by Kaye Draper
He sat up straight, eye widening as the pounding started on the front door. "I came here to tell you there was someone at the door for you." He gifted me with an uncomfortable half-smile. "He must have tired of waiting."
God damn it, what now?
Chapter 8
I opened the door to a pissed off mage. "Bout damned time," he grumbled in his gravelly voice. He was wearing his Vanhelsing get-up and toting a burlap bag of supplies. He smelled like herbs and some sort of magic that made my nose tingle. I glared into the reflective lenses of his steampunk goggles, not sure if I was annoyed or relieved about not being able to look him in his creepy eyes.
"You could have called," I groused.
He shrugged and pushed his burly frame past me, pausing to knock the snow off his boots and wipe his feet on the doormat. "Apparently somebody complained about me taking too long. So here I am, peach."
Peach? It was a good thing we needed him to seal away Evalyn's magic so she could go back into hiding from her evil father. Because otherwise, I would show the asshole how to talk to women who were half a foot taller than him and had a mythical beast living inside.
He was completely unfazed by my glaring. "I found this in the flowerpot,” he said, holding up the fucking gremlin skin book.
I shrugged. “Keep it, if you want. Just don’t open that box in here.”
He raised one blonde eyebrow and stuffed the box into his sack. “Where do you want to do this?" he demanded, tossing his snow-covered fedora onto a nearby couch and raking a hand through his messy, dishwater blond curls. "I'd suggest that big-assed kitchen of yours, but your hedge witch seems pretty possessive of it. If he's put out spells, it could make things tricky."
I glared at him. "Con is not a witch. You and White are idiots."
Of course, Con and Kaimana chose that exact moment to get back from their shopping trip. Con came in carrying a double fistful of loaded grocery bags, and Kai was hugging a bag from a local jeweler to her chest as if someone might snatch it away.
"I'm what now?" Con said, kicking the door shut behind him and making the bells jangle.
I rolled my eyes. "White is delusional. He thinks you're a witch who tried to poison his coffee or some shit. And apparently he spreads rumors like a teenage girl."
The mage paced closer to Con. The human looked down at him with a furrowed brow and confused brown eyes as the shorter man took a big sniff of Con. Then the mage lifted his stupid goggles and stared at my human with his freaky mis-matched eyes. Oisin insisted the purple and gold appendages were not the mage's original version. Probably stolen from another magic creature—like a fae—to bolster his own magic.
"Hedge witch," he proclaimed, pulling the goggles back down. "Latent. But it's there." He turned back to me. "Are we doing this binding, or not? I've got other shit to do today."
I glared at him.
Kai started laughing, a silent chuffing that escalated to a full-on belly laugh. I turned my glare on her. She glanced at Con, wiping tears from her eyes. "He's like...a miniature version of Gesa." That set her off laughing again as she set her treasure bag aside long enough to strip off her coat and hang it on the rack.
Con raised an eyebrow, then looked back and forth between the mage and me.
"Oh, fuck off," I said with a growl.
"Shit to do, y'all," the mage reminded us, not amused.
Con pressed his lips together, smothering a laugh. "No," he said to Kai, clearly lying his ass off. "I don't see the resemblance at all."
"Just for that," I told him, "we're using your kitchen, hedge witch." I waved the mage along. "Come on."
Kai pressed a kiss to my cheek as she walked by, her hand snaking around my waist to give me a lop-sided hug. "So cute when she's growly."
I shrugged out of her grasp and stomped up the stairs. I would forgive my pride anything. But comparing me to this asshole? Last straw. Fuckers.
I met the mage at the top of the stairs, and we headed into the kitchen. He pushed things aside and started laying out random crap on the table. Stones, crystals, herbs. Some sort of burner. Magic workers were fucking weird.
Oisin strolled in with Evalyn in tow.
"Did you have an object you want to use for the soul stone?" the mage ground out in his growly voice. "I brought a crystal that will work, but it's more powerful if you use an object with personal significance."
Oisin paced forward, the sneer he always wore around the mage twisting his beautiful face. "I have a stone to use. It was what we used for her previous soul stone."
The mage held out a gloved hand.
Oisin sighed and tugged the bottom of his shirt out of his pants and started undoing his fly. Everyone else in the room stared. "Uh...Oisin?" I muttered. I mean, he had slept with the last mage who cast a soul-binding on his sister, but I was pretty sure that wasn't required this time around.
Oisin gave me a leer and a wink. "What? Everyone has to be naked for the spell to work. Except Evalyn, of course. And the mage. They need to be out in the hall. You know...for the magic to work."
I rolled my eyes. "What are you actually doing right now?"
He pulled his pants down just enough to reveal a place on his hip, right above the round curve of one ass-cheek, one of the few places where the fae had any padding. He prodded the spot for a moment, then pinched up a fold of skin. "Right here." He lifted his eyes to the mage. "Do you have a sharp knife in that bag of tricks? Something that isn't spelled to steal my essence the moment I touch it?"
The mage's lips pressed into a thin line, but he didn't say anything as he dug around in his bag and came up with a shiny black blade. "Spelled obsidian. Use it or don't."
The fae huffed. "Actually, if someone else could do the cutting? I can't see well from this angle and I'd rather not stab myself in the kidney."
He was so calm about it all.
His eyes landed on me and I held up my hands. "What? No. Fuck no, I'm not slicing you open, Oisin. Gods."
He rolled his eyes. "Well I'm not trusting a mage to do it. Someone come stab me."
Kai shook her head and stepped up beside him. "So much fuss over a little cut," she mused. She held out her hand for the knife.
The mage hesitated. "You sure you know what you're doing, lady?"
Kaimana's lips curved up into a sensual smile. "Oh, I know what I'm doing." She took the knife and I almost laughed at the bemused expression on the mage's face.
Kai was gorgeous. Tall, willowy-limbed, curvy-bodied gorgeous. But she was fucking terrifying. Most people didn't know there was a Godsdamned kraken inside her. Who the hell knew how old she was? She was probably well acquainted with cutting people open, thanks to her stint as a pirate.
I paced closer. Even if it was Kai, I was not okay with someone making Oisin bleed.
He leaned on the table with his ass on display and rolled his eyes at me, probably knowing exactly how possessive I was feeling right now. "Oh, come on," he said. "Let's move this along, hmm? I can think of far better ways to spend time bent over a table."
Hisashi smirked, hiding a laugh behind a cough. Con shook his head at yet another innuendo. Kaimana tilted her head adjusted Oisin's position with a hand on his hip. "Next time I'll bring something more fun than a knife, hmm?"
He glanced over his shoulder at her. "You can poke me any time, fishy."
The mage crossed his arms and sighed. I could just imagine him glaring around the room under those damned goggles, wondering how he got stuck in the middle of us freaks. He cleared his throat. "Any day now."
Kai smoothed her left hand over Oisin's skin, feeling around. "Oh. There it is."
Then she pinched up some skin and deftly sliced open his hip. I gaped at her as she serenely set the knife aside and stuck her fingers into the cut, digging around while Oisin bit his lip and scrunched his eyes closed.
Finally, Kai lifted her hand, a triumphant expression on her face that was terrifying, considering her hand was covered with blood and Oisin's wound was oozing
onto his designer trousers. "Got it!"
In her hand, she held a two-inch wide gem of some sort, nearly the exact color of the blood that covered it. She turned to hand it to the mage and he pointed at the sink. "Rinse it off. You wouldn't want the evil mage using that precious fae blood for anything nefarious, now would 'ya?"
Kai raised an eyebrow but did as she was told. Con brought a damp towel and held Oisin's cut together for the moment it took for it to knit back together. Then he swabbed off the blood and wiped down the table.
Oisin fastened his pants again and stood. "Well, that was fun."
I shook my head at him. "You were carrying the soul stone inside you for over a hundred years?"
He shrugged. "Seemed the surest way to ensure it didn't fall into the wrong hands."
The mage shook his head too, and I immediately stopped the motion I was making. We weren't alike, damn it.
He glanced at Evalyn, who hovered in the doorway like a timid flower. "You sure you want to give this back to him?" the mage asked her. He'd already made her tell him what she wanted under the compulsion of a truth spell. This guy really didn't want to do this spell.
Although, after seeing what the same spell had done to Kaimana, I couldn’t blame him.
Evalyn squared her shoulders. "Of course I'm sure. My brother has protected me for a century. And I trust him to do so for another hundred years, or more." She lifted her chin and glared, and for just a moment, I saw the family resemblance, even if the eyes glaring haughty daggers this time were purple. "He will keep the soul stone. And I will return to my human life. One that I love, by the way."
The mage raised a blond eyebrow but didn't comment. He turned and took the stone from Kai, set it aside, then started shoving chairs out of the way to make room on the floor. "You might want a blanket to lay on, princess. You're going to sleep for a while."
The process was long, and the mage shooed everyone not involved in the ritual out of the room. But I refused to leave. I wasn't entrusting Evalyn and Oisin to a being who could potentially drain the magic from their souls and use it for his own purposes. And Oisin wasn't leaving his sister.
This time, Oisin's sister had asked the mage to make it so her magic didn't return to her if Oisin died. She wanted it to fade with him if that ever happened. It had taken a lot of convincing and a lot of grumbling from the mage, but eventually he agreed.
The mage moved about the space, burning incense, chanting in some weird, harsh-edged language. His aura swelled with his magic, and I watched the way it slowly grew, as if he was feeding it. It was so different than the supes I was used to.
As my fae watched the mage's every move with his sharp green eyes, my mind wandered. I wondered just what the creepy old shop owner had done to Kaimana to keep her still long enough to work a spell like this. She was a kraken for fuck's sake. And even in her human form, she was incredibly strong. The dark thought occurred to me that she had been through more than we knew.
The kraken hovered in the hallway with Con and Hisashi, none of the pride willing to leave the others alone when there might be danger.
Nearly an hour had passed when the mage finally sat back, his goggles discarded, lines of fatigue etched around his glowing eyes. The blueish, scar-like veins on his bare hands glowed, and he flexed his fingers open and closed a few times as if easing some stiffness there before letting out a gusty sigh.
"Well, that's that," he said, his gravelly voice even rougher than usual. He slipped his gloves on and moved toward Evalyn. "Where do you want her?"
He froze when Oisin shoved him aside and scooped his unconscious sister into his arms. He stood, glaring at the crouching mage.
The mage held up his hands and I could see the weariness in his strange eyes. "My bad. I was just going to help, not peel off her skin while you watched." He sighed and nodded to the unconscious woman cradled in Oisin's arms. "She'll sleep for a few hours. Probably be groggy for a bit when she wakes up, and a little dizzy. Make sure she has lots of warm liquids. Soul loss will make her feel cold."
I glanced between them.
"You know a lot about soul loss," Oisin breathed, his silky voice full of barbs, "for someone who doesn't do soul bindings."
The mage said nothing, snatching up his goggles. "You want that stone back in your ass?" he asked blandly, holding up the dagger again.
Oisin brought Evalyn to me and I reluctantly took the waif out of his arms. Gods. She was so...delicate. I once again felt like a gargoyle as I stood there holding the other woman who weighed less than my laundry basket, her golden curls trailing over my arm and her honeysuckle scent flooding my nose.
Oisin lifted his shirt and turned his back to the mage. "Watch him," he instructed me. "Make sure he puts the stone in and nothing else."
I rolled my eyes, surprised Oisin was even considering letting the mage carve him up. But I did as asked and watched the mage strip off his gloves again, pick up the spelled soul stone and cut open Oisin's skin. The guy shoved the stone in with a gentleness I hadn't expected, given the contempt that was constantly leveled at him around here, then held the wound closed.
"What are you doing?" Oisin demanded. I felt the mage shift magic and started looking for a place to dump Evalyn so I could punch him.
But the mage stepped back and went to the sink to rinse the blood off his hands. "Just easing the pain, 'ya paranoid twatwaffle."
I pressed my lips together, but I couldn't help it. Twatwaffle? My eyes watered as I struggled to hold in the laughter. But it escaped anyway.
Oisin straightened and came to take his sister back. "Oh, do fuck off, Gryphon."
I watched him leave, his spine rigid and his perfect nose in the air.
Then I watched the mage drag on his goggles and start cleaning up his supplies. "Thanks," I said awkwardly. "I know you didn't want to do this but...thank you anyway."
He shrugged one burly shoulder and stuffed the rest of his things into his pack. "What I want rarely ever figures into what I do. White tells me to hold off, I hold off. He tells me to hurry, I hurry."
I stared at him, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
He snorted and threw the bag over his shoulder. "Never mind. Enjoy your...harem or whatever, gryphon. I'm sure I'll be back to mop up your messes sooner or later. That's what he bought me for."
I stared after the mage in confusion as he tromped out the door in his Vanhelsing gear, wondering what the fuck had just happened.
Did he just imply...that White actually owned him?
Chapter 9
For as protective as Oisin was of his sister—and as fucking gross and gooey as she was toward him—it was surprising how fast he got rid of her.
The woman slept into the evening. And by the next morning, I was standing at the airport a couple of hours from the bookshop, watching the two fae emote.
It was heart-wrenching. Disgusting.
But kind of cute.
Oisin held her to him in a fierce hug that looked like it would crack tiny, delicate fae bones. Evalyn held on just as tight, tears trembling in her pretty violet eyes. “I hope it isn’t another hundred years before I see you again,” she breathed.
Oisin drew back, stroking a tumble of gold curls behind her ear with a fond look. “Whatever it takes to keep you safe, love.”
I was surprised when she stepped back, squared her thin shoulders, and nodded, her eyes filled with fire.
She turned to me and I held up my hands in alarm as she approached. “Oh…Gods, no!” Then slender arms wrapped around my waist and her gold head was pressed to my chest.
I patted the girl’s bird-like back in what I hoped was a comforting way. She was just so…teeny.
“Take care of him,” she whispered into my shirt. She pulled back, leaving Godsdamned tear stains on my t-shirt. Purple eyes blinked up at me, round and beguiling, but filled with intensity. “No matter what, you’ll protect him, yes?”
I patted her on the head. “Of course.”
Oisin scoffed. “
As if I need someone to protect me. I think you have things backward, Evalyn. But no fear, I will keep my sweet, delicate little mate safe.”
Evalyn laughed at my growl. “It was truly a pleasure to meet you, Gesa. I wish you all the happiness in the world. May the sun always shine down on you and your fields always be fertile.”
I raised a brow at her. Fae nonsense. “Sure. Whatever. You’re going to miss your flight.”
The fae woman let out an exasperated breath and picked up her carry-on, still miffed at her brother, but obviously not man enough to stand up to him. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
I stood with Oisin amid the bustle of the little airport, watching her depart with mixed feelings. On one hand, I was sad that Oisin was losing her again. On the other hand… good fucking riddance. I tried to keep from whistling as we left the building. I was one step closer to having my fucking space back. Just me and my pride. All I had to do was get rid of one pretty, scarred lurker.
“You sure she’s going to be okay?” I asked Oisin as we climbed into our rented car. The seats in the red Corvette convertible were way too low for my hulking ass. I grunted as I flung myself into the seat and pulled the door shut.
Oisin chuckled at my mini-fit over his choice of vehicle. “She’ll be fine.”
The displaced fae wasn’t going home. Oisin thought it best if she went somewhere new. She had been in Greenland when the spell broke. Their father would look there for her first. So, Oisin sent her to Japan this time.
I shot him a sideways glance as he pulled out into traffic, headed home. “Can she even speak the language? Will she be okay there on her own?"
Oidin nodded, punching the gas and darting in between two slower cars with barely an inch to spare. Fae should never be allowed to drive.
"She's adaptable,” he said calmly, his eyes hidden behind a pair of douchey reflective sunglasses. “She was living in France when I first found her. Hence the accent." He smiled and swerved again, just to make my blood pressure spike. "I was worried about uprooting her that first time, but she's stronger than she seems. She has flourished in Greenland all these years. I suspect she's even got herself a human concubine or two." He sighed. "Which is probably why she was so dead-set on going back there. But it's safer this way."
