Soul Magic

by Jennifer Lyon

  “All right, I’ll think about it. But I’m not always going to be the only witch with a soul mirror. Others may pass me in power, and they will most certainly bring skills I don’t have.” She leaned toward the screen, her eyes filled with the light of hope. “Carla, for all we know, you could be the Moon Witch.”

  “We don’t know who Sutton belongs to, me or Keri.” But Carla wanted him. He made her feel alive, made her crave his touch, and he made her feel safe. Had she ever felt like this? It wasn’t right! Here she was, infatuated like a teenager while Keri was trapped in a rogue’s knife! She thought of trying to reach Keri on the astral plane and a new thought scared her. “Keri’s getting weaker. What if I’m shutting her out because I want Sutton for myself?” Could she be that horrible?

  “You’re not. You’re doing everything you can to hold on to her.”

  “How do you know?”

  Darcy stared at her. “Easy. You would have slept with him. Your need for touch is so strong I can feel it. It’s getting worse for you. Hurting you. And Sutton’s turning into a bear. No, you’re holding on to Keri. We’re going to free her.”

  “Right, okay, just checking.” She laughed, trying to close up the gulf of fear. “As long as I don’t jump him, I’m good.” Chandra stuck her head in the office. “Carla, a man named Max is here to see you and he’s rather determined.”

  “Carla.” Max moved up behind her mom. “Please, talk to me.”

  Darcy waved from the screen and disappeared. Carla watched as Max walked into her office, around the desk to sit on the corner near her chair. He fixed his dark soulful eyes on her and said, “I know you’re mad at me, but I need to understand why exactly.”

  She steadied herself and answered, “I was mad at myself for telling you.”

  He took that hit with a wince. “Why? Didn’t you think I’d believe you?”

  “I knew you’d believe me.” He had, she noticed. Immediately. Some of it was Max’s sociology studies. He’d need an open mind for that kind of study, and then, over time, he’d studied enough different cultures to realize how big the world really was. And he’d seen her work.

  “So you tell me, then get angry when I react? When I hope that your ability might allow us to do more good, save more people?”

  Put like that, she wondered if she’d overreacted. Everyone had their emotional buttons.

  He picked up a small silver eagle and played with it in his fingers. “I was hurt that you never told me, never confided in me. I felt like an outsider in my own clinic. Everyone else there knew. And John’s murder …” He dropped his gaze to the figurine in his hands.

  Her own throat constricted. “I’m so sorry about John. He was a good man—and he had no chance against rogues.” She felt her eyes burn with tears. John had been a big man with a large heart. The girls had learned to trust his quiet ways. How many of them had he taught to shoot and basic self-defense, making them feel more powerful? She closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

  Max picked up her hand. How many times had he touched her and she’d wished she felt something more? She could always feel the need in him, but in herself, she felt only friendship.

  “You saved my life, didn’t you? In that exam room, after that killer hit me, I felt something explode in my head, then everything went black.”

  “I was pretty sure you had a concussion. I did what I could to stop the swelling and heal the damage.”

  “You care about me. You know I care about you. We’re a team. Look at the work we do. It doesn’t have to change, but we can deepen it. Care for and comfort each other. I can be there for you, Carla. It doesn’t matter to me that you’re a witch. It matters that you’re Carla.”

  This was the world she belonged in, a mixed world of science and magic. A controlled world. Not Sutton’s wild and passionate world.

  Keri’s world.

  “Carla,” Sutton said from her doorway.

  “Sutton!” She dropped Max’s hand and jumped to her feet. Her heart lurched, then pounded. “What are you doing here?” His body overflowed the doorframe as if the space couldn’t contain him.

  “Your father is here. Thought you’d like to know.” He turned and walked away.

  Max had risen to his feet and stood, watching.

  Carla rushed past Max and said, “My father? Sutton, wait!”

  In the family room, he stopped, keeping his back to her. “He’s in the kitchen with your mom.”

  “What? How?” She barely skidded to a stop on her bare feet before running into him. Reaching out, she touched his back. “Sutton.” All his muscles contracted into steel, but she thought she felt a brush of feathers so poignant and sad that it brought tears to her eyes. What was this? “Please, tell me what’s going on.”

  He turned and looked down at her. “You needed your dad, I got him for you.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her nerves were dancing all over her skin, making her wish he’d touch her.

  “Your mom said you needed him and he refused to help you. I changed his mind, now he’s here. I have to go.”

  “No!”

  He surprised her by touching her face.

  All the sparking on her skin settled down and her stomach warmed. For a second, it felt like the world would be okay. Then he shattered her.

  “It’s okay, Carla. Don’t look so guilty. If Max is who you care about—” He bit off the words. “I just need to leave.”

  She grabbed on to his hand against her face. “We’re just friends!”

  His eyes were heartbreaking. “Baby, I have enhanced hearing. I heard you and him talking even before we got inside the house. I saw you crawling across the glass and blood to get to him.”

  That wasn’t fair! Nothing about this was fair. “And on the astral plane? Do you think I’d be naked there with every man I find?”

  He ground his jaw for a second, making the eagle earring twitch and catch light. Finally, he said, “No. You’re the other half of my soul, you can’t help the physical reaction. We can’t help it.” He lifted his palm off her face, shook off her hand, turned, and left.

  The loss of his touch left her raw with pain. She knew Max and her mom were watching her, and she couldn’t even think about her father. Instead, she ran out of the house after Sutton. “You aren’t going to walk out on Keri, damn it!”

  He was halfway inside his truck. He backed out of the door and whipped around. “Keri? Or you?”

  It was tearing her up, breaking her into chunks. Her powers churned and roiled painfully inside of her. “I’m barely holding on to her! Keri’s slipping away.”

  “Answer me, Carla. Are you afraid I’m walking out on Keri or you?”

  She was in so deep, it didn’t matter. “Me.”

  He reached out in a blur, lifting her off her bare feet, and pulling her into his chest. “I’m here. We’ll find Keri.”

  She buried her face in his chest, feeling the weight of her fears ease. “I went to the astral plane and she wasn’t there. What if I’m doing it? What if I’m letting her go?”

  Sutton turned around and settled her on the seat of his truck. Bracing his arms on the doorframe, he said, “Look at me.”

  She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “The curse, aren’t you—”

  He shook his head. “I was. Until I touched you. Now tell me why you think you’d let Keri go?”

  She’d already told Darcy. But still, her stomach clenched, while her chakras opened wide, trying to pull at Sutton. He’d been so honest with her. He’d even gone to San Francisco and gotten her dad to help them. As much as she wanted to look away, to hide, she kept his gaze and answered, “So I can have you.”

  His eyes flared and his body went absolutely still. “You’re not going to have to choose. You won’t ever have to choose.”

  She couldn’t get her emotions under control, but she could clear up his misunderstanding. “I don’t want Max. Not like that. I knew he had feelings for me, and I kept thinking maybe once I got
past my grief for Keri, I’d feel something for him.” Sutton deserved the truth from her. “But then I met you.”

  His eyebrows rose. “And?”

  He had her caged in the truck with his massive body, yet she wasn’t afraid. “You brought me my father.” He didn’t do it to get anything from her, he did it because she needed her dad. He wasn’t trying to use her for her powers, or dissect her. She never had to pretend with Sutton.

  Trying to rein in her feelings, she let her gaze slide from his. Over his massive chest covered in a dark T-shirt, down to his camouflage pants that did nothing to camouflage his huge erection. Her mouth went dry and desire swept through her. She was causing him pain, either bloodlust or sex lust. And he let her, because he wouldn’t force her to choose; instead he protected her, cared enough to hunt down and bring her father to her.

  “I want to be the one who frees you from the curse. I want to but I can’t let Keri stay trapped in a rogue’s knife. And I can’t take you from her if you belong to her.”

  His hand slid to her hair, sliding his palm over her scalp and down the length. “I belong to you. But we aren’t going to take any chances with Keri. I won’t risk your bond with her.” He sifted her hair through his fingers, then closed his empty fist.

  She was hurting him! She couldn’t do anything about it, couldn’t use her powers to ease him, nor could she touch him. She squeezed her hands together. “None of this is fair to you. I’m using you. You’re doing everything and I’m giving nothing in return.” She was like her father, taking and using. Pain took hold behind her eyes while her stomach boiled with frustration as her powers struggled to get to him, but they couldn’t find a connection. It felt like electricity building until the pressure was nearly unbearable.

  His blue eyes darkened. “You’re my reason to keep breathing.” His body shuddered and she saw him anchor his arms to the doorframe. “When I was seventeen, I learned that we can only hold out against the curse for so long, then we have to make the right choice. My dad, uncle, and I rescued a witch. But my uncle’s time was up, and he went after the girl. My father shot him through the heart, killing him while he still had his soul.”

  Her skin hurt with the need to touch him, and she clutched her hands together in her lap to resist. “He killed his own brother.” Carla couldn’t imagine making the choice. But at the same time, Sutton’s dad had saved his brother’s soul. “What happened after that?”

  He took a breath and said, “Dad and I got the girl to safety. Then my dad told me that when our time came, we had a choice—we could die honorably with our souls, or live as monsters. Then he got into our small airplane and flew off into a mountainside.”

  “Leaving you alone?”

  “I’m not alone, not anymore.” He leaned an inch closer. “You are my soul, Carly. I can endure anything for you.”

  It took her breath away the way he caressed her name into an endearment. “I want to touch you.”

  His voice throttled down. “Bring me to the astral plane when you’re finished talking to your father. I will touch you. Kiss you. Hold you.”

  She felt her powers tremble in her throat. Her communication chakra wanted to explode open and do exactly what he said. But caution reared up in the form of Keri. “We can’t finish the bond, not even there.”

  His smile was wicked. “We won’t. And that’s as much as I promise. Now go. Before I lose control.” He stepped back from the opening of the truck.

  She slipped down to the ground, then glanced up at his white fingers digging into the roof of the truck. The hell of it was that she almost wanted him to lose control. She turned and forced herself to go into the house.

  Her legs felt like lead, her head buzzed with too many thoughts, and her heart was racing. She walked inside, shut the door, and listened to Sutton’s truck drive away.

  “You never trusted me, did you?”

  Caught by surprise, she jerked her thoughts to the man confronting her. Max. His lean body threw off angry vibes, while his deep brown eyes were a stew of hurt and betrayal.

  “Your father is the psi-geneticist Dr. Wagner, and you never thought to mention that? I’ve read most of his research, Carla. I’ve probably mentioned him to you half a dozen times and you never said a word. You’re just full of secrets, aren’t you?”

  Tired of defending herself, she said, “Keri and I grew up keeping our father’s identity something of a secret. Jerome insisted. He was in the media so much that if anyone ever made the connection that his daughters were witches, it would be easy for rogue witch hunters to find us. He didn’t want us in danger.” Didn’t want to lose his test subjects. She knew that was unfair of her. Jerome did love her and Keri as much as he was capable.

  “And you think I would have betrayed you?”

  She hesitated.

  His shoulders stiffened. “Shit, Carla, I’ve dedicated my life to protecting victims!”

  “Exactly,” she said. “And if it came down to a choice of keeping my secrets, or theirs, which would you choose?”

  He jerked back and glared at her. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Answering a question with a question is a defense mechanism.” It told her what she hadn’t wanted to know. She’d worked with him for well over a year, developed a solid friendship, but he was right that she hadn’t ever trusted him.

  Not like she trusted Sutton.

  “I’m not one of your patients,” he fumed in a low voice.

  “You know what’s interesting, Max?” She didn’t let him answer. “You haven’t asked me who Keri is.” Nor had he asked her about her relationship with Sutton. He was too focused on her father.

  His expression clouded as he obviously backtracked through the conversation. “She’s your sister. You said ‘Keri and I grew up keeping our father’s identity something of a secret.’”

  “She’s my twin sister and she was murdered by a rogue witch hunter right in front of me. And my dad’s reaction—that world-famous psi-geneticist you admire so much—on the day of Keri’s murder was to tell me that now that she was dead, I could go back to work with him. And if I refused, then he didn’t ever want to see me again.”

  He reached out to her. “Carla, maybe he thought work would help you cope.”

  She shrugged off his touch. “No, he was furious because I had chosen Keri over him. Keri and I worked in a holistic healing clinic. But with Keri dead, Jerome thought he could have me back. I was his lab rat, his ‘subject’ for his research. Keri and I both were until she wised up and rebelled.”

  “Lab rats? Subjects? Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? He’s trying to help mankind, Carla. It didn’t mean he didn’t love you, or grieve for your sister. But can you imagine what identifying the magic gene would mean?”

  She reached over and yanked the front door open. “Goodbye, Max.”

  He walked through the doorway, then turned and looked back at her. “Carla …”

  “Don’t. You used to look at me and see a woman who happened to be a psychologist with special skills. Now you look at me as a witch and a scientific curiosity. This is why I never told you.” She shut the door.

  She heard her parents’ voices coming from the kitchen, but she leaned back against the entryway wall and took a moment to get her anger under control. She had to face her father calmly.

  He’d hung up on her when she’d called and asked him for help. She put her fist over the hole that burned between her ribs. All his promises to her about how they were going to combine science and magic … “Enough,” she said softly.

  She thought of Sutton wrapping his arms around her, pulling her off her feet and into his chest. She heard his words. “I’m here,” he’d said. “We’re going to find Keri.” They weren’t pretty or fancy words, but they were real words that she could count on. They meant everything to her.

  He had brought Jerome to her.

  And she would take it from here. Sutton hadn’t missed how hard this was for her. He’d un
derstood that Jerome made her choose between two people she’d loved, her sister and her father. And yet, Sutton had never once suggested that she couldn’t handle dealing with him.

  She followed the voices into the kitchen. Her parents sat at the breakfast nook table. Jerome was hunched over a cup of coffee, his hair hanging over his bearded face. His shoulder blades protruded beneath his long-sleeved pullover. The last two years sat on him like a full decade. Something she hadn’t expected tugged behind her ribs. Love. She still loved her father. Before she could think about that too much, she walked to the table and sat in the chair across from him.

  That put her mom between them.

  Chandra put her hand on Carla’s forearm. “I’ve been telling Jerome as much as I know.”

  Her mom’s palm was slightly clammy from worry and maybe nerves at having Jerome there. She could feel the residue of her mom’s magic in the air, and assumed she’d been clearing the alcohol toxins from her dad’s body. Carla put her hand over her mom’s. “We’re going to find Keri.” She turned to look her dad in the eyes for the first time in two years. “And he’s going to help us.”

  “Not like you’re giving me much choice.”

  His brown eyes were pale and empty, as if the broken blood vessels around his nose had bled out his passion. He used to care … maybe he cared too much. Loved his science and his theories too much, but he had cared, damn it. Cold rage iced her words. “Keri’s soul is trapped in a knife. She’s alone, forced to watch bloody slaughters of other witches. We can’t leave her like that. I won’t leave her like that.” She leaned forward and added, “She doesn’t have a choice—so why the hell should you?”

  His brown eyes sharpened. “She wouldn’t listen.” He slapped his hand down on the table, rattling his cup. “She never listened. She practically advertised to rogues with that damned clinic. And it got her killed!”