Blood Magic (Blood Magic Series Book 1)

by Ann Atkins

  “Yeah, Principal Wyatt would probably have called an exorcist … or peed his pants—maybe both,” he said with a smile playing at the corners of his lips.

  “Are you sure I don’t need one?” I asked, playfully this time.

  “I don’t know. Let me see if you’ve sprouted a tail yet,” he quipped, reaching behind me.

  “Stop it,” I said, laughing. “And tell me about my other powers.”

  “I kind of don’t want to ruin this moment,” he replied. “I don’t want that smile to leave your pretty face,” he said, his thumb tracing my lips.

  “I’m on a freak-out vacay for the rest of the evening; I promise.”

  “I’m holding you to that,” he replied.

  “Understood.”

  “Okay. Your powers are elemental, meaning you control the elements: earth, air, water, and fire. You used the last three of those in the creation of that storm. These powers come from four elementals, and each one controls a different element.”

  “What are elementals?”

  “They appear human, but can also turn into spirit form. Gnomes control the earth, Slyphs control the wind, Undines control water, and Salamanders control fire.”

  “I’ve heard of Gnomes, obviously, but the other three, I have no clue!” All of this was really making my head hurt!

  “Slyphs appear as beautiful, slender women and live in the mountains, communing with nature. Undines are stunning water creatures, kind of like a mermaid, and they can also assume human form, and Salamanders are spirits of fire.”

  “Wow. Being stunningly beautiful definitely wouldn’t suck,” I sighed.

  “Allison … you are,” he said, as he rubbed my honey blond hair between his fingers and stared into my dark brown eyes.

  And when he looked at me that way, I really did feel beautiful. He said so much more with his eyes than mere words could ever have expressed. And I wanted so badly for him to belong to me that it hurt.

  “Mason,” I sighed, looking up at him with my heart in my eyes.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Nothing,” I said, “I just really like the way your name feels on my lips.”

  “I like the way it sounds on your lips too,” he whispered, his eyes darkening from sea green to emerald.

  “Are we done talking about my screwed up family tree for a while?”

  “So done,” he answered in a gravelly voice.

  “Good,” I replied as I lay back on the couch and grabbed the front of his black shirt, pulling him down with me.

  His lips immediately entangled with mine; one hand fisted in my hair, and the other was planted firmly on my hip. The hard contour of his body was pressed against the soft curves of my own, and it was exhilarating! When his lips finally left mine, they traced their way down my neck to my collarbone, before traveling back up to rest against my ear, and his hot breath made me shiver, as he whispered, “You are beautiful, so beautiful that I have to remember how to breathe every time I look at you.”

  My breath stopped and my heart pounded as I looked up at him. Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before, and if they had, I wouldn’t have believed them, but he made me believe every single word.

  “Then maybe you should close your eyes, and I’ll help you with the whole breathing thing,” I said, as I wound my arms around his neck, and pressed my lips against his, once again.

  He pulled me more firmly against him, but it still felt too far away. And for a moment, my mind flashed back to Joshua and Annabelle—when they’d almost made love—making me wonder what it would feel like if we were skin to skin. Without thinking, I reached for the bottom of his shirt and tried to pull it over his head. He helped me remove it and tossed it to the floor. I ran my hands over his torso and down his muscled arms, and then I leaned up to kiss his bare chest.

  He sucked in his breath and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they had grown even darker—like the forest at midnight. He leaned forward and pulled one of the straps of my lavender tank top down, and began kissing my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around him and dug my nails into his back.

  He raised his head and just stared at me for a moment, before saying, “You’re all I’ve thought about since that night at the hospital. You occupy my every waking thought, and when I close my eyes, you slip, seamlessly, into my dreams. You’re everywhere.”

  “Maybe I’ve cast some kind of spell on you,” I said, caressing his cheek.

  “Well, if you have, please don’t ever undo it; I think I might like to stick around for the next couple hundred years or so,” he replied with a sweet smile.

  “I’m willing to consider it, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be dead by then,” I replied.

  He looked astonished for a moment before replying, “Allison you’re made of pretty powerful stuff, and vampires don’t have to age if they don’t want to, so you’ll be around for a long time. I thought you knew.”

  “I pretty much only know what you tell me, Mason, and I’m pretty sure I would’ve remembered something like that!”

  “Okay, Allie, calm down. Remember what you said about taking a freak-out vacay?”

  “I realize that I probably sound like an idiot for freaking out over the fact that I’m practically immortal, but that’s a pretty huge piece of information; I feel like a new bomb is dropped on me every few minutes!”

  “I wish I could tell you that it will get better, that you’ve heard the last life-changing truth about yourself, but there is so much that you still don’t know, and it’s only as good or bad as you let it be. You haven’t lost or gained anything; it’s always been here inside you,” he said, placing his hand over my heart. “The only difference is that now you know about it.”

  “Well, according to you, I have several lifetimes to get used to the idea, but I don’t have to get used to it right now, and I’m not going to, so I’ll take a rain check on this discussion, because there are so much better things to focus on,” I told him, pulling my shirt over my head and throwing it on the floor to lie beside his.

  “I agree,” he said, smiling down at me. “So, why don’t you go put your swimsuit on and we’ll hit the pool.”

  “But … I thought we—”

  “We don’t have to rush, Allie,” he assured me. “Time is on our side.”

  “I knew you were only using me for my pool,” I joked.

  “Yeah, I just hope there aren’t any sharks in there,” he teased.

  My mouth fell open. “How do you know about that? You weren’t even here!”

  “Cassie and I texted all through calculus today, and she told me everything. Do you have any idea how boring that class is?”

  “Yes, that’s why I’m not taking it.”

  “Smart girl! Now, go put on your teeny-tiny bikini before I strip you and put it on you myself,” he threatened.

  “As far as threats go, that one is pretty lame. It’s usually better to threaten someone with something they don’t want!” I said with a smile.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied as I grabbed my pink camouflage bikini and headed for the bathroom to change.

  Matt always keeps spare swim trunks at my house, so I dug out a dark blue pair for Mason, and we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and lying by the pool.

  We came inside just before dark to raid the kitchen, and carried two big bowls of ice cream up to my room to watch Big Brother on my big-screen TV.

  We went to the game room after that and played some pool and air hockey; he won both games, and although I’m not quite sure how, I’m almost positive that he cheated.

  When night finally fell, we opened the French doors to the balcony, and climbed in the hot tub, beneath a black velvet blanket of stars. It was still pretty warm outside though, so we didn’t stay very long.

  We both took a shower after that—separately of course—to wash the chlorine out of our hair. I put on my Hello Kitty pajamas and found an old pair of Matt’s pajama bottoms for him.

  I convinc
ed him to lie down with me for a little while before I drove him home, so we both crawled under the sheets and snuggled close together, and it wasn’t long before we both fell asleep.

  The last time I’d slept in his arms had been so exquisitely peaceful, no nightmares at all, but tonight I wasn’t so lucky. It had started off so beautifully, but when I woke up screaming later that night, all I remembered was the horror, and all I felt was revulsion.

  Chapter Eleven

  Attacked

  Dreams can be very fickle and misleading, often transporting you to somewhere bright and beautiful, then quickly changing directions, dropping you into a world of darkness and fear.

  I was lying in a beautiful field of Sunflowers next to a dusty country road. The hot summer sun beat down, fiercely, upon me from an azure, blue sky. There was a light breeze ruffling my hair, causing it to tickle my nose, and the wind rippling through the tall blades of grass, made it look like a green ocean.

  I was wearing cutoff jean shorts and a yellow bikini top. Mason was lying right beside me wearing nothing but blue jeans. My head was resting on his bare chest, and he used one finger to tilt my chin up so he could kiss me. I smiled up into his green eyes, but I didn’t say anything. The moment was too perfect to ruin with words. The birds were singing in nearby trees and butterflies danced above my head. It was almost Utopian.

  He picked a flower and gently brushed the petals against my cheek. It traveled down my neck, across my bare belly, and down my legs, before eventually reaching the bottoms of my feet.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing and squirming away. It was halfway between a good feeling and a tickling sensation. It was exquisite torture, but it finally became more than I could bear, and I busted out laughing and tried to crawl away. But Mason would not let me escape so easily.

  He grabbed my ankle, easily thwarting my attempt to run away, but I didn’t mind; I’d have to be a fool to really want to get away from him. He blanketed my body with his own and sunk both of his hands into my hair. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, smiling.

  “Nowhere,” I answered as I wrapped my arms and legs around him, flipping him onto his back, and laughing at the astonished expression on his face. “What’s the matter, tough guy? Haven’t you ever been pinned by a girl before?” I asked innocently.

  “I can’t say that I have … but, then again, I can’t say that I really mind it either,” he quipped, reaching up to tangle his fingers in my hair once again.

  “So being bested by a girl doesn’t bother you?”

  “No. I am at your mercy, but please don’t be gentle,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

  I smiled and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I’m starting to think that you are a very bad boy, Mason Adams,” I told him, before gently nipping his earlobe with my teeth.

  “What about you, Allie? Are you a bad girl?” he asked playfully.

  “Yes,” I sighed, “I’m afraid that I am,” I replied and stuck a piece of ice from a cooler we had brought with us down his pants.

  I immediately jumped up and began to run, but since he had that whole preternatural speed thing going for him, he caught me pretty quickly. He picked me up and started walking towards a small duck pond across the field. I started squirming, trying to get away, which only made him laugh, so I employed a different tactic; I wrapped my arms as tightly around him as I could and refused to let go.

  “Sorry, sweetheart, but that really isn’t going to help you either,” he said smugly.

  “Why not? You can’t throw me in if I won’t let go,” I said cheekily.

  “You’re right,” he replied, “but I can do this.” And then he ran towards the pond and jumped in with me in his arms.

  I came up spluttering and trying to wipe my hair from my face and was greeted by a chorus of angry ducks, quacking and flapping their wings. “I really hope they attack you,” I said, only halfway joking.

  “Now, that isn’t very nice,” he said, swimming closer and wrapping his arms around me.

  “I mean it!” I said, glaring at him.

  “No you don’t,” he told me, and before I knew what he intended to do his lips were on mine, and I forgot that I was in a pond full of angry ducks; I forgot how to breathe; I just about forgot my own name.

  He swam towards the bank, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him as he carried me out of the water. We both dried off with a towel and pulled a blanket out of the car to lie down on. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face and the simple pleasure of spending the day with Mason.

  Everything was so right until it suddenly felt so wrong. A tingle of apprehension crawled up my spine, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. There was a distinct chill in the air where before there had been only warmth, and I could actually feel the light slipping from the sky as I was plunged into darkness.

  I was afraid to open my eyes, so I squeezed them shut as tightly as I could and prayed that it was just my imagination. I reached out my hand, searching for Mason, but all I found was emptiness.

  I gasped and sat bolt upright as my eyes searched, frantically, for any sign of him, but I could barely see anything at all. I whispered his name a couple of times, but silence was the only reply.

  I was surrounded by blackness so thick that I felt like I was suffocating. There were no stars, no moon, no light of any kind at all, and I wrapped my arms around myself and began to shake.

  A twig snapping nearby echoed like a gunshot and had my heart racing out of control. I looked around wildly, but my vision was not strong enough to penetrate the ebony fist of night that held me in its grasp.

  I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing, but first I had to do something about this darkness. I concentrated as hard as I could on manifesting the sunny day that had been stolen from me, but it was no use. I don’t know how much time had passed, but it clearly wasn’t going to work. And I was shocked to feel a gentle hum running through my body like static electricity. Apparently, Mason wasn’t the only one who could sense magic, and whatever dark magic this was, was clearly stronger than mine.

  Whoever was doing this clearly wanted it to remain night … but if that was the case, maybe I could add to the illusion of night instead of trying to counteract it.

  I concentrated as hard as I could on a bright, neon moon and glowing stars, but that didn’t work either, at least not the first time. I made multiple attempts to summon my celestial flashlights, but I was beginning to weaken and about to give up, when they suddenly popped into the sky.

  I smiled—pleased with my success—until I noticed my surroundings. I realized I was in a spooky forest filled with trees devoid of leaves and gnarled branches that looked like they were about to reach out and grab me. Several crows watched me from those trees with glowing eyes. There was a graveyard to my left with weeds growing up around the crumbling headstones. And a run-down white house with drooping black shutters was to my right.

  I slowly pushed myself to my feet and began to look around. A creepy mist covered the ground and rolled across my feet, and I almost looked like I was floating.

  I took a few steps toward the graveyard because, strangely, it freaked me out a lot less than that house. And as I moved closer, I noticed lots of black shapes moving around under the mist, then one of them jumped up onto a crumbling heap of stone and trained its tiny, beady, red eyes on me. It was a huge rat with a very long tail, and I screamed and stumbled backwards.

  Apparently, my cry of alarm had been a call to arms, because dozens of them crept through the mist and advanced towards me. I tried to run into the woods, but a plethora of crows swooped over my head, going into full-on attack mode. There was a gravel road that went behind the house, and I ran as hard as I could in that direction, but the harder I ran, the further away the road got. It was kind of like trying to climb a staircase that stretches into infinity.

  The only destination that seemed accessible to me was that eerie house. Clearly, someo
ne wanted me to go in, but that only made me more determined not to—because I was pretty certain that what awaited me within its walls was way worse than what I was facing now.

  And then I heard something that not only made my blood run cold, but caused it to freeze in my veins.

  “Allison, help me!” someone yelled in a panicked voice, and that voice belonged to Mason. And—of course—it was coming from inside that freakin’ house!

  I didn’t hesitate for a second, running straight for the house, and flinging open the door. I took a couple of steps inside, and the door slammed shut behind me. I gasped, whirling around and yanking on the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. Whatever had let me in, had no intention of letting me back out.

  I turned around, with my back pressed against the door, and surveyed my surroundings. I was standing in a room with a couch that had large holes torn in the fabric and a layer of dust so thick that it was impossible to tell what the original color had been. There were several rickety-looking wooden chairs in the room, and the wooden floor was splintered and cracked, with boards sticking up all over the place. Spider webs adorned almost every available surface, and all of the windows were busted out.

  “Allie, I need you,” the voice called once again, and it was coming from upstairs. I slowly walked toward the stairway and placed my hand on the wobbly railing; the stairs looked to be in even worse shape than the rest of the floor. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before I, very carefully, started to climb the stairs. I walked through countless spider webs and almost lost my balance several times, trying to brush them off of me. My breath caught at every creak and groan, but I finally made it upstairs in one piece.

  There was only one door open in the upstairs hallway, so I figured I would start there. I was pretty certain that it was a trap, but if there was even the smallest chance that Mason was actually in here, and he needed me; I would not leave him.

  I walked to the door and looked in. I was not surprised to find more of the same: dust, cobwebs, broken windows, and splintered floors. The only piece of furniture in this room was a large bed with a dusty, red, moth-eaten bedspread.