Blood Magic (Blood Magic Series Book 1)

by Ann Atkins

  “But magic doesn’t—” I gasped as I remembered the glow that had infused me when we touched. “My hand! You gave me my magic back didn’t you? How did you do it?” I asked in wonder.

  “It isn’t technically your magic. It’s hers. It’s just borrowed. She is using me as a conduit to channel her magic into you, and since she is outside of the magical barricade—it works,” he explained.

  “So how do we know if that’s enough? Should I try something to see if it actually worked?”

  He smiled. “Oh, I already know it’s working.”

  “How?” I asked him.

  “Look at Ella,” he instructed.

  I glanced in her direction, and then did a double take. She was supposed to be the one holding this dream together, but she was asleep.

  “Am I … am I the one who’s doing this?”

  My only answer was a nod of his head.

  I jumped up and began to pace back and forth in the tiny cramped space. “But I don’t even know what I’m doing—or how! What if I lose control and you fade away? We have to wake Ella back up. We—”

  My hysterics were interrupted when his lips suddenly crashed into mine, and both of his hands fisted in my hair. My arms immediately wrapped around him, and he walked me backwards, until I was up against the wall. His body pressed against mine, and his lips trailed across my cheek until they rested near my ear. His breath against my ear caused goose bumps to race across my body and my breath to catch. And then he whispered, “If you think you’re losing control of the dream just focus on me. On my face, and the sound of my voice, and on the feel of my lips against yours. The magic is strong. All you have to do is trust it—and yourself. Let me be your anchor and you can stay with me as long as you want. Okay?”

  All I was able to do was nod, even though I knew he was wrong. I could spend the rest of this night with him, but it wouldn’t be enough, even eternity might not be long enough. We had been cheated out of our life together in Salem, and now it was happening all over again. He had waited three centuries for me to come back to him, and I honestly didn’t know how he’d done it. I’d had it easy compared to him. My spirit had lingered in this world, unaware of the passage of time, but he had actually had to live in it, knowing what he’d lost. I wasn’t the only one who’d lost my life back then, the only difference was that he’d still been breathing. My eyes burned and my throat tightened at the thought of us reliving our past. We needed a miracle.

  “It’s not enough,” I finally said.

  “What’s not enough?” he asked gently.

  “The magic. One person with borrowed magic won’t be enough to save us all, and I will not leave without you or Matt or Ella or Snowflake,” I said stubbornly, expecting him to argue, but he didn’t.

  “Don’t you think I know that? I would never expect you to save yourself and leave us behind. It just isn’t who you are, and I love that about you,” he said with a small smile.

  “So are you saying that it is enough?” I asked in complete confusion.

  “No, of course it isn’t … but it will be by tomorrow.”

  “What’s so special about tomorrow?”

  He grinned. “Tomorrow is your birthday.”

  “September the twenty-second?” I asked in surprise. I hadn’t realized that it was so close. “Well, that’s just great! In Salem, when I turned eighteen, I was hanged! Maybe this go ‘round I’ll get my head chopped off!”

  He was a mixture of excitement and frustration, and I wondered if his brief incarceration had knocked a few screws loose.

  “No! You’re missing the whole point, sweetheart. Do you remember what Sarah told you about your powers?”

  I was quiet for a few moments, and then the reality of what he was trying to say finally sank in. I gasped and my eyes widened and he smiled even bigger.

  “My powers will be stronger than ever when I turn eighteen,” I said excitedly. “Does that mean they’ll be strong enough to bust through his anti-magic mojo?”

  “I’m not sure if you’d be able to do it alone, but Sarah’s magic combined with yours will almost certainly shatter his defenses. Think of it as a very strong power surge; it’ll short-circuit the whole system!”

  “That means everyone and everything else down here will get their powers back, too?”

  “Yes,” he answered, “but most of them will fight with you, and the others … well, at least they’ll add to the chaos and better our chances of escape.”

  “Do we have a plan?”

  “Yeah, everyone on this cell block knows what to do,” he assured me.

  “I don’t,” I reminded him. “Would you care to enlighten me?”

  We spent the next couple of hours going over plans A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, but there is such a thing as too much planning, and I didn’t want to settle on any one plan of action; I wanted to incorporate them all. There’s no way we could plan for every single problem that might arise, so we needed to be able to think on our feet and go with the flow.

  I would discuss any and all strategies, but there’s no way we’d be able to settle on just one—too many things could go wrong. The only plan I was sure of, was defeat the bad guys and stay alive. Don’t get me wrong, we knew who was supposed to be where and what they would be doing, but when I’m involved—well … things seldom go according to plan.

  I wondered how David would react when his carefully constructed house of cards was blown to smithereens. His own personal, macabre zoo was about to become his own personal hell, and if Mason or I had anything to say about it, it would also be his grave.

  I’m not usually such a strong advocate of murder, but I knew if he wasn’t stopped, he would continue to be a danger to me, my loved ones, and countless others. I just didn’t see any way around it. The only thing Mason and I could not agree on, was which one of us would face off against him. I wanted to avenge my mother and father, and Mason was just desperate to keep me safe. Logically, I argued, that of course it should be me, because I was the one with the most power, but logic and love do not mingle, so my arguments fell on deaf ears. Finally, we agreed that whoever was closest to him when it all went down, should be the first to strike.

  But I was still unsettled by something, and no matter how hard I tried to be optimistic, a sense of foreboding overshadowed me, because there was one thing that neither of us was saying.

  “This plan is hinged solely on the element of surprise,” I told him. “What if he isn’t surprised?”

  Mason didn’t say anything for several moments, and I held my breath as I awaited his response.

  “You’re right,” he finally said. “He knows that your powers will gain strength tomorrow, but he doesn’t think you’ll be able to access them in here, and he certainly doesn’t know that Sarah is channeling her magic into you. I’m sure he believes that his safeguards are infallible and that arrogance will be his downfall.”

  “You’re probably right. He would never dream that I might actually be able to beat him, but for your sake, Matt’s, and everyone else’s, I have to. So many others are counting on me, and I don’t want to let them down,” I said anxiously.

  He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “You won’t let anyone down, but there is one very important person you forgot—yourself.” I opened my mouth to protest that getting everyone else out safely was more important, but his finger against my lips stopped me. “Shhh, you go ahead and fight for everyone else … but I’ll be fighting for you. Just like I have for the past three hundred years. I just got you back, and I am not about to lose you now, not for anything or anyone.”

  Then, his lips were on mine again, and in that one kiss I could feel it all: his despair over having lost me, his fear of never finding me again, his joy over finally having me back, and the fear that he’d lose me all over again.

  I’d died in Salem and been lost to him for centuries, and I could feel the promise in this kiss, that he’d die before he let anyone take me away from him again. And I was overwhelmed wi
th love for him, but I refused to let the first time I told him be in a disgusting jail cell. No, I would tell him when we finally got out of here, because if I told him now it would be like I was saying goodbye, and I was determined to never say those words to him again. We both had to make it out of here … surely fate wouldn’t be cruel enough to rip us apart twice!

  I wanted to completely lose myself in the feel of his hands and the taste of his lips. I wanted to hear the sweet things he whispered to me, instead of the insidious voices whispering in my head. I wanted to look in his eyes and see our future, instead of the fear that we’d never have one. I needed a perfect moment, a glimpse of what we could’ve had back then, and the promise of what we would have in the future. I needed to focus on my love for him and what I was fighting for, and that would give me all the strength I needed when tonight turned into tomorrow.

  I was struck by inspiration as his lips traveled down my neck and past my collarbone, and I wiggled away from him and stood up. He looked up at me with an adorably dazed expression on his face and sighed.

  “Close your eyes,” I said excitedly.

  “I’m pretty sure this’ll be a lot more fun if they’re open,” he said with a lop-sided grin.

  “Just do it. Please?”

  He looked at me speculatively, but finally acceded to my request.

  As soon as his eyes were closed, I began reshaping the world around us. At first, everything flickered like bad TV reception, but the harder I concentrated, the clearer it all became. It had suddenly occurred to me that if I was controlling this dream—I should be able to change our surroundings. Of course, it would only be a trick of the mind, but if you really thought about it, this whole thing was a trick of the mind. In reality, I was asleep in my cell, and he was asleep in his own, but what does love have to do with reality. And with love, why does anything have to be impossible?

  I had transformed our little tiny cell into a moonlit forest with millions of stars burning in the sky. Mason was wearing his shirt and breeches with stockings and black, buckled shoes, and I was wearing a blue dress with a white apron and cap on my head. It was the same clothing we’d worn the day he snuck up behind me as I fed my cat. We were right back where it had all began.

  “Open your eyes,” I said in a voice that was shaky with emotion. And when he did, his eyes filled with tears and overflowed, because he wasn’t looking at Allie Chamberlain; he was looking at Annabelle Scott.

  My blue eyes had turned to hazel, and my blonde hair had darkened into a beautiful shade of russet-brown.

  He stood up slowly and walked toward me, and with a shaking hand, he brushed his knuckles against my cheek. Then, he slowly slid his fingers into my hair and placed a languorous kiss on my mouth. And when he gazed down at me, the look in his eyes was almost worshipful.

  The tears continued to roll down his cheeks, and I leaned up to trace the salty trails on his fevered skin with my lips.

  “I never thought I’d see you like this again,” he whispered. “But why did you bring us back to the place where I lost you? The place where you died?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

  “Because it wasn’t all bad. It’s where we fell in love. And I knew how much it would mean to you to hold me again—the way I was back then.”

  “It’s all I’ve thought about, every minute of every day, since I lost you, and I’m so grateful to you for making that dream come true, but I’ve had my Anna since that first night at the hospital. The cover of the book may have changed a little, but what’s inside is still the same; that’s what counts the most.”

  “I know, but I didn’t just do it for you. I did it for myself, too. I need to pay homage to our past before I can fully embrace our future. At first, it was so hard for me to accept that Anna was a part of me. I was afraid of … of … of everything!” I stammered. “Afraid of the new powers. Afraid of the past life. But mostly, I was afraid of how deeply I had fallen for you,” I told him as I leaned up to brush my lips against his. “I’m not afraid anymore,” I whispered against his lips.

  He seemed too overcome with emotion to respond, so I grabbed his hand, and asked, “Will you walk with me?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  We walked through a forest of pines with the moon and stars playing peek-a-boo through their lofty branches. We didn’t need to spoil the moment with words, but every so often he’d squeeze my hand, and I’d squeeze his in return.

  Finally, we emerged into a little clearing that was as familiar as an old friend.

  And the smile that lit his face was every bit as beautiful as the stars above. “The place where we used to rendezvous?” he asked.

  A blue blanket appeared and covered the bed of pine needles below, and before I had time to blink, he had swept me into his arms and laid me down on it. His body covered mine, and his teeth nipped at my bottom lip. I gasped, but he quickly swallowed the sound as he deepened the kiss.

  He pulled my leg up and I quickly wrapped it around his waist. My dress was hiked up to my knees, but it was climbing higher and higher as his hand traveled slowly up my leg.

  My body felt like it was on fire, and Mason was continually stoking the flames. His hands fumbled at the buttons on the back of the dress, and I smiled against his lips, when he finally decided to just rip them off. I also heard the fabric tear as he tried to free me from its confines.

  “Wait. Close your eyes again,” I told him when he finally came up for air.

  He didn’t question me this time, he just did it, and when he opened his eyes I was wearing a tiny, black teddy.

  “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t answer. I just wrapped my arms around him and rolled him onto his back. Then, I straddled him and grabbed his hands, holding them high above his head.

  I had decided to change his attire as well, so all he was wearing was a pair of blue-striped boxers. I kissed my way across his chest and back up again to reclaim possession of his lips. Then, my lips traced the line of his jaw, and the tip of my tongue traced the whorls in his ear.

  I wondered how everything could feel so real when it really wasn’t, but I didn’t ponder it for very long. His lips and hands banished every coherent thought from my mind, but when he tried to take the teddy off, I reluctantly pulled away. I definitely didn’t want to lose my virginity in a dream, but then I wondered if that was even possible, either way, I didn’t want it to happen while we were still being held captive. Plus, I could feel my power beginning to ebb and fade away, and I also didn’t want to start something I might not be able to finish.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him, “but when it happens I don’t want it to be in a dream, and I’d prefer not to be his prisoner.”

  “It’s okay,” he smiled. “I understand.”

  So I caused our clothes to rematerialize on our bodies, and I stood up. “C’mon,” I said, reaching out a hand to help him up. “There are still a couple of things I want to show you.

  He took my hand and got slowly to his feet? Like what?” he asked.

  “There aren’t any words. You’ll just have to wait and see it for yourself.”

  We laughed and talked as we continued our hike through the forest, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this happy.

  We finally emerged into the village of Salem and strolled down its deserted streets. We walked past my old home and his. We walked past the meeting hall and the abandoned market, and I paused briefly to stare up at the barn he’d taken me to, to see the kittens. It was the last place we’d been truly happy together, and it was also the place where everything had fallen apart.

  “I’m so sorry he whispered,” in a choked voice.

  I placed both of my hands on his cheeks and leaned up to press my lips against his. It was a kiss of healing and comfort, not one of passion.

  “Don’t be sorry. We both know who was to blame for what happened to me, and it certainly wasn’t you,” I reassured him. “Besides, this is a time for joy, not sadness.”<
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  I could see a question forming on his lips, but he was abruptly silenced by the sound of laughter. He looked at me curiously, but I only smiled and pointed to a wooden two-story house in the distance.

  He began to walk toward the house and the sound, and I followed closely behind him. When we were a few feet away from the house, he stopped short to stare openmouthed at a small boy playing in the yard.

  “Who is he?” he asked, even though I was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

  “This is the house we would’ve lived in, and the little boy I would’ve given you,” I said through tears of my own.

  “He’s perfect,” Mason whispered as he watched the laughing toddler chase a kitten across the yard.

  “He is,” I agreed. “He’s the perfect combination of you and me.”

  Mason smiled. “My black hair and your brown eyes, but your eyes were hazel back then.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t have to be a dream that was lost, and neither does our life together. We can still be together. We can still have a baby. We can still have everything that we wanted back then, and more. We can have it all. So, you see? We haven’t really lost anything but time, the rest of it was just postponed for a while.”

  A heavy weight seemed to lift from his shoulders. “We will, Allie, I promise. After tomorrow, there will be nothing standing in our way.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he leaned down and kissed me with the perfect combination of tenderness and forcefulness.

  We were both so lost in each other, that neither of us noticed the world spinning and flickering, and finally, fading completely away.

  When my eyes opened, I was startled to find that my powers had failed me, but it was also sobering. I needed to conserve my energy for tomorrow instead of using it up. I was also pretty sure that natural sleep would be much more restful than what we were doing now. I needed to be at my best, but I desperately wanted to stay with him.