Dahlia

by Tabitha Barret

  “Maybe.” He had me there.

  “What did she say to you to declare her intentions?” His smirk told me that he already knew since she had called out my name in her sleep. This was a test to see if he could trust me.

  “I want you on top of me, riding me fast and hard. I want to melt this entire tundra.” I couldn’t stop from blushing.

  Aiden suddenly pouted and looked away. “Oh.”

  Shit. I was wrong. He wasn’t being smug; he was upset. He had to listen to Dahlia have sex with me in her sleep while he was laying there in bed with her. If I had been in his position, I would have been upset too.

  “Well, how was I supposed to know we’d be in love with the same woman?” It was the best apology I could come up with at the moment.

  He nodded and let out a breath that he didn’t need to take, which meant he was probably really pissed.

  Shuffling past me, he headed for the sidewalk. I was about to ask where he was going until I remembered that he was still hungry.

  I was surprised that he didn’t try to attack me and feed off me, knowing that we both loved the same woman. Maybe the vampire wasn’t the bad guy after all.

  Looking at my watch, I yawned. It was getting late and I needed some sleep so that I could think straight. I had to figure out how to tell Dahlia that we were meant to be together without making her slap me for moving too fast. I had to take things slow; otherwise, she might freak out. Learning that she was a witch would definitely freak her out, but finding out that she had two soulmates might make her lose her shit completely.

  Walking to my bike and picking up my helmet, I saw Aiden stop at the edge of the property to peer into the darkness. He turned and tilted his head towards me.

  “You’d better figure out who the third soulmate is before Dahlia does, or it will make things even more awkward for the two of us.” He turned around and sprinted off into the night as I turned my head towards the house.

  What did he mean by third soul mate? I squinted through the dim light coming from the streetlamp to see another thin orange line at the far end of the house. It was pointing towards the opposite side of town. Damn it! There was one more man who was in love with Dahlia.

  Hopping on my bike, I pedaled in the direction of the wispy orange glow. Aiden was right. We needed to figure out who he was before Dahlia did. I had no idea how she would react to me being her soulmate given our rocky history. If she had already accepted her love for this third man, it would be harder for Aiden and I to express our feelings for her without making her feel guilty that she loved someone else.

  It was just my luck to have a third person potentially screw up my relationship with Dahlia.

  Chapter 14 Dahlia

  The bright light shining in my eyes woke me from a fitful sleep. Disoriented, I threw myself out of bed and scrambled for my clothes, feeling like I was late for something. I put my glasses on and looked at the time to see that it was much earlier than I expected.

  I looked over at the bed to find that Aiden was gone. I spun around to make sure that he wasn’t anywhere in the room. Hearing something break downstairs, I ran down the steps and into the kitchen.

  One of the most glorious sights in my life greeted my eyes. Aiden, shirtless, his jeans hanging low on his hips, with his muscular back to me as he stood over the stove making eggs and bacon.

  “Morning.” He glanced over his shoulder and winked. His tousled hair added to his smokin’ hot bad boy look, making me drool over more than just the delicious smell of bacon.

  I was suddenly craving table sex while my breakfast got cold on the counter.

  “Morning.” I thought about leaning over him to pretend to look at his cooking just to feel his rock-hard ass against my stomach. Instead, I quickly poured some orange juice and sat down at my small kitchen table in the corner, pushing aside a pile of mail.

  He plated my food and walked over with a sexy smile that damn near lit my panties on fire. He stood at the table for a second as if he was trying to show off his abs.

  I shook myself out of my daydream of licking his abs to move the mail to the kitchen island next to my empty fruit bowl. He placed the plate on the table and took the seat across from me, though he didn’t make a plate for himself.

  His eyes watched me take a bite of my eggs. A smirk played around the corners of his mouth. “Are the eggs okay?”

  Even if they weren’t amazing, the sheer happiness of being fed by him would make my day. “They’re really good. Thank you. And thank you for staying last night. I’m normally not so clingy.”

  He shrugged. “You were in pain after a long, weird day and you didn’t want to be by yourself in this oversized house. Don’t apologize. It was my pleasure.”

  Leaning back in his chair, he stretched, causing all his muscles to ripple. I actually stopped breathing for a second. Wow! I’d never actually witnessed a man’s chest muscles ripple. I thought it was something that only happened in romance novels. I nearly dropped my fork as I scanned every inch of him.

  He cracked his neck from side to side and smiled. He didn’t seem upset that I was openly gawking at him.

  I cleared my throat and wet my lips. It was time to get a move on, but I didn’t want to leave this awe-inspiring sight. “I would like to tattoo you sometime.” I bit my lip when I realized I had practically purred at him.

  He raised his eyebrow as his eyes dropped down to his chest. “Anytime.”

  I let out a giggle and scooped more eggs into my mouth.

  When a strange light hit my glasses, I tilted my head. I noticed an orange smear on my lens that was obstructing my view.

  I quickly took them off and wiped them down, which only made it worse.

  “I should get ready. I need to open the studio. You can take your time since you don’t have to be there so early. You can run home to change.” If I didn’t get away from him quickly, I would never make it to work on time, or today, or ever again. It took all my will power, and then some, to gobble down my breakfast and make a break for the living room.

  Why was I suddenly so aware of Aiden? Or just more aware.

  Thinking back to last night, I remembered the way he looked sleeping in my bed. Not only was he hot as sin, but he’d been accepting of me despite my debilitating vision. He could have taken advantage of me last night, but he hadn’t. He had offered to protect me on multiple occasions, including when he was afraid that Daire had done something to me.

  A chill ran through me when I recalled him say that anyone who was stupid enough to come to the house would regret it. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt safe with him around, regardless of what everyone else thought of him.

  Sprinting for the door, I yelled goodbye to Aiden and opened the door.

  I jumped back and screamed when I saw Charlie standing in front of me with her hand hovering over the door to knock.

  “Hi!” She shouted, surprised that I had opened the door.

  “Hi. It’s a little early for you. What’s up?” Charlie liked to sleep in after the late shifts at the pub.

  “We need to talk.” She ducked her head into the house when she saw Aiden running to the door to investigate my startled scream. Frowning, she sighed. “We need to talk, now.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but she grabbed my hand and pulled me down the steps.

  “What’s wrong?” I was afraid that something bad had happened.

  “It’s about your mother.” Pulling me into the street, I shut my mouth and stared at her. Whatever she had to say, I was more than willing to drop everything to listen.

  We jumped into her car and drove in silence until we pulled into the parking lot of the Silver Springs Diner. Even though I was full, I was happy to sit wherever she wanted. I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly have to say about my mother after all these years.

  We sat at a table by the window where Charlie flagged down the waitress. “Coffee black and a chocolate milkshake with whipped cream, please.”

  The wait
ress nodded and headed to the back.

  “You ordered me a chocolate milk shake before 8:00 AM. Talk.” I was getting nervous about the reason for her early morning visit.

  She let out a breath. “Dahlia, do you see an orange glow? Maybe you saw it this morning or last night.”

  I removed my glasses and handed them to her. “If you can clean whatever is causing it off my glasses, I would appreciate it.”

  She held up her hand, refusing to take them. “It’s not your glasses, honey.” She leaned back and pulled her hair into a bun. “Do you remember that time when you figured out where Mary Jane Allen’s body was after she had been missing for a few days?”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. I hated thinking about that day. My mother and I had been driving to the grocery store when we passed an empty house. I had gotten a weird chill and I told my mother to stop the car. I couldn’t remember much about what happened after that, but I remember crying. At only seven years old, I couldn’t fully explain the things I saw, so my mother always carried a sketchpad and full box of crayons everywhere we went.

  She pulled over and I ran to the sidewalk to start drawing. When I finished, I looked down at the sketch of a little girl with a blue face sitting in a dark space. Around the dark space was the shape of the house in front of me, though I hadn’t looked at the house while I was drawing. I had also drawn the man who had killed her.

  “I remember. It was the last time my father let me go to work with mom. He was really mad, and I didn’t know why. After that, I tried to hide my drawings, but mom always found them. I only showed my father the happy pictures I drew, not the ones that predicted something bad happening. When Mom died, I told you I needed a place to put my pictures. You suggested putting them in your treehouse for safekeeping.” I had so many pictures that Charlie kept sneaking cookie tins to the treehouse to store them all.

  Charlie gave me a sad smile. “That’s right. Do you know why I told you to put them in my treehouse?”

  I shrugged. “You didn’t want me upsetting my father.”

  Charlie pressed her lips together. “That’s part of it.” She patted the back of my hand. “In reality, I was showing them to my parents who used them to figure out what you were drawing. Even after I left for college and got married, they were still sorting through your predictions.” She patted my hand. “You helped prevent the deaths of over 100 people since your mom passed away. You helped solve 54 missing persons cases and helped arrest 73 criminals ranging from murderers to thieves to rapists to pedophiles. You even stopped a bank robbery once.” Her eyes teared up as she looked away. “I still take some of your drawings when they look more like predictions than art doodles. I’m sorry that I never told you. Gray helps me with that part. Please don’t be mad at her.”

  It took a few minutes for my brain to process what she was saying. “What? I don’t understand. How could my sketches do all that?”

  “Honey, you know the truth deep down. If you didn’t believe, just a little, you would have never saved my stupid ass.” She bit her lip as she started to cry.

  I handed her a napkin and held her hand.

  Years ago, Charlie had moved away to some expensive academy. We kept in contact through phone calls and saw each other when she came home for summer and winter break. I had gone to a local art school so I could be close to dad.

  Charlie had met a guy at the academy and they were quickly engaged. Her parents didn’t like Reed, so they eloped shortly after the engagement. The day I was supposed to meet Reed, I was down and out with a stomach virus. After that, there was always a reason why we couldn’t meet up since she lived on the other side of the country. Slowly, during their two-year marriage, she stopped returning my phone calls. Deep down, I knew something was wrong, but I had no proof.

  One day, I called her house and Reed answered, which was rare. He never answered the phone when he saw my name on the caller ID. When I asked for Charlie, I heard crying in the background. He hung up and I was smacked down with one of the worst head spinning visions of my life.

  I saw the abuse that had started on their wedding night, all the way through the years to what he had done to her just moments before picking up the phone. Without thinking, I jumped on a plane and flew out to her house, calling 911 and her parents on the way.

  By the time I got there, the police had Reed in handcuffs and Charlie was on a stretcher. From that day on, Charlie and I swore we’d always live within 5 minutes of each other.

  “You weren’t stupid, Charlie. He was the asshole who manipulated and controlled you.” Though we rarely talked about him, I could often feel her fear and sorrow when she thought about him. I knew it was the real reason she didn’t date.

  “Thank you.” She sniffled and wiped her face. Shaking herself out of her melancholy thoughts, she smiled. “Anyway, I have a point in bringing all this up. Dahlia, you can see things that no one else can see. I know you hate talking about it, but that’s because you still don’t want your father finding out.” She paused to clear her throat. “God, I wish your mom was here. She would know what to say.”

  Charlie smiled at the waitress as the coffee and milkshake arrived at the table.

  I gave a quick wave to Buttercup, who owned the bakeshop in town. Seeing the tears in my eyes, she nodded, understanding that I would be stopping by for comfort brownies later. I gave her a thumbs up, letting her know to have some packed and ready for me.

  Charlie pushed the shake towards me once the waitress left. “Here, you’ll need this.” She let out a breath and clapped. “Okay, I’m going to rip it off like a Band-Aid. Dahlia, your mother was a witch, like a legit witch. She was a conjurer, which means she did magic with spoken spells and specific hand motions, coupled with her emotions. She worked for the coven as a bounty hunter until she had you. When you started to show potential as a psychic, she would bring you to speak with her old bosses and show them your drawings. My mother did the same thing after your mother passed.” She paused to gulp down some coffee.

  “She’s not the only witch you know, honey. I didn’t go to a regular college. I attended Cliff Haven, a magic academy for conjurers. That’s where I met Reed, who turned out to be a dangerous dark wizard.” Leaning forward to pat my numb hand, she looked me right in the eye. “Dahlia, you are half witch and half human, which means you are psychic. That’s why you can see things and feel things. It’s not a curse. It’s your birthright.”

  Grabbing the shake, I slurped it down so it would make all my problems much easier to handle. I chugged it as if my life depended on it until I got a brain freeze.

  Charlie wasn’t prone to exaggerations or lying. She had always been the one constant in my life. She had never thought I was strange for having visions and often encouraged me to tell her when I saw something or drew something unusual. In fact, if Aiden hadn’t driven me home, I probably would have gone straight to the pub to show my latest drawing to her. Of course, I had no idea that she was showing them to anyone else.

  Thinking back on my mom, she had been sweet and caring, but most of all, she had always encouraged me to show her my drawings when my father was away from the house. I often heard them arguing about some kind of secret. I knew it involved me somehow, but my visions and feelings were overwhelming, so it was easier to pretend that they weren’t real. Once I lost my mom, I tried to hide who I was from my father so he wouldn’t be upset anymore.

  Thinking back to what Ian had said, my heart leapt when I realized that he hadn’t been bullshitting me. Maybe he really was the head of a coven, or rather, the head of the coven my mom used to work for. He had been trying to explain what I was, but I was too closed off to listen.

  “Is Ian Foster the head of a coven?” I still couldn’t accept that Charlie was a witch, but it was easier to accept that Ian really was a good person who had a secret.

  She bit her lip. “Yes. That’s why I was mad at him. I thought he was trying to recruit you or tell you something you weren’t prepared to hear yet. L
ittle did I know that you’d had sex in the closet. He explained what happened after you left. I tried to swing by the studio last night, but you were already gone. I thought about stopping by last night, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I was up all night preparing my speech.” She gave me a small smile and looked down at her coffee mug.

  I licked the ice cream off my lips. “Okay. Let’s break this down. I’ll meet you somewhere in the middle and say that yes, I’m psychic. I believe that Ian is associated with people who can send burning messages about missing people. The part I don’t understand is you. If you were a witch who could do magic, I would have seen it in my vision over the years. Hell, I would have seen someone else related to this coven in town do something extraordinary over the years.”

  She frowned and looked away. “I gave up magic a long time ago. It’s only brought me trouble. As far as not seeing people do magic, there are wards in town that prevent humans from noticing the supernatural. It gave me some level of protection from your visions when we were younger. Yet, for some reason, your dreams are able to see past the wards. All those dreams about witches and shifters were real, or at least, some of them were real. Your mother always believed that your dreams were more powerful than your waking visions. It was easier for me to downplay your weird dreams since you still have normal dreams of ice cream sundaes eating you.”

  I waved my hand. “Why not tell me, Charlie? If all of this is true, why not say something?”

  She pressed her lips together. “It was your mother’s dying wish that you be protected. The best way to do that was to let you believe you were human. The covens agreed to remove your name from the registries and my parents did what they could to hide their magic around you. They drilled it into my head to act human around you.”

  My mouth fell open. “Why? Why would I need to be protected?” Why would an entire coven of witches be forced to forget about me?

  She blew out a breath and tapped her thumb on the table. “Dahlia, your mother understood your potential. She saw your power grow as you got older. Think about the lengths people would go to if they could learn their future, or spy on someone in the present. Powerful psychics and witches have long been the crowning jewels of dark wizards, shifter clans and even evil humans. She understood the danger you would be in if someone learned of your true potential. Think about all you’ve done so far. Now, imagine if someone nefarious forced you to do those things. You’re untrained right now, but with the right training and motivation, you would be a formidable weapon for someone wishing to wield your talents.”