by K. F. Breene
Nervousness and love dripped from his eyes. “Penelope Bristol, you’ve affected me from the first touch. You’ve been on my mind, haunting my thoughts in the best possible ways, from that moment until this one. I’ve loved you from the beginning, but for a while I got in my own way. I respect you. I cherish you. I am so very, very—” His voice hitched. He clasped his hands on his lap and looked down at them for a moment, trying to choke back the emotion. “I’m so very proud of you. Of your courage to be unapologetically different. Of your willingness to try anything. Of your steadfastness and loyalty. The druid read you perfectly. You are pure of heart, and you always have been. You are the shining light in my life. How I find my way home. I love you more than I can express.”
I could barely breathe. New tears made a trail down my cheeks.
He reached forward and unclasped the box. It creaked as it opened. Within sat a ring with a glimmering purple stone, pumping with a deep power that soaked down through my middle and warmed up my body.
“I went through every power stone Darius could collect for me,” Emery said, and now his voice shook. His smile was faint. “That vampire will go out of his way to get what he wants.” His smile slipped and nervousness took over his expression. “This stone made me think of you. Beautiful, pure, and deep. Will you…”
He swallowed, and I waited with bated breath for what would come next.
18
He pulled his hands away from the box. “Penny Bristol, will you be my forever? Will you share your life with me? You can choose how—if you’re willing, that is.” His smile didn’t break through his nervousness. But I couldn’t put him at ease. My heart had taken over the whole of my chest and I’d stopped breathing. I could scarcely think through the flurries in my stomach. “I offer myself to you however you will take me. As my wife, as my dual-mage, as my life partner, or as that creepy guy who lives next door and waits outside to say hello every morning and goodnight every evening.” His smile amplified his handsomeness. “Well. Maybe not that last one. You’d probably sic Reagan on me.”
I huffed out a laugh, and I was crying again. Huge, joyous tears rolled down my face. “But your past?”
He shrugged, and for once, he was hunching like I usually did. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to make that decision for you, Penny. You have all the information now, so you should choose your own destiny. Either way, whatever you choose, I…” He shrugged again. “I hope to be a part of it.”
My hand shook as it reached out for the ring, but veered at the last minute and rested on the fake crystal ball instead. “Does my mother know this is happening?” I vaguely remembered what she’d said in the car. “She does.”
“She knows,” he said. “She didn’t threaten me away from you this time, so I figured that was a good sign.”
I laughed, looking at the ring. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. To see if it fit. It was hard to believe I could be so lucky. Or so happy. It felt like a dream, and I worried that if I touched the ring, I’d wake up. “The others?”
“Darius and Reagan have been pushing for this. Darius for his own reasons, and Reagan because she wants me to fix you.” His smile was soft. “Like you have already fixed me.”
I took a deep breath. One of many. I had to risk waking up.
Steeling my courage, I gingerly slid my fingers across the smooth surface of the small power stone, about the size of a two-carat diamond. A pleasant vibration welled up inside of me. It felt like love. Emery’s love. He’d chosen perfectly.
I wiped a tear away with the back of my hand. “I don’t want us to become dual-mages if you have reservations. I meant what I said. I’m happy to stay like we are if that’s where you’d rather be.”
He sat forward in his chair. The chair wobbled with the weight shift. “I’d rather be on a beach with you somewhere, safe and sound,” he said. “If our lives weren’t so dangerous, I would’ve already asked you about becoming dual-mages. We’re perfect together. There is only one true pairing for me, and that’s you. Nature has made it that way. Please believe me, Penny, the only reason I’ve held off is because I’m afraid for you. But that fear has shifted, and I worry that I might be doing you harm. There’s just…” He shrugged. “I can’t strategize like Darius. It seems I’m doomed to blindness when it comes to what’s actually best for you.”
“You are best for me,” I said softly, resting my fingers on the edge of the box. “You’re best. I will be your dual-mage, and as soon as we’ve dated for another couple years and my mother has stopped harassing us, I’ll be your wife. And your life partner, in case you didn’t realize that was the same thing.”
Relief washed over his face before a smile lit him up, sparkling in his gorgeous blue eyes, like the Milky Way on a clear night. He stood slowly, and I held my breath as he walked around the card table and knelt by my side. He lifted the ring box gently before extracting the beautiful power stone ring and reaching for my hand.
I shoved it at him eagerly, my heart full to bursting. The feeling of connection, both with Emery and the universe, was taking over, softening the headache that had been throbbing the moment before.
“I can’t believe I’ve gotten this lucky,” he said under his breath, gently encircling my ring finger with the metal. He shook his head slightly. “I feel like I’m going to wake up at any moment.”
I ran my free hand down his cheek. He looked up, his eyes glassy.
“I was thinking the same thing just a moment ago,” I said, laughing through the tears.
He chuckled as well, holding my gaze as he slipped the ring down my finger. “Penelope Bristol… Turdswallop”—we both laughed a little harder—“will you join with me in a dual-mage partnership that will connect us magically for the rest of our lives?”
“Yes,” I said softly, resting my hand on his shoulder.
He paused with the ring almost all the way down my finger. “Wait…should I hold off on the ring until we’re ready for it? Just because of your mother and her—”
“Yes,” I said, laughing harder. “If I’d had any doubts that you were the perfect guy for me, that just cemented it. Can you imagine? She’d go between anger that I was promising myself to you so soon, and anger that we were waiting so long to actually have a ceremony. We’d end up just eloping for some peace.”
He was still frozen with the ring nearly on my finger. His eyes dipped down, and I could tell he wanted to slide it on the rest of the way. That he worried this was his one chance, and if he didn’t seal the deal now, he might not get another opportunity.
“It’ll be more special if I’ve never actually worn it before,” I whispered. “And just think, you’ll have more time and freedom to come up with a nicer table and a couple chairs that don’t want to break when they’re sat in.”
His smile stretched and he looked up, hopefully getting the assurance he needed. He nodded before pulling the ring away with obvious regret.
“It’s perfect, though,” I said, feeling my own regret. “I like the feel of it. And the color.”
“It’s unique.” He fitted the ring in the box but left the lid open. “And more powerful for it. Just like you.”
I fell into his kiss then, soaking in the passion and emotion we both felt, roaming my hands over his hard body. I was desperate for us to explore these feelings further in our room. But he backed off and glanced at the far corner of the garage by the door, where a moveable Asian-style divider was set up.
“Shall we?” He stood, his eyes so deep that I could see all the way to his overflowing soul.
In perfect trust, I let him help me up and then followed him to the corner, where he folded the divider and set it aside. A wave of nervousness washed through me upon seeing a black cauldron. Next to it sat a stack of marked and labeled containers.
“Wow. Prepared.” I rubbed at my butterfly-infested stomach, remembering the last time I’d done a potion. As Reagan and the Bankses would never let me forget, I’d accidentally turned a bunch of witches int
o zombies. “We’re sure we have the right spell, and all the ingredients are fresh…and everything?”
“Darius is the prepared one. More so since the goblin incident. This station has been kept in a constant state of readiness. As for the spell…” He moved around the side, looking for something. Not finding it, he turned in a circle, scanning the storage shelves and Darius’s desk across the way. Looking around the cauldron area again, he clucked his tongue and stepped toward a black binder that sat propped up on the shelf. “Right in front of my face.”
Flipping the binder open, he read the first page before his brow furrowed. He moved on to the second page, then the third, running his finger down and across the lines, taking it all in.
“It’s that long, huh?” I asked, wanting to step closer and get a look—and also wanting to keep my distance.
“No…these are…other spells.” Emery flicked the pages, pausing a moment on each. When he reached the spell he was looking for, he tapped it once and then went back to look at a few others. “These are…advanced spells. Extremely complex. They’d need a crap-load of power to complete.”
“Which he assumes we’ll have after we become dual-mages?” I finally moved closer. As I scanned the page, magic sifted and twisted around me, ruffling my hair and caressing my skin. Whispered words seeped out of the darkness in my mind, and various words lifted off the page in sparkling color.
I’d read a good few spells in the last year, the ones from Reagan more complex than most, and voices had never whispered in my mind before.
I took a step back. “Something is wrong with those spells.”
“Why?” Emery flicked a page before looking at me. Whatever he saw erased the good or analytical mood he’d been in. “Let’s get working.”
With smooth economy, he took the lid off a large container marked distilled water. After sloshing that into the cauldron, he set up the binder on a spell stand a couple feet from the cauldron, leaving it open to the dual-mage potion directions. That done, he read them over, then checked the ingredients again. He was no novice when it came to creating potions.
“Okay,” he said, motioning me closer to the binder. “At first, this will be a potion like any other. Feel the intent and follow the steps accordingly. About three-quarters of the way in, you’ll start to feel a tug…about here.” He put his palm to the bottom of his ribcage, the place where I’d often felt a tug while doing magic.
I nodded to show I was following.
“That’s the start of the actual connection. That tug will seem to be connected…” His hand drifted out, and stopped at the same place on me, prompting a gush of warmth. It moved back to him. “You’ll feel the first connection to me.”
It was hard to breathe with all the heart swelling and belly flutters and excitement, not to mention the fear I’d severely screw up and turn him into something awful, so I just nodded again.
“The feeling will increase as we move on. With…” Sorrow moved in his eyes and he cleared his throat. “With my brother, it was an exciting feeling, like collaborating on an intense new project. But I’ve heard dual-mages feel different things. I’ve never heard of it being a negative experience.”
I licked my lips, knowing nothing I dabbled in ever came out normally. “Let’s hope we’re not the first.”
A smile tickled his lips. He must’ve read my mind, because he bent and ran his lips across mine. “We’ll be fine.”
His thumb slid a trail of fire across my chin before he went back to the binder.
“Toward the end, the intensity will dramatically increase. That’s when our magic will fuse, as it were. We’ll both feel an increase in our normal power level, as well as little details and variances from the other person. Good and bad, I’ll share what I’ve got going on, and you’ll share what you’re working with.” His hand moved back and forth between us.
“Will you be able to siphon magic from other people, like I do?”
He studied me for a moment. “That’s a question I’ve wondered myself. My brother didn’t get my premonition ability, and I didn’t get his ability to easily decipher truth from lie, so possibly not.”
“He could tell truth from lie? Like…just know when people were lying to him?”
Emery nodded, organizing the containers now, probably into what would be used and when. “To a degree, yes. It really helped him in the Guild. Clearly, it didn’t save his life. I have a theory that mages have extra little individual gifts in addition to their magic. The higher the power level, the more apparent the gifts are. It’s a recent theory…” He gave me a sheepish smile. “In the past, I just thought my brother and I were prodigies.”
“Well…you were. Two naturals coming out of the same family is kind of a big deal.”
“Right, but I let myself think there was more to it than that.” He shrugged, and I could see a boyish delight shine through. “Think superheroes.”
“Ah.” I glanced at the opened binder, curiosity pulling at me. Fear holding me back.
“But in seeing your pretty extreme gift, I can’t help but wonder if other mages have them to a lesser degree, or maybe just naturals get a little something extra…”
“We already have so much. That doesn’t seem fair.”
He chuckled as he straightened up. “There’s that pure heart. Here I was thinking about being a superhero, and you’re debating the fairness of it all.”
“Your brother did a lot of the intense decision-making, didn’t he?” I asked, angling my face up as he ran his fingers along the underside of my jaw.
He smiled again before he brushed his lips against mine. Not satisfied, he deepened the contact, opening my lips with his and probing with his tongue.
My body turned molten and I moaned into his taste. The wildness of his magic throbbing around us. The feel of his body against mine.
“Focus, Penny Bristol,” he murmured against my lips, his breath fast, his smile gone. His palms spread up my stomach and cupped my breasts.
“I’m not the one copping a feel.” I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, lost in his touch.
His hot lips trailed down my exposed throat and his hands kneaded. I sucked in a breath as his thumbs moved across my nipples. “Focus,” I heard again, wispy. He kissed my collarbone but straightened up. Slowly. His hands moved down to my hips, gripping tightly. “We have all night for that. We need to do this spell.”
He stole one more kiss before stepping back and running his fingers through his hair. He blew out a breath and a boyish grin worked up his face. “I am certainly approaching this spell differently the second time around.” He shook his head and picked up a large wooden spoon before handing it over. “Don’t turn me into a zombie.”
All the air went out of me. Scowling sullenly, I took the spoon. “Low blow.”
“Yes, my brother did make all of the intense decisions. Most of the decisions, big and small. He was the oldest, after all. I’d been trained to do as he said or get the snot beat out of me. Even when I got older and could hold my own, I still remembered those early lessons.”
“I know something of that.” I edged up to the binder. “Because of Reagan.”
“It helps, though. In the long run. Makes you tough.”
“I’m certainly blasé when I’m thrown against the wall by an enemy. Which is not something I ever thought I would say.” Magic danced around me as I neared the spell stand. My energy fizzed and spurted. Words jumped off the page in bright, sparkly colors, vying for attention, pointing out the most important part of the spell, and what could go wrong.
Wind kicked up, brushing against my face and tossing my hair. But when I put my hand up to pat down my flyaways, they hadn’t been disturbed.
“This spell doesn’t look overly complex,” I said, confused as to what was causing this reaction in me.
“It’s not.” Emery picked up the second ingredient, a jug of orange juice. Knowing Darius, it was hand-squeezed. “You have to have enough power to do it, but I’ve seen
mages barely more powerful than witches form a dual-mage pair.”
But as my gaze moved over the lines of instructions, the environment in the garage changed. The ghost of a wind fought the stagnant, still air. A floral whiff drifted past my nose, replaced by the lingering scent of paper from books mixed with grease left over from when a car had been stored in the space. Leaves brushed against the roof or rain gutters outside, longing to come in and be a part of this. Even the very words of the spell seemed to beg for more natural elements to play with.
Emery stilled with the jug held out, waiting for me to read the first line.
“This potion was meant to be performed outside.” I looked down at the cauldron. “We need to move. To the trees.”
He just looked at me, the jug still held out. I shook my head at him, suddenly frustrated beyond a rational amount. “And you need to get your head in the game. You’re slipping back into how you used to do magic. That’s not the right way. It won’t bring out the true essence of this spell.”
A line formed between his brow and he tilted his head, surveying me. The glimmer of boyish excitement seeped away, and a part of me felt really crappy because of it. But the part that was in control didn’t back down. I pointed at the cauldron, and the stack of containers next to it, before grabbing the binder and fitting it under my arm. “Come on. This spell seems simple, but if you look below the surface, and do it right, it is actually quite complex. I can feel it. It can also go badly wrong. I intend to do it right, and we need to move so we don’t get steamrolled by the effects.”
19
The great thing about vampires was they were very strong, and could move a cast iron cauldron filled with water with minimal strain and no spillage. The great thing about Darius and Reagan was they took my spell work as it came, and never batted an eye at my crazy demands.
Callie, Dizzy, and my mother, on the other hand…
