Rekindled Magic

by T. M. Cromer

  “Don’t go with him, Holly.”

  The deep frown on his face, his tone of voice, and the fact that he’d used her real name in place of a pet name had halted her in her tracks.

  Despite his betrayal, she sensed that in this, he did have her best interests at heart. She lowered her voice and cast a quick look toward Beau who stood impatiently by the exit. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing concrete. A feeling at best. I…” Quentin shook his head and gave her wrist a light squeeze. “Stay with me.”

  There was a desperate quality underlying Quentin’s words, and Holly almost caved. His unease fed hers. She’d been restless all day, and this discussion only made it worse.

  “Holly! Come on! We’re going to be late,” Beau called from the door with a glare in their direction.

  She shifted her attention between the two men and noted the animosity. It had been there since she’d started dating Beau and hadn’t ended with her marriage. Quentin hated Beau with every fiber of his being. He’d gone on to say as much.

  “Holly.” The urgency in Quentin’s voice struck a chord in her chest. “Don’t go with him.”

  “I have to,” she whispered. “He’s my husband.”

  “Say the word, and I’ll take you away.”

  Beau stalked to the booth. In an aggressive move, her husband grabbed her arm, causing Holly to wince in pain.

  Beau’s roughness was all it took for Quentin to snap. He surged to his feet and ripped Beau’s hand from her. At six foot six with a chest almost one and a half times wider than the average male, Quentin’s height and build were imposing. In a rage, as he was now, he resembled an avenging angel.

  “Touch her like that again, and I will rip your arms from their sockets,” he growled.

  “She’s my wife,” Beau snarled.

  Holly wedged herself between the two men and placed a hand over Quentin’s heart. The wild, fast-paced rhythm was at direct odds with the calm mask he’d donned the second she touched him.

  Their gazes connected. His was as dark as she’d ever seen. She tried to bank the worry in her own.

  “It’s okay, Quentin. Thank you for caring, but Beau wouldn’t hurt me.”

  Quentin’s brows dipped together, and a troubled light entered his eyes. “Call me if you need me.”

  “Of course.” But she never would. There was too much hurt and too many hard feelings between them. He had let her leave with Beau. The second worst mistake of her life.

  Unbeknownst to Holly at the time, Beau and Michelle had been having an affair. That night, the two of them decided to put into action their plan to do away with the woman standing in their way. Mostly because they were the only two non-magical humans who knew what she was, and they feared her. Feared what she might do if they were found out—or at least that’s what Michelle had later confessed. That Beau stood to inherit Holly’s multi-million-dollar trust fund probably weighed heavily into their actions as well.

  Beau had taken her to an out-of-the-way location where Michelle was already waiting. Holly never saw his long hunting knife until it slashed through the flesh and muscle of her chest.

  As she stared in shocked horror, her mind registered the pain and her lungs struggled in their effort to draw a breath. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and blackness descended. Her one final thought had been that she should have listened to Quentin and the little voice that had been straining to be heard in the back of her mind.

  Later, after all was said and done, she’d sworn she heard screams and smelled the scent of burning flesh. Arms had cradled her, and droplets of an unknown liquid had warmed her chilled skin.

  Now, seven years after the attack, a new memory surfaced.

  “Don’t leave me, love. You hang on! You understand? You’d better hang on, Holly!”

  Quentin’s voice. How had she forgotten?

  She gazed up at him in wide-eyed wonder. “I can’t believe you were there. How did you know?”

  A flash of unnamed emotion flitted across his face. If Holly didn’t know better, she’d suspect he was uncomfortable with the conversation. Unsure why, she remained silent, allowing him to continue.

  “I couldn’t shake the feeling.” He traced the shape of her scar. “As you walked out the door of the diner, it grew exponentially. I…” He paused, and his troubled eyes rose to lock with hers. “I felt like a damned stalker, but I cloaked myself and my bike, then followed. If you were okay, I intended to leave, but the stabbing happened almost immediately.”

  There was an element of truth Quentin was holding back. She sensed it more than anything else, but she allowed him his secrets. Without his interference, she’d have been in a morgue.

  “Did I imagine you holding me afterwards?” she asked quietly.

  “No, you didn’t imagine it.” He ran a hand through his long, thick mane. “Christ, Hol, it was the worst night of my life. I thought you were lost to me for good. I wasn’t sure my healing energy could save you. Your lung was punctured… all that blood…” He exhaled a shaky breath. “I used your phone to call your dad. He arrived and healed you. Then he sent me away.” The haunted look in his eyes grew stronger. “He told me it was for the best. That if it ever came to light I was there that night, it might hurt the prosecution’s case against Michelle. He feared it might look like a warped love triangle.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me? Why let me believe all these years that it was my father who saved me?”

  Quentin didn’t answer. Once again, his gaze fell to the scar. “Why didn’t you have it removed? GiGi or your father could have easily done it at any point.”

  She dropped her gaze and shrugged. “I wanted a reminder of that night.”

  “For the love of the Goddess, why?”

  “To remind me of my stupidity in trusting men.”

  Quentin’s face became a cool mask, and he settled back against the edge of the sofa. “I see.”

  “Do you?” Her anger came from nowhere and coursed through her veins. It throbbed and pounded against the walls of her brain with the rapid beat of her heart. “Because I don’t! I don’t know what it is about me that makes men cheat, or what it is about me that makes me unlovable.”

  His strong arms gathered her close. It became imperative that she fight his hold. She didn’t dare soften.

  “Let me go!” She struggled against his embrace.

  “No, love. Not until you listen to me. And I’m only going to say this once more. I want you to finally hear what I’m telling you.” He gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. “I love you, Holly.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, dammit!” He gave her a gentle shake. “I always have.”

  “Then why did you cheat on me?” she cried out. The question had been ruthlessly suppressed since the night the incident happened.

  “I never did.” The sincerity on his face and in his heart couldn’t be mistaken. She shook her head in denial. If he hadn’t cheated, then Holly had been the worst sort of fool for believing Michelle.

  Quentin nodded the moment Holly registered her mistake.

  “She was your friend. It made sense that you would believe her. But after…” He shook his head. “After what they did, I thought surely you’d understand and recognize her scheming for what it was.”

  The agony in his voice broke her.

  “Ohmygod, Quentin!” She sobbed his name. “Ohmygod!”

  “The worst part was that you forgave her and allowed her back into your life after we had supposedly slept together. But you wouldn’t forgive me. It never even happened, Hol, and yet, you kept me at arm’s length. I thought I would lose my mind.”

  Holly wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him for all she was worth. What a complete sucker she’d been! Why had it never occurred to her to question Michelle?

  “I’m sorry, Quentin. I’m so sorry.”

  The air around them shifted, and a crack rent the space to Holly’s right.

  “I wondered if you
two would ever patch up your differences. I’m glad you finally have.”

  Holly stared in disbelief at her father. “Were you spying on us?”

  Indignation colored Alastair Thorne’s aristocratic features. In an arrogant voice that never failed to irritate Holly, he said, “Your lack of faith in me is astounding.”

  “What makes you believe we patched things up?”

  One brow arched. “Perhaps it’s the way you are wrapped around the man, like a vine clinging to a tree.”

  Holly quickly disentangled herself.

  “Or perhaps you scried right before you arrived,” Quentin offered up in a dry, amused tone.

  “Perhaps,” Alastair agreed. “Don’t worry. I didn’t see anything compromising.”

  Holly snapped her fingers to conjure herself a new top. She waited until she was covered before she asked, “What do you want, Alastair?”

  “Quentin’s help for the final piece to revive your mother.”

  Chapter 4

  “No! Absolutely not!” Holly said for the fourth time since they’d started their discussion. She stood between the two men, arms crossed and foot tapping. “There is no way Quentin is putting himself in danger on our behalf.”

  “Isn’t it cute that she thinks she has a say?” murmured Quentin.

  On the coffee table was a glass of water she’d brought for him earlier. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the bubbles start to form. Yes, Holly was in high form. She whirled on him, and he couldn’t stop his besotted grin. She was beautiful in her fierceness.

  “I damned well do have a say,” she seethed before she sneezed.

  Both men clenched a hand into a fist and sent out a pulse of energy to magically stave off the impending bird attack. Quentin met Alastair’s amused gaze. It felt like the two of them had always been at odds, but the one thing each understood and respected about the other was their unspoken desire to always protect Holly, no matter the cost.

  Quentin turned his attention back to the toe-tapping termagant. “I’ll do whatever is necessary to keep you safe, love. You should know that by now. And part of that is going after the scroll your father needs to bring your mother out of stasis.”

  “Then we’ll go together,” she insisted.

  “No, we won’t. There’s no need for you to do anything of the sort. Zhu Lin is gone. It’s safe for me to go alone. I don’t need the badass Thornes to take charge.”

  Bringing up Lin’s name made him uneasy. Sure, the bastard was dead, but Quentin still shuddered when he thought of what Holly’s poor sister Spring had gone through at the hands of the drug lord she’d been sold to by that evil fuck.

  Spring Thorne had been unable to recover her memory on her own after the Goddess Isis had revived her. She’d needed a magical assist from the Goddess herself. Despite her ability to see the past, Spring could only view her pre-abduction life in a detached manner with no feelings one way or the other, because to her new self, she hadn’t really lived it.

  He was grateful Spring had driven the Karma bus over Zhu Lin’s psycho ass the day she buried him alive. Quentin would lose his mind if anything of that nature happened to Holly.

  Holly moved to stand toe-to-toe with him and slapped a hand on his chest. “If Lin is gone, there is no need for me not to go by myself, is there?”

  Alastair gently cleared his throat and addressed Holly. “There is another who has taken Lin’s place as head of the Désorcelers society. Victor Salinger. He’s dangerous and wily in a way Lin never was. It’s safer if you remain off his radar, child.”

  “No way am I letting Quentin do this alone. What if something happens to him? How am I supposed to live with that?”

  A warmth similar to hope spread through him, and he captured her hand in his. “Are you finally admitting you love me, my prickly pear?”

  Tears gathered in her troubled turquoise eyes and lent a heartbreaking quality to her already desolate expression. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “If I know you’ll be waiting, I’ll move heaven and earth to come back to you,” he promised.

  She swallowed hard and closed her eyes.

  Quentin sighed. Once again, she’d effectively shut him out. She had never budged an inch or admitted she might care for him in all this time. Nor would she.

  Because he had to comfort her as well as himself, he tucked her against his chest and rested his cheek on the top of her glossy, dark hair. “You don’t have to say it, Hol. It’s okay.”

  On Holly’s wedding day, the morning before she and Beau had declared their vows, he’d tried one last time to sway her. She’d claimed she loved Beau and insisted Quentin leave her be.

  To this day, the memory of their confrontation made him achy and raw. It had also damaged a fundamental part of his soul when she said she didn’t love him in return. As far as the Thorne family legend went, Thornes only loved once. Which meant, if Holly had truly loved Beau, she’d never love Quentin—no matter how much he wished it.

  All the fun, playful banter on his part was an act. One he could no longer maintain. But he could do this last thing for her before he moved on. In the doing, he’d try to make sure her family’s enemies were removed from the playing field and no longer posed a threat. Holly would be allowed to live out her life in a safe, carefree manner.

  He met Alastair’s watchful gaze. Another silent understanding passed between the two men. Quentin suspected Alastair knew how much he loved Holly but that he was also at the end of his rope. He could no longer continue to be in her presence without her returning his affections.

  “I’m going after the scroll, Holly,” he told her quietly, careful to use her given name. The time had come to start the distancing process, and the best way to go about that was to dispose of the familiarity they’d always shared. “Consider it my last gift to you.”

  Her head came up and knocked him in the chin. It didn’t surprise him when she didn’t wince. The woman was as hardheaded as they came. She had to be to continue to love a man who had tried to murder her. Why else keep the loser’s last name? Beau was dead, killed by Quentin’s own hand. But she continued to use the last name of Hill in memory of that asshat.

  “What do you mean by last gift?” Her voice was harsh with a hint of shrill, and both men cringed at the sound.

  Quentin refused to answer. What would be the point of another argument?

  “I think the poor boy is positively peckish from lack of nutrition, child,” Alastair said as he stepped forward. “Why not make him a bite to eat?”

  “If he’s hungry, he can conjure food, father.”

  Quentin did the one thing that he knew would drive her away. “When are you going to get past the pettiness and grow up, Holly? He’s not the enemy.”

  Her eyes flew wide, and her mouth rounded in a perfect O. In their entire relationship, he’d never spoken to her in such a manner. Sure, he’d been angry, and they had volleyed heated words, but he’d never criticized her, and especially not in front of Alastair. Partly, because Quentin feared Holly’s father would obliterate him on the spot for his disrespect, but mostly because he knew Holly didn’t take any type of criticism well.

  Her gasp of shock meant he’d struck a nerve.

  Holly recovered enough to mask her features. She lifted her chin. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s obvious you two want to talk. I’ll head back to the clinic and leave you to it.” Before she teleported, she met Quentin’s eyes one last time. “Please don’t leave before I’ve had a chance to say goodbye.”

  He nodded but made no promise. A long, drawn-out goodbye wasn’t for him. There really was no point. He’d be gone for good by the time she returned.

  After Holly left, Alastair bent to retrieve her discarded scrub top. As Quentin watched, the other man turned it right-side out, folded it, and placed it on the chair seat. What struck him as odd was how Alastair smoothed out the wrinkles in a seemingly loving manner where the garment lay folded.

  “You know, the
fact that you love your daughter is obvious to everyone but her. She’s never confided why she holds such animosity toward you. At least, not to me. Maybe because your argument happened after she and I broke up. Care to share?”

  Alastair continued to stare at the top. “Holly believes I betrayed her trust and was responsible for her mother’s injury.”

  “Were you? Responsible, that is?”

  His question caught Alastair off guard. The other man’s deep frown said as much. “I suppose so. I hadn’t anticipated Rorie following me that day, but I should have. When Lin pulled a gun on me, she threw herself in the path of the bullet. Lin used to lace his ammunition with a poison mixture fatal to witches. And while I rushed her to my sister, GiGi, as quickly as I could, it wasn’t fast enough. Rorie has languished in stasis while we try to come up with another way to bring her back.”

  “No matter where a bullet hit you, the wound was fatal?”

  “Yes. And now Salinger has adopted the practice of using laced bullets. Or his mercenaries have anyway. There is an antidote if given immediately, but the plant it comes from is nearly extinct. Isis gifted us a plant to treat Autumn when she fell ill due to the poison. The last I heard, Spring was trying to repopulate the species, but that takes time even for witches.”

  “What you are saying is that I’m screwed should I get shot by him or his army while retrieving this scroll,” Quentin said wryly.

  “I’m saying don’t get shot, son. It would be one more thing my daughter would hate me for.”

  “What else happened between you, Mr. Thorne? It can’t only be about her mother. Aurora was in stasis when I was dating Holly. She may have acted out, but she didn’t truly hate you then.”

  Alastair’s mouth twisted in a semblance of a bittersweet smile. “Aren’t you the perceptive one?”

  “I try.”

  With a tug of his shirt cuffs, Alastair launched into an explanation. “I didn’t approve of that waste-of-space Beau Hill. I tried to get Holly to see reason, and she refused. Being the brilliant strategist I am…” Here Alastair rolled his eyes. “… I told her if she married him, I intended to cut her off financially. She couldn’t see it, but he was always out for the family money.”