Shadows of Ourselves (The Charmers Series Book 1)

by Apollo Blake

  It didn’t slip my mind, either, that he and the Hound had showed up just seconds from each other. Every time I met this guy, my life was in mortal danger. It didn’t feel like a coincidence anymore, and it sure as hell didn’t feel exciting.

  Hunter watched me for a minute, a strained, considering look crossing his face, like he wanted to say something and wasn’t sure if he should. I waited, but he simply stared at me for another second and then strode off into the darkness without looking back. I stayed where I was for a second, just breathing, and then I followed.

  ~

  The McDonald’s on Main Street North probably wasn’t the place to have loaded discussions about the magikal world, but it was the closest, so that’s where we went.

  Hunter sat silently across from me. He stared down at his food without eating, instead choosing to spend his time glancing back and forth between the meal and me. Considering the waste of food, I was even gladder he’d paid—I didn’t have much of an appetite myself, but I picked at my salty fries anyway, trying to look anywhere but at him.

  You learned to eat when you could, when you didn’t know how long it was before you would see food again.

  The restaurant had recently been remodeled, the architecture blocky and modern, and there was a wall of gleaming, slanted wooden beams blocking us from the view of the few other customers and employees in the place. It was mostly deserted this time of night, and everything—the bright lights, the TV on the wall playing the news at a volume too low to hear, the grimy floors—seemed slightly unreal.

  “Are you okay?” Hunter asked. I startled. It was the first time he’d spoken since we sat down.

  I considered him, and shook my head. Was I okay?

  Why should I be?

  “Well,” I said, “I was just attacked by something that shouldn’t exist, my one-night stand has magik powers and is, apparently, stalking me, and I’m pretty sure I’m having a nervous breakdown. So no, I’m not really okay. But thanks for asking.”

  “I’m not stalking you,” his thick eyebrows dragged down. “I was tracking you.”

  “That makes me feel so much better.”

  “I was following your signature to find you because I knew something was wrong. I sensed it.”

  My signature. I’d been right. No. Not good. None of this was alright.

  “Sensed what?”

  “Eat,” he said. “And I’ll explain.

  He hadn’t touched his own food, but I didn’t point that out. I took a bite of my burger and watched him expectantly.

  Hunter stared back at me, like he was trying to decide where to start, and then shook his head. He ran a hand through his dark hair, leaned over the table with his arms crossed, and sighed.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected him to say, but it wasn’t this: “Sky, there’s something wrong with your powers.”

  “What?” I sat up straighter.

  “Something happened when we. . . .” He glanced away, searching for words.

  “When we screwed?”

  His eyes met mine despite the sudden flush in his cheeks. “Yeah, that.”

  Ha. I wouldn’t have taken him to be a prude.

  His words filtered through to me slowly, and I frowned at the tabletop.

  When we had sex? How could that affect my powers? He sat across from me as if we were just two normal people out on a date, or a couple of friends out for a junk food fix. Except we were actually two strangers who were never supposed to meet again, and he’d come barging back into my life to tell me our weird hookup had just got even freakier, if that was possible.

  But if something was wrong with my powers, did that explain the vision I’d had? The reason the Hound had come after me?

  I wished so much of this wasn’t guesswork. My upbringing had become even more of a damn handicap.

  “What exactly happened?” I asked. He looked like he would rather be having any other conversation than this one, but I wasn’t going to let it go. “Out with it.”

  “Sometimes when two Charmers engage like that, physically, or emotionally, or both—it opens a window of opportunity for their powers to. . .change.” He said. “That’s what happened to you. That’s why we need to go back to my hotel room.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He actually rolled his eyes, and for the first time since he’d saved me, I sensed that Hunter was angry at me. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not looking for a repeat of last night. I don’t do runaways.”

  The absence of a lie stung more than the venom in his words.

  “And I don’t do anything more.” I snapped. He looked surprised as I was at the bitterness in my voice. But I didn’t offer an explanation.

  I shoved to my feet, pushing my chair back. I was ready to leave.

  “I have something there that could cure you. Then I’ll be out of your hair, which is pretty obviously what you want,” he said, following my lead. He tossed everything onto the tray and lifted it off the table before he trailed after me.

  I just wanted to sleep, now. In my own bed or on Riley’s couch, I frankly didn’t care. I hadn’t meant to meet him again, and I was getting more agitated by the minute. Not only had I needed him to rescue me like some hapless dunce, but he had the nerve to be angry at me—he’d almost gotten me killed, what did he expect?

  Not only was I not in the market for a boyfriend, but I sure as hell wasn’t ready to delve into the sea of problems he seemed to be drowning in.

  I would rather stay on the raft of normalcy I’d built myself. It might be lonely, but at least it was safe and steady. Predictable.

  Under my control.

  He disposed of our tray and met me at the door. “Let’s make this quick,” I said as coldly as I could. Hunter didn’t glance in my direction. He brushed past me, out the automatic glass doors, leaving me to follow in his wake.

  I paused before I followed him, trying to hold onto the last scraps of the light in the restaurant behind me before I stepped back out into the dark.

  EIGHT

  CAPTURED

  I was used to fighting with people. The sting of words you couldn’t take back, rage rolling around in my chest, the hollowness beneath my ribs, the slam of a heavy door as someone storms away. The rush of it.

  When Riley and I got into arguments we would go days—weeks even—without talking, giving each other the cold shoulder for as long as we could manage. And it never hurt with her like this did. Because I knew we would make up. I didn’t think I was going to be making up with Hunter anytime soon, and as I started to realize how little I knew about him, my curiosity began to outweigh my anger. We would part ways and there would always be this angry, off-kilter feel to our knowing each other.

  Someday, in my old age, would I sit and wonder where this boy was? Would I wish we hadn’t left things in anger? I thought about that kind of thing a lot with people.

  The girl at the checkout counter of a takeout place, the taxi driver who talks about his kids and what they’re studying in school, the guy sitting in the corner at a party, staring at nothing—what happens to them, when they’re not in front of you anymore? Where do they go? What will they do?

  Real life doesn’t give you closure, aging and death, they take that away from us. It’s just another part of the people we meet that they steal, a part that you can’t capture in photos or seal away inside a coffin. The answers, they never come back. They’re just gone.

  But damn it, he made me wonder. He wasn’t just a guy: he was a way into a world of people like me. People I hadn’t ever believed existed.

  The knowledge he had, I wanted to soak up as much of it as I could in the short time we would be together. And he was too mad at me to talk.

  I was turning into Riley, for God’s sake.

  By the time I stepped across the threshold of his hotel room for the second time, the two of us had barely said anything to each other.

  I inhaled the smell of his cologne and the air freshener, let my gaze drift over the state o
f things. The room was messier than it had been last night, dirty glasses lined up against the side of the sink, the faucet still dripping. A Chinese takeout cartoon sat open on the table, beef and broccoli spilling out onto the oak surface. Beside it were a paper coffee cup and an opened can of Red Bull. Someone was looking for a boost.

  And the sheets where we’d moved with each other, our bodies warm and desperate, fitting together like we were custom made to match, were still tangled. An familiar thirst fogged my mind. I looked away from the bed.

  “So,” I said, walking over and taking a seat at the table. “What’s wrong with my powers?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “So you said. Where’s this cure?”

  I had no idea what a cure for glitchy magikal powers looked like—or what it would do to me—but if it meant all of this would just stop happening and go away, it would be worth it.

  I was cool with being a late bloomer, magik-wise. I was cool with only having one power, or one working one. I really wasn’t looking for a level-up.

  I wanted to go back home, crawl into bed, and sleep for a million hours. When I woke up I could lock myself in my room for two days, exist on air and water and art. I could already feel the rough texture of the canvas underneath my hands. A lot of things in my life made me feel heavy, and art was one of the few that made me feel light. I held onto that fraction of peacefulness. It brought me more calm than anything else.

  Hunter stood just inside the door, leaving it open behind him. Maybe this would be faster than I thought.

  Our eyes met, and a look passed over his—not the annoyance from earlier, but a sort of weariness. “There isn’t one.”

  “What?”

  “Well, there is. I don’t have it yet.” He took a single step closer. “I didn’t tell you everything about the change in your powers before, because it isn’t just your powers. It’s mine too. It’s both of them, together.

  “Different Charmer’s powers can interact with each other in strange ways. . .last night, when we started to kiss, I should have realized what was happening—what we were feeling. But it was all so. . . .” He shook his head. “It’s rare—rare as in it happens once in a lifetime, and only once every other lifetime, at that. Basically, it’s like a one in a million chance.”

  I felt irritation snap against my calm, and forced myself not to snap again. “Hunter, elaborate. You keep talking about all this like I’m supposed to know about it. I’m not holding a fucking Charmer field guide, am I?”

  “I’m talking about the bond between us.” He said.

  I couldn’t help it: I burst out laughing.

  He froze at the sharp sound—eyes widened, mouth parted. His expression just made me laugh harder.

  “I’m sorry!” I insisted. It didn’t help that I was holding onto my ribs and trying not to fall over. “It’s just—it’s too much—”

  As he watched me, his face split into a grin, and he shook his head. “This really is serious, you imbecile.”

  “Imbecile?”

  He crossed his arms. “Call ‘em like I see ‘em. Now would you please listen?”

  “I am,” I assured, as my laughter died down.

  “I don’t mean an emotional bond,” he clarified. “Or at least, not entirely. A bond can form between two Charmers who connect, physically or spiritually—”

  “Spiritually?”

  He must have heard the skepticism in my voice, because he shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I know. It’s all general knowledge, I’m no expert. Anyway, once formed the bond acts like a go-between, and a link. The two Charmers can access their bonded partner’s abilities—” was that what had happened with my phone? “—heal each other, and more. The Bond basically makes you stronger, and physically linked. You start to feel each others emotions, sense each others thoughts and locations. . .and once it settles, it’s for life.” For life? I flashed him a look.

  He was going to be reading my mind, for life? Oh, hell no.

  “It can only be broken while it’s still forming, like ours.”

  “Why the hell wouldn’t you lead with that? Asshole!” I stood only to walk over and sit on the edge of the bed, gesturing around the room. “If we’re trying to sever the bond then why are we back here, if you don’t have the cure?”

  For the millionth time in a row, Hunter looked like there was something he wasn’t telling me. His brow furrowed, and he bit the inside of his cheek, debating.

  Like he wanted to spit it out and the words just weren’t coming. Like he wasn’t sure if he could trust me to keep them.

  I watched his eyes go all closed off, like he was about to give me one of his gruff, non-answer replies and walk away, and my earlier anger with him slammed back into place with a vengeance. Of course, he had his own reasons not to trust me—whatever he was dealing with, those Charmers who wanted him dead, who sent Hounds to track him down, it was clear the guy had seen some rough times.

  But if he expected me to follow him around, lead me through this world of shadows and power, then he had to start giving me some answers.

  I felt like I was stumbling through the dark in a room full of nails, something ready to cut into me with each step, no way for me to know the obstacle was there until it was drawing blood.

  “Just say it.”

  He looked alarmed. “Say what?”

  I shook my head. “You’re doing that thing again, where you look at me like you want to say something, and then just don’t.”

  “You see more than you let on.”

  Which would only be alarming to somebody who had things to hide.

  “I’d rather hear than see, but you won’t tell me anything.” I was tired of him towering over me, so I stood up—except of course, I still only came up to just below his shoulders. He could use my head to rest his chin. “So what is it?”

  “Fine. You want the total truth? I need you to stay here.” He said. “I need you to wait for me to go and find a way to break a bond while you’re here, where I know you’re safe.”

  “You mean you don’t even know how you’re going to fix this yet?”

  “I have some ideas,” he insisted. He shook his head, ran a hand over his prickly stubble. “It’s just going to take some time.”

  “As in?”

  His expression turned grim. “A day or two, maybe?”

  A day or two. He wanted me to hang out in his hotel room for a day or two while he went around trying to find a cure for something that would become permanent if we didn’t get rid of it fast enough. I looked around the room—at all the space I would pace through, all the empty air I would be able to fill up with worry in the time it took him to find a way to break this stupid bond thing, and said, “I’m coming with you.”

  Anxiety looks like empty space and time to spare.

  “No. I work better alone.”

  “So do I, so don’t get in my way.” I stood and started for the door, but Hunter was in front of me in seconds. He pressed his fist against my stomach, knuckles digging into my skin.

  “I can’t be trying to protect you while we’re out there,” he explained. “I can’t spend all my time looking over my shoulder to make sure you haven’t been attacked or had some sort of breakdown from, I don’t know, magikal culture shock, or something. I’ve put extra wards up, and you’ll be safe and sound until I can break the bond.”

  Wow. Good to know he thought so highly of me.

  “That’s nice,” I told him, “but how are you going to keep me here? You can’t make me stay.”

  As soon as I saw the wicked grin he flashed I knew I shouldn’t have asked. “Oh,” he said. “I can make you do all sorts of things.”

  “Buzz off.”

  “Boring,” he said, but his tone changed, “and besides, wards can keep you in, just as easily as they keep other things out.”

  I shoved away the heat that filled me under his stare, that playful grin.

  I didn’t have time to be horny bitch right now—
I had to be angry bitch, if I wanted to get out of here.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Darkness filled his gaze. “You’re not. You would get yourself killed.”

  “I’m about to kill you, if you try to stop me from walking out that door.”

  We stared at each other, eyes steel on steel, wills clashing.

  He spread his arms wide. “Go ahead and try, then.” He nodded in the direction of the door and said, “Really.”