I felt my newfound power thrumming under my skin, and I took a deep breath. Do it, I whispered to it in my head, as if my magic had a mind of its own, and in an instant, my skin burned. The stench of seared and rotten flesh filled my nose, and Evaine let out a piercing scream as the thick ribbon around me loosened.
She reclaimed the other restraints, and my friends rushed to my side, ready to fight. But Evaine’s sinister cackle stopped us all in our tracks. She backed away slowly, eyeing each of us, but giving me a look laced with a promise. And as quickly as I could blink, she was gone. Her unnerving laughter was nothing but a whisper in the air.
I turned to everyone. “So, that was Evaine?” The creature I’d encountered in Ironworld was hardly a Halloween costume compared to what I just witnessed.
Moya straightened, her face tight with anger. “In all her glory.”
“I thought she couldn’t get past the wards here,” Julie said.
Solenne ushered us out of the room. “She must have tracked your magic, Avery.” She closed and locked the door behind us. “And bypassed the wards somehow.”
“That would suggest she knew I had magic at all,” I replied.
“Evaine’s shadows are always listening,” Moya said. “That’s why she’s the best assassin and spy in all of Faerie.” Her brows moved in consideration. “Perhaps the entire world.”
I could hear my nervous swallow in the tense silence that followed.
Solenne turned to me, her lips pressed tightly. “Tell me it worked. The circle. Did you find the answers you were looking for?”
In response, my magic stirred inside. “I… did. I found a way to my power, but it’s like… it’s like it’s not mine. I don’t control it. It almost has a mind of its own.”
Julie exchanged a look with Moya and then to me. “I think it’s time to pay a visit to Oliver.”
***
“Mapping a bind?” Oliver said as he blew out a long breath, his eyes distant in thought. “That takes some work.” The troll’s large leather boots clunked on the floor as he walked to the hearth, removed a boiling pot from the spit, and set it on a stone base next to it.
“Can you do it, though?” I asked. “Is it possible?”
Aya leaned against the door frame in the cottage as Brie sliced an apple for them to share. “Oliver can do it. He can do anything.”
He guffawed. “Your faith in me will be my undoing.” Aya chuckled and popped a piece of apple into her mouth. Oliver set his wrinkled gaze on me. “Creating a bind would be easier, but even then… I haven’t done one in a couple of decades. I’ll need time to gather some supplies and some time to unfold the map.”
“How much time?” Julie asked from the table where she sat next to Moya.
He grumbled under his breath. “A couple weeks, perhaps.”
“What do you need from me?” I asked.
“Aside from a few drops of your blood,” Oliver replied. “Nothing. I’ll let you know if it works.”
I didn’t hesitate to agree. I stood patiently as Oliver pricked my finger and drew blood into a vial.
“So, what do I do in the meantime?” I said as Julie rose from her chair and came to my side, ready to go home.
Oliver glanced at Moya before giving me a grave look and a shrug. “Stay alive.”
***
Things like classes and shifts at the coffee shop seemed trivial compared to my new chaotic life filled with magic and danger. Almost as if it weren’t even real. I felt like I was walking onto the set of a boring movie as I entered class on Monday.
Max grimaced as she took in the sight of me, and I knew why. I’d seen it for myself in the mirror that morning. Dark circles under my eyes, skin pale and tight from sleep deprivation.
“Jesus, you look like shit,” she said as I took my seat and let my bag plop on the floor.
“Good morning, Max,” I replied tiredly.
Her dark brown eyes immediately went to my lip, still red and swollen from the encounter with Cillian in my aunt’s backyard. It felt like it happened in another time. So much has happened in the days since.
“Are you dating that guy?”
My brows touched as I pushed myself off my desk and sat up straight. “What?”
“The guy from the alley.” Max gestured to my overall appearance with distaste. “Did he hurt you?”
I’d been to school several times since the incident with Cillian, and my lip and Max had said nothing. I must have looked worse than I thought.
“No,” I replied flatly and let my hair fall around my face to hide what I could. “I’m not dating him.”
“Good,” Max said and turned in her seat to face forward as the prof entered the room. “He seems like a dick.”
“You didn’t even speak to him.”
“I don’t need to. I know a jerk when I see one.”
I shook my head and laughed under my breath. “I assumed that’s what you thought of everyone you meet.”
Unmoving, her gaze set at the front of the class, she replied, “Not everyone.”
I hadn’t really considered how Max never seemed to talk to anyone. Not in class, not out in public. Not unless she absolutely had to. I’d never seen her with friends. But she talked to me. Quite a bit. In her own morose way.
Was Max my friend?
I swallowed dryly and fetched some supplies from my bag as I considered it. I couldn’t afford to bring anyone else into my crazy world. It was too risky, too dangerous for everyone involved.
Screw that!
I came to the city to have a life, and I’d be damned if I’d shy away from it now for fear of… myself. I wanted to make friends, have a job, and go to parties. And… I wanted Cillian. A sense of absolute filled me, and I took a deep breath. I knew what I had to do. I had to learn to master my power, to control it. Not just for Cillian or Max or anyone else, but for myself.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The sky had turned a navy blue when I climbed the old wooden staircase behind the coffee shop. The sounds of cars cruising by the mouth of the alley filled the air as I fished around in my bag for my keys.
And suddenly, he was there.
Just like that. Cillian stood halfway up the stairs, gripping one side of the rickety railing. I didn’t gasp this time. I didn’t even care that I wore sweatpants. “Are you going to talk to Cellie?” he asked, his eyes glistening as they blended with the night.
My fingers gripped my keys inside my bag, and I held my breath. But the sight of him, below me, staring up with that promising glare… undid me. I let the keys fall to the bottom of the bag and gave him a smile. His shoulders relaxed at the sight.
“Not yet.” I folded my hands in front of me. “I don’t know what to say to her.”
He dared a step closer. I didn’t move. But my breaths came easy, and I waited for him to take another.
“You can trust her, you know,” he said and placed a hand over his heart. “Trust… us.”
I glanced to the side, to where a small garden had begun growing. Flowers of every color, all along the edge of the old brick building. “I know.”
The railing moaned under Cillian’s weight as he leaned into my line of sight. The corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. “Have you figured out what you want?”
His words carried a weight I never realized would be there. What did I want? Cillian was a vampire. And sunshine literally crawls beneath my skin. Since moving to the city, I discovered so much about myself. That I wasn’t as alone in this world as I’d always thought. That I had powers and magic, all the things I’d painted my whole life were real and before me. In all the chaos, one thing was for sure.
I wanted him. I wanted to be with Cillian, despite the odds against us.
I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. But now… I feared my untamed power and what it could do. To him. To Cellie. I could kill them both if I wasn’t careful. But I wasn’t alone. I had help. Friends. Moya would help me hone my magic if I asked her. I was sure of it. An
d Julie, she’d help me in a heartbeat.
I brightened, and he took the last few steps, carrying with him the scent of leather kissed by night. He loomed over me, and I devoured his presence.
“I know what I want.”
Cillian looked hopeful but hesitant. He leaned in, examining me closely, and slowly placed both arms on either side of my head as he reached for the door behind me. My heart beat wildly. It was all I could hear. And I was betting he could hear it, too.
Cillian closed his eyes, listening. A deep hum rasped from his throat, and he put his lips to my collarbone.
“The sound of your heart beating is so lovely.”
I swallowed dryly. “Let’s keep it that way.”
Cillian pulled back and stared me straight in the face. God, his beauty made me want to freaking weep. “Does that mean….”
I looked up at him through my cold lashes, unable to hide my thoughts in my expression. I want you, Cillian. My breath caught in my throat as he leaned in and placed a kiss on my mouth. My mind struggled to keep up with my body, and I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. It was like taking that first breath on a cool winter’s night. Yet, his mouth was warm. As if his very breath was chilled.
I bit his lower lip, and a mix of a laugh and moan rumbled through his body as he leaned his whole body against me. We slipped to the side, in shadow. But my heart nearly stopped, and Moya’s words rang in my mind. Evaine’s shadows were always listening.
In a gasp we both shared, I tore myself from Cillian and stepped back into the light.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I hugged myself as I paced the tiny, rickety landing. “Actually, now that I think–”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” Cillian’s face twisted with a flicker of pain. And I knew… he’d walk away if I changed my mind. No matter how much he didn’t want to. He sighed. “Give me one good reason why not.”
I looked at him for a moment, weighing my options. I held out my cupped hands and begged the light to come. The tiniest ball of sunlight formed in my palms, and Cillian hissed as he backed away.
“That’s why,” I said, and the light disappeared. He gawked at me with the deepest look of awe mixed with a hint of–was it betrayal? “I’m sorry. I’m not… you’re not the only one of us who’s dangerous.”
“What are you?” he asked, bewildered.
I shrugged. “Human, for all I know. I’ve got someone looking into it for me.” Words I never thought I’d hear myself say. “But there’s Fae blood in me somewhere, from far back. Some ancestor had sex with a fairy. Who knew?”
Cillian relaxed and smiled. “Indeed.”
“I’m not saying no to this,” I told him. “I just wanted you to know. First, before things progressed.”
He shook his head, and a chunk of hair fell across his forehead as he leaned in closer, reclaiming that space between us. “I can’t stay away. I’ve tried.” His fingers gently combed my cheek. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t settle with just knowing you. I have to be in your life, now even more than ever.” He cupped my face in his hand. “You’re worth the risk.”
“The risk of death?”
“If I knew for a single second that you truly wanted to be with me, despite it all, I wouldn’t care what reasons you had not to. I’d never leave your side.”
My eyes brimmed with tears. “You think I don’t want to be with you? God, it kills me not to be with you, Cillian. I can feel it, scratching under my skin every time I think about you, which–” I flapped my hands at my sides. “Is every damn minute–” He grabbed my face in both hands and slammed his mouth over mine in a crushing embrace.
My fingers wandered as I gave in to the kiss, to the power of it. Wiping away all that I was. It was just Cillian and me. Nothing else mattered. The very air around us seemed to still.
I found the hem of his black shirt and crawled my hands beneath it. He tensed at my touch, but it only intensified the kiss. Cillian pressed me up against the door, and one hand dropped to below my jaw, holding my face as his tongue swept over my parted lips. A slight moan twirled up through my chest, and he smiled against my mouth.
I wanted to tell him the rest. The part where some evil hell fairy is hunting me down. It was dangerous to be with me for so many reasons. But I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t bring myself to conjure up a single word as Cillian enveloped me in a cloud of inky darkness. I stole the breath from his mouth as his right knee wedged between my legs, prying them apart while his hand slid into my pants.
Thank God I wore sweatpants today.
The tips of his fingers swept back forth over my hot skin, just inside the waistband. As if asking for permission. I rolled my hips ever so slightly in response, and Cillian dipped his open mouth to my neck as his fingers skimmed over my nerves. I tipped my head back and stifled a cry.
“Don’t,” he whispered heavily in my ear. His body moved and swayed against my body with every pass those fingers made over me. “No one can hear you. Or see you.”
The words both unnerved and elated me. I let out a small cry of pleasure when his fingers finally plunged inside. Cillian leaned back, just enough to meet my face, and I stared into those endless pools of cerulean. A color that was quickly becoming one of my favorites.
We watched one another with matching breaths, and his thumb rubbed circles around my most sensitive spot. He pressed himself against me with a deep groan–I could feel the size of him rub against my inner thigh, and it was all I could do to stomp down the urge to gasp too loudly. A new delicious fear filled me.
“Oh, God, Cillian….” I rasped into the skin of his neck while his lips dragged over mine.
Those fingers knew exactly what they were doing. A rush of warmth flooded me, but not quite reaching the edges, and I rode the high, the motion of which Cillian moved us. Pressed up against the cold door, a wave of motion moving as one.
I buckled beneath the pressure of my building orgasm and fought back a moan. Cillian’s mouth was slack as he leaned back and watched me, something seeming to build within him, too. Even though my hands splayed on the door behind me, bracing for what was to come.
I filled his hand in warmth, and we both exhaled long and hard as our eyes locked. And, right there, just humming beneath the surface of my skin, I felt it. My power. The static of magic and sunshine. Almost like a satiated cat. And for a moment, I felt… in control of it. The feeling elated me. Joining the high I was already on.
The culprit backed away, eyes dark and wild and fixed on me. A grin tugged at one side of his mouth as he tipped his chin up and slipped one finger in his mouth… then slowly dragged it out. I held my breath as Cillian took one step closer and leaned into my ear, brushing the side of my face with his as he did. My eyes fluttered closed.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered.
A cool kiss touched my cheek, clashing with the hot goosebumps that scoured over my body as I opened my eyes.
And he was gone.
***
“I think I can control it,” I said to everyone that filled Oliver’s cottage. I shifted in my seat at his round table and stared right up at Moya, who hovered on her feet. “If I had some help. Just to get me started.”
“Well, I’m happy to help you,” she replied and waved an arm before crossing both over her chest. She gestured with a tip of her head toward her sisters, who lay sprawled over a wooden window bench together as they shared some kind of fruit I’d never seen before. Like watermelon crossed with pomegranate. “Aya and Brie would have a thing or two to teach you, as well.”
Aya snickered and shoved a mouthful of fruit to the side of her cheek. “Absolutely. When we’re not busy teaching this one to wisp.”
I looked to Julie across the table, and she rolled her eyes. “You mean failing to teach me.”
Brie swung both legs down to the floor and stared at Julie. “You’ll get it. It takes time.”
Julie just
nodded solemnly.
“I didn’t know you were having issues,” I breathed. “Everything okay?”
She nodded. “It’s fine.”
Aya sighed, and I thought she would join in reassuring Julie, but she looked right at me. “Julie wants to be an expert immediately. She lacks the patience it requires to learn how to literally grasp the fabric of space and time.” Aya’s dark eyes flashed to Julie then. As if to say, duh. Even though she was a solid form in Oliver’s cottage, I couldn’t help but envision that ethereal, smoky skin I saw at my apartment. The sisters were dark and cunning beauties. I wanted to draw them.
Oliver’s oafish feet clonked back and forth across the rickety floorboards as he worked. Still trying to map my bind. Julie told me he’d been at it nonstop.
I reached out and touched his arm as he passed me, two vials of some strange herbs in his hands.
“Thank you,” I told him, and he nodded down at me.
“Thank me when I can figure this out,” he replied.
“No luck yet?” I asked.
He grumbled gently and fussed with a mess of things on his desk beneath a window. “I’ve yet to start the mapping. I’m still gathering and preparing a few things I need.” Oliver tried to smile as if he’d forgotten how to. But it never reached his eyes. Those two deep-set troll eyes. “But once I do, it shouldn’t take long.”
I returned his smile and the slightest twinkle danced in his one eye. “Well, thanks either way. For trying. For helping me.”
Aya and Brie stood on one side of me, finishing a semi-circle with Moya and Julie, with Oliver in the back. Brie sheathed a dagger she’d been polishing. “You’re one of us now.”
“Yeah,” Aya added. “One of the team.”
Moya and Julie exchanged a look that almost seemed to say, finally, and Julie shrugged with a laugh as she looked at me. “We take care of each other.” Her throat bobbed with a suddenly nervous swallow, and she raised those perfect dirty blonde eyebrows. “So… you in?”
A Kingdom of Iron & Wine : New Adult Fantasy Romance (The Ironworld Series Book 1) Page 29