Hectic (Arcane Mage Series Book 2)

by T. S. Snow

  The woman standing on the other side of the door put the bad in badass. She had dark, curly hair that seemed almost blue under the sunlight, a body clad in leather that hugged her form and showcased her figure in a way that left me with a lot of boob envy. Her skin was a gorgeous dark coppery color, and her eyes... her eyes were a deep, rich brown, almost the color of honey.

  Okay, maybe I was hungry. But the chick sure turned heads and made women question their sexuality. The Goddess only knew I was questioning my own and wondering if I could jump her bones.

  In fact, I was so enthralled by her that I almost didn't notice the takeout bags she was carrying.

  Huh? Since when did the rebels start bringing gifts?

  I felt more than saw Blaze relax in front of me before he released his magic on his glaive and dropped his shield, but I was too confused to actually follow his lead.

  In my defense, though, she might be trying to look nonthreatening with the takeout bags, but she looked like she'd just stepped out of a video game, and her power packed one hell of a punch. It made me grind my teeth and grip my makeshift weapons tighter.

  "Are you two just going to stand in there gaping at me or are you going to actually let me in? Food is getting cold!" Leather Goddess sassed, shoving the bags in her hands at Blaze's chest.

  Blaze grunted with the impact but stepped aside so she could walk in, which meant Leather Goddess came face to face with me. She took one look at my choice of weapons, raised an eyebrow, and smirked in a way that had me blushing.

  "Are you going to attack me? If so, could you please get on with it? I'm hungry and I have a dick appointment in two hours. I'd rather not be late for it."

  "I—Uh—Eh—" Words. I needed words, but I was pretty sure my brain had put up an out of order sign and the monkey who was left in charge was just pressing buttons at random.

  Or maybe I'd only ever had monkeys in charge, which would explain my nonexistent attention span.

  "It's okay, Little Spitfire. This is Blair, or, I should say, Agent Blair. She's with AMIA," Blaze said from where he was still standing in the doorway, an amused smile on his full, kissable lips.

  "Oh. Well, alright. Come in." Eloquent, I was not.

  With my face feeling like it was on fire, I lowered my arms and stepped back into the kitchen so I could get rid of the evidence of my shame.

  Way to make a first impression, Charisma. Look at you making friends.

  I rolled my eyes at my inner voice. Peopling was hard. This was why I was much better at making online friends, everything was easier with the safety of your own home.

  At least I had the excuse of being on high alert and fearing for my life.

  "Wait. How do we know she's not the leak?" I blurted out, the thought just crossing my mind. We knew someone in AMIA was dirty, maybe even more than one person. What made Blaze and Christian so sure it wasn't her?

  "She's not," Blaze said, at the same time Blair snorted before saying "I'm not."

  "That's what you would say even if you were the leak," I pointed out, frowning.

  Blair grinned. "True, but trust me, I'm not."

  "She really isn't, Char," Blaze agreed, a weird look on his face that confused the hell out of me. It was like he was trying to tell me something but I was all out of telepathic abilities.

  "How do we know that?" I insisted. I trusted Christian and Blaze, but that didn't mean they couldn't be wrong about someone.

  "Blair Illudere. Yes, that Illudere. No, I'm not officially an Illudere, my mother just gave me my father’s family name because she thought it would help keep me safe if anyone ever found out my mother’s side of the family was made of Necromancers. She figured it would give me a better chance in life.”

  I gasped.

  Had she… did she just… Necromancer? Illudere?

  As in Andres Illudere.

  Andres’s dad had an affair with a fucking Necromancer.

  My. Mind. Was. Blown.

  The head of one of the six Arcane families had not only met a Necromancer but he’d slept with her and produced a bastard child. This was like Batman having a child with The Joker.

  Well, except Diego Illudere was no Batman. He may have Batman’s good looks, but he wasn’t a crime-fighting gazillionaire.

  I didn’t think.

  But I digressed.

  “Wait, isn’t Diego Illudere happily married?” Had he cheated on Andres’s mom? I thought they were the ultimate power couple.

  I guess appearances could be deceiving. I knew that more than most.

  “Oh, they are,” Blair shrugged. “My mother met him before he met Andres’s mom, but Diego Illudere wasn’t thrilled with the idea of sharing and being a part of the harem, so he left her. She never told him she was pregnant. Until she died, and I found Andres, that is.”

  “Wait. Go back. A harem!?” I screeched.

  “Necromancers are polyamorous, girl. Why settle for one dick when you can have many? There aren’t a lot of them, and they do what they can to protect the magic. Besides, Necromancers don’t believe in letting technology pollute their magic. They are more in tune with their natural powers than we are, and they let magic choose their mates for them. Arcane society may have forgotten the old ways, but my mother’s people never did. I grew up with three fathers.” Blair started to unpack the food as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on, as if she had conversations like this every day.

  I just stared at her.

  A harem. Not just a harem, but a reverse harem, like the ones I’d read about in books. That shit was real? Goddess, were authors Necromancers? I’d always thought they were just human. I had so many questions.

  And even if I could keep my mind out of the harem dickfest gutter, there was still the tidbit that Blair had just dropped– a revelation that could potentially be the downfall of everything Arcane stood for. She was so flippant about it as if she had been giving me the weather forecast or something instead of what I was sure would be information the rebels would kill themselves to get. A scandal this big could be the beginning of the end for the Arcane Families; it would make them easy pickings for the rebellion, strengthening their movement. And while I wasn’t opposed to some of their ideas, I was very much against how they went around achieving their goal.

  I didn't even know where to start analyzing this ticking time bomb Blair had just dropped on my lap. We needed to keep her hidden. Safe. Maybe she could stay here in the safe house too.

  Huh. Come to think of it, maybe that was why she was here.

  I should be running for my life. Panic began to seep in. If she truly was a Necromancer, this was bad. What was stopping her from snapping, losing control, and killing me so she could use my reanimated body to strike against my family? All the families, really.

  Necromancers were dangerous. Deadly. The more they used their powers, the more they were corrupted by them. They’d been our enemies for centuries. I was honestly shocked Christian had allowed one into AMIA. What the hell had he been thinking? This was bad. So. So bad.

  Blair patted my head as one would a dog, and I almost flinched. But she continued speaking, unbothered by my fear. "Don't worry, cute stuff. I didn't inherit my mother’s powers or her distrust of METs. And Christian knows who I am—what I am. So does Andres, bless his cotton candy heart. He welcomed me into his life even when I’d showed up out of the blue, and he’s never treated me with anything but kindness. And Diego Illudere… well, he wasn’t thrilled to find out my mother had kept all this a secret from him for all this time, but he was never cruel to me. He’s the one who got me to join AMIA, so they could keep me safe. His words, not mine.”

  Oh.

  I did my best impression of a fish. In fact, as much as I opened and closed my mouth, I couldn't actually breathe properly. I was pretty sure I was hyperventilating.

  She'd just... She... I'd...

  What. The. Fuck.

  "Oops. I think I broke her," Blair fake whispered to Blaze, giving me a conspiratorial wink.<
br />
  Blaze just sighed before coming to my side, putting his arm around my shoulder, and guiding me to the kitchen counter where we'd been earlier.

  "C'mon, Char, Blair brought us burgers. Eat. It'll help you digest this influx of information."

  I blinked owlishly at him. "You knew?"

  He grunted. "I met Blair when I joined the Agency. She was the Agent I reported to at the beginning and the one who helped train me, even though she's only a few years older than us. I'm surprised your paths never crossed before now."

  "Oh, Christian knew better than to put two of his protegees together in a room. Well, up until now, that is.” Blair plopped herself up on the countertop as if chairs were optional, picked up a bag of fries from the counter where she’d unpacked the food, and started to eat.

  "I'm so sexually attracted to you right now," I blurted before I could stop myself.

  Blaze laughed. “Oh no, you don’t. You’re mine now, Charisma. Blair, I’m afraid you’ll just have to leave, we don’t want Char to be pining over you while she’s with me,” he said.

  I ducked my head and started to bang my forehead against the countertop.

  Blair let out a long, throaty laugh that broke the silence after my brainfart.

  "Oh, I quite like you, Charisma Carter. I think we're gonna be great friends."

  I didn't know why, but her words sounded ominous as fuck.

  16

  Charisma

  “What do you want from me?” Blair asked the minute I locked the door behind Blaze, after all but shoving him outside. It was the first time he was leaving the safe house after Blair arrived, finally feeling confident enough that she’d do a good job of protecting me.

  Or so he claimed, but the truth was that he couldn’t keep avoiding his duties anymore. His phone had been going off all damn morning and most of last night, and I’d finally made him answer it just so we could have some peace and quiet. Then he’d said something about needing to meet his brother and left.

  I’d be worried about how tense he’d looked since his phone call, if not for the fact that I’d finally managed to get some alone time with Blair, and I needed her help. Well, more like I needed her cooperation.

  Clearly, based on her questioning my intentions, I hadn’t done too good a job on playing smoke and mirrors.

  Well, literally playing smoke and mirrors was definitely something I was good at if I could say so myself. After all, I loved trying to come up with new codes for illusion spells. I’d have made for a kickass Illusionist if I did say so myself. But a figurative one? Nope.

  With me what you saw was what you got. Acting in an unsuspicious way when I was up to something was... tricky.

  I had to work on my finesse.

  “What? Me? Nothing. Why would you even think something like that?” I batted my lashes in what I hoped was an innocent look, but knowing me, I probably just seemed to be having a stroke.

  Instead of looking annoyed like most people tended to do when interacting with me, the corners of Blair’s lips were tilted up in amusement. She crossed her legs from her perch on the kitchen counter – because she was apparently physically incapable of using the stools, or chairs, or any normal sitting surfaces that were made for your butt – and raised an eyebrow.

  “You couldn’t have gotten rid of Loverboy faster to save your life. What, did you have a lover’s spat?”

  I blushed at her question. Although, whether I was embarrassed about being called out on it or the fact she knew Blaze and I were together, I wasn’t sure. Hell, I wasn’t even entirely certain we were together-together. I mean, I did agree to see where things were headed. But it wasn’t like he’d asked to make things official. Or outright asked me to be his girlfriend.

  Was that even something guys did nowadays? Did people my age still use words like boyfriend/girlfriend? Is that what we were? He hadn’t even mentioned monogamy. Probably because that wasn’t where this was headed. Maybe.

  How the fuck was I supposed to know? I needed that damn manual ASAP. My only dating experience had come from stupid Theo and we had been kids who grew up together. Our relationship had started pretty much as a sure thing. Nobody had been surprised.

  “It’s nothing like that!” I was quick to say. “I just… I need to go into my apartment, okay? I need to get some things there, things that will let me figure out who is the mole inside AMIA. It’ll save us days, if not weeks of work on this manhunt. Or womanhunt. Whatever.” Far be it from me to think a woman couldn’t be a double agent.

  “I just need to go there. I can’t sneak out, Blaze is being worse than a tick on a dog. Which means I need you to take a nap or something or just get distracted for a few hours until I go there and then come back. Didn’t you have a date you had to cancel because of me? Go do him. Her. That. Whatever.” I paced the room as I explained, too nervous to just stand still. I had to do this. I could do this. I knew it in my bones. Even if I couldn’t call out to my magic… I still had some skills, and more than that, I was a survivor. It was what I did. What I’d always done.

  “Why not wait until Loverboy gets back and then we can make a plan to go there?” Blair sounded annoyingly reasonable and I hated it.

  Couldn’t she see I was on the edge? Every single second we wasted with them trying to protect me was another second the resistance could kill more people. More innocents.

  I couldn’t let them repeat what they did to Annie. I couldn’t let their deeds go unpunished.

  “We’re wasting time. Blaze will never agree to this, nor will Christian. He’s grown too soft when it comes to me. He won’t see reason.” I pulled at my hair in frustration. I couldn’t explain why I had this driving need to do it now, this sense of urgency. But it was there, it had been there since yesterday, but I’d only acknowledged it when Blaze had told me he was leaving for a few hours and the plan had formed in my head. It was crazy simple, which was why I thought it could work. However, I needed Blair’s cooperation because I could not take her down. She acted too chill about the whole “I’m a badass” thing for it to not be true.

  She was like a tiger just waiting to pounce on her prey.

  See? I did have some self-preservation instincts still intact.

  “So you want to jeopardize the whole operation, not to mention your life, and basically spit in the faces of everyone who cares about you, and for what? So you’ll feel accomplished?”

  Ouch.

  “That’s not... It’s not…” I ran a frustrated hand through my hair, wanting nothing more than to pull chunks of it. “I have to do this, Blair. I need to do this.”

  She looked down at me regally, but I could see something that resembled pity in her eyes.

  I hated it.

  “Is accepting help really that hard, Charisma?”

  I paused my pacing long enough to look at her, to truly see her. Blair had the femme fatale look down to an art form, and I was pretty sure she put the bad in badass, but there was something about her… Something softer, kinder. Something I was willing to bet very few people were allowed to see.

  “I don’t need to be saved, Blair. I just need the tools to save myself. It’s why I pushed myself harder, worked harder, studied harder, learned martial arts until my muscles screamed and my movements became instinctual. Even if I fell more than anybody else and hurt myself every time I misstepped. I just used it to spur me on so I could excel at it. Because life has taught me that there’s no one out there you can count on, no one other than yourself. Everybody leaves, so I had to make sure I was enough. So no, I don’t need help, I don’t want help. I didn’t get where I am by relying on others, and I know better than to start now.”

  “Girl, just because your parents left you—“

  I cut her off before she could continue. She had no idea what she was talking about. People always thought they knew, they always thought they understood. They had no fucking idea. They never did.

  “It wasn’t just my parents. Everyone left. Everyone quit on me. My par
ents, the few friends I had, Theo... I...” I wiped away a tear that was stubborn enough to fall. I didn’t want her pity. I just needed her to let me do what I had to do. “There was just me. That’s all there’s ever been. So please, Blair. Let me go. I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me, but I need to do this. I need to be the one to save myself.”

  Blair sighed before she jumped off the counter.

  “Alright, girl. I know you probably hate it when people say they know how you feel, but trust me, I really do. Bastard daughter of the current head of the Illudere family, remember? Which is why I’m going to let you do what you think you gotta do. But I’m coming with you. You may not want my help, you may not accept it, but you’re getting it regardless. You need the backup, and I haven’t had a good fight in days. I need some excitement in my life.”

  I stared at her, too stunned to do much of anything. I wasn’t used to people offering to tag along and help me without wanting something in return. Hell, I wasn’t used to people wanting to help me at all. The only person who had ever stood by me had been Annie and....

  “So, what’s the plan, exactly? What do you need inside your place?” Blair started to walk towards the room she’d claimed as her own and I followed, unsure of what to do. Should I try to stop her? Should I tell her no? Try to take her down?

  Should I just…accept the help? As an Illusionist, she’d be handy as hell. Plus, she probably had a car or something which would allow us to go there and get back before Blaze made it back here. But, was that something I could do? Could I trust her to not let me down too?

  “Well, are you just going to stand there staring at my ass all day, or are you going to explain the plan so I’ll know what’s waiting for us?” Blair snarked and this time it was my turn to raise an eyebrow when I saw the sheer number of weapons she was attaching to her own body. That was an awful lot of pointy objects. How did she not accidentally cut herself? If I tried to carry anything sharp close to any of my limbs, I’d be sushi in seconds.

  I guess I’m getting a magical assassin sidekick.