by Liv Olteano
Aashi hummed for a few moments, tapping her lips with a fingertip. “Well, you did come up with an option. The ancestors don’t oppose it, though that in itself doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good idea right now. And I’m not sure how your team and Nathan might feel about it.”
I looked up, hope sparking in my heart. “I know it’s risky, spirit mother. But what else can we do?”
She set her tiny hand on my clenched fist. “There is no question that Nathan is a powerful ley line witch. Though he doesn’t use his power that much and is used to having it drained, there’s no denying how quickly it’s amassing. I can feel it radiating inside the house even without him entering my webs room.”
“We can all feel that to some extent. Some of the guys are worried about it. What if it’ll become too much and hurt Nathan? Or manifest itself in some harmful way for others?”
“It could be dangerous.” She smiled for a moment. “But it can also be of great help to him, if he manages to get it under control. His soul generates waves of power, maybe because it’s used to being drained due to the presence of his sister. Or maybe his soul has that ability naturally, just like his sister’s has the ability to extract and use someone else’s power. They’re both rare gifts, whichever way you look at it.”
I glanced at her, then toward the weapons table. Nathan was in danger—I felt it in the pit of my stomach. I had to do something, and I didn’t know what else I could do.
“Would his gifts make him worthy of being considered as junior for our team?” I finally asked.
“You know as well as I do that ley line witches don’t usually join our ranks,” she answered, and sighed. “They don’t because their instincts dictate to compete for power, not join in an effort to achieve some greater purpose.”
“Meaning that the fact that I don’t know of any ley line witch who’s also a dreamcatcher has to do with their lack of desire to become one, and not with our reluctance to welcome them?”
She nodded and leaned back in the armchair, then crossed her legs and started bouncing her toe up and down at a leisurely pace.
I cleared my throat. “You’re open to the idea of Nathan joining us, then?”
“If the first meeting goes well and I like what I see in his heart, I see no reason why I wouldn’t be. In fact, it would be a great precedent. That is, if things go well.”
“But they might not.” I voiced my fears.
“We don’t know how ley line magic and spider magic would interact within the same vessel—especially one with such unstable ley line power. It might be a brilliant idea, but then it might go sideways. I believe it’s worth a try, given these circumstances. But considering the background of this particular ley line witch, I’d like you to ask your teammates about it before making the offer to Nathan.”
“I think that’s only fair.”
“Have faith, my son.” She patted my still-clenched fist.
Then she vanished. I walked out of the webs room and closed the doors behind me. After I took my phone out of my pocket, I quickly texted our team’s secure chat group to meet me in the dining room in five minutes, tops. Nathan was still up in his room when everyone else settled in chairs at the dining room table.
I looked at each one before speaking. They were all tense, I could tell by the silence and the searching gazes.
“I come before you with an idea. What will happen next depends on your opinions.”
“Sounds serious,” Taka muttered unhappily.
“I don’t like serious.” Drew crossed his arms in front of his chest. “We’re having entirely too much serious shit going down these days.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I sighed.
Ginger and Angelo reached out to touch their men, almost in sync. A tiny pang of envy twisted my heart. Soon I too could enjoy that kind of bond—one way or another.
“I’ve discussed with Aashi the possibility of asking Nathan to join our team,” I announced in the “ripping away of a Band-Aid” style.
They blinked a few times, looked at one another.
“We have no record of ley line witches becoming dreamcatchers,” Taka reminded me calmly. “Why are we suddenly thinking that one can or should?”
“I’ve discussed that with Aashi,” I replied and nodded. “True, we didn’t have a ley line witch in our ranks until now. But Aashi theorizes that it has to do with their lack of desire to join, not our reluctance to receive them. The ancestors don’t discriminate based on anything—type of magic included.”
Angelo frowned. “There might be a good reason why none of them wanted to try it, though.”
“There might be. Ley line magic and spider magic could not mix well,” I admitted.
“But then again, Vivian Gallagher mixes death magic with ley line magic just fine,” Ginger observed. “I don’t see why spider magic wouldn’t mix just as well if not even better.”
“I’m not sure if Nathan would be the best test subject for it, though,” Taka insisted.
“Because you don’t like the man?” Drew asked while turning toward him.
Taka shook his head. “That has nothing to do with it. And I don’t dislike him. I just don’t know him well enough to trust him, and the circumstances don’t make me keen on getting closer.”
“I can’t fault that line of reasoning,” I admitted. “But if he’d be willing to try, would you be willing to welcome him amongst us?”
Drew cleared his throat. “Look, buddy,” he said, looking at me. “We know what’s going on with you two. We’d be happy to see you happy. What we fear is the not knowing, you know? Not knowing how the magic might mix, and how it could affect Nathan or all of us.” He was silent for a moment; then he added in a smaller voice, “How it could affect you.”
“I understand your concerns,” I said. “I share them. I can only say I have a gut feeling it will go well. From a strategic point of view, it could prove his allegiance. If it goes well, he can use all that power to help us, and be better protected from any kind of crap his sister might pull too.”
Taka hummed. “I see the merit of those points. And if he betrays us after all, we’ve at least taken a power source from Vivian Gallagher in the meantime.”
The others said so too.
“But if he’d be willing to try it, you would welcome him into the team?” I asked again.
“I would, but only because you want him here,” Taka said.
The others said so one by one.
“Then I’ll go talk to him about it, and we’ll see where we go from there.”
I got up from my chair and as I was headed out of the dining room, Taka set his hand on my shoulder.
“If he refuses to try it, what will that mean for you?” he asked softly.
“That we’ll all have to look for some other solution. I’m not giving up on making this work for us as a team or for him and me.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he whispered and smiled.
I knew what he was thinking. There was a time—not too long ago—when I’d been plagued by dreams of Nathan and visions hinting at betrayal and pain. But I knew now that what was meant to happen was not for me to walk away from my team and my spirit mother, but for Nathan to join us. It was with that confidence in my heart that I went up the stairs and went into my bedroom. And it was because of that confidence that I looked him in the eye and invited him to join the team.
He widened his eyes. “You want me to what?”
“Become one of us, a part of the team.”
“So you would be sure about my allegiance?”
“Because I already am confident about your allegiance. You’ve already proven yourself when you pointed us to what hangouts you knew your sister had.”
“And by doing so, I made it clear my disappearance is related to your people raiding her spots. Do you feel responsible for my safety? Is that what this is about?”
“I’m very interested in your safety. I plan to have you around for as long as I can. Bu
t I wouldn’t say I feel responsible for it in the sense that I’d be acting out of guilt, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Good, because I’m a grown-ass man. I’ve made my own choices, fully aware of what they might lead to. It’s my responsibility and mine alone, regardless of how things might turn out. I’ve made my choices, and from the moment I first saw you, I agonized over going in search of my sister’s enemy and the definitive rift it would cause between us. I’m sure I can’t foresee all possible effects of that choice, but it was mine to make, and I made it. It was the right choice—I knew that then, and I know that now.”
I smiled. “You’re an amazing guy, you know? I’m lucky to have you.”
“You do,” he whispered intensely. “You have me. And I have you, right?”
“Without a shadow of a doubt. We’re in this together, Nathan. We’ll make this work for us. I also want it to work for my team, and your sister needs to be stopped. But the closest thing to my heart is us.”
He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Families of ley line witches, especially prominent ones, aren’t known for their warmth. It’s all about how powerful you are, what sort of impression you make; a lot of posing and manipulating. After my sister was sent away, it was easy for me to imagine that had she been there with me, we’d be close; that we’d be together against the world, so I wouldn’t feel so alone anymore. I never felt at ease in that ocean of solitude. Dark thoughts were always trying to pull me under the surface, and I felt as if icy water trickled up my nose and down my throat, invading my lungs and freezing me from the inside out. I spent years yearning for the kind of warmth that a simple glance at you offered me. Being beside you is like living under the constant warmth of summer. I won’t lose that—I refuse to lose that.”
I walked over and wrapped my arms around him. “All this time, we were waiting for each other. We were yearning for the comfort of each other. I’ve been waiting for the pleasure of your presence for a long time,” I whispered against his lips.
He caressed them with his, letting out a trembling exhale as the air around us suddenly heated up. “Are you trying to seduce me to the not-dark side?” he asked and chuckled.
I kissed his forehead and squeezed him in my arms. “I won’t give you up now that I’ve found you—not without putting up a good fight. Do you understand?”
“Sounds like the perfect plan as far as I’m concerned.” He pecked my lips and stepped back. “Now stop dazzling me with your manly charms and walk me through what being a dreamcatcher would mean for me specifically.”
“The ancestors give us a high degree of protection from the spaga. It would give you a lot more protection from the death magic your sister uses.”
“But not from the ley line magic she uses.” He pursed his lips. “How would ley line magic be affected by becoming a dreamcatcher? Do you have magic?”
“Spider magic,” I replied. “We don’t know how it would interact with yours. There’s no precedent we know about.”
“If it weakens my ley line magic, then it weakens the shield I’ve made for myself. And I know it works pretty well from experience.”
“A valid point. But maybe all of her magic is tainted with death magic, since it’s her main element now. So as a dreamcatcher you could have protection against her tainted ley line spells too.”
“You might be right about that,” he conceded. “What if it’s not enough? The moment she perceives I’m making a real move against her, she’ll go after me like a hound from hell.”
I wasn’t at all sure she was going to wait for him to act against her openly, but I didn’t share that fact. It was an obvious enough possibility, and if he wasn’t facing it, it was because he didn’t want to. Pointing it out wouldn’t help right now. I decided to change tactics.
“Taka is amazing at defensive spider magic. And he can cast all sorts of shields and veils on another dreamcatcher. He can’t use magic to attack directly anything but the spaga spirit servants, but he can defend one of his own.”
“God, all of this is crazy. I wouldn’t have imagined that meeting her again would lead to things as they are today.” He shook his head.
I could feel the sadness radiating off of him, and it nearly broke my heart. “I think everything up to this point happened because it was meant to. And so you’re exactly where you were supposed to be.”
“Can we ever be sure?” he asked, and gave me a bittersweet smile.
“The only sure thing about life as we know it is that at some point it ends. Everything else is a sum of possibilities.”
“Stop being brainy right now. It’s turning me on and ruining my concentration.”
I grinned, loving the fact that I seemed to affect him as much as he affected me. I walked back to the chair beside the bed and eased down in it. He sat on the edge of the bed, in front of me.
“I just say I want to join, and that’s that?”
I shook my head. “There’s a meeting with Aashi, then an initiation ritual if she deems you fit.”
“Are probes involved in the process?” he asked and smiled, trying to lighten the mood and maybe stall for a bit.
“Not unless you put in a special request,” I answered, and winked. “It’s a spiritual reading, if you will. You simply stand or sit in the webs room, in her presence, and she does her thing.”
“What if after the reading she concludes I’m not good enough to join you?”
“Then you won’t. But unless there’s something you know and are not telling me, then there’s no reason to think you won’t be found worthy.”
“This is like high school all over again.” He sighed. “I don’t know if I’m cool enough to be part of the gang. There’s no reason I can think of that would get me rejected.”
I watched the wrists he stretched out in front of me, to prove the sincerity of his words. There were no red marks on his arms that would prove he was lying.
“Good. Think about it. We’re not in a hurry.”
“You want me to become a dreamcatcher because it would keep me safer than I am now.”
I nodded.
“But you also want me to join because you think I’d be useful as one of you,” he seemed to think out loud. “And if I’d be useful, then sooner is better than later.”
“That’s true. But you don’t have to make this decision under pressure. As a dreamcatcher, you’ll leave your old life behind. You’ll live with us and work with us. You’ll be on call every night for missions and could be called to duty at any time—like I was during our early dinner date. You’ll stop aging physically as soon as you join us, and though you can be hurt bad enough to die from it, Aashi can heal you after a mission. It can be a forever kind of life, if you choose so. Or you can leave the team at any time you want, and you’ll walk away with significant monetary compensation—but will lose all memories of your life with us. Considering the fact that you’re not a regular human to begin with, you can tell your family what’s going on, but being around them much after you become one of us will still put them in danger, even if they’re not as defenseless as regular people.”
“I haven’t been close to my family in a long while anyway. When I first went searching for Vivian, I was hoping for us to be close and be each other’s family, but that didn’t exactly go to plan,” he muttered. “This would be a new beginning, then.”
“Exactly.”
“With the possibility to pursue this wonderful thing that’s happening between us.” He smiled.
“True. If you choose not to join us, I can’t be a dreamcatcher and be with you at the same time.”
“So what would happen then as far as the two of us are concerned?”
“I can leave Aashi’s service at any time I wish to. I’ll lose the memories of my time as a dreamcatcher, get a severance payment if you will, and go on with a regular life.”
He widened his eyes. “You’d do that? Leave them for me?”
“I could if I wanted to,
” I replied, not wanting to contemplate it too much.
“It’s not a definite yes, then.”
“It’s not a definite yes or no, right now. Is your answer a definite no?”
“Absolutely not. I’ll think about it for a bit and let you know when I’ve come to a decision.”
“Good.”
“Would you really leave the team in order to be with me?” he asked again.
“When the time would be right, if that was what I had to do—then, yes. It would have to wait until we deal with this situation with your sister, so we’ll know you’re safe.”
“I love the fact that you’re not trying to push for one answer or the other.” He got up from his seat and kneeled in front of my chair. “We’ll be together no matter what?”
“Yes,” I answered with absolute certainty. Whatever else I was or wasn’t sure about, that was a clear fact in my heart and mind: Nathan and I would be together, no matter what.
“So we could have a life together and fight against injustice at the same time? It’s like I’d become a superhero.” He chuckled.
“A superhero whose first enemy would be his sister,” I felt the need to point out.
“She wouldn’t be my enemy; just someone who needs a kind of help that they won’t admit to needing. But I get your point.”
“Good,” I whispered and leaned in to kiss him.
I couldn’t help it. I’d been watching his lips move as he was talking this entire time. He moaned into the kiss and wrapped his hands in my free hair. It turned me on how he pulled on it a little, trying to make sure I wouldn’t end the kiss or dare to move away from his mouth. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer, opening my knees so he could fit closer to me. I wanted him even closer, underneath my skin, merging with my very being. I wanted us linked so the Universe would have no chance to ever tear us apart. I allowed that hunger to come through in the kiss that went on and on until I felt light-headed. And I didn’t pull back, not even then.
I didn’t want to pull back—not ever again. And I decided that I wouldn’t pull back, no matter what that entailed. As long as Nathan wanted to be by my side, I’d move heaven and hell to keep him there.