Claimed by Magic: a Baine Chronicles novel (The Baine Chronicles: Fenris's Story Book 2)

by Jasmine Walt

  I danced for a good hour and a half, changing partners frequently so as not to favor any man in particular. There was no point in getting anyone’s hopes up when I fully intended to warm Fenris’s bed tonight. Several asked me questions about my past and my future intentions, but I answered evasively or pretended not to hear them.

  As yet another song drew to a close, already melding into the next, I stepped back from my dance partner, intending to go to the refreshments table and rest for a bit. But before I could turn, another man’s large hands clamped hard around my waist. The next thing I knew, I was being spun around into another dance.

  “Enjoying yourself?” my new “partner” sneered.

  When my appalled gaze met his, my heart stopped. Staring down at me, a decade older yet hardly changed, was my cousin Vanley. He’d filled out some since I’d last seen him as a teenager—broader shoulders and chest, thicker arms, and chiseled features that made him deceptively handsome. His thick chestnut-brown hair was styled with some kind of gel that slicked it straight back from his face. His dark eyes were narrowed on mine, his lips curled mockingly, and his large fingers dug tightly into my flesh as he spun me across the dance floor.

  “Let go of me,” I growled as a wave of revulsion swept through me. To be touched by him yet again, against my will—it was like an old nightmare recurring when I’d least expected it. Anxiety tried to take over, and I felt my skin growing clammy as my stomach pitched, but I pushed it back with a wave of anger instead. “I’m not your property, Vanley.”

  “I heard a rumor that you were back, but I didn’t think it was possible.” There was a hint of a slur in his voice, and as we came into the light, I saw that his gaze was blurred. Drinking? Drugs? I had seen a few people passing around pills in the corner. It would be just like Vanley to indulge in such a vice. “You died in the water.”

  “Is that how this works?” I asked incredulously. “You tell yourself a lie so often that you start to believe it’s real? We both know what really happened that night.” I wrenched myself out of his grasp. “If you don’t leave me alone, I’d be more than happy to do it again.”

  Vanley sneered. “That was a stroke of luck,” he said, taking a step toward me. Heads were turning now, and I realized we were drawing an audience. “I’m a fully trained mage now, and you’re a nobody. They won’t believe you any more than they did the last time. You should keep your head down if you know what’s good for you.”

  A voice in my head was screaming at me to run, and that only made me angrier. How was it that, over a decade later, Vanley was still trying to bully me around? I raised my hands, fully intending on blasting him with raw magic, no matter the consequences. But before I could summon my power, the air in front of me flared red and Vanley was thrown straight into a group of dancers behind us.

  I gaped as they all went down like a bunch of bowling pins, Vanley howling in outrage. What in Recca had happened? Questioning gazes turned my way. I schooled my expression into haughty superiority and turned on my heel. Let them think I had done that on purpose, I thought as I strode away. Maybe others would think twice before messing with me.

  “Mina!” Maxin grabbed my arm as I walked right by him without seeing him; Troina was standing right next to me, wide-eyed. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “My cousin Vanley was up to his old tricks,” I said lightly, shrugging off his grip. “I think I’d like to go home now.”

  Troina nodded, an understanding expression on her face. “I’ll help you catch a cab,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Troina murmured as she walked me to the curb. “I’d forgotten Vanley is a regular at these parties.”

  “It’s not your fault.” There had to be at least a hundred people in there—Troina couldn’t be expected to remember everyone. “I’m glad you invited me, actually,” I said, turning to her with a smile. “For the most part, I had a good time.”

  We embraced with the promise to catch up for coffee again, then parted ways—Troina went back to the party, while I got into the cab that pulled up. As it drove me back to the hotel, I stared out the window, collecting my thoughts and allowing myself to decompress from the evening’s excitement. Anxiety and disgust were still churning in my stomach, but as I relaxed, these feelings faded away, replaced by confusion and a certain amount of pride.

  I didn’t know what happened back there with Vanley, though I suspected that if I asked Fenris, he would have an answer for me. But even if I hadn’t blasted Vanley myself, I was proud I’d faced him head-on, that I hadn’t turned tail and run away, or allowed him to bully me as I’d done in the past.

  And you managed to act like a normal person at the party. I’d mostly fit in, talking and laughing with other mages my own age, even dancing! It had been a long time since I’d done anything more than the simple country dances that the Abbsville residents preferred, but after a few tries, my feet seemed to fall back into the familiar steps.

  By the time my steamcar pulled up to the Black Horse, I was practically beaming.

  “Fenris!” I exclaimed as I rushed into his room, then stopped short. He was sitting at his breakfast table in his normal guise, a brooding expression on his face as he looked out the window. “Is everything all right?”

  “Mina!” His eyes widened with delight as he rose, the dark expression clearing from his handsome face. “You look stunning,” he said, his yellow eyes darkening with hunger as they roved up and down me. A flush of heat rose in my chest, and I could feel my cheeks turning pink beneath his regard. But while I had felt exposed when hungry male eyes devoured me at the party, I didn’t feel uncomfortable as his gaze trailed across my exposed skin. Instead, I felt…exhilarated.

  But I remembered how morose he’d looked when I walked in, and that gave me pause. “I was about to tell you all about the party, but you look like something’s troubling you,” I said, placing my hands on his broad shoulders. “Did something happen?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait until later,” Fenris murmured, curling his fingers around my waist. He drew me close and kissed me, and I quickly forgot all about Vanley and my concern for Fenris. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I kissed him back, allowing him to pick me up and carry me to the bed, where we made slow, tender love.

  “Now that we’ve gotten that out of our system,” I teased much later, scraping the tips of my fingers through the crisp hairs on his chest, “why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

  Fenris sighed, rolling onto his back. He tucked me into his side, wrapping his arm around my shoulder, and said, “I decided to do a bit of reconnaissance while you were at the party.”

  “Oh?” My stomach tightened at the tone in his voice. “On whom?” I asked, though I had the feeling I already knew.

  “Gelisia Dorax. I followed her from the Mages Guild to your aunt and uncle’s house.”

  “She must have been there to interview them about me,” I said, tracing lines across Fenris’s abdomen. “What questions did she ask them?”

  “It was hardly an interview,” Fenris scoffed. “More of a shakedown.” He proceeded to tell me all about Gelisia’s bias, how she was already convinced I was an imposter, and how she’d extorted a bribe from my relatives in exchange for making sure I was “taken care of.”

  By the time he was finished, I was burning with outrage. “She can’t simply lie to the Chief Mage,” I cried, sitting up in the bed. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “No doubt she will spin some clever story,” Fenris said grimly. “It will be our job to provide compelling evidence to the contrary and reveal her corruption.”

  “But how are we going to do that?” I raked my hands through my hair, feeling a headache coming on. “No one is going to believe your word—you’re a stranger. You certainly can’t tell them about your past dealings with her.”

  “Very true,” Fenris said, “but I’ve been thinking on the matter, and I have some ideas. She is careless because she has gotten away
with much in the past, I believe, but that impunity will end soon. In the meantime, we must be extra-vigilant, and you should not go anywhere alone. Gelisia might try to trap you somehow, and someone might even be sent to attack you.”

  “Attack me!” I exclaimed, alarmed at the possibility. “You mean to say I might be assassinated?”

  “People have been killed for much smaller fortunes than yours,” Fenris pointed out. “It would be imprudent not to consider the possibility.”

  “Is that why you put a protection spell on me earlier?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  Fenris stilled. “How do you know about it? Did someone try to hurt you?”

  “I had a run-in with my cousin Vanley at the party.” I told him what happened, then added, “I’m grateful for the spell, but it would have been nice to know about it beforehand.”

  Fenris winced. “To be honest, I cast it while you were asleep, then forgot about it the next day. I’m very glad you had it, even if you are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself,” he added, smoothing a hand over my hair. “I’m proud of you for standing up to that bully.”

  His touch relaxed me, and some of my headache went away. “I actually feel less stressed about meeting my relatives now that I’ve faced down Vanley,” I confessed as I snuggled back into the sheets with Fenris. “He was the bogeyman I feared for so long, and now that I’ve vanquished him, I see he really wasn’t that much of a threat at all.”

  “The worst monsters are never the ones who look like them,” Fenris murmured. “They’re the ones with the pretty faces and the gilded tongues, and they’re very good at convincing you they’re one of the good ones until they stab you in the back. Remember that.”

  He kissed my hair, then turned off the light. And as we drifted off to sleep, I couldn’t help but wonder what monsters Fenris had encountered in his own past.

  18

  Mina

  I woke to the sun’s rays peeking in through the window slats, feeling surprisingly cheerful for someone who had stayed up late and was now getting up at the crack of dawn. The sight of Fenris still tangled in the bed sheets with me, and the warm, fuzzy feeling that had settled in my chest during the night, were enough to make any woman feel content.

  Humming, I slipped from the bed and returned to my own room to shower and dress for the day. There was much to be thankful for, I reflected as I stood under the hot spray and lathered up my hair. I had made it back to Haralis, I was alive, and my worst nightmare, Vanley, was nothing but a pathetic user, easily pushed away. He had no power over me anymore, and even if I walked away from this whole ordeal with not a copper in my pocket, the journey would have been worth it for that reason alone.

  Since Fenris was still sound asleep, and it was a long time until we were to meet for breakfast at eight, I dressed in casual clothes and went for a walk to reacquaint myself with the city. Strolling through the mages section, I enjoyed the warm sun on my face as it finished its climb over the horizon, taking in the scents of blossoming flowers from neighborhood gardens and listening to the twitter of birds as they flitted from tree to tree across the boulevard.

  Nostalgia swept through me as I passed through Northgate Park, where my mother had taken me as a child to fly kites. At this time of day, it was completely empty aside from a few mages and servants walking their dogs. I was tempted to climb on the playground equipment just to see if it would feel the same as it had when I was young, but I refrained.

  Across the street was the depot for the streetcar that traveled daily from the Mages Quarter to the city zoo—another series of fond memories, this time with my grandmother. She had loved taking me to see the exotic animals. With something of a talent for drawing, she had always taken out her leather-bound sketchbook to draw the monkeys and the lions. A pang went through me as I wondered if those sketchbooks still lay somewhere in my grandmother’s house, or if they’d been lost.

  She would have stored them in a trunk somewhere. Drawing may not have been my grandmother’s purpose in life, but she had loved it enough that she would not have simply thrown the sketchbooks away.

  As the hour drew closer to six, people started emerging onto the streets, some hurrying to work, others strolling to the nearest café to grab a cup of coffee and the morning paper. Enticed by the smell of fresh roast, I ducked into a café and ordered coffee and a pastry, then sat down at a small table so I could peruse the paper. Perhaps the reporter I’d spoken with the other day, Mr. Rice, had published our interview. I wasn’t certain if I was nervous or excited about the prospect, but I knew I had to see it for myself.

  Sure enough, there was a full-page article with the headline “Missing Heiress Returns” on page two that I carefully scanned. While the journalist had faithfully recounted our interview, he’d also, as promised, included a quote from my Uncle Bobb. In it, Bobb stated that the Cantorin family was outraged that some avaricious imposter could just waltz into town and try to claim their long-dead niece’s inheritance. Only someone cruel and unfeeling would dare to attempt such a scheme and stir up the family’s barely-healed grief.

  I rolled my eyes at that. The only grief my relatives were experiencing was the possibility that they might soon lose the fortune they’d been squandering. My fortune. Fenris’s eavesdropping last night had confirmed that my uncle had not deigned to wait the statutory period before dipping his fingers into my coffers, and I had no doubt they’d spent a sizable portion of it. A lot could happen over thirteen years.

  Speaking of fortunes…the bottom portion of the article contained a rough estimate of the inheritance I stood to gain—or rather, as the piece said, the Cantorin family stood to lose. My eyes widened as I read the sum several times—I had no idea my grandmother’s fortune had been that large! I had known she was rich, but, according to the journalist, it was one of the largest fortunes in the state.

  I wonder what Fenris will say when I read this to him over breakfast, I thought. Suddenly, I remembered his warning to me last night about not going anywhere by myself. My cheeks flushed guiltily, and I ducked my head behind the paper, as if Fenris might walk by any moment, looking for me.

  I’d better hurry back to the hotel. Quickly, I finished off my pastry, then paid my tab and rushed back down the street. It took me only half a block to remember that it was a good thirty-minute walk back to the hotel, and I forced myself to slow down. There was no point in winding myself trying to get back, especially since there were so many people out and about. It wasn’t as if I were traipsing down dark alleys. No one was going to try to attack me in broad daylight, not in this rich part of town.

  Determined not to let some unseen threat get the better of me, I smiled and began to hum a tune under my breath as I walked. The mages, who thought I was a human, ignored me, but the other humans passing on the street smiled and nodded greetings. As I smiled back, I wondered what they would think if they knew I was not one of their own.

  Are you really so different? I asked myself. Yes, I had magic, but I’d spent almost half my life living as a human. Though the residents of Abbsville had simpler problems to cope with than mages in their grand residences and lofty halls, in the end, they weren’t that different. We all looked the same—the only difference was in how we got things done.

  And the fact you’ll outlive them by five times their normal lifespan.

  That was the main reason I’d never taken a human beau in Abbsville—I’d worried I might fall in love with someone, and then where would I be? Humans and mages had married before, obviously—the first mages had sprung from humans. But it would be too much for me to bear, to live my first hundred years by the side of a husband who would age far too quickly and would die while I looked to still be in my first blush of youth.

  Fenris, at least, would live to be a few hundred years old. Perhaps even older. He was not an ordinary shifter, and there was something ageless about his demeanor. If he one day came out and told me he was immortal, I wasn’t sure I’d be surprised.

  Okay
, well, maybe a revelation like that would surprise me. But not nearly as much as it would coming from anyone else.

  I was crossing a side street, only a block from the hotel, when a large black steamcar that had been parked on the curb suddenly came to life with a huge belch of steam, accelerating for all it was worth. My heart leapt into my throat as I realized it was headed straight for me, and I dove out of the way. The car barreled past me with barely an inch to spare, then wheeled around with a dexterity that was surprising for its size, only to hurtle straight for me again.

  By the Lady, I thought as my life flashed before my eyes. I’m going to die.

  Adrenaline slammed into me, and I did the only thing I could think of. Seconds before the car crashed into me, I jumped onto the hood. It was a stupid move—the car’s chassis was high enough that my feet only landed on the bumper instead of the hood itself—but just as I was about to be crushed against the building behind me, an unseen force pushed me up, past the windshield, and onto the top of the car. Unfortunately, I was unable to keep up with the momentum—I tripped and fell off the car’s back, landing hard on my shoulder as the vehicle plowed into the brick wall. A high-pitched shriek from the steam engine nearly blew out my eardrums. When I clapped my hands to my ears, my shoulder barked in pain.

  Move. You need to move!

  Heart pounding, I scrambled to my feet, ignoring my pain and confusion as best I could. As I straightened, I caught sight of the driver through the window—a white, middle-aged male, his face bleeding from broken window glass. The hand rubbing his eyes was only making the blood smeared across his face messier. I nearly felt a moment’s pity for him before I remembered he had just tried to murder me.

  I looked around for witnesses or enforcers, but despite the noise, the street was still empty. Only a mangy, thin cat had seen the attack on me from a first-floor windowsill. A throb of pain reminded me I was hurt, and I looked down at my shoulder. My shirt was torn, and through it, I had a nasty case of road rash. An attempt to roll my shoulder joint had me gritting my teeth to keep from screaming—I had dislocated it in the fall. And though I’d popped dislocated joints back in before, on both animals and on humans, I felt positively squeamish about doing it to myself.