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“Rachel?”
It was soft and pleading. He truly wanted to let go. Damn it, this was my fault. Tension made my head hurt, and I closed my eyes on the black orbs his gaze had become. It made the fear ten times harder to surmount, but still, I trusted him. I could tap a line and send him flying into the wall—and if push came to shove, I would—but it would change our relationship utterly, and I loved him. It was a quiet, tentative love with the frightening promise that it would grow if I didn’t screw it up. And I wanted a love based on trust, not who was stronger.
“Kisten,” I said, forcing my jaw to unclench. “I’m going to let go of you, and you are going to let go of my shoulders and step back. Ready?” I could hear him breathe, harsh and insistent. It struck a chord inside me, and we both shuddered.
It would feel so damn good to let him bite me, his teeth sinking deep, pulling me to him, the pain twisted to pleasure, scouring through me like fire and stealing my breath, taking me to imagined heights of ecstasy. It would be incredible, the best thing I’d ever felt. It would change my life forever. And it was not going to happen. For all the promised pleasure, I knew it hid an equally ugly reality. And I was afraid.
“Now, Kisten,” I said, eyes still closed, forcing my fingers to move.
My hands fell from him and he stepped away. My eyes flashed open. He had his back to me, a hand on the waist-high post at the foot of my bed. His free hand shook. I reached out, then hesitated. “Kisten, I’m sorry,” I said, voice trembling, and he bobbed his head.
“Me too.” His husky voice ran through me like water through sand, leaving me warm and tingly. “Do me a favor and don’t do that again.”
“You bet.” Crossing my arms in front of me, I took off his sweatshirt and let it fall to the bed. The tingle at my neck faded, leaving me shaking and sick at heart. I had known mixing our scents was a blood aphrodisiac, but not how potent it was or that it could come on that fast. I was still making mistakes. Almost a year at this and I was still making mistakes.
Kisten’s head came up, and I wasn’t surprised to hear the front door open. In three seconds flat six streaks of silver and gold whizzed by my door at head height. Two more seconds and they raced back.
“Hi, Ms. Morgan!” came a high-pitched voice, and a pixy girl came to a short stop at the door, peering in with her dress fluttering about her ankles. Her face was flushed and her fair hair was swirling in the draft from her wings. There was a crash from the living room, and she darted off, shouting so high that my head hurt. The music blared, then cut out.
I took a step to the door, jerking to a stop when Matalina halted before me.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” the pretty pixy woman said, looking frazzled. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll get them out to the stump as soon as it stops raining.”
Smoothing the rough edges of my bandaged knuckles, I tried to wash away the last of my runaway passions and the fear from Kisten. He hadn’t moved, clearly still trying to regain control. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I didn’t have time to pixy-proof the church.” There was another crash, this time from the kitchen. A handful of pixies flowed by, all talking at once, and Matalina followed, admonishing them to stay out of my cupboards.
My worry deepened when Ivy strode past. Jenks was on her shoulder, and he gave me an unsure look and a nod of recognition. Ivy caught sight of Kisten and she backpedaled, her shorter hair swinging. Her gaze went to his shirt on the bed, then took in my soft guilt and the tremor in my hands. Nostrils flaring, she scented the vamp pheromones and my fear, realizing in seconds what had transpired. I shrugged helplessly.
“We’re back,” she said dryly, then continued to the kitchen, the new loudness of her steps and the slight tension in her body the only sign that she knew I had pushed Kisten too far.
Kisten didn’t meet my gaze, but my shoulders eased at the returning ring of blue in his eyes. “You okay?” I asked, and he gave me a closed-lipped smile.
“I shouldn’t have given you a pair I already wore,” he said, taking the shirt and stuffing it in the bag. “Maybe you should wash them.”
I took the bag when he extended it, embarrassed. He followed me into the hallway, turning to the kitchen while I went the other way to get the washer going. The sharp scent of the soap ticked my nose, and I dumped in a full measure, then added a little more. I closed the lid and stood with my hands on the washer as it filled, my head bowed. My gaze fell on my bitten hand. Sometimes I thought I was the stupidest witch ever born. Straightening, I forced a pleasant expression onto my face and headed to the kitchen, anticipating Ivy’s mocking look.
Unable to met anyone’s eyes, I went straight to the coffeemaker to get a mug to hide behind. All the pixy kids were in the living room, and the sound of their play mixed with the soft hush of the rain past the open kitchen window. Ivy gave me one wry look before returning to her e-mails, having parked herself at her computer, out of the way in the corner. Jenks was on the sill, his back to me as he looked into the wet garden, and Kisten was sitting in my chair, his legs stretched to poke out past the corner of the table. No one was saying anything.
“Hey, uh, Kist,” I stammered, and he pulled his head up. “I found a spell to Were with in one of the books you gave me.”
He seemed to have found his calm, and though I was wire-tight, his eyes were weary. “No kidding,” he said.
Encouraged, I brought out the book and thumped it open before him.
Jenks flitted over, nearly landing on my shoulder but choosing Kisten’s at the last moment. He glanced down, his wings stilling before his head jerked up to mine. “Isn’t that—”
“Yeah,” I interrupted. “It’s demon magic. But see? I don’t have to kill anything.”
Kisten blew out his breath, meeting Ivy’s blank expression before easing away from the book. “You can do demon magic?” he asked.
I nodded and tucked a curl behind my ear. I didn’t want to tell him why, and though Kisten was too much of a gentleman to ask when others could hear, Jenks was another story. Wings clattering, he put his hands on his hips and frowned at me in his best Peter Pan pose. “How come you can do demon magic and no one else can?” he asked.
“I’m not the only one,” I said tightly, and then the metallic bong of the pull bell Ivy and I used for a doorbell vibrated through the damp air.
Ivy and Kisten both straightened, and I said, “It’s probably Ceri. I asked her to come over to help me with my spells tonight.”
“Your demon spells?” Jenks said bitingly, and I frowned, not wanting to argue.
“I’ll let her in,” Kisten said as he stood. “I’ve got to go. I—have an appointment.”
His voice was strained, and I backed up, feeling like dirt when I saw his rising hunger. Crap, he was having a hard time staying balanced tonight. I was never going to do that again.
Kisten smoothly reached out, and I didn’t move when he put his hands lightly on my shoulder and gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll call you after we close. You going to be up?”
I nodded. “Kisten, I’m sorry,” I whispered, and he gave me a smile before walking out with slow, measured steps. Riling him up without being able to satisfy his hunger wasn’t fair.
Jenks landed on the table beside me, his wings clattering for my attention. “Rachel, that’s demon magic,” he said, his belligerent attitude not hiding his worry.
“That’s why I asked Ceri to look at it,” I said. “I’ve got this under control.”
“But it’s demon magic! Ivy, tell her she’s being stupid.”
“She knows she’s being stupid.” Ivy closed her computer down with a few clicks. “See what she did to Kist?”
I crossed my arms. “All right, it’s demon magic. But that doesn’t necessarily make it black. Can we hear what Ceri says before we decide anything?” We. Yeah, we. It was we again, and it was going to stay that way, damn it.
In a surge of motion, Ivy rose, stretching for the ceiling in her black jeans and a tight knit shirt. She grabbed her purse and shouted, “Wait up, Kist!”
Jenks and I stared at her. “You’re going with him?” I asked for both of us.
Ivy’s look, rife with disapproval, was aimed at me. “I want to make sure no one takes advantage of him and he ends up hating himself when the sun comes up.” She shrugged into her jacket and put on her shades though it was dark out. “If you pulled that on me, I’d pin you to the wall and have at it. Kist is a gentleman. You don’t deserve him.”
My breath caught at the memory of my back to the wall and Kisten’s lips on my neck. A spike of remembered need raced from my neck to my groin. Ivy sucked in her breath as if I’d slapped her, her heightened senses taking in my state as easily as I could see the sparkles sifting from Jenks. “I’m sorry,” I said, though my skin was tingling. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s why I gave you the damn book,” she said tightly. “So you wouldn’t have to.”
“What did she do?” Jenks asked, but Ivy had walked out, boot heels clunking. “What book? The one about dating vampires? Tink’s panties, you still have that?” he added.
“I’ll bring back a pizza,” Ivy called, unseen from the hallway.
“What did you do, Rache?” Jenks said, the wind from his wings cooling my cheeks.
“I put on Kisten’s shirt and did jumping jacks,” I said, embarrassed.
The small pixy snorted, going to the windowsill to check on the rain. “You keep pulling stunts like that and people will think you want to be bitten.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, taking a sip of my cooling coffee and leaning against the center island counter. I was still making mistakes. Then I remembered what Quen had once told me. If you do it once, it’s a mistake. If you do it twice, it’s not a mistake anymore.
Five
I looked up when the soft conversation in the sanctuary gave way to clipped steps and Ceri peered hesitantly around the corner of the archway. Pulling the rain hood from her, she smiled, clearly pleased to see Jenks and me back on speaking terms. “Jenks, about Trent…” I said, seeing his wings turn an excited red. He knew that whatever Trent was, Ceri was the same.
“I can figure this out myself,” he said, focusing on Ceri. “Shut your mouth.”
I shut my mouth.
I stood and extended my hands to give Ceri a hug. I wasn’t a touchy-feely person, but Ceri was. She had been Al’s familiar until I stole her in the breath of time between her retirement and my attempted installment. Glancing briefly at my neck and bandaged knuckles, she pressed her lips disapprovingly, but thankfully said nothing. Her small, almost ethereal stature met mine, and the hand-tooled silver crucifix Ivy had given her made a cold spot through my shirt. The hug was brief but sincere, and she was smiling when she put me at arm’s length. She had thin, fair hair that she wore free and flowing, a small chin, delicate nose, large pride, short temper, and a mild demeanor unless challenged.
She took off her rain cape and draped it over Ivy’s chair, the self-proclaimed “throne” of the room. Al had dressed her commensurate to her earthly status while in his service—treating her as a favored slave/servant/bed warmer as well as an adornment—and though she now wore jeans and a sweater in her usual purple, gold, and black, instead of a skin-tight gown of shimmering silk and gold, the bearing was still there.
“Thanks for coming over,” I said, genuinely glad to see her. “Do you want some tea?”
“No, thank you.” She elegantly extended a narrow hand for Jenks to land on. “It’s good to see you back where you can help the people who need you the most, master pixy,” she said to him, and I would swear he turned three shades of red.
“Hi, Ceri,” he said. “You look well-rested. Did you sleep well tonight?”
Her heart-shaped face went crafty, knowing he was trying to decipher what kind of Inderlander she was by her sleep patterns. “I have yet to take my evening rest,” she said, shifting her fingers until he took to the air. Her gaze went to the open book on the table. “Is that it?”
A thrill of adrenaline went through me. “One of them. Is it demon?”
Tucking her long fair hair behind an ear, she leaned to take a closer look. “Oh yes.”
Suddenly I was a whole lot more nervous, and I set my mug on the counter while my stomach churned. “There are a couple of charms I might want to try. Would you look at them for me and tell me what you think?”
Ceri’s delicate features glowed with pleasure. “I’d love to.”
I exhaled in a puff of relief. “Thanks.” Wiping my hands on my jeans, I pointed to the curse to Were. “This one here. What about it? Do you think I can do it all right?”
The tips of her severely straight hair touched the stain-spotted, yellow text as she bent over the book. Frowning, she gathered the strands up and out of the way. Jenks flitted to the table as she squinted, alighting on the saltshaker. There was a crash from the living room followed by a chorus of pixy shrieks, and he sighed. “I’ll be right back,” he said, buzzing out.
“I’ve stirred this one before,” she said, fingers hovering over the print.
“What does it do?” I asked, nervous all over again. “I mean, would it make me into a real wolf, or would I just look like one?”
Ceri straightened, her gaze darting to the hallway as Jenks’s high-pitched harangue filtered in, making my eyeballs hurt. “It’s a standard morphing curse, the same class that Al uses. You keep your intelligence and personality, same as when you shift with an earth charm. The difference is the blending of you and wolf goes to the cellular level. If there were two of you, you could have pups with a witch’s IQ if you stayed a wolf through gestation.”
My mouth dropped open. I reached out to touch the page, then drew back. “Oh.”
With casual interest, she ran her finger down the list of ingredients, all in Latin. “This won’t turn you into a Were, but this is how werewolves got started,” she said conversationally. “There was a fad about six millennia ago where demons would torment a human woman in payment for a vanity wish by forcing a demon wolf/human pairing. It always resulted in a human child that could Were.”
My eyes darted to her, but she didn’t notice my fear. God, how…disgusting. And tragic for both the woman and child. The shame of dealing with a demon would never fade, always tied as it was to the love of a child. I’d often wondered how the Weres had gotten started, since they weren’t from the ever-after like witches and elves.
“Would you like me to make it for you?” Ceri asked, her green eyes placid.
I jerked, my focus sharpening. “It’s okay to use?”
Nodding, she reached under the counter for my smallest copper spell pot. “I don’t mind. I could do this one in my sleep. Making curses is what demon familiars do. It will take all of thirty minutes.” Seemingly unaware of my bewilderment, she casually moved the curse book to the island counter. “Demons aren’t any more powerful than witches,” she said. “But they’re prepared for anything, so it looks like they’re stronger.”
“But Al morphs so fast, and into so many things,” I protested, leaning against the counter.
Tiny boots clicking, Ceri turned from one of my cupboards, a wad of wolf’s bane in her hand. The stuff was toxic in large doses, and I felt a twinge of worry. “Al is a higher demon,” she said. “You could probably best a lesser, surface demon with the earth magic you have in your charm cupboard, though with enough prep work a surface demon is as powerful as Al.”
Was she saying I could best Al with my magic? I didn’t believe that for a second.
With a preoccupied grace, Ceri lit the Sterno flame canister from a taper she started from the gas burner. The stove served as my “hearth fire,” since the pilot light was always burning, and it made for a stable beginning to any spell. “Ceri,” I protested. “I can do this.”
“Sit,” she said. “Or watch. I want to be useful.” She smiled without showing her teeth, sadness clouding her clear eyes. “Where do you keep your blessed candles?”
“Um, in with the big silver serving spoons,” I said, pointing. Doesn’t everyone?
Jenks swooped in, gold sparkles sifting from him in agitation. “Sorry about the lamp,” he muttered. “They will be washing the windows inside and out tomorrow.”
“That’s okay. It was Ivy’s,” I said, thinking they could break every light in the place if they wanted. It was more than nice having them back—it was right.
“Al is a walking pharmaceutical,” Ceri said, flipping to an index to check something, and Jenks made a hiccup of surprised sound. “That’s why demons want familiars experienced in the craft. Familiars make the curses they use, the demons kindling them to life, taking them internally, and holding them until invoking them with ley line magic.”
With the first inklings of understanding, I pulled another demon book out and rifled through it, seeing the patterns in Al’s magic. “So every time he morphs or does a charm…”
“Or travels the lines, he uses a curse or spell. Probably one that I made him,” Ceri finished for me, squinting as she snatched one of Ivy’s pens and changed something in the text, muttering a word of Latin to make it stick. “Traveling the lines puts a lot of blackness on your soul, which is why they’re so angry when you call them. Al agreed to pay the price for pulling you through the first time, and he wants information to compensate for the smut.”
I glanced at the circular scar on my wrist. There was a second one on the underside of my foot from Newt, the demon from whom I’d bought a trip home the last time I found myself stranded in the ever-after. Nervous, I hid that foot behind the other. I hadn’t told Ceri because she was afraid of Newt. That she was terrified of the clearly insane demon and not Al made me feel all warm and cozy. I was never going to travel the lines again.
“May I have a lock of your hair?” Ceri asked, surprising me.
Taking the 99.8 percent silver snippers I’d spent a small fortune on that she was extending to me now, I cut a spaghettisized wad of hair from the nape of my neck.
“I’m simplifying things,” she said when I handed it to her. “And you probably noticed he has a few shapes and spells that he enjoys more than others.”
“The British nobleman in a green coat,” I said, and a delicate rose color came over Ceri. I wondered what the story behind that was, but I wouldn’t ask.
“I spent three years doing nothing but twisting that curse,” she said, fingers going slow.
From the ladle came Jenks’s attention-getting wing clatter. “Three years?”
“She’s a thousand years old,” I said, and his eyes widened.
Ceri laughed at his disconcertion. “That isn’t my normal span,” she said. “I’m aging now, as are you.”
Jenks’s wings blurred into motion, then stilled. “I can live twenty years,” he said, and I heard the frustration in his voice. “How about you?”
Ceri turned her solemn green eyes to me for guidance. That elves were not entirely extinct was a secret I had told her to keep, and while knowing her expected life span wouldn’t give it away, it could be used to piece the truth together. I nodded, and she closed her eyes in a slow blink of understanding. “About a hundred sixty years,” she said softly. “Same as a witch.”
I glanced uneasily between them while Jenks fought to hide an unknown emotion. I hadn’t known how long elves lived, and while I watched Ceri weave my hair into an elaborate chain that looped back into itself, I wondered how old Trent’s parents had been when they had him. A witch was fertile for about a hundred years, with a twenty-year lag on one end and forty at the tail end. I hadn’t had a period in two years, since things pretty much shut down unless there was a suitable candidate to stir things up. And as much as I liked Kisten, he wasn’t a witch to click the right hormones on. Seeing that elves had their origins in the ever-after, like witches, I was willing to bet their physiologies were closer to witch than human.
As if feeling Jenks’s distress, Matalina flitted in trailing three of their daughters and an unsteady toddler. “Jenks, dear,” she said, giving me an apologetic look. “The rain has slacked. I’m going to move everyone out so Rachel and Ivy can have some peace.”
Jenks’s hand dropped to his sword hilt. “I want to do a room-by-room check first.”
“No.” She flitted close and gave him a hovering kiss on the cheek. She looked happy and content, and I loved seeing her like that. “You stay here. The seals weren’t tampered with.”
My lower lip curled in to catch between my teeth. Jenks wasn’t going to like my next move. “Actually, Matalina, I’d like you to stay, if you could.”
Jenks jerked upward, a sudden wariness in him as he joined her, their wings somehow not tangling though they hovered side by side. “Why,” he said flatly.
“Ah…” I glanced at Ceri, who was muttering Latin and making gestures over my ring of hair at the center of a plate-sized pentacle she had sifted onto the counter with salt. I stifled a feeling of worry; knotting your hair made an unbreakable link to the donor. The ring of twisted hair vanished with a pop, replaced with a pile of ash. Apparently this was okay, since she smiled and carefully brushed it and the salt into the shot-glass-sized spell pot.
“Rachel…” Jenks prompted, and I tore my gaze from Ceri; she had tapped a line, and her hair was drifting in an unfelt breeze.
“She might want a say in this next spell,” I said. Nervous, I pulled the demon book closer and opened it to a page marked with the silk bookmark Ivy had gotten on sale last week.
Jenks hovered a good inch above the text, and Matalina gave a set of intent instructions to her daughters. With a whining toddler in tow, they darted out of the kitchen.
“Ceri,” I prompted cautiously, not wanting to interrupt her. “Is this one okay to do?”
The elf blinked as if coming out of a trance. Nodding, she pushed her sleeves to her elbows and crossed the room to the ten-gallon vat of saltwater I used to dissolution used amulets. As I watched in surprise, she dunked her hands into it, arms coming up dripping wet. I tossed her a dish towel, wondering if I should start a similar practice. Fingers moving gracefully, she dried her hands while she came to peer at the spell book on the table. Her eyes widened at the charm I’d found to make little things big. “For…” she started, her gaze darting to Jenks.
I nodded. “Is it safe?”
She bit her lips, a pretty frown crossing her angular, delicate face. “You’d have to modify it with something to supplement bone mass. Maybe tweak the metabolism so it’s not burning so fast. And then you’d have to take the wings into account.”
“Whoa!” Jenks exclaimed, darting to the ceiling. “No freaking way. You aren’t doing anything to this little pixy. No way. No how!”
Ignoring him, I watched Matalina take a slow, steady breath, her hands clasped before her. I turned to Ceri. “Can it be done?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Much of it is ley line magic. And you have the earth charm ingredients in your stock. The hard part will be developing the supplemental curses to fine-tune it to limit his discomfort. But I can do it.”
“No!” Jenks cried. “Augmen. I know that one. That means big. I’m not going to get big. You can forget it! I like who I am, and I can’t do my job if I’m big.”
He had retreated to where Matalina was standing on the counter, her wings unusually still, and I gestured helplessly. “Jenks,” I coaxed. “Just listen.”
“No.” His voice was shrill as he pointed at me. “You are a freaky, misguided, crazy-ass witch! I’m not doing this!”
I straightened at the sound of the back door opening. The curtains fluttered, and I recognized Ivy’s footsteps. The smell of pizza mixed with the rich scent of wet garden, and Ivy came in looking like a frat boy’s fantasy in her rain-damp, sex-in-leather coat and a square box of pizza balanced on one hand. Short hair swinging, she noisily dropped the box on the table, taking in the room with a solemn, quiet face. She moved Ceri’s rain cape to a different chair, and the tension ratcheted up a notch.