Magical Intentions

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  It didn’t take long to collect the flowers. Once I finished, we stayed to rest and fuel up with sandwiches and energy drinks. Then we headed back down, still at a fast pace. We were out of the woods in no time, my body aching, my thighs screaming at me from overuse. I was not an athletic person. I was a labbie for a reason.

  Alijah chuckled as he opened the Jeep door for me and watched as I struggled to climb in, wincing at the soreness.

  “You did that on purpose,” I grumbled.

  “Did no such thing,” he said and went around to the driver’s side and hopped in. I leaned my head against the window and before I knew it, I was out cold from exhaustion.

  Chapter 11

  Tuesday, I had my counter covered in tubes, pipes, and boiling solutions, with ingredients surrounding me. Soft music played in the background as I focused on putting the right ingredients together, in the right amount, at just the right time. Any deviation from the recipe could cause my death if I drank the potion. But then again, most potions were like that and only those certified could make them. I just happened to be certified.

  The real trick with potions was mixing your magic with it for that little extra boost needed to get the potion to do what you wanted it to do. Everything really was about intentions.

  The recipe was exhausting, always needing time and attention. I couldn’t just let it boil into what I wanted like some of the easier ones. I had to keep feeding it ingredients and magic, keeping an eye on it, making sure to keep the heat at just the right temperature.

  As the time ticked by, the exhaustion crept into my body. I was still sore from the hike.

  I sighed and stirred the contents in the bowl over the boiling water, my mind on what I needed to do, on the next step. I was so focused, I didn’t even realize someone was in the room until he cleared his throat.

  I jumped slightly before my head snapped up to meet dark eyes. Slowly, the jumble in my head cleared as I realized I stood in the presence of the big boss. I frowned. How’d he do that?

  “Mr. Lombardi,” I said in acknowledgement. His lip twitched with amusement as he pushed off the wall. He made a show of looking around my lab, but not intrusively. The way his eyes glossed over everything showed that he respected that this was my space. He wouldn’t go digging unless he asked first, despite the fact that he owned the company, and everything in it, and could do whatever he wanted.

  “I’m doing some rounds and thought I’d check in with you.”

  A beeper went off, and I rushed over, grabbing a small flask and an eyedropper. I sucked up some of the liquid and then squirted it into the main boiling pot. The smell of cinnamon filled the air.

  “I’m fine,” I said, putting the eyedropper back down carefully, right next to the flask it belonged with. “As you can see, I’m pretty busy though. I can’t mess this up.”

  “Explain this to me,” he said, ignoring my hint for him to leave.

  I pressed my lips together, not liking that he was there when I was trying to get this done, but a small part of me understood why. He’d tasked me with something big, and he needed to know I wasn’t going to fuck it up. He still didn’t know me, he only knew what I’d managed to achieve since coming here.

  “I’m making a potion that’s going to expand my capacity of magic. By doing that, I’ll be able to create a ward that will have the capability to wrap around the entire property.”

  He contemplated what I said, and by the way his mouth frowned and then deepened, he didn’t like the idea.

  “We have a coven at our disposal.”

  I shook my head. “Won’t work. They won’t be able to manipulate the ward to do what we need.”

  “But you can.”

  I nodded. “But I can.”

  “Explain. How does this affect the one we already have in place?”

  I sighed and glanced down at everything.

  “I’ll take this potion, giving me the extra juice I need to be able to create a new ward. This ward will be paper thin, and I’ll gently place it on top of the current ward. Like building blocks. Then I’ll use my magic and the little control I have over energy to meld the two wards together. That’s the tricky part because the current ward won’t like it. I have to convince it to accept the new one.”

  Lombardi tilted his head to the side, assessing. “You talk about the wards as if they have a consciousness.”

  “They do.” I stared at him, unblinking. This was something I felt strongly about and with what I’d experienced, I knew I was right. People liked to just take magic and use it without thought, like a bulldozer. That’s why they never got the results I did. I manipulated. Carefully. I explained myself to the magic. I told it what I needed, why I needed it, and then asked it for help. I didn’t demand. And when it did what I wanted, I thanked it.

  Respect. Magic wanted to be respected just like everyone else.

  “That’s interesting.”

  He was further in the room now, standing on the other side of the bench. Heat wafted off of him. I took a moment to appreciate the way his olive green shirt stretched over his impressive chest. He matched it with dark blue faded jeans and boots. He kept his hair cut close to his head, but I knew they would be soft curls if he’d just let them grow out.

  “We had two more break-ins,” he said.

  “Let me guess, was one of them Jewell’s lab?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed. “How’d you know?”

  “She came by to demand her notes back.” I snorted.

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  Lombardi leaned forward slightly, his eyes hardening. “I will.” His gaze flickered to my hands. “Don’t think I don’t know why you were on the med floor, Laila. There are many things I tolerate, but not when someone blatantly puts someone else at risk over childish accusations. I won’t let that go.”

  The pressure in the room grew thick with his energy, and my ears popped. I winced at the feeling, hating when that happened. He was serious. And being the type of person that he was, I wasn’t surprised. He always did what was right.

  “She knowingly put you at risk. You might be willing to overlook that but I’m not. I’m allowing you to find the culprit, but that’s about as far as I can push myself. Jewell putting you in danger is something I need to handle.”

  I nodded. His anger didn’t scare me like it probably should have. Instead, I fought a shiver as it made its way down my spine in delicious waves. He wasn’t angry with me, he was angry with the situation, and his instincts were coming out to play. He needed to be proactive. His beast required it.

  I managed to fight off the shiver, but I couldn’t stop from looking at his full, sensual lips. I’d thought some men had kissable lips, but he topped all of them. For the first time, I truly understood what kissable lips looked like. They were soft looking, tempting. I wanted to taste them to decide if they were as delicious as they looked.

  By the time I realized what I was doing, I was leaning over the counter, inches between us. I blinked a couple of times before drawing away from him, noting that he was just as affected as I was as he shifted away from me, his eyes dilated to nearly completely black.

  The room filled with his scent, of firewood outside on a brisk night. My mind went to the gutter, filled with possibilities. What would it be like to spend just one night with Black Dog? If he weren’t my big boss, I would push to find out. As it was, I couldn’t.

  He cleared his throat. “You can continue to find the one who broke into your lab, but I’m conducting my own investigation. I can’t have someone breaking in and stealing other people’s work.”

  I grinned at the challenge he’d just presented. “Then may the fastest person win.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly before he smirked and nodded. “Good luck, Laila,” he purred out. Could a dog even purr?

  He turned and strolled out of the room, closing the door behind him and leaving his scent behind as proof of his visit. I stood there until ano
ther alarm sounded and forced me out of my thoughts.

  “Shit,” I mumbled and dove toward a different flask, measuring out more liquid to add to the potion. I leaned forward to smell it, taking note of the strength of the falling rain scent it created.

  A few more rounds and it would be all set to use.

  I rubbed my tired eyes, trying to figure out when I could get some sleep, but not knowing when. I had a lot to do and little time to do it. My determination pushed me on as I continued my work.

  Chapter 12

  Done.

  Finally.

  I sighed as I flicked off the burner, carefully poured the blue liquid into a flask, and capped it. I lifted the glass to the light, enjoying the purple, red, and orange dancing within the liquid despite the initial blue color.

  Locating my storage box made specifically for potions, I unlocked it to place the flask inside. The box was created with slots surrounded by padding to protect the glass. The last thing I needed was broken potion bottles. I slipped it away in one of my hidden safes and then shuffled over to the small couch I had in the corner. Throwing myself on it, I covered my eyes with my arm, wanting to them for a moment.

  Twenty minutes flew by before I forced myself to get moving again. The second potion to help strengthen the ward once it was in place would be easy. Maybe two hours tops.

  But before I could get into it, I needed to recharge a bit, so I opted to go exploring and look at a few more spots around the grounds.

  I locked up the lab and then headed out of the building, circling around until I found one of the spots a baddie would try to use to get inside.

  There were cameras set up, but the blind spot was right between two of them. The cameras didn’t turn far enough to cover a spot in the corner, and I could picture someone climbing up.

  I cracked my knuckles, wanting to test my theory. Height was never an issue if you had magic. A simple levitation or air spell would do the trick.

  But using magic would make them easier to spot. They would have to put on an extra magic layer in order to hide, exhausting themselves pretty quickly.

  So why use magic when you could do something as simple as climb, allowing you to save your magic for later?

  If the climb was easy, then there would be no reason to tire themselves out.

  I walked up to the wall and touched it, feeling the texture. I sent a small current of magic through the material, letting it expand to create a mental picture in my head.

  I drew in a breath and then reached up, using the grooves between the stones to wedge my fingers in and give myself something to hold onto. I pushed my weight up so all I held onto was the side of the building.

  It was a little hard to do, but not impossible. I reached up carefully and repeated the process. It was slow going, but I was making progress, albeit a little painfully. I was not a climber. I never was one for athleticism, so if I could do it, then someone better trained would be able to easily. I tilted my head back, noting where the ledge to the window on the third floor was. The third floor was all administrative offices, people who worked the typical nine to five job and went home the moment the clock struck five. They didn’t like to stick around and they didn’t need to. That would be the perfect floor to sneak into.

  I already had the layout of that floor etched in my head and knew where I wanted traps. I definitely wanted coverage at all the windows. That was a given, but how else could I make this journey difficult.

  “What are you doing?” someone called out, the familiar voice making me smile. “You’re going to fall and get hurt.”

  “Then I hope you catch me,” I responded with a huff, losing my breath from all the strain.

  Venni was silent for a moment. “Come back down before you get hurt.”

  “I can’t. I need to finish my theory.”

  “Oh? And what kind of theory is that?” he asked, sounding amused. At this point, I was almost to the second floor.

  “That we may have a bigger challenge than I originally thought.”

  He didn’t say anything else, but I felt his gaze on me the rest of the way up. When I reached the ledge, I struggled to pull myself up and released a very unladylike noise, a mixture of a grunt and a cough.

  The ledge jutted out, giving plenty of room for me to rest. I leaned against the window and nearly jumped when I heard tapping. I turned to see an older woman gaping at me, her eyes wide with panic. I smiled and gave her a finger wave to reassure her, but from her expression, it didn’t work. She tried to open the window.

  “No, I’m fine,” I yelled so she could hear me through the glass.

  She frowned but stopped trying to open the window.

  “I’m coming back down,” I called down.

  “No, you’re not!” Venni warned, but I’d already pushed myself off the ledge. I heard the woman scream, but I was too busy laughing as I called upon the air to help me levitate back down. The move was easy enough, not necessary to use a lot of magic since all it did was soften the landing for myself.

  “You’re crazy, you know that?” Venni said, his eyebrows furrowed with frustration.

  “Are you okay?” the older woman called down.

  I waved up at her. “I’m fine, thank you for your concern.”

  She stared down at us before shutting the window.

  “So what was the point of that exercise?” Venni asked.

  “If someone like me can do that, so can everyone else,” I said.

  That had Venni frowning as he thought about what I’d said.

  “And we know if they made it past our wards then they’ll be strong enough to do this easily. I don’t think they’ll use magic, just because that’s something we can easily monitor. And I doubt they’re as bad as me. It’ll be someone a lot stronger than me doing it, with more experience.”

  “So, use magic to get inside, and then a good old fashioned climb into the building.” Venni narrowed his eyes as he looked up at the window I climbed to. “And that’s on the third floor. No one will be around after work hours or during the weekend.”

  I nodded. “They sure do like their set hours.”

  He nodded his agreement. “What are we going to do?”

  “Can you put those heat motion sensors on the walls around the building? Henzie should have a supply ready to go.”

  “He won’t have enough to cover the entire building.”

  “Just the first four floors will work at specific locations,” I said.

  “I can do that. It’ll keep Davies distracted too.”

  I glanced at Venni, noting the strain around his eyes.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, not so sure I wanted him to answer.

  He shook his head and ran his hand through his dark hair. “Just more bullshit with Abram. Abram needs to learn to keep his mouth shut or Davies will personally teach him. And I won’t stop him either.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at that. Venni made it his mission to keep Davies out of fights. “He needs to stop worry about that man. He’s all talk and will get what’s coming to him.”

  “Do you know something I don’t?” Venni asked, turning his body and stepping closer, attempting to overwhelm me with his presence. His energy crackled, and I remembered he didn’t like underhandedness. He liked to face everything head on, without subterfuge.

  “What I do know is he’ll get himself in trouble. From what I gather, if he’s getting worse each day, he’s going to mess up sooner rather than later.”

  Venni stared at me before blowing out a breath. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”

  I laughed at that, flashing him a genuine smile, liking that he was concerned for me. “I’m not going to do anything to him. I’m just going to hang out and watch him crash and burn all on his own. He’s a chump, not worth any of our time.”

  “Wish Davies thought like that,” Venni mumbled.

  “Davies is a hot head. He likes to focus on the now rather than the future. It’s not a bad thing,” I said before Venni cam
e to his friend’s defense. “He’s a lively guy, always up for anything. It’s a refreshing trait to have.”

  That seemed to relax Venni. Despite the clash of their personalities, they were partners, and partners at BMS were severely protective of each other. They trusted each other with their lives and were willing to put themselves at risk for the other.

  I felt only a little jealous about that kind of bond.

  “While you’re here,” I said, breaking out in a massive smile, trying to play at being innocent. His expression grew suspicious at my tone. “You should climb up there.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  My eyes roamed over his frame, noting the clearly defined muscles. “You’re fit. I want to see how fast someone like you can climb up. And you have shifter reflexes. I need to see what that entails.”

  “Are you just messing with me?”

  I gave him an innocent look. “No, this is purely an experiment. If I can determine how fast someone can climb the wall, then I can better place my traps. I can’t place a trap that takes thirty seconds to spring if he can climb it in twenty.”

  He stared at me before nodding. “Fine. I can do that.”

  I smiled big. “Thank you.”

  Shaking his head, he walked toward the wall. He ran his hand along the siding before finally reaching up and climbing.

  He was fast. I only blinked a couple of times and then he was on the ledge. He looked at the window, probably reassuring the older woman like I did, then he was climbing back down, just as nimble.

  There wasn’t even enough time to enjoy the way his cargo pants hugged his butt.

  “You’re fast,” I said, in awe of his speed.

  “Thanks.”

  “That took you about fifteen seconds to do,” I grumbled. I had to have been at it for a good ten minutes and my arms felt like jelly. Maybe I should reconsider the gym. Compared to the men around me, I probably seemed sickly. I wanted to be able to hold my own and climb a stupid wall in thirty seconds.