Hectic (Arcane Mage Series Book 2)

by T. S. Snow

  Blair was just blinded by the prospect of a variety of dick.

  The thought of my sister anywhere near a dick made me shudder.

  "Can we not talk about any of this? Shouldn’t you be, I don't know, off saving the world? Trying to help break down a rebellion? Jumping off buildings to get your adrenaline high?"

  Blair smiled wickedly. "My, my, don't tell me little Andres is uncomfortable with the idea of his big sister having a sex life. I'll have you know, I have a very healthy appetite."

  Ewwww.

  I was going to throw up.

  Instead of continuing to torture me, Blair laughed. "Oh, you're so easy. C'mon, we've given the lovebirds enough time. I'll just let them know we're going out for a bit. You need to drive me so I can get my bike back."

  She trailed off, and I watched half horrified, half amused as she knocked on the door behind which Charisma and Blaze were banging, hollered that we were going out, and came back to my side with an amused smile.

  Damn, my sister was ruthless.

  It was why I loved her.

  "Fine, but you're buying me dinner, because I'm starving and I had to cancel a date because of you,” I said.

  Blair opened the door and looked me dead in the eye. "You do know that if you want even the slightest chance with Charisma, you can't keep being a manwhore, right? She'll never go for it. She's one of the good girls."

  Yeah, I knew that. But if she was with Futhark, there was no point in Blair warning me about it.

  I would never touch Charisma if she belonged to someone else.

  We got back to Charisma's safehouse to find Charisma and Blaze looking very cozy and relaxed in the kitchen. Charisma had her computer in front of her at the kitchen counter, and she was typing away at something while Blaze made her coffee.

  "Hey, guys. We're back," Blair said, and both heads whipped our way.

  Charisma startled, tried to turn on her stool, and if not for Blaze's fast reflexes, she would've toppled over. He slowly turned her so she could face us and stood near her. The minute Charisma saw me, though, she turned bright red and lowered her gaze, staring at her bare feet.

  After five years of her with her bright pink hair, it was weird to see her like this. She looked more serious, more mundane.

  I hated it. I liked the bright colors that made her eyes pop, the splash of personality I could always find in the dull hallways of the Academy. Charisma had always been a little bit like the sun, shining bright and alone, and I used to love orbiting around her. Both struggling and succumbing to the pull of her.

  Her hair had always made her unique, different. She stood out when most were just trying to blend in. I missed that.

  Maybe I could offer to put an illusion on her until she got it fixed? Would it be considered offensive? Would she hate me for offering?

  I wanted to ask, but Blaze wrapped his arms around her front, settling right behind her—a clear statement of possession—and I faltered.

  She was his, and I had to accept that in a way I never had to when she was at the Academy, even though Theo liked to pretend she was his back then.

  Speaking of Theo, Goddess, I wanted to be there when he found out that not only was Charisma not single anymore, moping after his sorry ass, but that she was with Blaze Futhark.

  I bet his face would go all shades of red and it would be so entertaining to watch.

  "What are you doing back here?" Blaze asked, and I raised an eyebrow at him even though I didn't quite know why I was back. Call me a glutton for punishment, but I couldn't make myself simply drive away. I'd ended up following Blair all the way here after I'd dropped her off at her bike.

  Before I could answer, Charisma reached up and pinched Blaze's arm.

  "Ouch!"

  "Don't be rude, Fucktard. He helped Blair and I, and I didn't even get to thank him properly," Charisma chastised.

  I wanted to waggle my eyebrows at her over her choice of words, but she blushed and ducked her head back down before I could.

  Dammit.

  Would she ever look at me again?

  "I wanted to help you." I looked at Charisma while I said it, and she shyly raised her eyes to meet mine when the room stayed silent. She smiled at me, and my whole world came back into focus.

  Blair huffed and I caught her rolling her eyes at me, but I just pretended not to see it.

  "Girl, did you finish what Christian told you to? It's been an hour, and I doubt Mr. Bossy will give you more than your two hours."

  "Yeah, actually. I've only just got started but I think I have something. I'm just going to have to cross reference my data and make sure this lead is solid, but I'll have a report for Christian before the two-hour mark is up, and I can give him a better, more detailed one later. I just need something to make him less stabby until I can get more concrete info."

  "You got something?" Blaze asked from behind her, and Charisma nodded.

  "Why didn't you say so before?" he demanded.

  Charisma's cheeks turned redder than the shirt she was wearing, the one that had an opossum inside a mailbox.

  Huh, I wondered what the story with that was.

  "I was a little distracted, Blaze."

  Blair laughed. "Oh, I'd said you were more than just a little distracted, if the noises we heard were anything to go by. Nice job, by the way."

  Charisma's eyes widened and she spun on her stool back to face her computer, giving her back to us and almost knocking Blaze out on her way around.

  "Shut up. You don't know me," she hissed.

  Even Blaze ended up smiling down at her.

  Oh, this was going to be fun.

  26

  Charisma

  Could a person die of embarrassment? Asking for a friend.

  Me. I was the friend.

  I was pretty fucking sure I was about to just drop dead right here, right now.

  Was this karma? Was I being punished for something I did in a past life? Did I kick puppies out on the street? Or was I being punished for succumbing to Blaze’s hazel eyes and naughty smile?

  Because if that was the case, I demanded a do-over. I could totally do this, avoid him, maybe. Resist him...

  One look out of the corner of my eye at Blaze’s muscled arms and I gave up that train of thought.

  He was too tempting. More juicy than coffee ice cream.

  Focus, Charisma. You have a job to do. Stop worrying about Andres and Blair, you owe them nothing. Well, you kind of owe Blair a big thanks but not Andres. Not really.

  So, yeah, if Andres could stop staring at me as if he was trying to tell me something, with those damn dimples of his threatening to peek out and poke holes in my libido, that would be great.

  This girl could never say no to dimples.

  Rather than engaging in conversation that would make even more of my blood rush to my cheeks and neck, I turned on my stool and faced my laptop once again.

  The minute I had my magic back, truly back, I'd write a code that would ensure I never blushed again, but until then, I had work to do.

  I'd catch that damn mole even if it was the last thing I did, or die trying, but I would not work tech support. I'd avoid my own personal version of hell at all costs.

  Taking a deep breath, I let myself get back into the zone. I logged into my program, and started the painstaking job of going through every single one of the data points and throwing them on the NYC map I had pulled up—thank you internet sticks.

  I ignored all conversation going on around me, and even managed to pretend I couldn’t feel the heat of Blaze's body against mine as he crowded my space, looking over my shoulder and probably trying to understand what the hell I was doing.

  There was no time to explain, though.

  A particular set of coordinates caught my eye, and I stopped to stare at it, trying to see if I could place why it was familiar. But I'd never been the best at latitude and longitude, so it was pointless, really. I was just wasting time.

  I held my breath as I threw
the new coordinates into the map, praying to the Goddess to let this work. I needed it to be somewhere known, somewhere a resistance member had no reason to be.

  Somewhere like...

  No.

  Holy mother of plot twists.

  This couldn't be happening.

  I refreshed the map, copying the coordinates once again and pasting it there. But the answer stood out like a mariachi band in a five-star restaurant.

  "What? What is it? Charisma, what did you find? Talk to me," Blaze asked, and I slowly turned to blink up at him.

  "It's the Nightshades. Whoever has been leaking information to the rebels is a member of the Nightshade household," I whispered. Afraid that voicing my discovery would give it life, would make it unquestionable.

  I couldn't believe I'd been working for someone who might be involved in trying to kill me. It didn't make sense. Why would the Nightshades make such a low play for power? They already had power. Unless...

  Unless it was someone trying to overthrow the other families, someone who stood to gain from the collapse of the Arcane structure as we knew them. If the rebels managed to target the other five families, only the Nightshades would be left, and the rebels would probably be easy pickings for them.

  "But why would a Nightshade side with the rebels? Go against themselves?" Blair asked, the same confusion I felt clear in her voice.

  "Are they truly going against themselves, though? I mean, have they ever been hit by the resistance?" Blaze's words sent a chill down my spine.

  "But they're one of the six families. They are the Council or, at least, a part of it. Why risk it?" Blair frowned.

  "Do you think it's Marcella, trying to overthrow her brother?"

  I stared at Andres, somehow surprised by his question, even though I probably shouldn't be. I mean, c'mon. Marcella was evil. "I wouldn't put it past her," I said, turning back to face the computer. "Let me see if I can find anything else, maybe one of her usual haunting places. One single location isn't enough to pin an heir, and Marcella may be a bitch but if I'm wrong... well, I don't want to be on the receiving end of her wrath." Again, I thought, but kept that part out.

  Nobody needed to know what I'd been through with Cruella. It was better if they didn't know, really. I didn't want anyone to think I was biased, and I would not make my report based on one single coordinate that pointed to the Nightshade mansion and a hunch.

  Christian would kill me if I tried.

  Well, not literally kill me; he wasn't like that. But even I knew there were things worse than tech support.

  "Okay, so, I have good news, and bad news," I said, turning on my stool to face the others. I'd been combing through the data, pinpointing locations and writing my report for the last hour, and I'd finally managed to finish.

  With five minutes to spare, too.

  Andres, Blair, and Blaze all sat up straight from the multiple surfaces they'd been sitting on, apparently having decided to get comfy when they realized I'd be a while.

  Good. Having Blaze breathing down my neck while I worked was distracting as hell. And the tension in the room had only grown the more time I'd spent ignoring both heirs.

  They were like puppies who needed constant attention. It was a wonder they'd survived the five years at the Academy. Although, it totally explained Andres' parade of girlfriends.

  Could I even call them girlfriends? One night stands? Hookups? Fangirls?

  Whatever.

  "Well, girl, are you just going to leave us in suspense or were you planning on actually telling us the good and bad news?" Blair sassed, and I grinned at her.

  "Right. Yeah. So. I finished the report on time and sent it to Christian, so no tech-support all-nighters for me. Hooraay," I celebrated, but the others just stared at me, unamused.

  Tough crowd.

  "Urgh. Spoilsports. So, anyway, I got a few locations that were highly suspicious, like this one MET that was used inside AMIA headquarters. So I'm going to leave my program running now and I put a flag on that MET and a couple others, like the one inside the Nightshade home. The minute one of them uses their MET, I'll know where they are, and we can go from there. And though I'm pretty sure our priority will be the MET that was activated inside AMIA, I'm just as curious about some of the others. There was also an alarming number of them inside Arcane Academy, which does not bode well for us. So yeah."

  Good thing I didn't need reinforcement from these three, because not one of them complimented me on my amazing tech skills. They just kept staring at me as if they wanted me to have uncovered even more information.

  For crying out loud, I'd just spent an hour and a half going through data on this damn log and cross referencing and I didn't even get a thank you? Christian better be more grateful.

  "Well, now what?" Andres asked, and I wanted to kick him.

  Ungrateful mages.

  Instead of resorting to physical violence, I got off of my stool, cracking my neck from side to side as I stretched.

  "Now we wait until they make their move. Besides, I need coffee."

  27

  Charisma

  I checked my phone, and my heart started to beat faster when I saw I had a missed call from Bastille, along with a couple more texts.

  The boy did not give up, I’d give him that. It warmed my heart.

  I missed him. Talking to him, playing online with him. It was so weird to go this long without teasing him about his skills—or lack thereof—in some of the games we played. But with things with Blaze progressing the way they were, I didn't even know where that left Bast and I. I refused to give him up, but I didn't know how Blaze would deal with the fact that I'd had a crush on my best friend for years. My very hot, very sexy, very delectable best friend.

  Just thinking about him made me feel all soft and fuzzy inside, while throwing my libido in hyperdrive.

  What the hell was wrong with me? Just how horny could one girl be, really? I'd literally just had sex with Blaze a few hours ago and it'd been more than a little mindblowing, as it usually was with him. But Bastille... Bastille was comfort; he was warm drinks and long hugs, he was someone who got me, who accepted me for who I was and never tried to change me.

  Was I making a mistake by following this up with Blaze? By seeing where it would lead? Should I end things so I could try to pursue Bast? But... what if he didn't feel the same way? What if he had friendzoned me? I didn't think I could live with myself if I tried to push him and ended up losing the one person I could always count on.

  "What have you got there?" Andres' question startled me, and I hid my phone in my pocket before I could read Bastille's texts—or worse, before Andres could.

  I didn't know why I was even bothering hiding my phone, I mean, it's not like I had anything to hide. Well, I did have things to hide, but Andres already knew two of my biggest secrets: that I was the infamous Onyx, and that I worked for AMIA. So really, what was the harm?

  But I didn't want anyone snooping around and getting messed up in my stuff, and more than that, I didn't want anyone to try to steal Bast from me.

  He was mine.

  He might just be my friend, my best friend even, due to circumstances. But I was still claiming him and unwilling to share.

  Andres raised a dark eyebrow at my blatant attempt at hiding my phone from him, but didn't comment further.

  "Listen, I wanted to," we both spoke at the same time. I giggled nervously while Andres' damn dimples made another appearance.

  "You go first," Andres' offered, but I shook my head.

  "No, you go. It's fine. My thing can wait," I replied.

  Andres took the time to stare at me, as if he was searching for something on my face. As in, the answer to something and not, like, I had flour or food on my face kind of situation. He seemed to find whatever he'd been looking for because he gave himself an almost imperceptible nod before he spoke again.

  "Do you want me to put up an illusion on your hair so it can look like it used to? Just until you can get i
t dyed or do the spell yourself. I never knew if you had actually dyed your hair or if it was just magic."

  I stared at him, mouth agape, and self-consciously wrapped one of my hair strands around my finger.

  Oh my Goddess did I look washed out? How pitiful must he think I am to offer to fix my hair color?

  I wanted to die of embarrassment.

  And yet... Yet he didn't look like he was judging me or even like the sight of me disgusted him.

  No, Andres looked almost... earnest.

  Like my answer mattered to him, like he truly did want to help me.

  Maybe he wanted me to feel more like myself.

  So many things had happened that I hadn't even had the time to worry about my hair, to try to find a solution to it. And yet, here he was, offering me one when I hadn't even asked. When we barely even knew each other.

  I could've kissed him for being so sweet.

  Except, he was Andres Illudere, and even I knew that kissing him was a bad idea.

  28

  Andres

  She was trying to drive me crazy. That could only be it.

  Charisma was staring up at me with those big, silver eyes of hers, biting her lip while she played with a strand of her hair, and I had to keep reminding myself that she was not mine to take.

  Not mine to kiss.

  Not mine to claim.

  It took everything I had in me not to reach out, grab her by the back of her neck, drag her to me and soothe the bite with my tongue and lips.