When the first waves of magic broke over her, she thought she’d drifted off into a delightful dream. She floated in a sea of energy, riding its swells, and every cell of her body tingled. She felt stronger, but she also felt light-headed. Then she realized her constant low-grade headache was gone, and the light-headedness was from being free of pain for the first time in several years. She felt like dancing, or jumping for joy.
Or maybe fucking. At least touching and being touched. She felt so damn good she might fly out of her skin without the grounding of touch.
She couldn’t keep her hands from gliding over her body, enjoying the electric sensations of skin on skin. She rarely touched herself after she’d figured out that coming provoked seizures, but the wonderful liquid energy surrounding her made it impossible to resist.
She’d be safe here. She was shielded, and the house was shielded, and even if a vision tried to break in, she knew how to fight off visions now.
And wasn’t this part of freedom, to learn to enjoy her own body? To learn a little about sexuality without coercion involved?
As she did, she imagined Deck or Kyle touching her. No, Deck and Kyle together. Go for broke—it’s a fantasy.
Her nipples strained. Her pussy ached with arousal. She hadn’t even touched it but it felt like someone was. She rode wave after wave of energy, and it felt how she imagined surfing must feel and how she imagined sex with Kyle or Deck would feel, passionate yet caring. Her skin tingled. The room spun, or she spun in the room—she refused to believe it was her damaged brain having its way with her.
Her body arched, and as an orgasm claimed her, hard and unexpected and wonderful, she saw blue and red waves waft her up, caress her, break over her.
Which brought her down from the high of orgasm faster than the proverbial cold shower or thinking about Shaw.
She’d seen colors and she hadn’t been having a vision.
Her optic nerves had been completely dead for three years. Since early childhood, she hadn’t been able to see in the way most people understood it, though until the nerves finally died, she’d been aware of light.
For the past few years, even her dreams had been made up of sound, smell and touch, though occasionally a vision would feed an image directly into her brain—usually a horrifying one or a wash of blood.
And she’d just seen red and blue, a happy, vibrant red that might be the same basic color as blood, but couldn’t feel more different.
She hoped that everything she’d experienced, including the orgasm, was some Donovan witchery gone astray and carrying her with it.
Because, otherwise, she was hallucinating. Her brain was sending false signals, which might mean she was getting sicker. Might die before she’d had a chance to live in freedom.
Tears filled her useless eyes.
But another wave buoyed her up, and this time she could tell it was magic because the euphoria wasn’t so mixed up with lust. It felt like Garrett’s bits of healing magic, only a thousand times better. Desire still rode along with it, but wasn’t as distracting as before, now that she’d come.
It was magic, and it let her see red and blue, and even though she still couldn’t see anything else—including the hand she waved in front of her eyes just in case the Donovans were that good and she was experiencing a miraculous recovery—she’d seen something and that was more than she’d ever hoped to do.
And she’d come without having a vision, or at least without being thrust into someone else’s pain and terror. Maybe she’d been thrust into someone else’s love life. That would explain the arousal, the orgasm and maybe even the colors. For all she knew, sighted witches always saw red and blue when they came. But if she’d been an accidental voyeur, she’d take that over her usual visions any day.
Chapter Fourteen
Meaghan shivered in the damp, wild wind, despite the sweatshirt, windbreaker and knit hat Roslyn had found for her. Misty spray drove into her face, fine yet drenching. Last night’s storm had passed, and she felt weak sunshine on her face. Close to the house, it felt warm and she’d laughed when Roslyn insisted on bundling her up. After all, it was summer, and when they’d hugged her hello, she’d realized Deck and Kyle were wearing shorts and tee-shirts, Kyle’s short-sleeved.
But once Deck and Kyle led her over the dunes down to the beach, the wind whipped chill off the crashing ocean. It felt good. It felt primal and somehow sexy, whipping her hair around, touching her skin even through layers of clothing, connecting her to the power of the water. But it was decidedly cool.
Deck said, “Take off your sneakers and socks. It’ll help you ground.”
Meaghan managed to toe one sneaker off and then stood on one leg like a flamingo, trying to keep her balance as she pulled the sock off. She wanted them to stay as dry as possible. All her clothing was borrowed from various Donovans and she didn’t want to impose by needing fresh stuff more than once a day.
She started to wobble but a pair of arms surrounded her from behind. Kyle, she thought. The body she was suddenly leaning against was much stronger than her own, but not as bulky as Deck’s, the hands hotter and harder, but smaller. “Don’t want you falling,” Kyle whispered. “From what Deck’s told me about the early stages of learning magic, we’re all likely to end up wet and bruised, but you might as well start out in one piece.”
The way Kyle said “wet and bruised” made it sound like fun.
She supposed she ought to work on getting her sock off, but she couldn’t resist taking a few seconds to enjoy Kyle against her. Dressed as he was, there was a lot of him to enjoy.
After that surge of magic last night, if it wasn’t just a vivid dream brought on by all the power bounding around Donovan’s Cove and the everyday magic of flirting with two sexy men, her body felt keyed up, full of energy that was ready to bubble out as lust, joy or anything else she needed. Magic, she hoped.
At first she tried to fight her arousal. Then she decided she didn’t need to. They obviously weren’t going to drop everything and have sex on the beach, especially not with Kyle’s boyfriend, or fuck buddy or whatever they were to each other, right there. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy how good Kyle’s body felt pressed against hers, or wonder what it might be like to have sex with someone who seemed to genuinely like her.
Or how Deck might get involved.
Which she’d gotten as far as thinking when Deck drew off her sock. He cradled her foot for a second in both huge hands, then set the now-bare foot down. The sand was cold and wet under her bare foot, but it felt surprisingly good, like positive energy flowed from the sand into her sole and up her leg to fill her body.
Deck’s hands were still on her, one on the top of her bare foot, the other on her calf, and energy flowed from his hands too. It reminded her of what she felt last night, waves of energy breaking over her. She wasn’t seeing colors, but the energy felt red and blue. She wasn’t sure if that made any sense, but maybe to a trained witch, it would.
Then he moved his hands. “Left foot, Meaghan.” His voice rasped over her skin. She’d have no reason not to obey him, other than being playful, and while she suspected he’d normally like playfulness, seeing he was dating an otter, this lesson in magic felt too solemn for that. And besides, she wasn’t good at playfulness, though she hoped that if her body granted her enough time, she’d learn.
Even if she’d wanted to kick sand at him or dance away, she couldn’t have at the moment. Something about his voice made it impossible, and she didn’t think he was using magic. She’d been raised, to the extent she’d been raised, by a sorcerer and then seduced by him. She knew all about the magic of the word and the will, the magic of compulsion.
This was a more subtle magic, she sensed, as she obediently let Deck unlace her left sneaker. A magic you didn’t need to be a witch to do, but did need to be as aware of your body and your sexuality as Deck seemed to be. The �
�magic” a person would use to convince his lover to do exactly what she wanted to do anyway.
As Deck’s hands—cooler than Kyle’s, and so big they cradled her foot easily—worked her sneaker and sock off, Meaghan wondered why she knew this about Deck. Wondered at what kind of a life he had that he could use that voice so effortlessly. Wondered at how she recognized that erotic command and responded to it when all her experiences with “erotic command” were, in retrospect, somewhere between creepy and horrifying.
Too soon, both her feet were bare and in cold sand. Deck stood up again and Kyle moved away. “I’m putting your shoes farther from the water,” Deck said nonchalantly. “The tide’s going out, but since we’ll be playing with water magic, there may be a few stray waves. Want to follow along so you know where they are?”
No erotic burr in his voice now, and when he offered her his arm, it seemed friendly and caring, the kind of thing all the Donovans, including the older children, had done from time to time as she learned her way around the estate. A thrill still zinged through her as she set her hand on his arm. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, soft and fitted and accentuating his hard muscles. He moved fluidly, she could tell even in the few steps they took together. Earth and water, rooted and fluid. Green and blue mingled with that brilliant red that wasn’t blood…
She tore her hand away with a shriek as if she’d been burned and curled in on herself, cradling the hand that had been touching Deck against her chest.
Deck’s arms were around her before another wave broke, and Kyle was there not long after, embracing her from behind so she was sandwiched between two male bodies.
They were offering comfort, but it didn’t help. The colors were still there and now she saw others as well, a darker blue swirled with gray and a deeper brown. And she wasn’t feeling magic, so it was just weird.
“What’s wrong?” The men spoke simultaneously, eerily precise.
The colors shifted to deeper shades.
“Colors,” she managed to say. “No. It’s too soon.”
“Too soon for what?” Deck slipped away from her as he said the words, and as he did the colors dimmed, but came back stronger as soon as he returned. This time he was without his shirt, and when his bare arms pulled her against his broad bare chest, the colors became more vivid.
“Too soon to lose it. Too soon to die.” She was dizzy with fear, and the smell of the ocean was stronger. Ironically, through her terror her clit throbbed and she was aware of Deck’s skin naked to her touch, reminding her of how much she had to lose before she’d ever found it.
Through a haze of colors the men led her a few steps and helped her sit down on a driftwood log—on Deck’s shirt, she quickly realized. “Talk to us,” Kyle crooned. “What’s going on?”
“I’m seeing colors.”
“That’s great! I thought you looked different today,” Deck said. “Healthier. Maybe getting rid of that magic block is curing other things.”
“No. It’s bad. It has to be bad.” She tried to let her tone of voice convey how utterly terrifying it was to be able to see when she shouldn’t be able to, because she wasn’t sure she could explain it in a way they’d understand. “Last night I experienced what I thought was a wave of magic and suddenly I saw colors. Nothing else, just blue and red. I was scared, but it felt positive, so I figured I was catching the edge of someone else’s spell. My optic nerves are dead, though. I get no input from my eyes. And it just happened again. Which means something is happening in my brain. Like the neurological problem is getting worse.”
Deck swore. It wasn’t in English, but she knew foul language when she heard it.
“Calm down, my witchy darlings,” Kyle said, his voice serious, but serene. “I think I can explain this.” Kyle hugged her tighter, surrounding her with dark blue and gray blue and brown. “No one sees with their eyes, exactly. The brain sees using the input the eyes collect. They’ve got a tool now that a blind person can use to signal to the vision center of the brain through sensors placed on the tongue. It’s imprecise, not to mention awkward, so it’s not too useful yet, but it’s cool science that could be the start of something big for visually impaired people.”
“I don’t see any electrodes on her tongue, med-school boy, so put it in short, simple words even a witch can understand.”
It must be a private joke between the two men, because even under the circumstances, Kyle laughed. “Sorry about that. I’m fascinated by neuroscience and kept reading anything I could get my paws on after I had to drop out of school. The point is, I think magic is stimulating her visual cortex. But I don’t know the how or why of it because I don’t know enough about magic. Would it be possible?”
Meaghan let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “That makes sense. Sometimes during seizures, when I’m having a vision, it really is a vision—I see something instead of just hearing and knowing.” She shrugged. “Usually blood or a hint of something hideous, but it’s something, an image the magic sends directly to my brain. But this is different. It’s just colors.”
“What colors?” Deck hesitated for a second, then asked, “That is, if you know…”
“I started having problems with my eyes when I was tiny, but I had some vision until I was ten, and saw light until a few years ago. It took me a bit to remember the names, but I did recognize them. Last night it was mostly blue—kind of green blue—and red. A happy red, if that makes sense, not a bloody red. Just now it was blue again, and red, only it was more shades of blue, and…I think it’s brown, only again it’s a happy brown, like I remember chocolate. Dark chocolate, and a different shade of brown that’s lighter and warmer. And a streak of…I think it’s silver. Spiky silver.”
Deck laughed and the laughter wrapped her up and held her even closer than the men were. “Demons and devas, that’s cool! You’re seeing our auras. I wouldn’t have known how without you, Kyle, but those are definitely the right colors.”
“Is that good?” Meaghan asked gingerly. It sounded good, from Deck’s tone of voice, but she was massively confused.
“It’s not bad, at least.” Deck kissed the top of her head, and she saw more waves of blue green streaked with red and brown, spiked with silver. “Last night, Kyle and I…well, let’s just say I accidentally raised more power than I’d meant to. I shunted it your way, hoping to bolster your shields, maybe do a bit of healing. I think that’s what you felt.”
Meaghan put together Deck’s little hedge and the wonderful erotic edge to the waves of magic she’d experienced. Her cheeks flamed, recalling scenes from some of Becky’s books, imagining what lovers might do together to draw power without meaning to. She knew about red magic, sex magic. Sorcerers found it hard to understand, and sometimes Shaw vented at her. She buried her burning face in Deck’s shoulder, but not before he noticed.
He chuckled. “Gotta work on your shields, babe. If you felt us that much, I’d hate to know how it’ll affect you when Elissa and the guys get going. She’s the only witch I know who can use red magic offensively. Luckily her family’s in one of the guest cottages.”
“And by ‘hate to know’,” Kyle said drily, “he means ‘would love to know, up close and personal’.” He oofed, as if Deck had swatted him. “Okay, maybe that’s me. No offense, but it’s a nice image. You’re cute, and cute, turned-on women are fun.”
Bewildered, still seeing colors for the first time in over a decade, still overwhelmed with emotions and physical sensations she couldn’t comprehend, Meaghan turned from Deck to Kyle and back again. She couldn’t explain why she did it—even if the guys were right and she was seeing their auras, it wasn’t the same as seeing them. She always turned to Garrett when he spoke, though, and the compulsion to do so was even stronger with Kyle and Deck.
Nothing changed in what she was or wasn’t seeing, but she sensed their distinct presences as she turned from one to the other. So simil
ar and yet so different—Kyle, shadows rippling over brightness; Deck, a shiny surface that masked hidden depths. The visual metaphors came clearly to her even though she couldn’t have explained the references.
“Kyle,” Deck said, and his voice had an edge of authority, “I’m pulling back now but you keep holding her. Meaghan, let me know if what you see changes.”
She felt bereft when Deck slipped away from her, as if his body stood between her and peril. She blinked, realizing she’d been staring at the colors in her head until her eyes were dry. She reached for Deck, following his energy, the warmth of his body.
And then stopped because she understood something she hadn’t before. Even without Deck’s grounding presence, she felt more stable.
She still wanted him touching her but that was just because it felt good.
“The colors changed!” she exclaimed. “More of the bright, light brown, more gray blue and dark blue. The greener blue and dark chocolate and silver are gone. Still a lot of red, though.” She was amazed she managed to sound so calm. This wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened to her lately—it was hard to compete with almost drowning on dry land—but whatever was going on here was both scary and beautiful.
If, as the guys thought, it didn’t mean that she was losing ground physically but that she was actually seeing magic, that was worth almost anything.
“Yes!” She jumped at the sound of Deck’s exclamation. “That confirms it. Those are the colors of Kyle’s aura, and the blue green and dark brown and silver are mine—that’s water magic and earth magic, and the silver’s lightning. Magic must go straight to the brain and…whatever Kyle said...tickle your visual center.”
“And that lovely bright red?” She had a feeling she knew the answer, but she asked anyway.
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