many late nights awake with my newborn. I’ve known that Seth deserved a happy ending for years, but Marion surprised me a LOT by stepping up to the plate. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by anything Marion wants to do at this point.
;)
The next series is about Marion’s half-sister, Dana McIntyre. It’s another love story, in a way, but it’s even more twisted than Marion’s. What’s gonna happen when the vampire hunter gets bitten, and only a serial killer vampire can save her from changing? Hint: It’s bad. Dana doesn’t cope well.
Thanks for joining me for yet another series. It’s been swell, and I can’t wait to share the next one with you.
~Sara
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